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Returns of Cultural Artefacts and Human Remains in a (Post)colonial Context. Mapping Claims between the Mid-19th Century and the 1970s

November 2021

November 2021
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DOI:10.25360/01-2021-00017

Authors:

Lars Müller

Berlin State Library

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Working Paper

Deutsches Zentrum

Kulturgutverluste

1 / 2021

Lars Müller

Mapping Claims between the Mid-19th Century and the 1970s

Returns of Cultural Artefacts and Human

Remains in a (Post)colonial Context

Publication Credits

Title Returns of Cultural Artefacts and Human

Remains in a (Post)colonial Context.

Mapping Claims between the Mid-19th

Century and the 1970s

Publisher Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste

Humboldtstr. 12

39112 Magdeburg

www.kulturgutverluste.de

Author Lars Müller

Published in Working Paper Deutsches Zentrum

Kulturgutverluste

No. 1/2021

Place Magdeburg

Concept and Editing Larissa Förster

Translation Wendy Anne Kopisch

Design Bureau Punktgrau

Typesetting Harry Adler

Date 1 November 2021

ISSN 2749-8964

DOI https://doi.org/10.25360/01-2021-00017

Image Credit: p. 5: ‘Liberia’s Famous Stone. Its Disappearance and Re-

turn: An Unhappy Sequel to the Enterprise of a Film Expedition’, in:

The

African World

, 24 January 1925, XVII, German Federal Foreign Office,

Political Archive, RZ 207/78247.

Reference to German copyright law: With regard to German copyright

law, all concerns of the owners of image rights are with the authors. If –

despite intensive and careful research – a rights holder should not have

been considered, the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste asks for no-

tification.

Disclaimer

The Working Papers are a platform for research discussions. The publis-

her therefore does not necessarily share the ideas and views expressed.

The authors themselves are responsible for their statements.

Licence

This work is published under the Creative Commons License 4.0

(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

The Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste is a foundation under civil law

established by the German Federal Government, the Länder and the

national associations of local authorities.

The Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste is fi nanced by the Minister

of State for Culture and the Media.

Table of Contents

Preface 5

I. Introduction 7

II. Africa 12

North and East Africa 12

West Africa 18

Central Africa 25

Southern Africa 27

III. Asia 30

West Asia 30

South and South-East Asia 31

East Asia 41

IV. The Americas and the Caribbean 45

V. Oceania, Australia and New Zealand 50

VI. Discussion 55

VII. Concluding Remarks 57

References 59

5BITTE KOLUMENTITEL EINTRAGEN

Illustration from: ‘Liberia’s Famous Stone. Its Disappearance and Return: An Unhappy

Sequel to the Enterprise of a Film Expedition’, in:

The African World

, 24 January 1925,

XVII, German Federal Foreign Office, Political Archive, RZ 207/78247.

5BITTE KOLUMENTITEL EINTRAGEN 5BITTE KOLUMENTITEL EINTRAGEN

Preface

6I. INTRODUCTION

It has always been popular for collectors to have themselves photo-

graphed together with their ‘acquisitions’ for purposes of visual evi-

dence, a motif we often still encounter today when researching and pre-

senting the histories of collections. The title photograph of this working

paper can be interpreted as a counter-image in this respect1: before the

impressive backdrop of the Afrikahaus in Hamburg and framed by two

ele phant statues, the Liberian Consul General Momolu Massaquoi oc-

cupies central position; the Mafue Stone lies at his feet. The director of

Woermann Lines and a German Foreign Office representative stand be-

side him. This image does not symbolise the ‘finders’ or ‘collectors’ of

the object but rather the recovery of the stone by Liberia. In 1924, Hans

Schomburgk (not in the photograph) had brought the Mafue Stone to

Germany in the course of his documentary film work in Liberia, and Mas-

saquoi sued him. A settlement was reached that allowed the stone to

be returned to Liberia, and Woermann Lines, the shipping company who

had originally transported the stone to Germany, agreed to return the ob-

ject free of charge. This is only one of the early examples, largely forgot-

ten today, in which cultural property was returned from Europe to Africa.

At first glance, many aspects of the intense discussion around post-co-

lonial restitution currently ongoing in Europe and worldwide seem new.

In the light of growing demands from the countries of origin, a general

confrontation with the colonial past and an increased openness of mu-

seums to the subject, for the first time it seems possible – perhaps even

imperative – to address the subject of returning cultural property, or res-

titution. A number of voices have pointed out, however, that this discus-

sion has grown from an earlier debate already under way in the 1970s

and 1980s.

This working paper takes the matter a step further by rendering

visible protests against the dispossession of cultural property and de-

mands for its return in both colonial and post-colonial times. The region-

al orientation will address Africa, Asia, the Americas with the Caribbe-

an, and Oceania with Australia and New Zealand. The paper provides an

overview of examples between 1867 and approximately 1970, with an in-

itial mapping of the field in order to cover the early cases and propose

further, perhaps comparative, research. It is thus designed as a starting

point rather than an exhaustive study, and seeks to specifically collate,

render visible and connect example cases.

1 On counter-images, see (in German) Halder, Lucia (2020), ‘Gegenbilder’ on

the platform Visual History: https:// visual-history.de/2020/10/20/gegen-

bilder/ (accessed 29 September 2021). In this context it is interesting to

note that this photograph – as far as we know today – was not printed in

German newspapers, which would otherwise generally feature images of

the stone, sometimes with its ‘collector’, Schomburgk.

PREFACE

I. Introduction

Systematic studies of early restitution claims have only been rudiment-

arily embarked upon by research to date. Despite a clear interest in re-

turns and restitution demonstrated by more recent studies, the field still

lacks a comprehensive overview. An initial orientation, from which this

paper has greatly benefited, is provided by Jos van Beurden’s

Treasurers

in Trusted Hands

(2017) and Jeanette Greenfield’s

The Return of Cultural

Treasures

(2017).1 Essays on example cases from various disciplines and

perspectives are accommodated across a vast spectrum of journals,

while a wealth of texts casually refer to or suggest restitution claims with-

out elaborating on their contexts.2

This working paper collates, with the widest possible scope, cases

of returns or claims for such concerning objects acquired in colonial

contexts, the latter understood here not only in the sense of formal colo-

nial rule over a territory but also in the wider sense proposed by the Ger-

man Museums Association (

Deutscher Museumsbund

).3 It also ad-

dresses the activities of collectors beyond formal colonial rule that made

use of colonial networks or similar power imbalances. Collecting in a ‘co-

lonial context’ also means collecting with a colonial mentality, for in-

stance when activities are based on an assumed superiority of the col-

lector’s own culture or aim to ‘preserve’ cultures deemed to be in a state

of decline. In this sense this paper implicitly acknowledges the fact that

Colombia, Turkey and Liberia, for instance, examined here in the context

of collectors’ activities in the early twentieth century, were independent

states at the time. The cases given as examples here are intended to

emphasise that the practice of collecting in these countries was never-

theless rooted in a colonial tradition, which indeed can have implications

for justifying the returning of objects.

1 Beurden, Jos van (2017),

Treasures in Trusted Hands: Negotiating the Future of

Colonial Cultural Objects

, Leyden. Jeanette Greenfield (2017),

The Return of

Cultural Treasures

, Cambridge.

2 For an overview of current cases, see ArThemis, a database of objects currently

subject to restitution demands: https://plone.unige.ch/art-adr/about-a-propos

(accessed 29 September 2021).

3 Deutscher Museumsbund (2019),

Guidelines for German Museums: Care of

Collections from Colonial Contexts

, Bremen, 19-23.

Research status

Period of

investigation

8I. INTRODUCTION

There are several reasons for ending this study in the early 1970s.

There is currently a growing interest in the debates around post-colonial

restitution cases of the 1970s and 1980s, notably in the works of Béné-

dicte Savoy.4 International developments of the time brought about a

decisive shift in the discourse. First, voices from the countries of origin

became audible on an international level, such as in the speech given

by Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko to the UN General Assembly in

1973. Second, various international agreements gave rise to a re-fram-

ing of the debate, most notably the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the

Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of

Ownership of Cultural Property. Subsequent discussion and negotiations

eventually led to the establishment of the Intergovernmental Committee

for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its

Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation. In 1971 ICOM (International Coun-

cil of Museums) adopted a number of resolutions on the matter at its

General Assembly, for instance on the ‘Ethics of Acquisition’ (Res. No. 2)

or the ‘Documentation of Collections and Field Missions’ (Res. No. 3).

The latter stipulated that ‘all large museums holding important collec-

tions of foreign origin in their reserves, help, by all the means in their

power (gifts, loans, deposits, exchanges, research scholarships, training

of personnel, etc.), the countries of origin of these collections, so as to

allow them to establish and develop modern museums which are truly

representative of their specific cultures’.5

The majority of the examples examined here address returns or

demands for such between European and African or Asian countries. To

a certain extent this corresponds with the focus of the current discourse.

While a few well-known cases from the Americas or Oceania are also ex-

amined, it appears that fewer requests were placed from these regions

during the period of investigation, or at least that less research has ad-

dressed them.6 These areas of focus are, however, also a result of the

4 Sarr, Felwine, Savoy, Bénédicte (2018),

The Restitution of African Cultural

Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics

, http://restitutionreport2018.com/

sarr_savoy_en.pdf (accessed 29 September 2021). Savoy, Bénédicte (2020),

Afrikas Kampf um seine Kunst

, Berlin. Strugalla, Anna Valeska (2020), ‘Muse-

umsdirektoren nehmen Stellung. Argumentationen, Intentionen und

Geschichtsbilder in der Restitutionsdebatte der frühen 1970er Jahre’, in:

Werkstatt Geschichte

81, 101-117. On the contemporary debate see Paczensky,

Gert von; Ganslmayr, Herbert (1984),

Nofretete will nach Hause. Euro pa.

Schatzhaus der ‘Dritten Welt’

, München. Fitschen, Thomas (2004), ‘30 Jahre

‘Rückführung von Kulturgut’. Wie der Generalversammlung ihr Gegenstand

abhanden kam’, in:

Vereinte Nationen

2, 46–51. For a stronger focus on illegal

trade, see Meyer, Karl E. (1977),

The Plundered Past: The Traffic in Art Treasures

London. For the British debate, see Chamberlin, Russell (1983),

Loot! The

Heritage of Plunder

, London.

5 Resolutions adopted by ICOM’s 10th General Assembly, Grenoble, France, 1971.

https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ICOMs-Resolutions_1971_

Eng.pdf (accessed 29 September 2021). See also the increasing coordination

on the part of the countries of origin expressed in ‘Resolution and Explanatory

Note on Restitution of Works of Art to the Countries from Which They Have

Been Expropriated’, adopted at the Fifth Conference of Heads of State or

Governments of Non-Aligned Countries in Colombo/Sri Lanka, August 1976.

6 It should also be pointed out here that the majority of literature analysed for this

Object of

investigation

9I. INTRODUCTION

genesis of this working paper. The examples presented are primarily

cases that were publicised, and the paper has recourse to archive mate-

rial from Germany and Great Britain in line with the author’s research in-

terests. The design of the paper thus also reflects the accessibility of lit-

erature and archives. Above all, it is important to note that it was not pos-

sible for this study – not least on account of the COVID-19 pandemic – to

conduct research in the archives of the claimants; for the most part for-

merly colonised countries.

The majority of returns discussed here came from public museums

or collections. There is also evidence of a number of returns on the part

of private individuals, but the source material as it currently stands does

not adequately reflect such cases. For this reason, some case studies

can only be touched upon briefly or presented in fragments. While some

examples have attracted a great deal of attention others have only been

casually mentioned in the literature to date.

In the following I will concentrate on cases in which the claimants

were aiming for a permanent return of the objects in question. There is

also a history of requests to receive objects on loan. In 1950, for exam-

ple, Mexico, or its National Institute of the Fine Arts (

Instituto Nacional

de Bellas Artes

), enquired via the Austrian government whether the Mu-

seum of Ethnology (

Museum für Völkerkunde

) in Vienna might loan the

institute

Moctezuma’s Featherwork

for an installation in Mexico City: the

institute was planning a large exhibition on Mexican art from the pre-co-

lonial, colonial and post-colonial eras. The exhibition was intended to be

highly attractive, including objects from museums abroad and thus ‘un-

known to the Mexican people’.7 Similar requests for exhibits were made

for the same purpose of other European and North American museums.

Both the arguments made by Mexico and the declining of the request by

Austria – primarily for conservational reasons – are strongly remi niscent

of other negotiations around restitutions during the same period. In this

case, however, we also see – and this argument will recur later in other

examples – that in many cases the struggle for returns has a significantly

longer history than we might imagine today.8

paper was in the English language; for examples from Latin America see also

relevant publications in Spanish or Portuguese.

7 Translation of memorandum to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,

Mexico, 11 August 1950, in: Weltmuseum, Archive, Vienna, ‘Direktionsakten’,

Weltmuseum Wien, D50/163c-g.

8 This incident is documented in the Director’s Files (‘Direktionsakten’) stored in

the archive of the Weltmuseum Wien. See especially the correspondence

between the Federal Ministry of Education, the Federal Chancellery/Foreign

Affairs, the Ethnological Museum and the National Institute of the Fine Arts

between 1950 and 1951. It appears that other European museums also declined

Mexico’s request. As a result, Mexico planned an exhibition in Paris in 1951, for

which Austria once again turned down the request for a loan for conservational

reasons. Other European countries did agree to participate, however. On current

restitution claims see, among others, Opoku, Kwame: ‘Now is the Time for

Austria to Act on the Restitution of Montezuma‘s Crown to Mexico’,

Africavenir

27 January 2017, https://www.africavenir.org/news-details/archive/2011/january/

article/kwame-opoku-now-is-the-time-for-austria-to-act-on-the-restitution-of-

montezumas-crown-to-mexico.

