The Colonial Origins of Ethnographic Museums

Jennifer Alderson author photoRelevant History welcomes back Jennifer S. Alderson, who was born in San Francisco, raised in Seattle, and currently lives in Amsterdam. Her love of travel, art, and culture inspires her mystery series, the Adventures of Zelda Richardson. Her background in journalism, multimedia development, and art history enriches her novels. In Down and Out in Kathmandu, Zelda gets entangled with a gang of diamond smugglers. The Lover’s Portrait is a suspenseful “whodunit?” about Nazi-looted artwork that transports readers to wartime and present-day Amsterdam. Art, religion, and anthropology collide in Rituals of the Dead, a thrilling artifact mystery set in Papua New Guinea and the Netherlands. For more information about her and her books, visit her web site, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

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Since I finished writing Rituals of the Dead, I have noticed an influx in news reports about the restitution of ethnic artifacts—a topic central to my latest mystery. So we are clear, I am not referring to antiquities such as the Parthenon Marbles (or Elgin Marbles, depending on your nationality). I’m talking about shrunken heads, painted shields, feathered headdresses, carved ancestor sculptures, ritual masks, and the like. The same objects currently filling western museums dedicated to anthropology and ethnography.

180220JenniferAldersonBispoleTropenmuseumSmallAt first, I thought it was a side effect of my research; I was simply noticing these kinds of articles more often. After all, I’d just spent months pouring over accounts of anthropologists, missionaries, and colonial administers who brought Asmat artwork—specifically bis poles—back home from Papua New Guinea and donated or sold them to Dutch ethnographic museums.

“African heritage cannot be the prisoner of French museums”
However, I now believe this recent increase in news coverage has everything to do with a promise French President Emmanuel Macron made on 28 November 2017 while in Burkina Faso. He announced the restitution of African artifacts was a priority, stating, “I cannot accept that a large part of the cultural patrimony of several African countries is in France. There are historical explanations for this, but there is no valid, durable, or unconditional justification for it. Africa’s patrimony must be celebrated in Paris but also in Dakar, Lagos, and Cotonou.”

He later reiterated his statement by tweeting, “African heritage cannot be the prisoner of French museums.” Many believe this pledge was in response to Benin’s request for the return of thousands of “colonial treasures” taken at the turn of the century. A French court of law denied Benin’s claim.

Macron’s remarks shine a spotlight on the origins of western ethnographic museum collections and have re-invigorated calls for restitution. Almost all of these cases concern objects collected for western museums from colonized nations in Africa, South America and Oceania between 1900 and 1970.

Exotic representations of “the other”
These artifacts were acquired as representations of the indigenous group’s “otherness.” Anything and everything was shipped back home—ancestor statues (such as bis poles), shrunken heads, decorated skulls, kitchen utensils, weapons, shields, musical instruments, sleeping mats, bowls, and even door frames. The weirder, the better.

These objects were desired by both museums and private collectors. Public displays emphasized the primitive nature of the indigenous groups’ artistic expression or spiritual beliefs. These exhibitions were also a way of asserting western superiority over these regions and peoples, used to justify their colonization and the (often forced) conversion to Christianity of those living within these colonies. In pretty much every case of colonization, the church was there from the beginning, busy converting locals in the belief they were saving their souls, while helping them adjust to western culture, customs, and technological advancements. Papua New Guinea was no exception.

My summary probably seems harsh to you because society has progressed and our attitudes have thankfully changed.

Decolonization and western ethnographic museums
TropenmuseumDecolonization in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in a new call for equal rights by indigenous peoples—within their own lands and abroad. It also meant that some of these “exotic” peoples were now immigrating to the colonial motherland. In the Netherlands, their presence dictated a change in the ways these people were represented in the country’s ethnographic museums.

