Kinship is of moderate importance. The main frameworks of social life were clans and lineages. Groups were also organized in initiatory brotherhoods. These played an educational, therapeutic, judicial and sometimes religious part. Magical and religious rites inspired the creation of many symbolic objects, in particular liturgic material where aesthetic and metaphysical preoccupations are intimately linked.
Similar associations follow the same rites.
The worship of the dead is essential. The deceased are always amongst the living. They are sometimes respected, always feared. These rites disappeared half a century ago, but respect for the dead is still an essential characteristic of these societies. They are still the jewels of Gabonese art, notwithstanding the destruction and pillaging committed by missionaries who mistook them for idol worship.