10I. INTRODUCTION

Another consequence of the diverse approaches to the topic of

restitution claims and returns is the wealth of different terms and defini-

tions used to refer to the process by claimants and activists as well as

academic researchers. In the following I will not argue for a universally

valid definition but rather underline the importance of addressing the is-

sue at the beginning of any study on the subject. Wojciech Kowalski re-

flects on three concepts in particular from a legal perspective9: the term

restitution

, he states, results from an unlawful situation and is to be ap-

plied primarily to objects that have been expropriated or purloined during

a state of war.

Repatriation

is different in a legal sense: although the term

equally refers to the return of objects it infers a specific target recipient,

Kowalski continues, for example the repatriation of objects to an ethnic

group. While both are legal terms,

repatriation

implies moral rather than

legal reasons. Piotr Bienkowski therefore defines restitution as a ‘return

to [the] legitimate owner, based on property rights’ and repatriation as a

‘return to [the] country or sub-state group, based on ethical considera-

tions’.10 Kowalski’s third concept is that of a

return

, which he also uses to

describe the return of objects to their ‘original location’, but defines this

more openly to include the return of objects from colonial contexts or il-

licit trafficking. When using these terms we face the challenge that they

are not only defined in legal texts but have also evolved historically over

time and are politically contested. The debate within UNESCO in the

1970s, for instance, constitutes only one example of a fierce dispute on

the delimitation of terminology referring to restitution and returns.11 For

the purposes of this working paper I will therefore for the most part use

the term ‘return(s)’ thanks to its wider scope.

The examples have been regionally organised for this working pa-

per, which systematically explores cases from the major regions of Afri-

ca, Asia, the Americas with the Caribbean, and Oceania, Australia and

New Zealand, which in turn are addressed by sub-regions. This allows

the study to juxtapose the cases as openly as possible and thus to unveil

possible connections between them. A different structure – chronologi-

cal or thematic, for instance – might render invisible long-term efforts to-

wards restitution such as in the cases of Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Burma.

The results are then summarised in three main points, bearing in mind

html?tx_ttnews%255Bday%255D=27&cHash=416010a602d1f98cff-

3910b356a95d4a (accessed 29 September 2021); Ponce de León, Jennifer

(2018), ‘Through an Anticolonial Looking Glass: On Restitution, Indigenismo, and

Zapatista Solidarity in Raiders of the Lost Crown’, in:

American Quarterly

, 70, 1,

1-24.

9 Kowalski, Wojciech (2005), ‘Types of Claims for Recovery of Lost Cultural

Property’, in:

Museum

, 228, 57, 85-102.

10 Bienkowski, Piotr (2015), ‘A Critique of Museum Restitution and Repatriation

Practices’, in: Conal McCarthy (Ed.),

International Handbooks of Museum

Studies: Museum Practice

, Chichester, 431-453, here 432-433.

11 Kowalski (2005), ‘Types of Claims’. Pupeter, Ellen (2021), ‘Restitution, Rückgabe

oder Transfer? Ein langer Streit um den passenden Begriff’, in:

Zeitgeschich-

te-online

. The discussion is not limited to these three terms: in other contexts,

terms such as ‘cultural recovery’ or ‘rematiration’ are used. Cf. Bienkowski

(2015), ‘A Critique’, 433.

Terms and

definitions

Procedure

11I. INTRODUCTION

that any conclusions at this stage must remain relatively open. Never-

theless, this paper thus seeks to provide a point of departure for further

discussion around early claims for restitution as well as on systematic

research and a comparison of the various cases.

II. Africa

North and East Africa

Ethiopia has presented a number of claims for the return of objects from

European states; indeed, it is likely that one of the first official requests

in a colonial context originated from this region. In the following I will dis-

cuss two Ethiopian claims which have been analysed by, among others,

Richard Pankhurst, historian and former professor at the University of

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. These are, first, claims pertaining to objects loot-

ed by the British at Maqdala in 1868 and, second, objects expropriated

by Italy in 1935.

In 1868, British troops occupied the mountain fortress at Maqdala,

where the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros had retreated. It was the conclu-

sion of a British ‘punitive expedition’ against Ethiopia. Tewodros commit-

ted suicide in order to escape captivity. The British troops subsequently

looted the palace and exported a number of objects to the United King-

dom. After Tewodros’ death, Emperor Yohannes IV ascended the throne

in 1872 and, as Pankhurst reports, demanded the return of the objects

only six months later.12 He wrote to Queen Victoria and the British Foreign

Secretary, Earl Granville, requesting that the

Kebra Nagast Manuscript

and an Icon

stolen at Maqdala be returned.13 The British Museum was

in possession of two editions of the manuscript and shortly thereafter

returned what was considered an ‘inferior copy’.14 Pankhurst describes

this as probably ‘the first request for restitution of cultural property ever

made by an African ruler’ and adds: ‘The return of this manuscript set

an interesting precedent, for it was the only British Museum acquisition

thus far ever to be returned to a Third World country’.15 The location of

the icon was unknown at the time; it was not until 1890 that it transpired

that it was in the hands of Richard Holmes, who had accompanied the

12 For more background detail see Pankhurst, Richard (1999), ‘Ethiopia, the Aksum

Obelisk, and the Return of Africa’s Cultural Heritage’, in:

African Affairs

98,

229-239, here 230-234.

13 Ullendorff, Edward; Demoz, Abraham (1969), ‘Two Letters from the Emperor

Yohannes of Ethiopia to Queen Victoria and Lord Granville’, in:

Bulletin of the

School of Oriental and African Studies

32, 1, 135-142.

14 Pankhurst (1999), ‘Ethiopia’, 233.

15 Pankhurst (1999), ‘Ethiopia’, 233.

Ethiopia

13II. AFRICA

‘Maqdala Expedition’ as an archaeologist from the British Museum. A

photograph of the icon was printed for the first time in 1905; however, Yo-

hannes IV had died in 1889 and the request for its return seemed to have

been forgotten.16 After Holmes’ death his wife had the icon auctioned

by Christie’s in 1917. In 1950 the icon was put on the market once again;

this time the Keeper of Prints and Drawings of Windsor Castle was inter-

ested, who also informed the Ethiopian Embassy in London should they

wish to redeem it. Eventually, however, it became the private property of

the Portuguese art historian Reis Santos. During a state visit by Haile Se-

lassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, to Portugal in 1967, Santos proposed that the

Portuguese government purchase the object from him to present it to

Ethiopia as a state gift. This was not realised, however, and the icon re-

mained in private hands.17

Two further cases from the depredation at Maqdala deserve a brief

mention here, although there does not seem to have been a return re-

quest in the immediate run-up to the returns. During a state visit to the

United Kingdom by the Empress Zewditu of Ethiopia and Crown Prince

Ras Tafari Makonnen (the future Emperor Haile Selassie) in 1924, King

George V presented them with one of the two

Crowns of Tewodros II

which had previously been housed in the Victoria & Albert Museum

(V & A) in London. In the course of a state visit by Queen Elizabeth II to

Ethiopia in 1965, the Queen presented the Emperor Haile Selassie with a

Royal Cap and Imperial Seal of Tewodros

; both had also been kept at

Windsor Castle.18 Research into archival records held in Ethiopia would

be necessary to detail these cases.

The second group of requests for restitution to be discussed here

concerns objects expropriated from Ethiopia by Italy.19 After the Italian

invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, various cultural objects were transported

abroad – most notably the

Obelisk of Axum

and the statue known as the

Lion of Judah

– both of which were taken to Rome. Requests for the re-

turn of the obelisk continued for several decades: first Haile Selassie,

who was in exile in the United Kingdom at the time, protested against

this deprivation of cultural property in a speech to the World Council of

Churches.20 In 1946, the Ethiopian delegation at the Paris Peace Negoti-

ations demanded the return of the stolen property. Italy agreed in Article

35 of the 1947 Peace Treaty to return ‘all works of art, religious objects,

archives and objects of historical value belonging to Ethiopia or its na-

tionals and removed from Ethiopia to Italy since 3 October 1935’ within

18 months, but subseqently proved uncooperative. Although it returned

most of the

Ethiopian Government Archives

as well as

paintings from the

16 Pankhurst (1999), ‘Ethiopia’, 233-234.

17 Pankhurst, Richard (1982): ‘The History of the Kwer’ata re’esu: An Ethiopian Icon’,

in:

African Affairs

81, 322, 177-125, here 124-125.

18 Pankhurst (1999), ‘Ethiopia’, 234. Personal correspondence of the author with

the Stella Panayotova/Royal Library, 16 March 2021.

19 For a brief summary see Mariam, Haile (2009), ‘The Cultural Benefits of the

Return of the Axum Obelisk’, in:

Museum International

, 241/242, 1/2, 48-51;

Pankhurst, Richard (1986), ‘The Case for Ethiopia’, in:

Museum

38, 1, 58-60.

20 Pankhurst (1999), ‘Ethiopia’, 235-236

On returns in the course

of state visits see

↗ China ↗ Ghana

↗ Indonesia

On claims for returns

following the Second

World War see

↗ Egypt ↗ New

Zealand ↗ Nigeria

↗ Turkey

14II. AFRICA

Ethiopian parliament

as well as the

Lion of Judah

statue in 1969, it kept a

Crown of Tewodros

and the obelisk.

An Italo-Ethiopian Agreement of 1956 again stipulated the return

of the obelisk, with reference to the 1947 Peace Treaty. However, no re-

turn was subsequently made, resulting in a resolution being passed by

the Ethiopian Parliament in 1970 stipulating that: ‘Pressure should be

applied, for the return of the obelisk and other historical objects, by re-

fusing permits to persons coming to the country, by the suspension of

trade, and as a last resort by breaking off diplomatic relations’.21 For rea-

sons of domestic politics, however, it was not possible to resolutely and

durably enforce the resolution.22

The Ethiopian example shows how in some cases claims for the

return of objects were not necessarily negotiated bilaterally or in direct

exchange with the holding institution, but even in the early stages were

addressed in an international context or in the course of peace nego-

tiations. Two further examples from African countries equally demon-

strate this: Tanzania’s claims in the context of the Treaty of Versailles and

Egypt’s claims directly following the Second World War.

The claim pertaining to the

Skull of Mkwawa

, Chief of the Hehe

(†1898), a resistance fighter against German colonial rule in German

East Africa, is particularly illustrative of the interconnections between

British, German and Tanzanian history. This claim has been relatively well

researched.23 It was first made in the Treaty of Versailles (Art. 246): Ger-

many was to hand over the skull to the UK, which would then return it to

Tanzania. However, the skull was nowhere to be found in Germany and

became the subject of intermittent debates. When, following the Second

World War, the British governor Edward Twining personally took on the

search, he identified a skull in the Bremen Overseas Museum (

Über-

see-Museum

) and attributed it to Mkwawa. The skull was returned to

21 Quoted from Pankhurst (1999), ‘Ethiopia’, 235-238.

22 Pankhurst (1999), ‘Ethiopia’, 235-239. It was not possible here to discuss

possible claims for restitution pertaining to objects not located in Italy or in the

United Kingdom. An example from the 1980s shows that claims are not only

negotiated between the formerly colonised and former colonisers, international

trade also playing its part. The Kenya Museum had acquired a shield attributed

to Emperor Tewodros, which it returned to Ethiopia in 1986. See Pankhurst

(1986), ‘The Case’, 60. The restitution claims continued beyond the timeframe

covered by this paper: a group of 500 Ethiopians published a petition calling for

the return of the obelisk in 1991. The Askum Obelisk Return Committee was

founded, which organised demonstrations, gaining support on the Italian side

and worldwide. In Ethiopia this led to the parliament conducting a public hearing

for the first time in 1996. As a result, in 1997 a joint committee was founded

together with Italy, and a memorandum of understanding was signed. Neverthe-

less, the object was not returned until 2005.

23 Brockmeyer, Bettina; Edward, Frank; Stoecker, Holger (2020), ‘The Mkwawa

Complex: A Tanzanian-European History about Provenance, Restitution and

Politics’, in:

Journal of Modern European History

, 1-23. Bucher, Jesse (2016), ‘The

Skull of Mkwawa and the Politics of Indirect Rule in Tanganyika’, in:

Journal of

East African Studies

10, 2, 284-302. Baer, Martin; Schröter, Olaf (2001),

Eine

Kopfgeldjagd. Deutsche in Ostafrika

, Berlin, esp. 185-197.

On claims for

returns in the Treaty

of Versailles see

↗ China ↗ Saudi

Arabia

Tanzania

15II. AFRICA

Tanzania in a grand ceremony in 1954, although whether or not this ob-

ject actually was the

Skull of Mkwawa

remains unclear.24

Alongside this case, hominid fossils have also played an important

role in the history of Tanzania’s claims for the return of cultural property.

