Kota Wächter - Gabon

Bone-skull guardian figure of the Kota from Gabon

In the past, the deceased were laid out in the forest, later buried in the earth. The skulls of important clan founders and chiefs were dug up again after some time and, in a kind of 'secondary burial', placed with other remembrance pieces in large baskets. These baskets were sealed and stored in their own huts, 'sacred shrines'. If the village was relocated, the baskets with the bones of the ancestors accompanied them, and in the new village a new, separate 'shrine' was erected for them.