My major sources for this thread are Monica Udvardy, Linda Giles, and John B. Mitsanze’s “The Transatlantic Trade in African Ancestors...", Joseph Nevadomsky’s "The Vigango Affair", and Christina Kreps' “Indigenous Curation” chapter in Museum Anthropology. (14/14)
@lizmarlowe.bsky.social

The vigango haven’t been returned to the Mijikenda kaya elders, who traditionally tend to vigango after their families relocate.

The chance that they remain in limbo in the Kenyan National Museum begs the question: Was this really a successful repatriation? (13/14)

Amidst the confusion, the restituted vigango have gone to the Kenyan National Museum. Since it conforms to Western museological expectations and practices, it has been deemed the proper steward of the vigango. (12/14)

Some institutions have begun the process of returning their vigango statues. Recently, for example, the Illinois State Museum returned theirs in 2023. However, the statues’ final destinations are still unclear, since it can be difficult to determine the original families who created them. (11/14)

Scholar Christina Kreps argues that the predominant belief that Western institutions are superior at scientific conservation has led to “the global spread and reproduction of Western-oriented models,” which is unfortunately evident in the process of repatriating vigango. (10/14)

So, the envelopment of the vigango into Western ideas of what constitutes “art” blatantly erases their spiritual role and importance to the Mijikenda, and physically harms the souls of their deceased. (9/14)

Imagine how a museum may traditionally go about “preserving” a wooden object – perhaps by applying lacquers or varnish to stop its decay.

Tragically, this would stop the transformative process, effectively trapping the spirit of the ancestor. (8/14)

Eventually, many of them ended up in museums.

Remember how vigango are supposed to naturally weather with time? Well, museums tend to believe they have a responsibility to scientifically “conserve” items in their care. (7/14)

Soon, thefts of vigango became rampant. Their prices skyrocketed. Tourists brought them home from vacations. Wealthy art connoisseurs and celebrities, including Andy Warhol and Gene Hackman, bought them for their collections. (6/14)

Beginning in the 1970s, art dealers, specifically a man named Ernie Wolfe III, created a market in the West for vigango.

Wolfe knew about their cultural context and the consequences of their removal. He even contributed to a book all about them, but falsely claimed they can be “deactivated.” (5/14)

Once a vigango is placed, it is not meant to be moved, even when the family relocates. The Mijikenda believe uprooting a kigango disturbs the spirit of the ancestor. It also invokes the curse of the koma on the thief and the family, threatening misfortune or even death to both. (4/14)

The wooden figures are placed outdoors and used as a way for the living to communicate with their ancestors. The wood’s eventual weathering is not seen as decay, but rather a transformation and maturing of the soul. (3/14)

These are vigango (kigango in the singular) funerary statues of the Mijikenda peoples, a group inhabiting modern-day Kenya and Tanzania.

After a member of a gohu, or a secret society, passes away, his family commissions a kigango to represent his spirit. (2/14)

#Repatriation isn’t automatically justice. These aren’t “art objects” – they’re ancestors, and when Western museums impose their own ideas of art and conservation, even returning them can continue to harm living communities. (1/14)
#restitution #westernmuseums #museums #art #culturalproperty