Shipping

African Origins ship dozens of international orders every week to every corner of the globe. We generally use Australia Post, a reliable, economic and fast service which also features online tracking. For multiple orders weighing over five kilograms we ship or via International Air Courier which also features online tracking. Please feel free to contact us directly with your country and zip code if you have any questions or special requirements regarding shipping or wish to obtain a quote for shipping to your area. We are happy to calculate combined postage quotes for multiple items.

Returns

African Origins sells hand-made tribal objects which have been used, in some cases, for many, many years. We ask that you carefully study the photographs relating to each object prior to committing to purchase. In the event that you are unhappy with your purchase for any reason, we accept returns within thirty days of purchase date.

About African Origins

 African Origins has been trading online since 2007. We are constantly on the look-out for interesting objects to add to our collection. Our tribal collection is sourced from tribal dealers, auction houses private collections the world over and also collected in the field. Where possible, we will specify the provenance of important individual tribal objects.

Feedback

 The continued success of African Origins depends on positive feedback. If you are happy with your purchase, please leave positive feedback and we will do the same for you. If you are not happy, please contact us first before leaving negative feedback and we will do all within our power to rectify the problem.

Please note that unless specified otherwise, no item from the African Origins shop comes together with a display stand. This includes objects that have a display stand visible in the images that accompany the listing.

 The people that are called “Fang” in the geographic or ethnographic literature number 800,000 and constitute a vast mosaic of village communities, established in a large zone of Atlantic equatorial Africa comprising Cameroon, continental Equatorial Guinea and nearly the whole north of Gabon, on the right bank of the Ogowe River.

 Historically the Fang were itinerant, and it is relatively recently that they have settled into this broad area. The migratory existence of the Fang prohibited the creation of ancestral shrines at gravesites. Instead, the remains of the important dead, in the form of the skull and other bones, were carried from place to place in a cylindrical bark box.

 The great rain forest region where the Fang settled is a plateau of middle altitude, cut by innumerable waters with falls and rapids rendering navigation for the most part impossible, and with a climate typically equatorial.

 Fang are principally hunters but also agriculturists. Their social structure is based on a clan, a group of individuals with a common ancestor, and on the family. The ensemble of Fang peoples practice a cult devoted to ancestor lineages, the bieri, whose aim is to both protect themselves from the deceased and to recruit their aid in matters of daily life. This familial cult does not monopolize the Fang’s religious universe, for it coexists with other beliefs and rituals of a more collective character.

 Carved with great simplicity, at the same time they exhibit a high degree of sophistication in the coordination of bulbous forms. The neck is often a massive cylindrical form. The arms have various positions: hands clasped in front of the body (sometimes holding an object); held in front of the chest or attached to it; hands resting on the knees in the seated figures. The navel is often exaggerated into a cylindrical form. Legs are short, stunted. Usually there is a domed, wide forehead and the eyebrows often form arcs with the nose. The eyes are often made of metal roundlets.

The bieri would be consulted when the village was to change location, when a new crop was planted, during a palaver, or before going hunting, fishing, or to war. But once separated from the reliquary chest, the sculpted object would lose its sacred value and could be destroyed. The ritual consisted of prayers, libations, and sacrifices offered to the ancestor, whose scull would be rubbed with powder and paint each time. With its large head, long body, and short extremities, the Fang bieri had the proportion of a newborn, thus emphasizing the group’s continuity with its ancestor and with the three classes of the society: the “not-yet-born,” the living, and the dead. 

The relics were essentially skull fragments, or sometimes complete skulls, jawbones, teeth and small bones. The bieri also served for therapeutic rituals and, above all, for the initiation of young males during the great so festival. 

The Fang used masks in their secret societies. The ngil (gorilla) masks were worn by members of a male society of the same name during the initiation of new members and the persecution of wrong-doers. Masqueraders, clad in raffia costumes and attended by helpers, would materialize in the village after dark, illuminated by flickering torchlight. 

Fang masks, such as those worn by itinerant troubadours and for hunting and punishing sorcerers, are painted white with facial features outlined in black. Typical are large, elongated masks covered with kaolin and featuring a face that was usually heart-shaped with a long, fine nose. Apparently it has been linked with the dead and ancestors, since white is their colour.

 The ngontang dance society also used white masks, sometimes in the form of a four-sided helmet-mask with bulging forehead and eyebrows in heart-shaped arcs. The ngontang mask symbolizes a ‘young white girl’. The so, or red antelope was connected with an initiation that lasted several months; these masks sport long horns.

 Musical instruments – like the harp, its ends sculpted into lovely figurines – allowed communication with the hereafter.

 Blacksmiths bellows, many quite beautiful, were sculpted in the shape of figures; there are also small metal disks featuring heads, called “passport-masks”, the Fang attached these to their arms. 

 Special spoons were carved and used to administer magically sustaining nourishment as part of traditional initiation rites. An individual man’s spoon was a preciously guarded possession that was carried on his person in a shoulder bag when he travelled and was placed on his tomb when he passed away.