Many of these museums’ showpieces were removed from public displays and hidden away in their depots. New exhibitions were created which focused on geographical and statistical information, as a way of introducing these post-colonial nations to western viewers. They were often neutral displays, heavily dependent on photographs to illustrate aspects of daily life, such as the ways homes were constructed, fields were sown and the types of clothes locals wore.

Only in the last decade or so have these older artifacts been brought back out of storage. However, they are no longer displayed as examples of a people’s “exotic otherness,” but as sublime examples of their cultural and artistic traditions.

Reasserting cultural identity
One of the side effects of the conversion to Christianity was the disappearance of these indigenous groups’ artistic traditions. Sometimes they were voluntarily given up by peoples no longer interested in keeping the “old ways” alive. In other cases, such as Papua New Guinea, their traditions and rituals were banned by Christian missionaries and colonial governments, as part of the pacification process.

Nowadays, the objects collected in the 1900s and displayed in western museums are often the finest examples of an artistic tradition that has died out in its country of origin. Pride of culture has led many recently-formed nations and indigenous groups to try and revive these traditions, as a way of reasserting their cultural identity. Their desire to see these historically-significant artifacts returned has also grown stronger.

An increasing number of countries in Africa, South America and Oceania are submitting claims on these precious examples of their ancestors’ craftsmanship and artistry. So far, the response has been mixed. More often than not, their claims have been denied.

In light of Macron’s promise, how western museums respond to these new restitution claims will be telling. How deeply-seated are feelings of colonial pride in the present generation? And are western museums willing to give up the best pieces in their ethnographic collections and risk becoming obsolete to help these former colonies establish their own cultural institutions?

Author’s note: This is a brief introduction to an extraordinarily complex topic. It is based on research I conducted while working as a collection researcher for the Tropenmuseum, writing my master’s thesis, and my novel Rituals of the Dead.

References to French President Macron’s promise to return African art:
La Monde Afrique
https://hyperallergic.com/414996/emmanuel-macron-restitution-african-art/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/arts/emmanuel-macron-africa.html
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/french-president-promises-restitution-african-heritage-ouagadougou-university-speech-1162199

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Rituals of the Dead book coverA big thanks to Jennifer Alderson. She’ll give away either an eARC of Rituals of the Dead (release date 6 April 2018) or an ebook of The Lover’s Portrait—winner’s choice—to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available worldwide.

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How Archival Research Added Texture to My Novel

Mystery Thriller Week 2017 logoThe week of 12–18 February, I’m participating with dozens of crime fiction authors in Mystery Thriller Week (MTW). Click on the logo to the left to check out a full schedule of author interviews, guest posts, and Facebook events during this week. Here’s how the week looks for me:

Monday 13 Feb: I host author Linda Kane for Relevant History.
Tuesday 14 Feb: Catherine Dilts interviews me on her blog.
Tuesday 14 Feb: MTW hosts my guest post about child soldiers.
Thursday 16 Feb: I host a great chat on Facebook with Relevant History veterans Jeri Westerson and I.J. Parker, “Women Historical Mystery Authors Who Write Men Detectives.”
Friday 17 Feb: I host author Jennifer S. Alderson for Relevant History (below).
Saturday 18 Feb: Stephen Bentley interviews me on his blog.

Jennifer Alderson author photoRelevant History welcomes Jennifer S. Alderson, who was born in San Francisco, raised in Seattle, and currently lives in Amsterdam. Her love of travel, art and culture inspired her ongoing series of novels following the adventures of Zelda Richardson around the globe. In Down and Out in Kathmandu, Zelda volunteers in Kathmandu, where she gets entangled with a gang of diamond smugglers. The Lover’s Portrait follows Zelda to Amsterdam, where she discovers a cache of masterpieces missing since World War Two. Her third novel—a mystery centered around Papua New Guinean ‘bis poles’, missionaries and anthropologists—will be released in the summer of 2017. To learn more about her and her books, visit her web site and blog, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

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Let me make this clear from the start: I love the smell and feel of archival documents, those yellowing bits of paper and crumbling photographs that rustle ever so slightly when extracted from their manila envelopes. There’s something magical about scouring through meters of racks, drawers and file folders until you find an interesting or odd snippet of information recorded long ago which helps a character or story truly come to life.

