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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.

Bibliograpy

• Grébert, F. 1940. Monographie ethnographique des Fang et Galoa du Gabon. Genève, MEG AF 406
• Grébert, Fernand. 2003. Le Gabon de Fernand Grébert : 1913-1932 / introd. de Claude Savary et Louis Perrois. Genève : Musée d'ethnographie : Ed. D, cop. Collection Sources et témoignages / Musée d'ethnographie, MEG ET AF 4009