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Lightning
Glasgow
UK
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Posts: 1042
Joined: 2005
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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I wasn't really sure where to post this, so have opted for here.
The hugely popular Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland is being encouraged to return artefacts taken (looted?) during the British punitive expediton of 1897 against Benin.
It is also being asked to give to Lakota Sioux nation artefacts sold by Sioux men who visited Glasgow during Buffalo Bill's World Tours of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
[Read More]
I am hugely sympathetic to returning the artefacts stolen during the British sack of Benin, but I am finding it hard to reconcile returning items that were willingly sold at apparently decent prices by sellers keen to raise cash for their travels.
Where does the MHO community stand on returning museum items to their countries / regions of origin?
Cheers,
Colin
P.S. if anyone on here ever visits Glasgow, Kelvingrove is well worth a visit. It's free to enter and is next to a very beautiful extensive public park, plus a number of excellent pubs, bars and restaurants!
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"There is no course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end."
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George
Centre Hastings
ON Canada
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Posts: 13378
Joined: 2009
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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Quote:I wasn't really sure where to post this, so have opted for here. The hugely popular Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland is being encouraged to return artefacts taken (looted?) during the British punitive expediton of 1897 against Benin. It is also being asked to give to Lakota Sioux nation artefacts sold by Sioux men who visited Glasgow during Buffalo Bill's World Tours of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. [Read More]I am hugely sympathetic to returning the artefacts stolen during the British sack of Benin, but I am finding it hard to reconcile returning items that were willingly sold at apparently decent prices by sellers keen to raise cash for their travels. Where does the MHO community stand on returning museum items to their countries / regions of origin? Cheers, Colin P.S. if anyone on here ever visits Glasgow, Kelvingrove is well worth a visit. It's free to enter and is next to a very beautiful extensive public park, plus a number of excellent pubs, bars and restaurants!
Hello Colin,
For want of a better word there is an "awareness" movement among First Nations people of Canada and American Indians. This involves not only the revival of national cultures and languages but teaching others a different and perhaps more valid history of the country.
These are the official days of awareness of FN cultures in my country. I don't know whether the US has the same reasons to strive for reconciliation that we do. But both countries can find reason enough to feel some responsibility for the plight of the indigenous people of the continent.
[Read More]
I know that the FN are thrilled when they have artefacts returned to them. They use them to teach their children about their cultures and some of the items that were taken may have had spiritual significance.
But it is also true that many FN tribes were traders. The wanted European goods and traded artefacts for them. The Hudson's Bay Company has a large collection of FN artifacts.
So in the case of an item that was purchase, I don't see the need to return it unless one feels a moral obligation to do so to assist in the mending of broken cultures.
Even our own museums are beginning to return FN artifacts to them. It seems to mean a lot to them and so I tend to empathize. They are gathering the concrete evidence that their cultures and way of life were and are important.
And the curator of another museum in the UK recently contacted the Haida people on Canada's west coast to tell them that he had something in his collection that he felt that they should have. The curator also commented that he was aware that some items were taken from FN people, "under some duress".
[Read More]
Cheers,
George
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Brian Grafton
Victoria
BC Canada
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Posts: 4720
Joined: 2004
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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Quote: The hugely popular Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland is being encouraged to return artefacts taken (looted?) during the British punitive expediton of 1897 against Benin.
It is also being asked to give to Lakota Sioux nation artefacts sold by Sioux men who visited Glasgow during Buffalo Bill's World Tours of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
…
I am hugely sympathetic to returning the artefacts stolen during the British sack of Benin, but I am finding it hard to reconcile returning items that were willingly sold at apparently decent prices by sellers keen to raise cash for their travels.
Where does the MHO community stand on returning museum items to their countries / regions of origin?
Colin, an ignorant question. Are you talking about the Benin Bronzes, which to be honest I thought were in the British Museum, or about other Benin sculptures looted (stolen) at the same time by housed in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove? It shouldn’t matter whether there is one trove or a number, of course, but I wasn’t aware of more; the Benin Bronzes are the ones receiving attention. But they are simply one example of
IIUC, the same applies to what I learned to call the Elgin Marbles. Sadly, those friezes are famous in part because they are named after Lord Elgin, though increasingly they are being called, IIRC, the Parthenon Friezes. I don’t remember how they ended up in Elgin’s hands, but sense it may have had something to do with creating classical vistas on his estate. But IMHO any works taken without permission should be returned upon request.
