The Fang placed "wooden figures and heads...on top of bark containers that hold the skulls of important clan ancestors. These images are used in the ancestor cult, bieri, to guard the sacred contents of the boxes against the forbidden gaze of women and uninitiated boys." (Ezra in Newton 1987:96)

The Fang live in Cameroon and Gabon. Cameroonian Fang figures typically exhibit the duality of the upper and lower body with the upper rectilinear and the lower curvilinear.

Provenance:
Dr. Antonio Ruvolo, San Francisco, 1996