The Ambete, relatives of the Kota in the extreme east of Gabon and above the borders of the Congo, have a distinctive ancestor cult, similar to other important tribes in Gabon: Fang, Kota, Mahongwe etc. In all these ethnic groups, the skulls, some bones and remembrance items belonging to important clan founders and chieftains are preserved in special reliquary vessels and ritually honoured, as a sort of ‘second funeral’. The Ambete have two forms of these reliquary vessels:
1: medium sized full-figures made of wood with small heads, long bodies and short, bent knees. The long, round bodies are hollowed out on the back of the figure. It is in this cavity that the reliquary bones are placed.
2: The Ambete also have reliquary vessels in a second, larger form: large hollowed figures, whose arms and legs are only sketched in stylised form on the outside of the body. These large reliquary vessels had an ‘opening’ on the top. The skull and bones were placed inside from above and brought back out for special rituals and initiations. These sorts of vessels were sealed with lids, onto which large heads were carved out from the same piece of wood as ‘reliquary guardian figures’ – like the present, large ‘lid with head’. The lids including the heads were fixed to the reliquary vessels by placing pegs through the holes in the base.
The present ‘lid with head’ – a reliquary vessel from the Ambete people – is carved from hard, brown wood. The black-dyed hairstyle on the head consists of a tall, central crest, flanked on each side by smaller crests. At the bottom, behind the ears, it is finished with a semi-circular crest (with holes). Above the forehead and temples the hairstyle displays a relief edge formed from a carved double line. The face and the relative long, round neck are uncoloured and a shiny brown colour. The face as a strikingly high, wide forehead above protruding eyebrows, carved in relief. The lower half of the face is heavily concave, and curves inwards, with deep-set eyes, only sketched with almond-shaped lines. Between the eyes sits an eye-catching, short nose above a small, rectangular mouth and a strong, wide, protruding chin. The inside of the mouth and both ears are accentuated with remains of white kaolin. This is an extremely rare object in remarkably good condition, given its rarity and age. It has two breakages on the tall, central crest of the hair (old insect damage?) and two small ones on the neck and rim of the lid. There are some minor cracks behind and on the side of the hairstyle, as well as a crack in the round base of the lid below. Otherwise no damage. Height: 58 cm; Around 1900 or early 20th century. (ME)

Provenance:
Purchased in Paris by the consigner’s father between 1950 and 1955; currently: Austrian private collection.

Lit.:
'Schwarzafrika. Masken, Skulpturen, Schmuckstücke' by Laure Meyer, ill. 130, p. 138. The colour photograph shows an almost identical ‘reliquary lid’ from the Rietberg Museum in Zurich; ‘Eternal Ancestors. The Art of the Central African Reliquary’ by Alisa Lagamma, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ill. 87, 88, 89; Christie’s auction, catalogue, 5612, auction on 1 Dec. 2010 in Paris, lot 57: 'Tete de Reliquaire Ambete'.