The palaeoanthropologists Mary and Louis Leakey, for instance, had dis-

covered a fossilised skull of the extinct hominid Zinjathropous (‘

Nut-

cracker Man

’) in 1959 and taken it to Kenya when Louis Leakey became a

curator in the Coryndon Museum (today National Museum of Kenya). In

1965 the skull was to return, and it was presented to President Nyerere

and the National Museum of Tanzania. The ceremony in the National Mu-

seum was also ‘supposed to signal the movement of the bulk of Tanzani-

an fossils back to Dar es Salaam – the reclaiming of a national heritage

from the scientific dominance of their Kenyan neighbours’ as Amy Stani-

forth elaborates.25

While in the case of the Skull of Mkwawa the UK acted as Tanzania’s

advocate, urging the return not least in the interests of securing its own

rule, it had no interest in supporting the return of the

Nefertiti Bust

follow-

ing the Second World War. The bust is currently one of the most infamous

objects in a German museum.26 It was excavated by Ludwig Borchard in

Tell el-Amarna in 1912 and subsequently brought to Germany when the

archaeological finds were distributed. Soon after the Second World War

in 1946, the Egyptian ambassador contacted the British Foreign Office,

requesting the return of the bust with reference to earlier claims from the

1920s.27 The British Foreign Office passed the matter on to the Allied

Control Commission in Germany, which declined to support the claim,

however, as the bust had not been expropriated by Germany during the

last war but constituted an earlier case. While this argumentation was

similar to that made in the cases of Turkey or Nigeria, it differed dramati-

24 Alongside the skull, the Tooth of

Mkwawa

is also a controversial object. The

tooth was also brought to Germany under private ownership. Only in recent

years was it returned to a descendent of Chief Mkwawa. Its location seems to

have been unknown in Tanzania for a long time, which is why the negotiations

pertaining to the skull did not include the tooth. Hölzl, Richard (2017), ‘Auf der

Suche nach dem kulturellen Erbe von Iringa. Ein Gespräch über antikolonialen

Widerstand, Museen und Tourismus mit Jan Küver’, in:

Werkstatt Geschichte

75, 57-69.

25 For a video of the return, see Tanzania: Skull Of 1,750,000-Years-Old ‘Nut-

cracker Man’ Received By President Nyerere For National Museum 1965 on:

https:// www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVA99MJ3IUXEYURMINMP5NN-

P5QDD-91765 (accessed 29 September 2021). There had been voices

demanding the return since 1959, and in 1960 Leakey gave a replica to the

museum in Dar es Salaam. For the debate and negotiation around the return

see Staniforth, Amy (2009), ‘Returning Zinj: Curating Human Origins in

Twentieth-Century Tanzania’, in:

Journal of Eastern African Studies

, 3, 1, 153-173.

26 See Goldmann, Matthias (2019), ‘Alles nur geklaut? Zur Rolle juristischer

Provenienzforschung bei der Restitution kolonialer Kulturgüter’, in:

MPIL

Research Paper Series

, No. 2020-19, 14-20, Savoy, Bénédicte (2011), Nofretete:

Eine deutsch-französische Affäre 1912-1931. Köln.

27 Note from the Egyptian government, 14 April 1946, in: The National Archive, Kew,

TNA FO 371/53375. On the early history of the Egypt’s restitution claim, see

Deplat, Juliette, ‘The Nefrititi Affair: The History of a Repatriation Debate!’

https:// blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nefertiti-affair-history-repatriation-debate/

(accessed 29 September 2021).

Egypt

On claims for returns

following the Second

World War see

↗ Ethiopia ↗ New

Zealand ↗ Nigeria

↗ Tanzania ↗ Turkey

16II. AFRICA

cally from the statements presented to New Zealand, a country with

which the British enjoyed closer political ties within the Commonwealth.28

A large number of artefacts in western collections have been subject to

claims by Egypt, and some of them have since been returned. Most of

these claims were made beyond the temporal scope of this paper.29

Two restitution cases with very different points of departure will be

discussed in reference to Uganda. In 1961, before Uganda gained inde-

pendence in 1962, Abubakar Mayanja, the Ugandan Minister of Educa-

tion, visited his former place of study, the University of Cambridge. On

this occasion he asked the vice-chancellor of the university to return the

Kibuuka Relics

, religious objects from the cult around the god Kibuuka,

then located in the University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropolo-

gy, to Uganda. A year later, on the occasion of Ugandan independence,

the objects were handed over on permanent loan.30 In this case the ob-

jects in question were artefacts that the then Prime Minister, Apolo Kag-

wa, had entrusted to the museum during a journey to Cambridge in

1902.31 In his letter, Mayanja explained the doubt surrounding the ques-

tion as to whether Kagwa had had the right to give the relics away, while

also expressing gratitude that they had been well cared for in Cam-

bridge.32

Around a decade later, in 1972, the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Af-

fairs officially requested of the British Foreign Office to return the

Luz-

ira Head

together with its accompanying artefacts.33 This archaeologi-

cal object, found during construction work in 1929, is a terracotta head.

The torso as well as further pieces were also discovered during the same

excavation. In the absence of comparable finds, British archaeologists

at the time experienced difficulty in culturally identifying these works of

pottery. The

Luzira Head

and its accompanying objects had been pre-

28 Allied Control Authorities’ reply to the Egyptian government, 14 December 1946,

in: The National Archive, Kew, TNA FO 371/53375.

29 For example, the fragment of the

Beard of the Great Sphinx of Gizeh

, the return

of which was discussed in the 1980s, or the

Rosetta Stone or Cleopatra’s

Needle

, first officially claimed in 2003. On these cases see Greenfield (2013),

The Return

, 116-119. On the return of the

Amon Min Statue

to Egypt as ordered

by a French court in 1981, see ‘Return of Cultural Property’ (1985) in:

UNESCO

News

, 153, 4.

30 The artefacts are not described in more detail; see, however, Bennett, Alison

(2018), ‘Diplomatic Gifts: Rethinking Colonial Politics in Uganda through

Objects’, in:

History of Africa

45, 193-220.

31 On the giving of artefacts to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in

Cambridge see Hand, Rachel (2015), ‘Brass Necklet, Uganda’, in: Karen Jacobs,

Chantal Knowledge, Chris Wingfield (Eds.),

Trophies, Relics and Curios:

Missionary Heritage from Africa and the Pacific

, Leyden, 75-78.

32 He also wrote that the National Museum in Uganda would be in a position to

adequately accommodate the items; see Thomas, Nicholas (2016), T

he Return

of Curiosity: What Museums are Good for in the 21

Century

, London, 86-88.

Thomas also explains here that there was controversy within Uganda as to how

to best address the issue.

33 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kampala, Uganda to British High Commission,

Kampala, 22 March 1972: ‘This note is to request the British Government for the

return of the original Luzira Head, together with all the associated finds, to the

Uganda Government for preservation in the Uganda Museum’, in: The National

Archive, Kew, TNA FCO 31/1359.

Uganda

On claims for

returns in the

context of political

independence see

↗ Congo ↗ India/

Pakistan

↗ Indonesia

↗ Laos ↗ Myanmar

↗ Senegal ↗ Sri

Lanka

17II. AFRICA

sented to the British Museum by British archaeologists in 1933, and de-

spite a number of academic publications on the subject by British schol-

ars the find remained largely unknown in Uganda for a long time.34 In

1972 the United Kingdom categorically declined to return the pieces af-

ter consulting with the British Museum.35 This case can be considered in

two different contexts: first, Idi Amin had assumed power in Uganda via a

military coup in 1971. The claim for the return was made less than a year

after he had established rule, at which time international ties to the UK

were still cordial. But shortly after Uganda began to persecute its minor-

ities and nationalise British companies in the country, relations with the

UK deteriorated rapidly and the request was denied. Second, the early

1970s were a time in which the debate around restitution was enjoying

increasing international attention. To consider this claim in the context

of domestic cultural policy, the fact that Uganda undertook no further

attempts following the formal refusal could be explained as a result of

the decline in international relations. Archives in Uganda would have to

be consulted, however, in order to conclusively settle the matter. At the

same time, the request of 1972 also demonstrates that there must have

been previous negotiations regarding the object’s return: between 1939

and 1945 the British Museum had cast a replica of the Luzira Head and

offered it to the Uganda Museum. No replicas were cast, however, of the

accompanying objects, although the latter – according to the Ugandan

claim – were of great significance for further research.36

The cases of the

Kibuuka relics

and the

Luzira Head

objects dif-

fer, on the one hand, in that they were accommodated in their respec-

tive collections under different circumstances – in one case via a rep-

resentative of the country of origin, and in the other case via a British

archaeologist. It therefore seems all the more surprising that in the first

case the restitution was completed relatively smoothly while the second

case resulted in a categorical refusal on the part of the Foreign Office

and British Museum. On the other hand, the cases also differ in terms of

the ways in which the claims were made (the direct, personal request as

compared to a state-based claim). This raises the question as to wheth-

er direct, personal requests may be more likely to achieve the desired

effect in the case of smaller museums such as the Museum of Archae-

ology and Anthropology in Cambridge, rather than placing official claims

via state institutions as in the case of the British Museum, conceived of

as a universal museum and (still today) subject to many diverse restitu-

tion claims.

34 On the history of the find, see Reid, Andrew; Ashley, Ceri Z. (2008), ‘A Context

for the Luzira Head’, in:

Antiquity

82, 99-112, on attention given to the artefacts

within Uganda see 103, Andrew Reid, Ceri Z. Ashley (2008): ‘A reconsideration

of the figures from Luzira’, in:

Azania. Archaeological Research in Africa

43, 1,

95-123.

35 On the internal discussion see The National Archive, Kew, TNA FCO 31/1359.

36 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kampala, Uganda to British High Commission,

Kampala, 22 March 1972, in: The National Archive, Kew, TNA FCO 31/1359.

18II. AFRICA

West Africa

Claims for the return of objects in the course of decolonisation were also

addressed to France. Senegal declared its independence in 1960 and

only a year later the

Musée du Quai Branly

was called upon to return the

Sword of El Hadj Omar Tall

as well as other artefacts. Although France

initially rejected the claim37 the sword was returned to Senegal in 2019.38

A broad interpretation of colonial contexts would include Liberia

and the hitherto under-researched first example discussed in this paper:

the Mafue Stone. Liberia is one of the few regions in Africa that was not

colonised by European powers. In the early 19th century, freed slaves

from the USA settled in a region of West Africa that the Portuguese re-

ferred to as the Guinea Coast. In 1847 the country declared its independ-

ence, with African-American settlers dominating the local population. In

the early 1920s, documentary filmmaker Hans Schomburgk was travel-

ling through Liberia. According to his own account39 he purchased the

Mafue Stone from a Paramount Chief and sent it to Germany, where he

presented it to the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg (

Völkerkundemu-

seum Hamburg

) in 1924. The stone depicts a tailless alligator and is con-

sidered a religious artefact. It appears that, shortly afterwards, the Golo

Community, the previous owners of the stone, intervened via the Liberian

government. The result was that the Consul General, Momolu Mas-

saquoi, the official representative of the Liberian government in Germa-

ny, instituted legal proceedings against Schomburgk. He questioned

Schomburgk’s account as to how the stone had been acquired: ‘the

stone in question is a monument sacred to the memories of the ances-

tors of that section of Liberia where it was found. For centuries it has

been, and is still revered by the people of that section. It is not one man’s

property; but property of the entire country, nor can it, under the commu-

nistic law of that tribe, be sold by any one individual – not even excepting

the Paramount Chief.’40 The Consul General subsequently argued that

Schomburgk had paid a fee agreed upon with the Paramount Chief

merely to film the stone.

The lawsuit could not be ignored by Germany – unlike protests

from the local populations of the colonies or other faraway regions. The

police confiscated the stone, the German Foreign Office acted as arbi-

ter, and Hamburg traders sought to intervene. Alongside the political and

37 Example given in Foliard, Daniel (2018), ‘Les vies du ‘trésor de Ségou’‘, in:

Revue

Historique

, 4, 688, 869-898, here 889-890.

38 ‘France returns Omar Tall’s Sword to Senegal’, BBC News, 18 November 2019,

https:// www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50458081 (accessed 29 September

2021). Sarr, Felwine; Savoy, Bénédicte (2021), ‘Eine protokollarische Herausfor-

derung’, in: Merten Lagatz, Bénédicte Savoy, Philippa Sissis with Simon Lindner

(Eds.),

Beute. Ein Bildatlas zu Kunstraub und Kulturerbe

, Berlin, 356-359.

39 See for the response and other matters of interest: Liberian Consulate-General,

Hamburg, to Senate Committee for Foreign Affairs, Hamburg, 11 June 1924, in:

Hamburg State Archive, 132-1 I_2498.

40 Liberian Consulate-General, Hamburg to Senate Committee for Foreign Affairs,

Hamburg, 11 June 1924. Hamburg State Archives, 132-1 I_2498.

Senegal

Liberia

On claims for returns

via lawsuits see

↗ China ↗ Colombia

↗ USA

On returns by private

individuals see

↗ Nigeria ↗ Sri Lanka

↗ USA

19II. AFRICA

economic considerations, the case also had a personal dimension.

While Schomburgk was not strictly averse to returning the artefact, he

was anxious that doing so might be interpreted as an admission of guilt,

which would have damaged his reputation. At the time he was one of the

most important conveyors of knowledge about Africa in Germany on ac-

count of his work as an author, touring lecturer and documentary film-

maker, and as newspapers were already reporting on the matter he was

concerned for his good name. Eventually, Schomburgk and Liberia’s law-

yers agreed to a settlement that would allow the object to be returned

and permitting replicas of the stone to be cast while clearing Schom-

burgk of any deliberate malice.41

The following case from West Africa concerns the then German

colony of Togo. Hans Gruner reports that, during the ‘Togo Hinterland

Expedition’ of 1894/95, two of his soldiers found a robber’s lair and re-

turned the stolen goods to their various owners, as far as they could be

identified. Gruner allowed the soldiers, however, to keep two Sultan

Robes as a ‘reward’. During subsequent talks between Gruner and the

sultan, the latter demanded that the robes be returned; he had present-

ed them to two of his ‘greatest’ as ‘awards’ and ‘rank insignia’. At first

Gruner refused but later offered a compromise: the robes would be re-

turned if the soldiers were offered appropriate compensation. Ultimately,

this was the reason why the robes were not returned.42

This incident is instructive from a number of perspectives. First,

it illustrates that during the colonial era persons of authority demand-

ed the return of objects that had been appropriated by representatives

of the colonial power. Second, Gruner’s descriptions demonstrate a dis-

crepancy in legal concepts: Gruner saw no legal or moral transgression

in withholding the sultan robes. Rather, he criticises the complaint or

claim made by the sultan as a violation of the ‘good customs of the in-

digenous people’ which frown upon business or legal affairs being dis-

cussed during courtesy calls; typical, Gruner claimed, ‘of the insolent

manner in which individual indigenous rulers seek to satisfy the inter-

ests of their key players even at the expense of their contractual obliga-

tions’.43 Sources depicting the other side of the story would be helpful for

contextualisation purposes, particularly for cases where protests were

voiced shortly after the expropriation of cultural artefacts but were ig-

nored or negated by the colonial rulers.

