Gabon (Mekambo Region)
Mahongwe

Metal, wood
Early 20th Century
Height: 53.5 in
Other – Ritual Symbolism

The Mahongwe/Hongwe people along with other groups in Gabon and adjoining regions in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea created a constellation of art forms to honor and protect their departed ancestors. Reliquaries (containers of ancestral relics) and reliquary guardian figures served the link between the living and the dead. Among the Mahongwe clan, the figural carvings are more abstract and serve as a foundation for the addition of the highly valued metal (copper alloy) decoration. The embellished metal signified wealth and served to deflect/deter evil forces. The janus faces of this mbulu-ngulu signals the all-seeing powers of the figure as it vigilantly protects ancestral shrines.

Louis Perrois writes in African Faces, African Figures – The Arman Collection, “All such objects disappeared from the villages between 1940 and 1960. Confiscated by missionaries or destroyed by prophets of new syncretic religions (the Mademoiselle cult, for example), others were sometimes merely hidden in ancient cemeteries, deep in the forest, where, accidentally, some are still being recovered.” This field collected larger version was placed in the shrines to honor the founder of the lineage.