Until the middle of the 20th century, clans across equatorial Africa preserved the memories and spirits of revered ancestors through reliquaries that held the skulls of the renowned and distinguished. Elders of the widespread ancestor cult (most widely known as bwiti or bwete among Kota peoples in areas now belonging to Gabon and the Republic of Congo) commissioned the creation of abstract figural sculptures (mbulu ngulu) that stood atop baskets or bark containers that housed these precious relics. Produced in a variety of styles, they were affixed to the lid of the reliquary container or lashed to a relic bundle placed inside. On a superficial level they acted as the public face of familial altars, but they served a much more complex and important role as agents of ancestral power in communal rites and ritual performances, channeling support and protection to the community.

This reliquary figure shows many classic characteristics of the tradition, with full, sweeping forms and a majestic presence. Its wide and curving shapes are balanced masterfully by sharp angles and rectilinear elements, all cohering in a beautiful geometric symmetry and poise. In the center of the convex, oval face plate rest the domed and staring eyes so quintessential to the mbulu ngulu, transfixing the viewer with their gaze. Beneath the face with its impressive headdress of lobed and semicircular forms, a ridged neck terminates in a flexed, diamond-shaped structure, rough-hewn and deeply worn from its binding in the relic bundle. The copper bands and sheets applied to the wooden body of the figure were rare materials in the artist’s time, acquired through trade with Europeans and prized for their luster.

Beginning in the 1870s, Kota reliquary figures were among the earliest African sculptures to be acquired by European naturalists and explorers, among them Paul Du Chaillu, Alfred Marche, Oscar Lenz, and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza.