These long angular Fang masks, among the rigidly stylistic in African Art, are used for hunting ceremonies or in storytelling by traveling entertainers. Numbering some 3.5 million, the Fang people inhabit Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, and speak variants of the Bantu language group. Fang society is strongly patrilineal and was known in previous years for hunting, waging war and even occasional cannibalism. They remain a powerful influence in their countries today. 

The Fang people used masks in their secret societies. Members of this male society wore the Ngil masks during the initiation of new members and the persecution of wrongdoers. Masqueraders, clad in raffia costumes and attended by helpers, would materialize in the village after dark, illuminated by flickering torchlight. 

The Fang tribe are spread over a vast area along the Atlantic coast line of equatorial Africa and can be found in Cameroon equatorial Guinea and Gabon namely along the bank of the Ogowe river. 

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 have been linked with the dead, since white is their color. The Ngontang dance society also used white masks, sometimes in the form of a four-sided helmet shape with bulging forehead and eyebrows in heart-shaped arcs.

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