The Fang people, also known as Fãn or Pahouin, are a Bantu ethnic group found in Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon.

[2][1] Representing about 85% of the total population of Equatorial Guinea, concentrated in the Río Muni region, the Fang people are its largest ethnic group.

Their largest presence is in the southern regions, up to the Ogooué River estuary where anthropologists refer them also as "Fang proper".

[3] The Fang people are relatively recent migrants into Equatorial Guinea, and many of them moved from central Cameroon in the 19th century.

[1] Their migration may be related to an attempt to escape the violence of slave raiding by the Hausa people,[1][8] but this theory has been contested.

[1] Using glottochronology, historians have situated Proto-Fang speakers in the Southern Cameroon rainforest more than 4,000 years ago.

They were stereotyped as cannibals by slave traders and missionaries, in part because human skulls and bones were found in open or in wooden boxes near their villages, a claim used to justify violence against them and their enslavement.

[1] The independence of villages from each other is notable, and they are famed for their knowledge of animals, plants and herbs in the equatorial forests they live in.

However, after independence their interest in their own traditional religion, called Biere, also spelled Byeri, has returned, and many practice syncretic ideas and rites.

[2][3] One of the syncretic traditions among Fang people is called Bwiti, a monotheistic religion that celebrates Christian Easter but over four days with group dancing, singing and psychedelic drinks.

[19] One of the most popular art forms attributed to the Fang culture are the wooden reliquary heads, many of which contain the skull or bones of ancestors.

[18] Members of the community participate by keeping time while the mbomo mvet plays and sings praises to the ancestors.