FANG RELQUARY FIGURE (BYERI) GUIDING QUESTIONS

• What did this figure do (function)?

• What is a reliquary?

• What is a talisman?

• What was usually in the containers it guarded?

• Why do historians believe the Fang peoples utilized these containers with figures atop instead of making more permanent cemeteries?

• Who maintained these containers?

• Be able to describe the formal features of this sculpture.

• What’s on the figure’s stomach?

• Were these figures always one sex?

• What did the ‘second life’ of some of these figures consist of?

• Is this figure NATURALISTIC?

• How does this figure suggest HONOR and RESPECT?

• How does this figure suggest STRENGTH?

• Are figurative sculptures thought to be portraits of the deceased?