41 Transcript: Civilian cases, Hamburg State Court 10, 8 December 1924. Hamburg

State Archives 132-1 I_2498. One replica is in what is now the MARKK (

Museum

am Rothenbaum – Kulturen und Künste der Welt

), Hamburg, and another is in

the Berlin Museum of Ethnology (

Ethnologisches Museum

42 Quoted from: Gruner, Hans (1997),

Vormarsch zum Niger. Die Memoiren des

Leiters der Togo -Hinterlandexpedition 1894/95

, ed. and introduced by Peter

Sebald, Berlin, 359, 369-370. The incident is also described in: Riesz, János

(2009), ‘Der Bericht des Arztes Dr. Richard Doering (1868–1939) über seine

Teilnahme an der Togo-Hinterland-Expedition von 1894–1895’, in: Katharina

Inhetveen, Georg Klute (Eds.),

Begegnungen und Auseinandersetzungen

, Köln,

533–555, here 543. Many thanks to Eva Künkler for bringing this case to my

attention.

43 Gruner (1997),

Vormarsch

. Riesz (2009), ‘Der Bericht’, 543.

On claims for returns

around the time of

expropriation see

↗ Botswana ↗ Congo

↗ Namibia ↗ Nigeria

Tog o

20II. AFRICA

Nigeria, with its claim for the

Benin Bronzes

, is a prominent case in

the ongoing restitution debate. It should not be forgotten, however, that

Nigeria can look back on a long history of restitution claims, some of

which have been successful.44

The first case described here is an example of a return in the direct

context of the dispossession of cultural artefacts. When German ethnol-

ogist Leo Frobenius conducted an expedition in Nigeria in 1910, the

bronze Olokun Head had already caught his interest during the prepara-

tions. During his stay in the Yoruba area of southern Nigeria he learned

that the head was in the possession of a local priest. Frobenius initiated

negotiations and purchased the Olokun Head for a small sum; the priest

was planning to deconsecrate the head in a ritual. The next day, however,

the priest expressed concern that he had sold something that had not

belonged to him. Frobenius took the Olokun Head, promising to have a

replica made.45 As historian Glenn Penny has argued, however, what was

later referred to in the literature as the ‘Olokun Affair’ was essentially not

the conflict between Frobenius and the previous owners, but rather the

dispute between Frobenius and the British colonial powers. Following

the sale of the object, the local population reported to the British author-

ities that Frobenius had purloined religious artefacts without the consent

of the population, including, most controversially, the bronze

Olokun

Head

. The British authorities summoned Frobenius back to Ife, called

him before an improvised court and compelled him to return a number of

artefacts. The British reports describe Frobenius’ behaviour as ‘uncoop-

erative’, ‘dishonest’ and ‘at times childish’. Frobenius gave a rather differ-

ent account: the incident, he said, was caused by a translation error on

the part of his assistant, as well as the envy and resentment of Charles

Partridge, the local British representative. He interpreted the situation

not only as an obstruction to his work but also as an attack on the scien-

tific community. German newspapers, museum directors and both Ger-

man and British politicians became involved in the dispute – which, it ap-

pears, grew deaf to contributions from local voices.46

44 On this see also Tuggar, Yusuf M. (1 April 2021), ‘Afrikas Kulturschätze müssen

zurückkehren. Seit fünfzig Jahren fordert Nigeria die Restitution der geraubten

Benin-Bronzen’, in:

FAZ

, 13. Here, the republic’s ambassador reports on the past

fifty years of restitution claims.

45 Fagg, William; Underwood, Leon (1947), ‘An Examination of the So-Called

‘Olokun’ Head of Ife, Nigeria’, in: MAN 49, 1-7. Description based on Leo

Frobenius’ reports. See also Hellman, Amanda (2013), ‘A Continuation of the

German-British Rivalry in Nigeria: The Case of Leo Frobenius’, in: Amanda

Hellman,

Developing the Colonial Museum Project in British Nigeria

, George-

town, 44-48.

46 Penny, Glenn (2002),

Objects of Culture. Ethnology and Ethnographic Museums

in Imperial Germany

, Chapel Hill, 115-123. Other reports claim that Frobenius

apologised or was compelled to apologise, ibid., 116. It is striking that Ekpo Eyo

mentions the incident in the introduction to the exhibition ‘Treasures of Ancient

Nigeria’ but does not do so in his later article providing an overview of African

restitution claims: Eyo, Ekpo (1980), ‘Introduction’, in: Ekpo Eyo, Frank Willett

(Eds.),

Treasures of Ancient Nigeria

, New York, 3-23, here: 11. Eyo, Ekpo (1996),

‘Repatriation of Cultural Heritage: The African Experience’, in: Flora Kaplan (Ed.):

Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’: The Role of Objects in National

Nigeria

On restitution claims

around the time of

expropriation, see

↗ Botswana ↗ Congo

↗ Namibia ↗ Togo

21II. AFRICA

At the forefront of the claims, however, we find artefacts that were

purloined during a British ‘punitive expedition’ to Benin in 1897. A very

early restitution case has been analysed by Audrey Peraldi: when the

British Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Plymouth, trav-

elled through Nigeria in 1935, Oba Akenzua II asked for this support with

the recovery of two

stools

that had been expropriated in 1897. Research

as to the location of the stools led Plymouth to the Royal Museum of Eth-

nology, Berlin (

Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde

). The museum was

not willing to return the original stools; an agreement was reached, how-

ever, by which replicas would be produced and sent to Nigeria. It is im-

portant to note here that each of the two replicas had an inscription add-

ed to its base: ‘Oba Akenzua II. Replica of Oba Esigie’s Stool. 1897 Benin

Expedition war trophy now in the State Museum in Berlin’ and ‘Oba Aken-

zua II. Replica of Oba Eresoyen’s Stool. 1897 Benin Expedition war trophy

now in the State Museum in Berlin’. In 1939 the replicas were transported

to Nigeria at the expense of the British embassy.47 Parallel to this pro-

cedure a number of private returns took place, such as

coral beads and

crowns

as well as a

tunic of coral beads

to Oba Akenzua II by G. M. Miller,

whose father had acquired the objects during the ‘punitive expedition’ of

1897.48 And in 1957 Josephine Walker, widow of Captain Herbert Suther-

land Walker, donated a

six-foot ivory tusk

to the Museum at Jos, Nigeria,

that her husband had acquired during the ‘Benin punitive expedition’ –

this inspired Mark Walker, grandson of Josephine Walker, to return other

objects in 2014.49

After the Second World War and the establishment of the Antiqui-

ties Service, Nigeria’s efforts towards recovering artefacts became more

systematic. The first significant case was that of the

Ife Bronze

s, which

US-American William Bascom had removed from the country during a

research expedition in 1938. The matter was also debated on an official

level from 1946. Kenneth Murray, Head of the Antiquities Service, ad-

dressed the requests for return to the US State Department, but despite

several years of correspondence the endeavour ultimately proved un-

successful in 1948. When Bascom undertook a further expedition to Ni-

geria in 1950, however, he returned both the controversial

Ife Bronzes

This instance is especially significant given that Bascom was one of the

leading experts on Yoruba culture and society, and the return of the ob-

jects reflected on his reputation. It was therefore important to Bascom to

Identity

, London, 330-350.

47 For a description, including details on the sources, see Peraldi, Audrey (2017),

‘Oba Akenzua II’s Restitution Requests’, in: Kunst & Kontext 1, 23-33.

48 Plankensteiner, Barbara (2016), ‘The Benin Treasures: Difficult Legacy and

Contested Heritage’, in: Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin, Lyndel V. Prott (Eds.),

Cultural

Property and Contested Ownership: The Trafficking of Artefacts and the Quest

for Restitution

, London, 133-155, here 139.

49 Layiwola, Peju (27 July 2014), ‘Walker and the Restitution of two Benin Bronzes’,

in:

Premium Times Nigeria

, https:// www.premiumtimesng.com/entertain-

ment/165632-walker-and-the-restitution-of-two-benin-bronzes-by-peju-layiwola.

html (accessed 29 September 2021). Van Beurden (2017), Treasures, 214, 216.

On returns made by

private individuals

see ↗ Liberia

↗ Sri Lanka ↗ USA

22II. AFRICA

have Murray confirm his innocence when exporting the artefacts: that

his motivation had been to merely raise public awareness of Ife art.50

In the post-war period until the 1970s, Nigeria also purchased a

number of artefacts originating from the Kingdom of Benin – the Brit-

ish spoils of the 1897 war. These objects were part of the collections of

Admiral Rawson (1948, 1951), Robert Allman (1953), and William Oldman

(1949). Some of these acquisitions came from the British Museum in

London which resold some objects to Nigeria. All in all, the British Mu-

seum sold thirty Benin artefacts between 1949 and 1972, using the rev-

enue to purchase new objects, and additionally donated some as gifts.51

One of these sales requires closer examination. In 1909 anthropol-

ogist Charles Seligman, a professor at Oxford, purchased and presented

to the British Museum a number of artefacts that had been acquired in

Benin during the 1897 expedition. One of these was a 16th-century mask

that later became known as the

Mask of Queen Idia

or the

FESTAC‘77

Mask

; a further mask remained in his possession. At the end of the

1950s his widow, Brenda Seligman, wished to sell the mask.52 In Jan-

uary 1958, Kenneth Murray, Surveyor of Antiquities, Nigeria, contacted

Nelson A. Rockefeller to ask whether the latter knew that the

Seligman

Mask

was for sale. He said that it had been offered to Nigeria (for 20,000

pounds sterling) but that Nigeria could not afford to pay such a high price

for a single object. He suggested that Rockefeller purchase the mask in

order to then donate it to Nigeria: ‘In view of past history I feel that the

‘Whiteman’ should do all possible to help to bring back to the countries

of West Africa such very important specimens of art as this ivory’, wrote

Murray.53 The proposal seemed realistic in that Rockefeller was interest-

50 Hellman, Amanda (2013), ‘William Bascom and the Ife Heads’, in: Amanda

Hellman,

Developing the Colonial Museum Project in British Nigeria

, George-

town, 66-74. On the controversy surrounding awareness of the fact that Bascom

was exporting the artefacts, see also: Tignor, Robert L. (1990), ‘W.R. Bascom and

the Ife Bronzes’, in:

Afrika

60, 3, 425-434. Ottenberg, Simon (1994), ‘Further

Light on W.R. Bascom and the Ife Bronzes’, in:

Afrika

64, 4, 561-568. See also

Eyo, Ekpo (1979), ‘Nigeria’, in:

Museum

, 18-21.

51 Here, Ekpo Eyo emphasises the cooperation with William Fagg, British Museum,

and writes that Nigeria ceased purchasing Benin artefacts at the end of the

1960s due to the dramatic rise in the market prices. Eyo, Ekpo (1979), ‘Nigeria’,

in:

Museum

, 18-21. For a list of transactions carried out by the British Museum,

including the sales and gifts to Nigeria, see Lundén, Steffan (2016),

Displaying

Loot: The Benin Objects and the British Museum

, Göteburg, 436-441. See also:

Plankensteiner, ‘The Benin Treasures’, 138. The repurchasing activities seem,

however, to have been resumed at a later date, as suggested in Savoy’s reports

of auctions during the 1980s in which Nigeria was among the bidders: Savoy

(2021),

Afrikas Kampf

, 142-144. Opoku, Kwame (2008), ‘The Absence of a Formal

Demand for Restitution A Ground For Non-Restitution?’, in: Modern Ghana, 14

April 2008 https:// www.modernghana.com/news/162530/is-the-absence-of-a-

formal-demand-for-restitution.html (accessed 29 September 2021).

52 On this, see also Phillips, Barnaby (2021),

Loot. Britain and the Benin Bronzes

London, esp. chap. 15. Phillips also explains here that Murray was first consider-

ing whether the richest Nigerians could each contribute a financial donation

with which the mask could then be purchased; later he requested funds from

Shell, without success.

53 Murray to Rockefeller, 3 January 1958, Rockefeller Archive, Folder 1652. My

thanks to Bethany J. Antos, Rockefeller Archive.