Any artifact sold by a purported owner requires serious consideration. The Nazis demonstrated how easy it was to force Jews to offer their art for sale at a “good” price. My point: a forced sale may be construed as legitimized theft. On the other hand, at least some of the sales by original owners (indiginous; first nations; traditional) were meant to be simply cash transactions; not all “original” owners were (or are) more committed to their heritage than to profit.
An additional side of this very serious moral question, at least in my part of Canada, is whether First Nations demands for recognition are met by the increasing use of FN language as labels as some kind of compensation. Here, however, I think were moving into a very different set of questions and values.
Cheers,
Brian G
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"We have met the enemy, and he is us." Walt Kelly.
"The Best Things in Life Aren't Things" Bumper sticker.
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Phil Andrade
London
UK
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Posts: 6386
Joined: 2004
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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When it comes to the Benin Bronzes, a recent bit of news encourages me.
There is a New York association representing the interests of black people that has declared its objections to the returning of the bronzes to the Nigerian state, because to do so would be to ignore the complicity of West African black leaders, whether kings, queens or chieftains, who benefited from, and encouraged, the abomination of trading other black people into slavery.
This strikes me as a more enlightened approach than that of simply casting all black people as victims, and white people as the practitioners of the “ execrable trade.”
Regards, Phil
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"Egad, sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!"
"That will depend, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes
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Lightning
Glasgow
UK
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Posts: 1042
Joined: 2005
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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Quote:
Colin, an ignorant question. Are you talking about the Benin Bronzes, which to be honest I thought were in the British Museum, or about other Benin sculptures looted (stolen) at the same time by housed in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove?
Brian G
Hi Brian,
The Benin Bronzes are in the British Museum, as you say. What Kelvingrove has are some altars and other items taken from the city. So not the same stature, perhaps, of the bronzes, but loot nonetheless.
You raise an interesting point about people being forced to sell. My understanding of the Lakota who visited Glasgow is that they knew they had a relative goldmine in their possession; they had items from their homelands that would fetch a high premium from the curious in Glasgow. I certainly hope nobody felt the pressure to sell under the threat of violence or molestation.
I can't quite recall how Kelvingrove acquired it, but they had a Ghost Dance Shirt on display there until the late 1990s, when it was repatriated to the Lakota nation at their request. I understand the Shirt had been taken from a body at Wounded Knee; Glasgow had no argument about returning it and in return we were given a very beautiful garment specially made for us to display.
Cheers,
Colin
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"There is no course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end."
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OpanaPointer
St. Louis
MO USA
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Posts: 1892
Joined: 2010
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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"Elgin Marbles" anyone?
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scoucer
Berlin
Germany
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Posts: 3224
Joined: 2010
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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Quote: "Elgin Marbles" anyone?
[Read More]
Trevor
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`Hey don´t the wars come easy and don´t the peace come hard`- Buffy Sainte-Marie
Some swim with the stream. Some swim against the stream. Me - I´m stuck somewhere in the woods and can´t even find the stupid stream.
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OpanaPointer
St. Louis
MO USA
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Posts: 1892
Joined: 2010
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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I was heartbroken when the Pierson's Puppeteers stole them.
;-)
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jahenders
Colorado Springs
CO USA
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Posts: 681
Joined: 2017
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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While some cases (like perhaps the bronzes) might be reasonable, a lot these demands for the return of artifacts are just silly.
In many cases, explorers (mostly European and US) went to some of these places and financed huge excavations. In so doing, they found HUGE aspects of history and a lot of artifacts. Had those European explorers not done these things, most of these artifacts would likely still be buried in the ground in their 'homeland' doing no good for anyone. We would also know far less about history and other civilizations than we do now.
So, in most cases, it wasn't a matter of whether a European or a local archeologist dug it up -- it's a matter of whether it was dug up and studied, or left undiscovered for a few more centuries.
Add to that the fact, noted elsewhere, that in many cases some locals SOLD these artifacts with tacit approval of whatever government might have existed there.
Jim
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OpanaPointer
St. Louis
MO USA
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Posts: 1892
Joined: 2010
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Glasgow urged to repatriate 'loot'
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That doesn't excuse the outright looting.
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