Sweden Returns Ancient Andean Textiles to Peru

I mentioned these textiles on this blog earlier, it seems a resolution has been reached (Ralph Blumental, 'Sweden Returns Ancient Andean Textiles to Peru', ArtsBeat - New York Times Blog, June 5, 2014).

One of the world’s most precious troves of looted antiquities — brilliantly colored burial shrouds from an Andean civilization that flourished a thousand years before Columbus — is on its way back to Peru for a ceremonial handover in Lima. The 89 embroidered textiles, named for the Paracas peninsula where they were unearthed around 1930 and then smuggled out by the Swedish consul, ended up in possession of the city of Gothenburg and were displayed there in the National Museum of World Culture. Gothenburg has never disputed that the textiles, some dating back nearly 3,000 years, were “illegally exported” and has long been in talks with Peru for their return. Now, said Peru’s vice minister of cultural patrimony, Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, the mayor of Gothenburg is delivering four of them on June 18. One, Mr. Castillo Butters said, is a woven mummy’s cloak, about 40 by 60 centimeters, with tiles of animals that appear to signify time periods or the seasons. Mr. Castillo Butters said he viewed it as, “the most important textile from Peru and one of the most important in the world.” Several other Paracas textiles remain in other museums. Because the textiles are extremely fragile and require delicate handling, the last pieces from Sweden won’t arrive until 2021, he said.  

UPDATE 9th June 2014
Donna Yates, 'Sacking the Necropolis: how 100 Peruvian mummy textiles ended up in Sweden',  Anonymous Swiss Collector 9 June 2014.

WA Aboriginal leaders retrieve secret sacred items taken a century ago

A group of Aboriginal elders from northern WA travelled south to collect sacred objects taken by explorers or researchers more 100 years ago. They're human remains and sacred objects that were seized as souvenirs or research material since the late 1800's, some of the latter are so sacred they cannot be described to outsiders or seen by women or children. This is just the latest in a stream of returns being made to Aboriginal groups around Australia under a state funded repatriation programme. Much of the activity has been occurring in WA's north, where the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre has been helping traditional owners negotiate with museums and universities. Australian institutions have come a long way in how they view Indigenous artefacts and are working hard to right the wrongs of the past, particularly in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural property, where those relationships weren't necessarily on an equal footing, and where there were situations where people were either coerced or forced to surrender items, or these things were acquired without their knowledge. This repatriation program attempts to address those issues to some degree. It's not just Australian institutions involved. There are a lot of remains still in institutions overseas: in America, Germany, France, Poland, England, South Africa.

Source: Erin Parke, 'WA Aboriginal leaders retrieve secret sacred items taken a century ago',  Friday, June 6, 2014

Africa, lost 95 percent of its cultural heritages and treasures to the developed world

Africa, a continent that has been labeled as "dark" and "poor" for years could have never seen its current status of the "rising continent," without its immense treasures and natural resources. Nevertheless, resources have been a curse in most instances because of the developed world's incessant tendency of coming in and taking a piece. As a result, the continent is believed to have lost 95 percent of its cultural heritages and treasures to the developed world.

Henok Reta, 'Ethiopia: The Battle for History and Heritage', All Africa 29 March 2014.

The Royal Museum of Central Africa in Brussels and the Colonial Perspective

The Royal Museum of Central Africa in Brussels is at the centre of a debate about how to present the complex legacy of the colonial past and the ethics of cultural ownership ('The plunder years: culture and the colony', Irish Times Mar 25, 2014). The country’s Royal Museum of Central Africa is closing for a three-year renovation, precipitating discussions about the redisplay of the items it contains:

The grand, neoclassical building was built on the outskirts of Brussels by King Leopold II in the late 19th century as a monument to the Belgian Congo. The project was originally intended to be temporary – the Brussels International Exhibition of 1897 was designed to celebrate the newly acquired empire in the Congo, with real-life African villagers brought to Belgium for the event. But a permanent museum to the Congo was built on the site, and its collection gradually increased as the Belgian colony expanded. The packed boats that docked in Antwerp provided a constant provision of treasures and plunders from the Congo. Even by 1910, the Belgian empire was attracting international criticism, albeit by countries that were themselves involved in colonisation. Leopold II had edged into the “great game” of European expansion in Africa in the late 1870s, anxious to put the relatively new country of Belgium on the map. At huge personal expense, the king engaged a number of individuals to navigate the competitive field of international diplomacy to stake his claim to the yet unclaimed wild landscape in central Africa. Figures such as journalist-cum-explorer Henry Morton Stanley, whose discovery of Dr David Livingstone propelled him to stardom, helped Leopold tame a territory that soon spanned an area 80 times the size of Belgium. Leopold never visited the colony. Congo’s extensive rubber resources were the driving force of the colony’s expansion, with slave labour enforced on the native Congolese. A failure to fulfil rubber quotas led to murder and mutilation, with the severing of hands becoming a horrific symbol of the Belgian project. Some estimates put the death toll at up to 10 million.

The Museum of Central Africa maps the history of this period of Belgium’s past and the presentation of the objects still reflect the original colonial perspective. 

Native Americans ask German museum to return human scalps in its display

Ojibwe reservations (Wikipedia)

A group of Native Americans has asked a German museum to return some human scalps in its display. The   Ojibwe Nation said the display at the Karl May Museum is 'insensitive' and 'not culturally appropriate':

Members of Native American tribes are involved in a dispute with a German Wild West museum over human scalps in its exhibition.  [...] The Karl May Museum in Radebeul, outside Dresden, has been criticised for displaying the scalps, some of which are decorated with braided hair and beads. [...] The museum, named after adventure writer Karl May, acquired the scalps from the Austrian Ernst Tobis, as part of a huge collection of Native American artefacts he bequeathed to the museum in 1926.

Antonia Molloy, 'Native Americans ask German museum to return human scalps in its display ' The Independent Online Monday 24 March 2014 .

The growing backlash against the trade in Tribal Art

Brief and rather sketchy piece in the Economist (Feb 8th): "Masks and magic: The growing backlash against the trade in tribal art"

Tribal art began gaining recognition in the late 19th century when exhibitions, such as MoMA’s “Africa Negro Art” show, new ethnographic museums, such as the Palais du Trocadéro in Paris, and the enthusiasm of modernist artists like Pablo Picasso gave the West a taste for the exotic. But growing cultural sensitivity is restricting the market. Museums are increasingly required to return cultural items to the descendants or tribe they belong to. [...] Australia, New Zealand and countries in Central and South America are also demanding the return of sensitive art work from dealers and auction houses directly. [...] Prices are going up as important pieces become scarcer.

Masks meant to be worn and danced not displayed in a foreign museum (Wikipedia)

Results of Guadian Poll: 88% are for Repatriation

Elginism, 'Guardian Poll shows that more than 17 out of every 20 people support return of Marbles', February 17, 2014

There have been many polls about the Parthenon Marbles in recent years and only a few have shows anything other than a high level of support for their return. The Guardian recently ran a poll, following the publicity from George Clooney’s statements about the sculptures. The results speak for themselves – but the end of the two day poll, the web page attracted over 2,500 comments, and the end result of the poll itself showed that 88% of those who took part were in favour of the sculptures being returned. Politicians have a tendency to state that the marbles are a complex issue and that the country is deeply divided over them – the reality though is that nearly everyone supports return – so why can’t they listen to this and respond sensibly to it, by entering into serious negotiations to resolve it?