Reliquary Couple Figure

This is a fine replica of the original outstanding couple figure of the Peabody Museum, Harvard Univ. Cambridge. The rare pair of male and female reliquary sculpture provides a unique insight of the equal social standing in Fang society. It is also a unique representation of a man holding a child. It is possible that the woman originally, was holding a child too, by the space between her hands, or she may have been holding an offering dish” (L. Perrois). La Gamma suggested that the child might have been a metaphor for the progeny of a lineage, as James Fernandez has noted that the Fang believed that their offspring were a re-creation of their ancestors, and that among the primary responsibilities of the ancestors was the maintenance of the kin group's fertility. Or It may also represent the costum of elders cradling the skulls of the ancestors in their arms and rocking and singing lullabies to them as if they were little children, an activity that takes place on the third day of the Malan initiation (Fernandez). The Ngumba stylistic features are very clear in both figures. Their heads are shaped like an inverted pear and their faces are full and round. Their coiffures with long braids suggest an affinity with the Betsi or Mekeny styles (L. Perrois). Their stylized plaited hairs have holes at the base for fixing feathers or glass-beads.