23II. AFRICA

ed in purchasing the mask for the Museum for Primitive Art, New York,

and was also a strong financial supporter of museum activities in West

Africa. When Rockefeller nevertheless declined the suggestion, Murray

once again appealed to his sense of altruism: ‘It would have been a ges-

ture which might have had considerable repercussions in convincing Af-

ricans of the genuineness of the whiteman’s claim to altruism’. He also

emphasised that Bascom had been convinced to return artefacts in the

past.54

This case is best considered in the context of the great debate

around the

FESTAC’77 Mask

. FESTAC’77 was the Second World Black

and African Festival of Art and Culture, planned in Nigeria in 1977. Before

the event, Nigeria had requested the restitution or loan of the

Mask of

Queen Idia

of the British Museum, which was declined. As a result, the

mask became a symbol of post-colonial restitution demands. Even if the

Mask of Queen Idia

in the British Museum is given a certain prominence

in current debates, it is comparable to the

Seligman Mask

not only with

regard to its artistic or cultural value but also given that both masks have

the same provenance.55

Nigeria continued its efforts towards the return of artefacts even

after it had ceased purchasing objects as of 1970. This activity entered a

new phase in 1968 when Ekpo Eyo took over the Department of Antiqui-

ties. A Nigerian now occupied this position for the first time since Murray,

and this fact raised awareness of restitution issues on an international

level.56

The seizure, destruction and depredation of the city of Kumasi by

British troops in 1874 during the Third Anglo-Ashanti War constitutes an

event of Ghanaian history that in many aspects can be considered com-

parable to the ‘punitive expedition’ against Benin of 1897. While the re-

turn of the Benin Bronzes is still the subject of intense debate today, the

possible return of the

Ashanti Gold

, expropriated by the British in a sim-

ilar context, has received far less attention. While no protests are known

54 Murray to Rockefeller, 31 January 1958, in: Rockefeller Archive Center, New York

Folder 1652. On the later purchase by Rockefeller see Linné, S. (1958), ‘Master-

piece of Primitive Art’, in:

Ethnos

23, 2, 172-174, in which Linné emphasises the

value of the mask and reports that it fetched ‘the highest sum ever paid for an

ethnographical object’. This was not the only example where Murray sought to

acquire an object or a group of objects at great expense. In 1946 he wrote to the

British Colonial Office describing Nigeria’s need for the return of objects and

ability to preserve them. Germany, on the other hand, had extensive Nigerian

collections and it should be explored to what extent objects from these

collections could be transferred to Nigeria. He added an extensive list of

collections and museums in German-speaking countries. This attempt failed.

See Murray to Carstairs, 8 July 1945, in: TNA.

55 On the valuation of the

Seligman Mask

see Fagg, William (1957), ‘The Seligman

Ivory Mask from Benin’, in: MAN 57, 113 and Plate J. For a classification of the

FESTAC’77 Mask

see the object description by the British Museum:

AF1910,0513.1 https:// www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1910-0513-1

(accessed 29 September 2021).

56 See Plankensteiner: ‘The Benin Treasures’ 141; cf. also Eyo, Ekpo (1996), ‘Repatri-

ation of Cultural Heritage: The African Experience’, in: Flora Kaplan (Ed.):

Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’: The Role of Objects in National

Identity

, London, 330-350. On further purchases after 1970 see FN 51.

Ghana

24II. AFRICA

to historians from the time when the cultural property was purloined, the

discussion around cultural artefacts between Ghana and the UK began

during the independence era.57

In this context, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Alan Len-

nox-Boyd, proposed returning a Golden Mask to Ghana – unsuccessful-

ly, due to a lack of support from the other ministries.58 More concrete

was the issue of the return of objects during Queen Elizabeth II’s state

visit to Ghana in 1961: She presented five Ashanti objects to President

Nkrumah for Museums in Ghana (two chairs, two stools and an umbrella).

Prior to the state visit in 1961, various restitution requests were

voiced by Labour MP Tom Driberg. He had learned during a trip to Ghana

that Ghana did not possess a complete collection of Gold Coast Stamps

and proposed that the Queen present the missing stamps during her

next state visit; due to the costs, amongst other reasons, the idea was

not realised, however. Like the first case, the matter can only be recon-

structed here using the British records and so it remains unclear wheth-

er this wish was also expressed by the Ghanaian government. The

second Driberg case is considerably more instructive. In a museum in

Ghana (probably Accra), Driberg had seen a

bronze jug

that was obvi-

ously a replica; the original was in the British Museum in London. Driberg

proposed that the objects be exchanged. What makes this case particu-

larly interesting is that the artefact was a jug from 14th-century England

that had probably previously been in a collection in Kumasi, from where

it was then brought back to England after the city was sacked. While the

acquisition history remains unexplained it is conceivable that it was a

gift or object of exchange of European travellers or diplomats. And al-

though the context in which the replica was made is equally unknown,

its production and exhibition demonstrates the interest of the museum

in these artefacts. Inquiries were made but any possible return or ex-

change proved impossible due to formidable resistance from the British

Museum’s curator. The case is notable in that the discussion pertains not

to the return of an artefact produced in Ghana but of a European object

that was part of the Kumasi collection before the city was sacked by Brit-

ish troops.59

57 One stool and the umbrella were looted in Kumasi; the stool was presented to

Edward VII (Prince of Wales); the umbrella was displayed at the Kensington

Museum. The other chair as well as the stool were presented to Queen Victoria

after a military campaign 1896. Both have plates stating ‘This chair belonged to

King Prempeh of Ashanti’. It is unknown if the objects are still in the National

Museum, Accra. There are also Objects in a museum in Kumasi that house

objects brought back by Queen Elisabeth II during a state visit. Personal

correspondence of the author with the Stella Panayotova/Royal Library, 16

March 2021 and Boakye Bua, Francis (1995), ‘Community Initiative & National

Support at the Asante Cultural Centre, Ghana’, in: Claude Daniel Ardouin,

Emmanuel Arinze (Eds.),

Museum & the Community in West Africa

, London,

105-112.

58 Memorandum in The National Archive, Kew, TNA FCO 65/1335.

59 Further information about the case can be found in The National Archive, Kew,

TNA DO 195/60.

On returns in the

course of state

visits see ↗ China

↗ Ethiopia

↗ Indonesia

25II. AFRICA

In the 1970s, a public discussion began around the return of cul-

tural property to Ghana. One of the earliest claims that can be found in

British records is a case concerning the report on the opening of the

West African Historical Museum at Cape Coast Castle, Ghana, in 1972.

In the opening speech, the director of the Ghana Museum and Monu-

ments Board, Kwesi Myles,60 and the Central Regional Commissioner,

Commander J. K. Amedume, both appealed to the UK to return arte-

facts removed from the country during the colonial era – the UK having,

they noted, a ‘special responsibility’ in this regard.61 The British present

at the opening ceremony reported this to London but otherwise the in-

cident was ignored. It was not until 1974, on the 100th anniversary of the

sack of Kumasi (and beyond the timeframe covered by this paper) that

the then Asantehene, Otumfuo Nana Opoku Ware II, reclaimed

Ashanti

Regalia

via the Ghanaian government. These claims for restitution were

discussed in various newspapers. Even though the actual objective – the

recovery of the objects – was unsuccessful, the claim resulted in a coop-

eration and an exhibition, some years later, on ‘Asante: Kingdom of Gold’

in the Museum of Mankind/British Museum, London.62

Central Africa

Congo/Zaire also plays an important part in the history of restitution

claims. Mobuto Sese Seko put the restitution discourse on the internati-

onal agenda with his speech before the UN in 1973, thus initiating de-

velopments that would lead to the return of artefacts for years to come.63

In this respect, his speech can be contextualised within a longer history

of restitution claims.

Maarten Couttenier has traced the history of a wooden statue that

belonged to Ne Kuko, one of the ‘nine great chiefs of Boma’ in the west

of nowadays DR Congo. The statue was brought to Belgium in 1883 by

its ‘collector’, Belgian officer Alexandre Delcommune, where it entered

the collection of the Royal Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren, as a ‘gift’

with inventory number 7943. The statue was acquired in a context of vio-

lence. During warlike conflicts in 1878, Delcommune’s troops advanced

against Kikukku in eastern Boma, amongst other targets. Delcommune

ordered his men to set fire to the first houses they came across, and the

60 Myles wrote a review of the museum holdings in Ghana for UNESCO in 1981 in

which he also listed collections located abroad in order to promote returns or

restitutions. See Myles, Kwesi (1981),

Study of the Situation in Ghana

, CC.81/

Conf.203/8.

61 Cook to Baker (WAD, FCO), 8 January 1974, in: The National Archive, Kew, TNA

FCO 65/1503.

62 Opoku Ware II to Her Majesty’s Government, The Ghana Government, The

British High Commissioner in Ghana for onwards transmission, 2 January 1974,

in: The National Archive, Kew, TNA FCO 65/1503. See also:

Centenary of the

Sargrenti War: The Call for the Return of the Asante Regalia

, brochure issued by

the Centenary Committee, 1974.

63 Savoy refers to the event as the ‘birth’ of the international restitution debate.

Savoy (2020),

Afrikas Kampf

, 45.

Congo/Zaire

On claims for returns

around the time of

expropriation see

↗ Botswana

↗ Namibia ↗ Nigeria

↗ Togo

26II. AFRICA

inhabitants fled. They left behind – according to Delcommune’s records

– amongst other items a ‘big war fetish’, which he described as ‘one of

the most reputed idols of the whole region’. He referred to the statue as

a ‘hostage, even, more important than a human hostage’.64 The first de-

mand for the return thus took place around the time when the cultural

property was expropriated. It was during a subsequent meeting ( palaver),

that the previous owner, Ne Kuko, first demanded the return of the stat-

ue from Delcommune. While the latter insisted that the statue belonged

to him as ‘booty’, he did agree to negotiate a ransom (

raachat

) at a later

date. This, however, never took place.

The second phase of claims began in the context of the independ-

ence movement. Sarah van Beurden has analysed in detail the relation-

ship between Congo/Zaire and Belgium, or between Congo/Zaire and

the Africa Museum in Tervuren, providing insight as to the discussions

around the returns of ethnographic artefacts and art.65 In April 1960, be-

fore independence, the journal

Notre Kongo

(Our Congo) discussed the

extent to which Belgium was the rightful owner of Congolese cultural

property and inquired as to whether it would perhaps be a logical con-

sequence of political independence to reclaim their national heritage.

Although there was already a discussion on the matter at this stage, Bel-

gium was anxious to keep the discourse separate from the independ-

ence negotiations. Lucien Cahen, director of the museum at Tervuren,

considered his institution a ‘custodian of Congolese art’ and suggest-

ed as a rhetorical strategy to refer to the issue as ‘cultural collaboration’

rather than ‘restitution’.66 After Mobotu came to power in 1966, howev-

er, relations between the two countries deteriorated.67 The exhibition ti-

tled

Art of the Congo

, held in Baltimore, New York, Dallas, Milwaukee and

Montreal between 1967 and 1969 can be described as the next step in

matters of restitution. Mobuto Sese Seko demanded the return of 200

artefacts that were exhibited there, including the statue belonging to Ne

Kuko. While Belgium was willing to return objects to the Congo/Zaire,

the list of items in question was altered several times and ultimately this

statue was not returned.68 The fact that the artefacts were returned at a

much later date can also be attributed to Cahen, who delayed address-

ing the restitution claims by categorising them as cooperation and for-

eign aid. He questioned whether the Congo/Zaire possessed sufficient

infrastructure to accommodate the artefacts. As a result, a bilateral trea-

ty of 1971 initially stipulated the establishment of an Institute of National

64 Couttenier, Maarten (2018), ‘EO.O.0.7943’, in:

BMGN - Low Countries Historical

Review

133, 79-90, here 85.

65 Van Beurden, Sarah (2015),

Authentically African: Arts and Transnational Politics

of Congolese Culture

, Athens.

66 See van Beurden, Sarah (2015), ‘Restitution or Cooperation? Competing Visions

of Post-Colonial Cultural Development’, in:

Africa Global Cooperation Research

Papers

12, 8-12.

67 Van Beurden writes that Mobuto’s predecessors, Lumumba and Kasavubu, had

already made several restitution claims, on which Mobutu’s activities were

based. Van Beurden (2017),

Treasures

, 182.

68 Couttenier (2018), ‘EO.O.0.7943’.

On claims for returns in

the context of political

independence see

↗ India/Pakistan

↗ Indonesia ↗ Laos

↗ Myanmar ↗ Senegal

↗ Sri Lanka ↗ Uganda

27II. AFRICA

Museums. After protracted negotiations, the first artefacts were sent in

1976 and, by 1982, the museum in Tervuren had returned 1,042 objects to

the Congo/Zaire.69

Southern Africa

Namibia has made headlines in the area of restitution claims, especially

in recent years. The return of Hendrik Witbooi’s

Bible and Whip

as well as

the

Stone Cross of Cape Cross

are two examples of most recent returns

in the post-colonial context.70 The history of claims for objects from this

region, however, is considerably older. Reports, diaries and the corres-

pondence of travellers in the then German colony of German South-

West Africa provide examples of protests against the dispossession of

cultural property and human remains either at the time of or shortly after

the artefacts were purloined. Some of their descriptions of these events

– written from the coloniser perspective – are strikingly and uncritically

direct. The German Waldemar Belck participated in an expedition in

1884 in order to document resources in the German colony. He reports

on how, in December 1884, he ‘collected’ human remains and in doing

so desecrated graves, removing the skeleton of Jacobus Hendrick as

well as two others. This did not go unnoticed by the local population;

Hendrick’s daughter, whose name is unrecorded, confronted Belck and

demanded the return of the remains. According to records, Belck felt

compelled to return to her a skull; sources suggest, however, that the

skull returned was not that of Hendrick. This case of grave desecration

for the purpose of collecting skeletal material for racial research seems

to have become publicly known and shows how the local population, at

least in some cases, not only demanded returns but also exerted suffi-

cient pressure to obtain them, even if they – in this case the daughter of

69 Van Beurden (2015), ‘Restitution or Cooperation?’, 12-18. Ne Kuko’s statue was

not exhibited in the permanent exhibition in Tervuren again until 2007. It was

also used for international exhibitions. A third claim was made of Maarten

Couttenier during a research field trip in 2016 by Chief Alphonse Baku Kapita,

a descendent of Ne Kuko – in order that the artefact resume its ritual function

within the society. Couttenier (2018), ‘EO.O.0.7943’ and ‘Catalogue Number

EO.0.0.7943. A Story about Restitution’ (December 2020): https:// www.

africamuseum.be/de/discover/history_articles/EO.0.0.7943 (accessed 29

September 2021). This artefact thus tells the story in three chapters

(1878/1973/2012) of the restitution claim by the previous owners made to the

‘collector’, by Zaire’s Head of State to Belgium, and by a descendent of the

previous owner to a representative of the holding museum.

