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