Kota Wächter - Gabon

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 exhumed again after some time and, in a kind of 'secondary burial', laid with other remembrance pieces in large baskets. These baskets were closed and kept 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.