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A Fine Fang Female Reliquary Figure, Gardien De Reliquaire Fang, Eyema Byeri
1930's

$4,533.26List Price

About the Item

A Fine Fang Female reliquary figure, Eyema Byeri, seated with the hands held together on the abdomen, the muscular arms carved free of the body and holding a vessel to the abdomen, accentuated breasts, the short legs with thighs curving around to join the buttocks and form a cylinder above the round support, the stylized feet with carved toes, cylindrical navel, grooved spine to the back of the cylindrical body, the face with inset brass or copper tacks forming the eyes, the nose joining the arched brows, the mouth pronounced and pursed lips, small semi-circular ears in relief, the coiffure sweeping backwards terminating in a single stylised step tress at the nape of the neck, dark patina with traces of oil and some encrustations. (On later wood stand) The statue has been in a private Belgian collection since the 1940's when it was acquired and was already an old and venerated object. There are examples of this type of statue in all the major Tribal, Ethnic and African collections worldwide including the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Quai Branly in Paris. See also Christie's sale 5618, lot 4 of 2010 A wonderful sculpture piece of tribal art that would enhance any collection and which was such an influence on the major artists of the early 20th Century including Matisse and Picasso who both collected and were inspired by this type of object, Byeri and Fang reliquary guardians: Representative of the powerful Fang sculptural creation, this female statue belongs to the iconic body of reliquary guardians, ancestor statues known as eyema byeri. Used as part of ancestral worship, they sat atop the cylindrical bark boxes that contained the reliquaries of the most illustrious ancestors in the lineage. These full-length anthropomorphic sculptures (eyema byeri ‘image of the byeri’), sometimes busts or simply heads (nlo byeri ‘head of the byeri’), guarded precious lineage relics to protect them from sacrilege. These collections of relics (ekokwe nlo) were formed of various bones taken from the most prestigious deceased members of the tribe (mainly whole skulls and skullcaps, femurs, phalanxes, vertebra, teeth) sometimes mixed with gems, plants and other items considered magical. Skulls were the most important of these relics and contributed to the tribe’s social prestige: the more skulls, the greater the guarantee of the age of the family lineage, and by extension, the renown and wealth of the group. Containers that could be easily transported during migrations, guarantors of the legitimacy of the lineage and future marriage alliances, the reliquary boxes (nsekh byeri) were kept out of view, in a protected place in the house of the family chief (esa). The byeri, the generic term referring to both the cult of the ancestors, rituals and related cultural objects, formed the heart of Fang social and spiritual life. Although neither the divine creator Mebere nor the epic hero Nzame were the subject of rituals and offerings, the Fang believed that the prosperity, fertility and wealth of the entire community depended primarily on the tribe’s ancestors or lineage. The bestowers of all blessings, the ancestors could also be dangerous disruptive elements if they were not regularly honoured through rituals. The ancestors were consulted before any major decision was made: political alliances, marriages, wars, village relocations, new plantings, hunting and fishing, etc. To open the connection to the ancestors and earn their goodwill, the relics were taken out of their basket and wielded by the men, and had to be regularly ‘fed’ with blood, padauk sawdust or copal resin, ba powder (red powder, the sacred colour, made from a mix of padauk wood and oil), offerings of food and drinks and numerous palm oil anointings. Vehicles of mediation between the world of the living and that of the dead, Fang reliquary guardians were seen as symbolic incarnations of the power of the ancestors. Like the sacred bones, sculpted effigies initially adorned with feathers and jewels were also the object of many ritual libations to renew their potency. These repeated anointings, combined with ‘magical’ elements, resulted in the distinctive patina on the wood, deep and gleaming, sometimes seeping like a miraculous icon. The patina, that is to say the specific colouring and texture a material takes on over time as a result of successive handling and deposits, attests to the age of a work and its ritual use. The seeping patinas of the Fang byeri are particularly remarkable due to the wood’s perspiration, which infuses the object with life and creates an impression of heightened watchfulness emanating from the reliquary guardians. These ‘tears’ attest to a very ancient permeation of the wood, revealing the emotional and spiritual force infused within these ‘images of byeri’. Analyses of the composition of the patina on five Fang byeri at the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac have shed new light on this phenomenon by differentiating three ‘states’ of the wood and two phases of permeation linked to their use. “The first [state] corresponds to the state of the raw wood (brown colour), the second shows evidence of the deed permeation of a liquid, no doubt following immersion (green colour) and the final state corresponds to success deposits relating to rituals (blue colour). This analysis corroborates ethnological descriptions, which identify two main use phases in patinas. The first is linked to the practice of immersion, facilitated by the low density and sponge-like properties of the wood generally used (Alstonia family). […] this immersion allows the liquid to permeate the core of the wood through medullary rays and pores. The second phase, characterised by the wood section with a significantly higher density, is explained by the accumulation of materials deposited during its use. Saturated by this accumulation, the wood can no longer absorb the deposits, which remain on the surface, creating this impression of perspiration. It should be noted that the oily substance permeates from the wood due to the influence of temperature. These byeri effigies, some of which feature articulated limbs, could also have been used, depending on the region, as part of rituals forming part of the melan, the initiation ceremony for young men, during which they received the teaching of the ancestors. In this context, communication between the ancestors and the living was facilitated by ingestion of a hallucinogenic plant named alan, which triggered a hallucinatory catalepsy effect. The reliquary guardians thus served as educational tools, like animated puppets, during performances given by initiates and incarnated ideals of illustrious ancestors (male and female) that the initiates sought to relate to in order to take on their exemplary qualities. Separated from their basket and carried by their tenon joint, they were used to pass on history and genealogy to the young men. Beginning in the 18th century, ancestors of the Fang peoples migrated from the northeast into southern Cameroon, Rio Muni, and Gabon. Believing that their forebears were concerned about and could affect their well-being, Fang venerated the ancestors who were left behind. Those venerated included the founder of the lineage and successive lineages, clan or family heads, and extraordinary women who were believed to have supernatural abilities and who bore numerous healthy children. Precious relics such as ancestral skills and bones, along with precious beads, potent substances with magical properties (medicine), and other spiritually charged objects were kept in containers made of bark or woven plant fibers. A post projecting from a standing or seated guardian figure like this one fastened it to the lid of the bark reliquary box, which was kept in special shelters or repositories. The sculpted guardian protected the relics from malicious humans and evil spirits and served as a point of contact between the ancestral relics and designated family members. The stem at the back of this figure was inserted into the lid of the container. Reliquary guardian figures were also used as puppets in a ritual called mélan, a rite of appeasement. During the course of their initiation into adulthood, boys learned about the history of their people, which is marked by migrations and the need for portable objects, including the reliquaries. The practice of making reliquaries for ancestor worship ceased in the early 20th century when the French colonial government banned the reliquaries and their priests.

Creation Year:
1930's
Dimensions:
Height: 29 in (73.66 cm)Width: 6 in (15.24 cm)Depth: 5.5 in (13.97 cm)
Medium:
Wood,Brass
Movement & Style:
Tribal
Period:
Mid-20th Century
Condition:
Good condition commensurate with age and usage.
Gallery Location:
Cotignac, FR
Reference Number:
Seller: LG/Fang1stDibs: LU1430210583732

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