ETHAF 044537

figure de reliquaire 'bwete'

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044537
Bwete reliquary figure
Gabon, Upper Ogooue region
Bakota, Obamba or Mindumu subgroups. 19th - early 20th century
Wood, copper, brass, iron
Gift of the painter Émile Chambon in 1981; purchased from Pierre Vérité in Paris in 1936
MEG Inv. ETHAF 044537
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Cette statuette gardienne de panier reliquaire appartient au « style classique » kota de la région de Franceville. Le sculpteur l’a coiffée un cimier en croissant de lune et couvert son visage concave d’un décor en plaquettes et lamelles de cuivre alternées. Deux plaques de laiton couvrent la structure losangée qui soutient la tête. Les figures bwete portent sur l’âme de bois qui les constituent différents métaux plaqués ou travaillés en fils de sorte à obtenir un subtil jeu chromatique. Le choix du cuivre et du laiton dans la fabrication d’objets rituels n’est pas anodin lorsque l’on considère la grande valeur d’échange de ces métaux importés d’Afrique Centrale que les peuples de l’Ogooué transformaient en éléments de parure et utilisaient comme monnaie.

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Gabon as Missionary Pastor Fernand Grébert Knew It

Gabonese reliquary statues and masks are icons of the "primitive art" invented by Western artists in the early twentieth century. At the same time, deep in colonial Equatorial Africa, many of the religious and cultural practices behind these traditions were disappearing. In this context Pastor Grébert set about collecting ethnographic objects in the Middle Ogooue, some of which came to the MEG.

The Cult of Relics

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.

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