Beautiful reliquary statue - Ambété - Gabon (No reserve price)

Relicary statue - Mbete / Ambete - Gabon - African reliquary
The Mbété of the upper basin of the Ogooué and its tributaries have developed carved statues used as reliquaries.

These representations contained the bones of the deceased leaders.
Surveys conducted in the 1920s-1930s among the Mbété of the center report a significant cult of relics, the Ngoye, a closed association of clan chiefs attributing supernatural power to certain bones of some of their deceased predecessors.
These relics were kept inside the hollow torsos of wooden statues.

An example observed at that time was called mitsitsi-na-ngoye.

When they were not in use, these statues were hung in special shelters.
Their use seemed to be of an initiatory nature.

During a ceremony, they could be taken out and arranged in front of the candidates at Ngoye to present the names and the history of the relics.

These sacred relics were most often made from fragments of skulls and finger bones.