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internationalinternational                                                                                              international




              decolonization of a museum?                                                                                             before the arrival of any Europeans. They – and  worth  noting  that  tobacco  is  also  a  sacred
                                                                                                                                      their names – are among the best known of the  object  for  these  Nations,  used  in  all  sorts  of
                                                                                                                                      North  American  First  Nations:  the  Senecas,  ceremonies  (such  as  smoking  the  peace  pipe
              By Robert James Parsons
                                                                                                                                      the Cayugas, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the  to  conclude  an  agreement  ending  conflict
                                                                                                                                      Mohawks and the Tuscaroras.            and  opening  reconciliation).  This  part  of  the
                               At a time when the vast colonial empires of  considered “curiosities” of no monetary value,                                                   ceremony, at the request of the Haudenosaunee
                               the  European  powers  have  disappeared,  the  acquired as souvenirs, to priceless art objects.       The two objects were acquired, as the current,  representatives, was not allowed to be filmed,
                               word “decolonization” has mostly slipped into                                                          circumspect declaration of the museum puts it,  unlike the rest of the ceremony.
                               the history books. Using it as the basis for an  As  Boris  Wastiau  pointed  out  on  numerous        without consent. Amédée-Pierre Jule Pictet de
                               ethnography  museum’s  strategic  four-year  occasions,  the  reconsideration  of  ethnography         Sergy (1795 – 1888), a Geneva historian and  Carine Ayélé Durand was emphatic that this
                               development  plan  would  strike  most  people  has spawned a vast reconsideration of the entire       politician, donated them in 1825 to the Musée  was merely the first step in what promises to be
                               as strange – to say the least.        “colonial adventure”. A closely related product of               académique, whose collections were transferred  a long, complicated process of re-examination
                                                                     this adventure was the development of geology                    to the MEG upon its creation in 1901.  at the MEG in search of its becoming what she
                               Yet  this  is  exactly  what  Geneva’s  Museum  of  as a science, born out of the need to survey and                                          called “a culturally sustainable museum”.
                               Ethnography  (MEG  by  its  French  acronym)  sound  the  land  thus  brought  under  colonial         Last  July,  Brennen  Ferguson,  a  member  of
                               decided  to  do.  At  a  press  conference  in  control for the riches of its substratum.              the  Exterior  Relations  Committee  of  the  The  occasion  coincides  with  the  centenary
                               September 2020 to announce the plan’s launch,                                                          Haudenosaunee and a member of the Tuscarora  of the arrival in Geneva of the Iroquois chief
                               Boris  Wastiau,  the  museum’s  director,  noted  The  project  launched  in  2020  echoes  many       Nation, was in Geneva and took advantage of  Deskaheh  in  an  attempt  to  make  known  at
                               that, when the idea was first mooted two years  such  under  way  in  ethnography  museums             the occasion to visit the MEG’s collections. At  the Assembly of the newly created League of
                               previous,  most  of  the  museum’s  staff  were  elsewhere in the world and involves exploring         the restitution ceremony, he recounted to the  Nations the loss of the First Nations’ autonomy,
                               as ignorant of it as most of the public today.  ways to try to set things right and place the          packed  MEG  auditorium  that,  upon  seeing  the destruction of their cultural institutions and
                               The subsequent time leading up to the launch  formerly  colonized  peoples  at  the  center  of        the  mask  and  rattle,  he  was  overcome  with  their  outright  dispossession.  He  was  refused
                               involved much reflection and study, including  their histories and cultures. This, in turn, has        great sorrow at the thought that they had been  this  honor,  but,  in  memory  of  his  effort,  the
                               a  thorough  reappraisal  of  very  concept  of  resulted in a firm acknowledgement that the           sundered from their native land for some 200  day  after  the  MEG  ceremony,  a  “peace  tree”,
                               ethnography and the role of the museum in it.  acquired objects can – and often do – have a            years. He added that the mask had not been  given by the Haudenosaunee Confederation to
                                                                     value that a Western-centered “primitive art”                    properly “cared for”, in particular through its  the City of Geneva, was planted in the parc des
                               Notwithstanding its neutrality, Switzerland was  market has no way of appreciating.                    use as a means of transmitting language.  Bastions  (the  City’s  original  botanical  garden
                               not at all peripheral to the “colonial adventure”,                                                                                            and now the central University campus).
