Guinea Coast

 This is the forested region of West Africa, where Islam was not a dominant influence until recent years. Political organizations in the past tended to be small in scale, with government sometimes in the hands of chiefs

sometimes by assemblies of men, sometimes by secret associations manifesting their attributes in masquerade ceremonies. State systems developed toward the eastern end of the region, particularly in areas inhabited by the Ashanti (in present-day Ghana) and Fon (Benin) and in the Yoruba Oyo empire and the Edo kingdom of Benin (Nigeria). These states capitalized on trade both with peoples of the savanna and, from the late 15th century onward, with Europeans.

Guinea Coast sculpture displays a greater tendency to naturalistic styles of representation. Some of the best-known traditions of the area are the following.

• Bijagos 
• Baga
• Mende
• Moba-Togo