Africa

Home Portfolio

53. Gabon as Missionary Pastor Fernand Grébert Knew It

The Cult of Relics

Localiser les objets

Museums often show visitors only a fragment – the statuette – of the reliquary such as it was conceived in Equatorial Africa, from Cameroon to the Congo, in the early twentieth century. In Gabon, the veneration of ancestors' relics, Bwete among the Bakota and Byeri for the Fang, was a family ritual. As the guardian of the clan's genealogy, the head of the family interceded with the ancestors to ensure the well-being of his community. He was therefore responsible for looking after their bones, nourishing them with sacrifices and the care lavished on their reliquary.

---