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 ground. The skulls of important clan founders and chiefs were exhumed after some time and, in a kind of 'secondary burial', placed with other memorial objects in large baskets. These baskets were sealed and kept in their own huts, 'sacred shrines'. When the village was relocated, the baskets with the ancestors' bones were moved too, and a new, separate 'shrine' was built for them in the new village.