70 See Kößler, Reinhart (2019), ‘Die Bibel und die Peitsche. Verwicklungen um die

Rückgabe geraubter Güter’, in:

Peripherie

1, 1, 78-87. The German Historical

Museum (

Deutsches Historisches Museum

) in Berlin organised an international

symposium in 2018 on the return of the Stone Cross of Cape Cross of which

some of the contributions can be viewed on Youtube: https://www.dhm.de/

besuch/veranstaltungen/tagungen-und-symposien/archiv/die-saeule-von-

cape-cross/ (accessed 29 September 2021).

Namibia

On claims for returns

around the time of

expropriation see

↗ Botswana ↗ Congo

↗ Nigeria ↗ Togo

28II. AFRICA

the deceased – had no way of verifying that the correct remains had

been recovered.71

The Swiss Hans Schinz was another ‘collector’ of human remains

in the colony of German South-West Africa around the same time. His

journey can be traced through the diary entries and letters edited by Dag

Henrichsen. Schinz desecrated a burial site of the Ndonga Kings, in the

course of which he also chopped pieces off a ‘sacred stone’.72 This inci-

dent also attracted attention and the Ndonga elite demanded the return

of the human remains as well as the stone fragments. Schinz was com-

pelled to pay a sum in compensation and to return the human remains.

Like Belck, however, he deceived the Ndonga by keeping a skull and

a piece of stone.73 The incident led not only to further internal conflict

among the Ndonga; it was also reported in Switzerland, where the ar-

tefacts and remains were transported. While the newspapers criticised

Schinz’ actions, they also praised him as a ‘martyr of science’ because

of the risks he had taken. The examples of Belck and Schinz suggest that

relevant ‘collector practices’ such as grave robbery were not only known

in Europe but also subject to moral and legal critique – at least from a

number of European observers. Nevertheless, the ‘scientific’ benefits

were still valued more highly than the critique of the practices by which

the artefacts were ‘collected’.

Bleck, Schinz, or Gruner in Togo are three examples that show how

examples of direct protest against the dispossession of cultural property

or the deprivation of human remains can be found between the lines of

materials in colonial archives, despite the fact that in these cases the

voices of representatives of the societies of origin are merely percepti-

ble through the texts of colonists. It is much more difficult to find direct

records of African perspectives or bodies of knowledge. In many cases

no official records were archived in the European tradition. Historians

are therefore reliant on kinds of sources and different approaches.

Anette Hoffmann adopts an instructive approach in this regard:

During her work in the Berlin Audio Archives she came across a record-

ing of the voice of a San man named |Kxara. Austrian ethnologist Ru-

dolf Pöch had asked |Kxara for permission to record him speaking freely

71 On this case see: Förster, Larissa; Henrichsen, Dag; Stoecker, Holger; Eichab,

Hans (2018), ‘Re-Individualising Human Remains from Namibia: Colonialism,

Grave Robbery and Intellectual History’, in:

Human Remains & Violence

4, 2,

45-66. Henrichsen, Dag (2020), ‘Demands for Restitution – A Recent Phenome-

non? Early Histories for Human Remains Violation in Namibia’, in:

Contemporary

Journal of African Studies

7, 1, 38-46.

72 Schinz mentions three stones. One was in the settlement (‘Werft’) and was being

used for mundane purposes; Schinz was given permission to chop a piece off.

He chopped off two pieces – without permission – from a ‘mysterious stone’. In

his diary, Schinz writes clearly that the place was ‘taboo’. See Schinz’ letter to

his mother of 13 March 1886 and the relevant diary entry: Schinz, Hans (2012),

Bruchstücke. Forschungsreisen in Deutsch-Südwestafrika

, ed. by Dag Henrich-

sen, Basel, 92-102, FN227, 142-143. On the incident see also Henrichsen (2020),

‘Demands’. The collectors were well aware that their actions were not in line with

moral and legal standards, as is illustrated in the case study by Eugen Mansfeld

(ibid.).

73 It is not clear from the records which fragment of stone he kept.

Bechuanaland

Protectorate /

nowadays

Botswana

29II. AFRICA

during his visit to the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1908. Pöch was in-

terested in the flow and melody of his speech rather than the content.

|Kxara took the opportunity to demand the return of a knife that he had

lent Pöch a month earlier. More than half a dozen times the words ‘Give

me my knife back’ appear in the transcript of the recording. This can be

inter preted as contemporary criticism of Pöch’s practices with regard to

the ethnographic artefacts that he acquired, most of which he presented

to the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna (today

Weltmuseum Wien

).74

These example cases unveil how articulations of claims for return

or restitution can be identified in historical documents such as travel re-

ports, diaries and similar materials. The example of the analysis of audio

material in particular demonstrates the possibilities available, including

to the former colonial powers, to extend the source base. Of the utmost

importance, however, is the inclusion of archives of the formerly colo-

nised, not only in order to identify hitherto unresearched cases but also

to expand research on known cases to include new perspectives.

74 In Hoffmann, Anette (2020), K

olonialgeschichte hören. Das Echo gewaltsamer

Wissensproduktion in historischen Tondokumenten aus dem südlichen Afrika

Vienna, see especially ‘|Kxara der Ältere fordert sein Messer zurück. Kritik an

Praktiken der Aneignung in Historischen Tonaufnahmen’, 137-158.

On claims for returns

around the time of

expropriation see

↗ Congo ↗ Namibia

↗ Nigeria ↗ Togo

III. Asia

West Asia

As mentioned above, the Paris Peace Treaties after the First World War

stipulated the return of certain artefacts. Article 246 of the treaty speci-

fied alongside the return of the

Skull

Sultan Mkwawa

to Tanzania (see

above), a further return to the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz (today part of

Saudi Arabia). The British delegation at Versailles demanded that, within

six months, Germany ‘return to His Majesty the King of Hejaz the original

Koran that belonged to Caliph Osman and was removed from Medina by

the Turkish authorities in order to be presented as a gift to the former

Kaiser Wilhelm II’. This claim was based on the testimony of Sharif

Hussein of Mecca, who stated that the Koran had been given to the Ger-

man Kaiser by Sultan Ottoman. In January 1920, Germany officially an-

nounced that the Koran had never been presented to the German Kaiser

and indeed was not in Germany. This article of the Treaty of Versailles

thus remained unfulfilled.75

Another example that can be broadly interpreted in a colonial con-

text is that of a claim from the Ottoman Empire, later Turkey, which re-

mained unresolved for almost one hundred years. In the early twentieth

century, the German Archaeological Institute had excavated, amongst

other objects, 10,000

cuneiform

tablets

as well as two Hittite statues of

Stone Sphinxes

close to Boğazköy in the Ottoman Empire. In 1917 it was

decided that these would be brought to Germany for documentation and

restauration and subsequently sent back. Although a few tablets were in-

deed returned in the years following, only the sphinx that was in better

condition was returned; the other remained in Berlin. In 1938, Turkey de-

manded for the first time, without success, the return of the sphinx from

the Pergamon Museum where it was located.76 Germany did not return

75 On the claims, see Goldstein, Erik (2019), ‘Cultural Heritage, British Diplomacy,

and the German Peace Settlement of 1919’, in:

Diplomacy & Statecraft

30, 2,

336-357, here 344-345.

76 Haines, Aaron (2012), ‘The Hattusa Sphinx and the Turkish Antiquities Repatria-

tion Efforts’, in:

Art Crime

8, 99-103. See also Teixeira, Maria Inês (2011),

Pasts

Returned: Archaeological Heritage Repatriation Policy in Turkey and the Plans

for a Future Nation

, unpublished. Many thanks to Gökay Kanmazalp for

discussing this claim.

Hashemite Kingdom

of Hejaz / nowadays

Saudi Arabia

On claims for returns in

the Treaty of Versailles

see ↗ China ↗ Tanzania

Turkey

31III. ASIA

any of the restored tablets during the war years – for reasons of security

during transportation. In 1946, Turkey eventually turned to the UK in order

to recover the sphinx – and was advised to direct the claim to the Soviet

Union, in whose occupation zone the museum was located. Germany

was not officially contacted at this stage. Following the establishment of

two German states, the museum and thus also the sphinx and the clay

tablets were in the GDR, with whom Turkey had no diplomatic relation-

ship for a long time. It was only in 1974 that Turkey once again demanded

the return of the tablets and the sphinx. After 10 years of bilateral negoti-

ations, Turkey appealed to the

Intergovernmental Committee for Pro-

moting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its

Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation

in 1984. While the clay tablets

were then indeed returned, the restitution process for the sphinx contin-

ued until 2011.77

South and South-East Asia

In this region, the majority of claims for the return of objects came from

one country, or representatives of that country; the question of jurisdic-

tion was thus a matter of negotiation between two parties.78 Some ar-

tefacts were or are subject to claims by different countries and in these

cases the holders usually decide with whom to negotiate. In the region

of South and South-East Asia in particular, which for a time was conso-

lidated into the one administrative entity of British India and today com-

prises Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma, certain ar-

tefacts are subject to claims by several countries and governments. I will

address these multiple claims first, before discussing those raised by

individual countries.

The

Koh-i-Noor

diamond, today presented as one of the British

Crown Jewels, is probably one of the most famous controversial arte-

facts due to its many diverse owners over the course of its history. Its

provenance is well researched. It was probably discovered some 300

years ago in the area of modern-day India, and was in the possession of

the Mughal dynasty in Delhi for 200 years. The heartlands of the Mughal

Empire were in the north of India; in its largest form at the end of the 17th

century it spanned the Indian subcontinent as well as parts of mod-

ern-day Afghanistan. When Delhi was conquered by Nadir Schah of Per-

sia in 1739, the Koh-i-Noor came into his possession. Nadir Schah was

murdered and the stone was inherited by his grandson, Ahmad Shah

Durrani, the founder of the Afghan Empire, who in turn presented the di-

amond to Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh Empire, in 1813, to thank

77 Particularly for the 1970s onwards, see Chechi, Alessandro; Bandle, Anne Laure;

Renold, Marc-André (n.d.), ‘Case Boğazköy Sphinx – Turkey and Germany’,

ArThemis

https:// plone.unige.ch/art-adr/cases-affaires/bogazkoy-sphinx-2013-

turkey-and-germany (accessed 29 September 2021).

78 This does not rule out the possibility that it may be controversial within the

claimant countries as to whether an object should be accommodated by a

national museum or a regional institution.

India

Pakistan

(Afghanistan)

On claims for return

following the Second

World War see

↗ Egypt ↗ Ethiopia

↗ New Zealand

↗ Nigeria

32III. ASIA

the latter for his support. The stone was then kept in Lahore, in mod-

ern-day Pakistan. The Treaty of Lahore ended the Anglo-Sikh War and

stipulated that the Koh-i-Noor would be presented to the British Queen

Victoria. The diamond was first presented to the British public at the

Great Exhibition in London in 1851, before it was later re-cut and added

to the Crown Jewels collection.79 Due to the succession of states, India,

Pakistan and Afghanistan have all claimed the diamond, and other previ-

ous owner-states no longer exist today. India voiced its claim for the first

time following its independence in 1947, and the claim was rejected by

the UK.80

For Pakistan, the country’s Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto made

an official claim for the diamond in 1976. He began his letter by mention-

ing the anniversary of independence but also the international restitution

debate, then specifically referring to the Koh-i-Noor as of ‘immense sen-

timental value for Pakistan’: ‘Its return to Pakistan would be a convincing

demonstration of the spirit that moved Britain voluntarily to shed its im-

perial encumbrances and lead the process of decolonization. Indeed, it

would be symbolic of a new international equity strikingly different from

the gasping, usurping temper of a former rage.’81 The UK nevertheless

rejected the claim as the stone was being demanded by several states,

and particularly because it had not been purloined as a ‘trophy’ but had

officially been presented to the British queen – the object, thus it was ar-

gued, had thus been legally transferred. India and Pakistan have repeat-

ed their restitution claim several times, and around the turn of the millen-

nium Afghanistan also became a claimant.82

One of the – at least partly – coordinated claims for a return made

by several parties is that of the

India Office Library

(IOL). The latter was a

collection of books, manuscripts, archival materials and other docu-

ments, located in the UK, that had been compiled and continuously aug-

mented by the East India Company from 1798. Today it is merged with

the

India Office Records

(IOR), the administrative archives of British In-

dia. Both collections cover the entire region of former British India. The

two collections differ, however, in their purpose. While the IOR for the

most part comprises documents necessary for the administration of the

colonised land, the objective of the IOL was to research the local cul-

79 On the history of the stone, see Dalrymple, William; Anand, Anita (2017),

Koh-I-Noor: The History of the World’s most Infamous Diamond

, New Delhi. On

the restitution claim, see Greenfield, The Return, 129-131.

80 Dalrymple, William; Anand, Anita (2017),

Koh-i-noor: The History of the World’s

most infamous Diamond

, London, Chapter ‘We must take back the Koh-i-noor’.

