Fang communities historically found continuity with their past and communal cohesiveness in the present through an ancestral cult known as bieri. During their travels, each Fang family brought a bark box containing the skulls of their ancestors. A carved head or figure atop each reliquary box guarded the sacred contents against the forbidden gaze of women and uninitiated boys. By the mid-twentieth century, the role of bieri in Fang culture was replaced by a syncretic religion known as bwiti.

Western collectors actively acquired Fang reliquary sculpture from the nineteenth to twentieth century, admiring Fang master artists’ inspired interpretations of the human form. Today scholars, as well as many artists, recognize the importance of attributing artworks to Fang master artists or workshops.