                               for  not  only  were  many  Swiss  “adventurers”  In short, as in the case of a tiny dark spot in      The  cultural  status  of  both  objects  belongs
                               involved  in  exploring  and  exploiting  the  a pitted glass case, reputed to be the relic of         formally to the Haudenosaunee Confederation,  And on the Friday preceding the ceremony,
                               conquered territories, but Swiss bankers were  a saint of Christianity, the lack of an inherent        who consider it improper to exhibit them, for  the MEG received a delegation from Nigeria
                               fulsome  in  their  financial  support  of  such  monetary  value  under  the  terms  of  such         they are seen as protectors of the well-being of  within the context of the initiative Bénin en
                               undertakings, establishing letters of credit for  markets  is  irrelevant.  It  is  up  to  those  who   the Confederation.                   Suisse under way with eight Swiss museums
                               the  various  commercial  enterprises  driving  created these objects and gave them meaning                                                   regarding objects from the Kingdom of Benin
                               them. It will thus come as no surprise that the  to establish their value.                             Accompanied by Kenneth Deer of the Mohawk  pillaged by British troops in 1897 on territory
                               MEG’s splendid collections are largely a result                                                        Nation,  Kenneth  Ferguson  appealed  to  the  that became part of Nigeria. The MEG holds
                               of  these  Swiss-banker-endorsed  incursions  This  “examination  of  conscience”  has  opened         MEG’s current director, Carine Ayélé Durand,  eight of the objects under consideration, and
                               and their concomitant plunder.        the door to a vast project across the world, only                who had them removed from their showcase  Carine  Ayélé  Durand  has  opined  that  the
                                                                     now slowly getting under way, to actually restore                on  the  following  day.  In  August,  the  MEG  other  museums  will  be  receiving  requests
                               As  for  ethnography,  the  ethnographers  now  many  of  these  objects  to  the  peoples  and  the   received an official request for the restitution  for  restitution  at  some  point.  This  broader
                               (finally!) admit that it is a European concept  societies that created and treasured them.             of the objects, which was passed along to the  undertaking is supported by the Swiss federal
                               involving  the  study  of  foreign  cultures  in  a                                                    Administrative Council of the City of Geneva,  government and its Office of Cultural Affairs.
                               way that often has little to do with the lands  This  brings  us  up  to  the  present,  for  on  7    which ratified it already on 12 October.
                               and cultures that it purports to study, for the  February  2023,  the  MEG  officially  returned  a                                           For  its  part,  the  City  of  Geneva,  under  its
                               entire approach is peculiarly Eurocentric and  mask and sacred rattle to representatives of the        Manifestly impressed, Kenneth Deer pointed  Director  of  Cultural  Affairs,  Sami  Kaanan,
                               often  involves  a  shocking  disregard  for  the  Haudenosaunee Confederation, whose lands, in        out that ordinarily this sort of request resulted  has anchored the principle of restitution in its
                               peoples whose cultures created these objects  a testimony to the violence done to the colonized,       in a long, drawn-out procedure.        official  policy,  which  involves,  among  other
                               and endowed them with meaning. Secure in  are now divided between Canada and the United                                                       things, posting the City’s collections on line
                               the belief of their superiority, the Europeans  States.  The  Confederation,  also  known  as  the     Clayton Logan of the Seneca Nation presided  for examination and identification by possible
                               and  their  descendants  in  lands  that  they  Iroquois Confederation of the Six Nations is one       over the burning of tobacco during which he  original  owners,  and  establishing  contact
                               colonized helped themselves to innumerable  of the oldest continually running political entities       explained to the objects – in the original Seneca  with the communities from which the objects
                               artifacts. These ranged from what the takers  in the world, with a constitution established well       language – what was happening to them. It is  came.



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