The

Free Press Journal

reports alongside the claim of 1947 of a second claim in

1953 – the year of Elizabeth II’s coronation. ‘India’s Lost Treasures: Of Kohinoor

and Selected Antiquities Recovered’ (31 May 2019), in:

The Free Press Journal

https:// www.freepressjournal.in/weekend/indias-lost-treasures-off-kohi-

noor-and-select-antiquities-recovered (accessed 29 September 2021).

81 Bhutton, Zuffikar Ali and Callagan, James, 13 August 1976, in: The National

Archive, Kew, TNA PREM 16/1037.

82 On these claims and the problems of the state succession in matters of cultural

property with regard to this example, see Jakubowiski, Andrzej (2015), S

tate

Succession in Cultural Property

, Oxford, 91-94.

Pakistan, India

(Myanmar)

On claims for returns in

the context of political

independence see

↗ Congo ↗ Indonesia

↗ India/ Pakistan

↗ Laos ↗ Myanmar

↗ Senegal ↗ Sri Lanka

↗ Uganda

33III. ASIA

tures, societies and languages and thus indirectly served the rulers over

these areas. In 1947 India and Pakistan gained independence. The Indian

Independence Act regulated the dissolution of the India Office, which

had administrated the IOL. One consequence of this was that the IOL

was taken over by the administrative department of the Secretary of

State for Commonwealth Relations.83

Following its own independence, Burma (today Myanmar) began to

express interest in parts of the IOL in 1948. British Foreign Office records

confirm that the UK was successful in evading these enquiries – at least

until 1954, when Burma officially claimed for the first time 177 books and

manuscripts that had originally (until 1885) been part of the Royal Library

at Rangoon. At this stage, the UK merely replied that the IOL should re-

main intact (and in the UK) and thus declined to negotiate.84

India and Pakistan also asserted claims to the IOL after independ-

ence. In 1959 an

aide-memoire

was sent from the Indian and Pakistani

governments to the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations, in

which both governments agreed that the collection should initially re-

main in London and not be divided up; in other words, that the ‘Indian’

and ‘Pakistani’ sections should not be separated. They also demanded,

however, that the British government acknowledge India and Pakistan as

the rightful owners of the IOL. A negotiation began between the three

governments that lasted several years. The UK asserted a number of

fundamental conditions (no division of the IOL, IOL should remain in the

UK, etc.).85 Later an agreement was reached regarding a shared admin-

istration of the library. It should be noted here that Burma had also as-

serted claims to manuscripts and books of the IOL (see above) but that

the UK only entered into negotiations with India and Pakistan.86

Using the

Relics of Sāriputta and Moggallāna

as an example,

Torkel Brekke has shown how returns to Sri Lanka and India were car-

ried out. These were artefacts that were first used to revive Buddhism

at the end of the 19th century and by the Indian government as national

83 On the background, see Datta, Rajeshwari (1966), ‘The India Office Library: Its

History, Resources, and Function’, in:

The Library Quarterly

, 36, 2, 1966, 99-148.

84 It was not possible within the scope of this paper to research the inquiry

regarding a possible correspondence between the UK and Burma on this issue.

Cf. the description of the process in Foreign Office (FO), J.E. Cable (FO) to

Costley-White (CRO), 5 July 1961, in: The National Archive, Kew, TNA FO

371/159788.

85 Cabinet Papers: India Office Library, 26 April 1960, in: The National Archive, Kew,

TNA CAB 129/101/23; Cabinet Papers: India Office Library, 28 April 1960, in: The

National Archive, Kew, TNA CAB 128/34/28.

86 On the Burmese claims and the possible complications of negotiations on the

Mandalay Regalia should the Burmese claims to parts of the IOL be acknowl-

eged, see W.A.B. Hamilton (CRO) to Warner (FO), 3 September 1962, in: The

National Archive, Kew, TNA FO 371/1666408-DB1761/8. As far as could be

ascertained there were no official negotiations regarding the Burmese claims to

the IOL. Following the request of the Burmese ambassador, however, the UK

inquired as to whether Burma might receive copies of selected books and

manuscripts as microfiches, describing this process as time-consuming and

cost-intensive. See Minutes, Tonkin, 21 August 1963 and Draft Letter to Burmese

Ambassador, in: The National Archive, Kew, TNA FO 371/1666408-DB1761/4.

India

Sri Lanka

34III. ASIA

symbols in 1952. The relics were removed from their ancestral location

in Sanchi, India, in 1851 and ultimately found their way into the Victoria

and Albert Museum (V & A). The ownership of the V & A was questioned

for the first time by the Buddhist Mission and the British Maha Bodhi So-

ciety in 1932. Brekke then traces the negotiation process pertaining to

the relics, during which was initially permitted the Maha Bodhi Society

to carry out rituals with the relics on the museum premises. In 1938 the

first request was submitted for the artefacts to be returned to the Maha

Bodhi Society of Calcutta. Following agreements with the British Ministry

of Education and the India Office, the return of the objects was settled;

however, the repatriation process was delayed, probably on account of

the war. In 1947 the artefacts were first taken to Ceylon/Sri Lanka, at the

time still part of the British Empire, where they were exhibited for two

years. The negotiations between the Society and the Indian government

lasted several years, and it was not until 1952 that the relics were eventu-

ally re-enshrined in their place of origin.87

Burma, today Myanmar, is a country that has asserted a number of

claims over a relatively long period of time – like Nigeria or Sri Lanka,

some of the cases being conducted in informal settings.88 One of the

most famous pieces was the Lion Throne – one of a total of eight histori-

cal thrones of Burmese monarchs. After the Third Anglo-Burmese War,

the throne was taken to India in 1885, where it was exhibited in Calcutta.

In 1948, after Burma’s independence, Lord Mountbatten, at the time

Governor General of India, presented it to Burma, where it was subse-

quently put on display in the National Museum.89

The

Burmese Regalia or Mandalay Regalia

constitute by far the

most significant collection of controversial artefacts.90 These were de-

clared the property of the Indian government at the capture of Mandalay

in 1885, and were sent to London for the Colonial and India Exhibition

in 1886. As the Indian Office objected to their being auctioned after the

87 Brekke, Torkel (2007), ‘Bones of Contention. Buddhist Relics, Nationalism and

the politics of Archaeology’, in:

Nume

54, 270-303.

88 During his state visit of 1950, for example, U Nu inquired as to the return of the

Nga-mauk Ruby in an informal setting. The Foreign Office noted that ‘U Nun

asked whether the Nag-mauk ruby could not be found and returned, but no

action was taken on what was a verbal and informal approach.’ It seems that

there had been earlier claims for the return of the ruby by the former Royal

House of Burma. They claimed it as ‘personal property of the ex-King Thibaw’.

The FO noted that ‘[s]uch requests are usually associated with demands for

monetary aid.’ The location of the ruby was and is, however, unknown. In 1955 a

Burmese naval officer visiting Plymouth requested the return of Burmese

weapons that had been brought to England in 1885. See the summary, in: The

National Archive, Kew, TNA 371/143913/DB 1761/1.

89 Draft letter to Lord Taylor (CRO), Re: Mandalay Regalia, 26 October 1960, in: The

National Archive, Kew, TNA FO371/175141-DB1761/2. Aldrich, Robert (2016), ‘The

Return of the Throne: The Repatriation of Kandyan Regalia to Ceylon’, in: Robert

Aldrich, Cindy McCreery (Eds.),

Crowns and Colonies: European Monarchies and

Overseas Empires

, Manchester, 139-162.

90 Clarke, John (2021), ‘On the Road Back to Mandalay: The Burmese Regalia

– Seizure, Display and the Return to Myanmar in 1964’, in: Louise Tythacott,

Panggah Ardiyansyah (Ed.),

Returning Southeast Asia’s Past: Objects, Museums

and Restitution

, Singapore, 111-138.

Myanmar

On claims for return in

the context of political

independence see

↗ Congo ↗ India/

Pakistan ↗ Indonesia

↗ Laos ↗ Myanmar

↗ Senegal ↗ Sri Lanka

↗ Uganda

35III. ASIA

exhi bition, the collection was given to the South Kensington Museum,

later the V & A, for safekeeping. The regalia did not become the property

of the museum; the V & A merely took them into ‘custody’.91

The IOL, as discussed above, was being claimed by both India and

Pakistan, and Burma’s claims in this regard were never officially negoti-

ated. But when Burma made claims to the

Mandalay Regalia

, there were

concerns among the various UK ministries that the claim to the regalia

would complicate the negotiations with India and Pakistan.92 One fear,

for instance, was that returning the regalia might set a precedent sup-

porting arguments for the return of (parts of) the IOL. These concerns

were fed by the ‘coincidence’ that the IOL contained manuscripts that

had previously belonged to the Royal Library of Burma and had been

confiscated by British troops.93 In order to avoid such complications, the

British side decided to include in the regalia only the artefacts that were

being kept in the V & A Museum and not the IOL manuscripts.

Archival records show that the first unofficial request for the rega-

lia was made by the ambassador in London in 1956 and declined by the

British government. Some in the British Foreign Office, however, were in

favour of returning the regalia in 1957, on the occasion of the 10th anniver-

sary of independence.94 In his recent article, John Clark traces the pro-

cess around the claims by Burma that began in 1960.95 In 1961, a military

regime put an end to this democratic chapter in Burma’s history, also re-

sulting in a deterioration of relations with the UK. The museum, or rath-

er its curator John Irwin, had for some years advocated the return of the

regalia, but until now had met with resistance from the Foreign Office.

When General Ne Win, Head of State of Burma, made a private visit to

the UK in 1964, however, the decision to return the artefacts was made

relatively quickly.96

While the return of the

Burmese Regalia

did not have the ‘domino

effect’ feared by the officials – there was no dramatic increase in claims

pertaining to other collections in the UK – the case did serve as a point of

reference for others, both in the UK and in other countries. In 1967, for ex-

91 S. Pearn: Minutes BURMESE REGALIA, 14 April 1959, in: The National Archive,

Kew, TNA 371/143913.

92 On ‘Burmese interest in the future of the India Office Library’ see letter: FO and

Coatley-White (CRO), 5 July 1961, in: The National Archive, Kew, TNA FO

371/15978.

93 This seems to have rather been the concern of the Commonwealth Relation

Office (CRO), under whose responsibility the IOL fell and who were critical of

proposals to return the regalia. At the same time, the FO also noted in this

regard ‘inter-department jealousies and even personal animosities behind this

prolonged intransigence’. J.E. Cable, 15 April 1964, in: The National Archive, Kew,

TNA 371/175141/DB1761/1. In this letter the date is given as 1889, which was the

date of confiscation of the manuscripts with the regalia; another document

names 1885 as the year when the Royal Palace at Mandalay was looted: J.E.

Cable (FO) to Coatley-White (CRO), 5 July 1961, in: The National Archive, Kew,

TNA FO 371/159788.

94 See The National Archive, Kew, in TNA 371/143913/DB 1761/7 and TNA FO

371/129445.

95 Clarke (2021), ‘On the Road Back’.

96 See The National Archive, Kew, TNA FO 371/169782.

36III. ASIA

ample, Burma asserted claims via the German ambassador in Rangun

for frescoes that Theodor Heinrich Thomann had either exported at the

end of the 19th century and had sold to the Museum of Ethnology (

Völk-

erkundemuseum

) in Hamburg in 1906. The ‘Thomann Affair’ is one of the

few cases to have been discussed in the German parliament.97 When the

request was passed from the Foreign Office to the museum the latter

took a clear position, emphasising the significance of the frescoes for

research and transfer of knowledge about Burma in the interests of in-

ternational understanding – and above all that the frescoes had been

obtained legally. The museum also stressed, however, that, despite their

significance for Germany, the frescoes were far from possessing the ‘na-

tional, historical, political and thus emotional importance of a crown

treasure’; in other words, their significance was incomparable to that of

the regalia returned by the UK.98 In the ensuing discussion, the claim

was reduced to Burma requesting merely photographs of the frescoes.

The artefacts were returned neither then nor when the debate was re-

kindled in the 1980s.99

Sri Lanka plays a prominent role in the history of returns, particu-

larly because of the claim it asserted in 1980. In May of that year, shortly

after the establishment of the UNESCO

Intergovernmental Committee

for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin

or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation

(ICPRCP), Sri Lanka made

a claim, via the Committee, for the restitution of cultural property from

more than 20 institutions from eight countries – at the time probably the

most extensive formal claim for different objects from one country in his-

tory. This large-scale and public demand for the return of objects tends

to detract from the fact that Sri Lanka had a long history of claims. In-

deed, the 1980 claim was only made possible by the work of Hemasiri de

Silva, director of the National Museum of Sri Lanka, who had conducted

prior research into which objects were being held in which foreign mu-

seums.100

97 See for example Deutscher Bundestag, 203. Session of 6 December 1968,

10927-10928.

98 Gernot Prunner, Head of East Asia Department, re: Foreign Office inquiry as to

possible return of Pangan frescoes in the Thomann Collection to the Burmese

government, 11 April 1967, in: Museum am Rothenbaum – Kulturen und Künste

der Welt (MARKK), Archive, 101-1, No. 1512

99 According to the Foreign Office, in later discussions Burma no longer attributed

such significance to the frescoes; the director of the Burmese archaeological

service is even quoted as saying ‘We have got enough of them [frescoes] in

Pagan’, see Regierungsrat Kilzer to

Museum für Völkerkunde

, 6 March 1970. On

the further procedure, see the relevant files in the museum, with the Foreign

Office and Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI).

