80. FANG RELIQUARY FIGURE, GABON wood, metal Height 31.5 cm The present figure with its compact muscular body seems closest in style to figures attributed to the Ntumu, in the north of the region occupied by the Fang. Louis Perrois illustrates a figure in the Afrika Museum Tervuren, with the same scarification pattern on the forehead and torso and also with similar circular brass tacks in the eyes which he attributed to this group (Perrois, L., Arts du Gabon, Arnouville, 1979, p.73, fig.55). It would seem this motif was not limited to the Ntumu as Fernand Grébert recorded the same forehead scarification on a Betsi man (Savary, C. et al., Le Gabon de Fernand Grébert 1913-1932, Geneva, 2003, p.139). However among Betsi men Grébert observes that scarification was restricted to the face only.