Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections Like the
neighboring Kota, the Fang people made reliquary guardian
figures that were placed above containers holding the bones of
ancestors. Fang guardians, however, are not nearly as stylized
as Kota examples. They most often represent full-bodied figures
whose sculptural forms are created to transmit aspects of Fang
philosophy. The Fang believe that the successful person is able
to balance the opposing forces within the environment and the
persona, such as male and female or youth and age.
Concomitantly, successful Fang sculptures display similar
qualities of equilibrium and life, as are admirably expressed in
the tensions between the muscular legs, hips, arms, and
shoulders and the more columnar neck and torso of this powerful
male guardian. Additional vitality was given through repeated
applications of palm oil, which resulted in the thick brown
patina, and the now missing metal disks around the eyes, which
provided constant vigilance. It would be su