While working out the storyline for my second novel, The Lover’s Portrait, I realized early on that the restitution of looted artwork and the treatment of Jewish citizens in the 1930s and 1940s, were going to be central to the plot.

To ensure that any potentially controversial aspects of my art mystery were honestly and accurately described, extensive archival research would be essential. What I didn’t expect is that this same research would add much needed texture and depth to my story, infuse it with universal themes and—according to all the reviewers so far—be what sets it apart.

Diving into the unknown to find the unique
I knew one of the main characters was going to be an art dealer being blackmailed by a Nazi general during the Second World War. I just didn’t know exactly why he would be forced to give up his collection. Restitution of art was a topic already very familiar to me, one I’d learned much about during art history and museum studies lectures at the University of Amsterdam. However the details surrounding important events in Dutch history, and the attitudes held in Europe during that period, were not.

It was crucial for the plot that this art dealer character not be Jewish but did need to be considered a ‘dissident’ or threat to the Nazi regime for another reason. I went to the Amsterdam City Archives with an open mind and list of questions.

I’d thought up all sorts of plot twists which involved other groups targeted by Hitler’s troops—Romas, communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, political dissidents and homosexuals—and decided to see what my adopted hometown’s archives could tell me about how they were affected by the war. The documents I found relating to the treatment of homosexuals were the least known, and therefore most interesting, to me.

Before visiting the archives, I’d read several non-fiction books to better understand this turbulent time in European and Dutch history, and seen no mention of how Dutch men could be arrested, castrated and sent off to work camps in Germany based on the mere suspicion that they were homosexual. Or that lesbians were classified as ‘political dissidents’ in work camps.

That’s when I realized I’d found a ‘winner’ qua topic, one which hadn’t already been exhaustively explored in mainstream literature.

The sensitive nature of the themes discussed in this novel warranted that it be historically accurate, yet it was never my intention to write a historical fiction novel, but an art-infused mystery. When my ‘final draft’ clocked in at 110,000 words, I was afraid it was too long or would only appeal to historical fiction buffs, so I slashed many of the chapters which relied heavily on the obscure details I’d worked so hard to find.

The end result was shorter and less historical, but without all those enticing tidbits of information to fill in the characters’ backgrounds or help explain plot developments, the whole story fell flat. It was as if I’d ripped the soul out of my novel.

Little details make the difference
Despite my misgivings about the length, I added everything back in and even wrote three new chapters taking place in wartime Amsterdam to provide more depth and richness to the story, choosing to edit down the present day sections of the book to compensate. Man, am I glad I did! It’s the research that grabs reviewers’ attention, enhances their enjoyment of the story and characters, and seems to be what distinguishes this novel from others in the ‘amateur sleuth’ category.

My research has also paid off in other ways. I recently found out the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam is adding The Lover’s Portrait to their library’s permanent collection because they are thrilled with their prominent role in the book. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has already added it to their library based on the merits of my research into the complexities surrounding the restitution of looted artwork. And a prominent local LGBT organization, Pink Point, is helping me promote the book here in the city because they believe the storyline to be unique.

Yes, I spent many long hours browsing through often useless documents, pamphlets, flyers and photographs in far-flung physical and digital archives. I didn’t have to. But without all of the little details adding texture, depth and layers of meaning, my book wouldn’t have been the same. And frankly, I enjoyed every second of it!

Fellow authors, do you conduct archival research in order to add texture to your fiction? Readers, do you expect fiction to be well-researched, or are you just as happy to step into a completely fictitious world?

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A big thanks to Jennifer Alderson. Check out her “Name the Character” contest for the opportunity to win an electronic copy of one of her books. Offer ends 21 February 2017.

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