100 Statement presented by the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka concern-

ing the restitution of significant cultural objects from Sri Lanka, Intergovernmen-

tal Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of

Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation, 1st session, Paris 1980, in:

UNESCO Archive, Paris, France, CC.79/conf.206/6,CC.79/conf.206/Col.10. De

Silva, Hemasiri (1975),

A Catalogue of Antiquities and Other Cultural Objects from

Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and Abroad

, Colombo. For a contextualisation of this

discussion, see Naazima Kamardeen (2017), ‘The Protection of Cultural Property:

Post-Colonial and Post-Conflict Perspectives from Sri Lanka’, in:

International

Sri Lanka

37III. ASIA

Sri Lanka’s history is shaped by a succession of three colonial

powers. In the early 16th century, Portuguese settlers established the first

colonies in the coastal regions of what was then Ceylon and gradually

expanded their rule. These territories were seized by the Dutch in the

mid-17th century, who controlled the island except for the Kandyan King-

dom in the Central Province. Around 1800, the British captured these

areas, fought against the Kandyan Kingdom in 1815, and thus ended the

last independent monarchy of Ceylon. Ceylon gained independence in

1948. If we focus only on the claims made to the UK – only one of the

three colonial powers – we can identify a number of claims (and some

returns) made between 1929 and 1971 that have remained largely unre-

searched to date. It is likely that further claims for objects were asserted

to the other (former) colonial powers or western countries.101

British historian Robert Aldrich has reviewed the restitution

claims (and returns) of a number of artefacts that can be attributed to

the

Kandyan Regalia

.102 He explains that as early as 1933, George E. de

Silva, a member of the Kandy City Council and elected member of the

State Council, drafted a resolution that was passed by the State Council

in 1934 and approved by the Governor of Ceylon: ‘This Council respect-

fully requests His Majesty’s Government in England that the Crown and

Throne that were removed from Ceylon and which are now at Windsor

Castle be restored to this Government to be kept as a national posses-

sion’.103 With the support of the governor as well as the Secretary of State

for the Colonies, both of whom believed the ‘good-will gesture’ would

strengthen their relationship with the colony, King George V decided to

return both artefacts.

Historian Nira Wickramasinghe has reviewed a case from the con-

text of the 1948 independence celebrations: the return of

Keppetipola’s

Cranium

, which Wickramasinghe describes as one of the most celebrat-

ed returns of ‘national objects’. Keppetipola Disawe was one of the lead-

ers of the rebellion against British rule. He was executed in 1818 and his

skull was brought to the UK. The return of the skull was demanded in the

context of independence. A few days before independence was de-

clared, the Duke of Gloucester returned the cranium of this resistance

fighter against colonial occupation.104

Journal of Cultural Property

24, 429-450.

101 A systematic study is required as to possible claims in earlier periods to the

other countries which had colonies in Sri Lanka (Dutch, Portuguese), but also to

what extent other countries received claims for artefact returns. The connection

to India is particularly important here. For an initial overview see de Silva,

Hemasiri (1979), ‘Sri Lanka’, in:

Museum

, 22-25. De Silva also refers to voluntary

returns by private individuals. Jos van Beurden mentions a ‘tooth of the Buddha’

which was returned during or shortly after the Dutch Wars in Kandy, see van

Beurden (2017),

Treasures

, 44.

102 Aldrich, Robert (2016), ‘The Return of the Throne: The Repatriation of Kandyan

Regalia to Ceylon’, in: Robert Aldrich, Cindy McCreery (Eds.),

Crowns and

Colonies. European Monarchies and Overseas Empires

, Manchester, 139-162.

103 Quoted from Aldrich (2016), ‘The Return’, 146.

104 Local newspapers referred to the skull as a ‘national relic’. Wickramasinghe,

Nira (2003), ‘The Return of Keppetipola’s Cranium: The Construction of

On claims for returns in

the context of political

independence see

↗ Congo ↗ India/

Pakistan ↗ Indonesia

↗ Laos ↗ Myanmar

↗ Senegal ↗ Uganda

38III. ASIA

Alongside these two relatively well researched cases there is

a wealth of further claims that are only casually mentioned in the liter-

ature. In 1934 the Duke of Gloucester handed over in the name of the

king a

throne and footstool of the last king of Kandy

, in 1936 the

crown

of King Siri Vikrama Raja Simha

as well as a sceptre, a ceremonial

sword

and a

belt

of the last King of Kandy, and these were followed in 1937 by a

painting of the ‘Dutch Governor receiving ambassadors from the king of

Kandy’ from the Royal Asiatic Society. Claims were made for a

Kandyan

gun

from Dublin in 1939, Admiral S. Brownrigg offered to return

Buddha’s

Toot h

to Ceylon in 1942, and the

Flags of Kings of Kandy

were claimed

from the UK in 1971. Returns were also made by private individuals, such

the

Kandyan Kastane Sword

, which was returned to the National Muse-

um of Colombo by Josephine Whitelaw of Scotland in 1930 (her husband

had acquired the sword). A

royal seal

that H. Parker had presented to the

Manchester Museum was exchanged for other artefacts with the Nation-

al Museum of Colombo in 1929.105

India has already been mentioned in the context of objects that

India returned to Burma during the colonial period or due to restitution

claims asserted by both India and Pakistan. For the temporal scope of this

paper, only relatively few cases were found in which India had raised

claims for artefacts. An early case has been reviewed by historians Bahai

Nahar Singh and Bahai Kirpal Singh, and pertains to the Swords of Guru

Gobin Singh

(1666-1708).106 At the capture of Lahore, mentioned here in

the context of claims to the Koh-i-Noor diamond, one of the swords of

Guru Gobin Singh was confiscated and sent to the UK in 1853, and a sec-

ond sword belonging to the Guru was given to UK officials in order to be

presented to Queen Victoria. After Bahai Nahar Singh had published initial

findings on related artefacts in 1964, the Indian External Affairs Depart-

ment took over the matter and discovered that Lady Lindsay, great-grand-

daughter of Lord Dalhousie (Governor General of British India), was in

possession of artefacts associated with the swords; she returned these in

1966.107 In 1989, Bahai Nahar Singh published a third, extended documen-

tation, intended to motivate the ‘Indian Government, Sikh leaders, public

men and researchers’ to undertake further research on the locations of

the two swords and to subsequently request their return.

Singh also explains that the regional government in Punjab, part of

former British India, had first made inquiries as to the whereabouts of the

Authenticity in Sri Lankan Nationalism’, in: Gyanebdra Pandey, Peter Geschiere

(Ed.),

The Forging of Nationhood

, New Delhi, 129-155. Wickramasinghe, Nira (26

July 1997), ‘The Return of Keppetipola’s Cranium: Authenticity in a New Nation’,

in:

Economic and Political Weekly

, 85-92.

105 Wickramasinghe (2003), ‘The Return’, 153-154. De Silva (1979), Sri Lanka, in:

Museum international

22-25, here 23. See also TNA FCO 37/783, CO 54/976/14,

CO 54/969/7, CO 54/979/3, CO 54/979/2 as well as other files in the National

Archive, Kew.

106 Bahai Nahar Singh and Bahai Kirpal Singh (1989),

Two Swords of Guru Gobin

Singh in England (1666-1708 A.D.)

, Delhi.

107 1. Shield, 2. Dai-Ahini, 3. Shamsher-i-Tegha, 4. Bracelet, 5. Burchee and 6.

Chakar-i-Ahini, ibid., XI-XII.

India

39III. ASIA

swords in 1921 and until 1928 had continued its efforts to collect further

information.108 It proved impossible, however, both in the 1920s and dur-

ing the research of Bahai Nahar Singh, to uncover any reliable informa-

tion regarding their location and so no official claim could be made for

their return. The case remains unsolved today.109

A relatively large amount of work is available on returns, or claims

for such, placed on the Netherlands by Indonesia. Hari Budiarti of the

National Musuem of Indonesia, for example, has traced, among other

aspects, the changes in ownership of a collection acquired during the

South Sulawesi Expeditions

in 1905.110 These expeditions included the

Third Bone War and the Gowa War, struggles for the supremacy of Su-

lawesi. The Dutch military confiscated a number of objects that were ini-

tially sent to the Museum of Batavian Society, Jakarta (today the National

Musuem of Indonesia) in order to be valued. Some artefacts were re-

leased for sale, and several hundred examples of Gowa jewels and

weapons were presented to the

Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde

in Leid-

en in 1907, where they were exhibited together with artefacts acquired

during a military expedition to Bali in 1906 or during the war against

Bone. In 1937 the Kingdom of Gowa became an autonomous region with

good relations with the Netherlands. A number of returns on the part of

the Batavia Museum in 1938 can be considered in this context, including

regalia, which were brought directly to the Sultan Muhammad Tabir Mu-

himmuddi Tumenanga ri Sungguminasa, the thirty-fifth Sombaya ri Gowa

(Gowa king). In 1931, the eldest son of the sultan demanded the return of

objects that were then in the Museum in Leiden. The Dutch East Indies

Government supported the claim on account of its loyalty to the royal

family. Later the regalia were also returned to Bone.111

Similary, the

Lambok Treasure

also comprised objects acquired by

the Dutch during a military expedition in the early 1890s and handed to

the Museum of Batavian Society ‘for safekeeping’. As Wahyu Ernawati

has pointed out, the Dutch government requested that the artefacts be

sent to the Netherlands in 1896, where Lambok objects were exhibited

together with other items in the

Rijksmuseum

in 1897. Some of the arte-

facts were returned after negotiations between the Minister for the Col-

onies and the Batavian Society. The others initially remained in the Neth-

erlands.112

108 Enquiry by the Punjab government as to the whereabouts of the sword

belonging to Guru Gobin Singh to The Secretary of Govt. India, 13 June 1921; the

last letter in the records is dated 1928. Ibid., 23-64.

109 As reported, for example, by Kulwant Singh (3 June 2001), ‘Quest for the Guru’s

Swords’, in:

Tribune India

, https://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010603/

spectrum/main2.htm (accessed 29 September 2021).

110 Budiarti, Hari (2007), ‘Taking and Returning Objects in a Colonial Context.

Tracing the Collections Acquired during the Bone-Gowa Military Expeditions’, in:

Pieter ter Keurs (Ed.),

Colonial Collections Revisited

, Leyden, 124-144.

111 For a list of several objects, see Budiarti: ‘Taking and Returning’, 134-140.

112 Ernawati, Wahyu (2007), ‘The Lambok Treasure’, in: Pieter ter Keurs (Ed.),

Colonial Collections Revisited

, Leyden, 186-202.

Indonesia

40III. ASIA

A third case of claims from the colonial occupation pertains to ob-

jects acquired by the Dutch in Bali during military expeditions between

1906 und 1908. Francine Brinkgreve, David J. Stuart-Fox and Wahyu Er-

nawati have focused in their work on the

keris

, often referred to as re-

galia. In 1938 the Netherlands-Indies government decided to return

a limited amount of power to the former rulers of the Balinese states.

There was a discussion as to whether the specific

keris

, at the time in

the Museum of Batavian Society, should be returned. Unlike in the cases

of Gowa und Bone, no reasons for the decision are documented in the

records. Two of four keris were returned in 1937 following repeated re-

quests, and two are still in the museum in Jakarta.113

These examples from the Dutch colonial period show how the res-

titution discourse was linked to political arguments, as has already been

noted with regard to the British example, placing the discussion of re-

turns within the context of struggles for independence. Cynthia Scott has

examined these with an interest in the ‘cultural diplomacy’ of the Neth-

erlands and shown how returns could serve to foster loyalty or maintain

good relations. After the Second World War, restitution debates became

more palpable for the first time in 1949 when an employee of the Dutch

National Railway proposed returning to the Indonesian government ‘var-

ious trophies’ including the ‘crown treasures’.114

This was a controversial topic within the Dutch government, but

the cultural sub-committee of the Committee for Indonesian Affairs in-

cluded the possibility to exchange artefacts of cultural or historical val-

ue in a draft cultural agreement.115 A deterioration in Indonesian-Dutch

relations stood in the way of further negotiations on the matter until the

situation improved again in 1963, and discussions on cultural relations

– and thus also on restitution – were resumed.116 The Dutch side was anx-

ious to address the return of artefacts within the framework of foreign

aid. After long negotiations, the first returns eventually took place in the

1970s, with Queen Juliana beginning the process by presenting Presi-

dent Suharto with the manuscript of the Nagarakertagama as a ‘gesture

of goodwill’ during a state visit in 1973.117 Further returns were made after

a cultural agreement was signed in 1975: the Crown of Lambok and other

Lambok Treasure

s in 1977, and the

Statue Prajñāpāramitā

was handed

over to the Museum Pusat in Jakarta in 1978. Between 1977 and 1978 ob-

jects were returned that had once belonged to Prince Dipo Negoro and

which were being kept in the Bornbeek Museum in Velp.118

113 Francine Brinkgreve, David J. Stuart-Fox with assistance of Wahyu Ernawati

(2007), ‘Collections after Colonial Conflict. Badung and Tabana 1906-2006’, in:

Pieter ter Keurs (Ed.),

Colonial Collections Revisited

, Leyden, 145-185, here esp.

162-164. On the return in the 2000s see 166-174.

114 Scott, Cynthia (2020),

Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire: Negotia-

ting Post-Colonial Returns

, New York, 25-33.

115 Scott (2020),

Cultural Diplomacy

, 46-49.

116 Scott (2020),

Cultural Diplomacy

, 73-78.

117 Scott (2020),

Cultural Diplomacy

, 112-123.

118 Scott (2020),

Cultural Diplomacy

, 130-136.

On returns in the

course of state visits

see ↗ China

↗ Ethiopia

↗ Ghana

41III. ASIA

Alongside these returns of ethnological artefacts, the claims for

Java Man

are also noteworthy here – the fossilised remains of a Homo

erectus found in modern-day Indonesia. Eugene Dubois had found the

remains in 1895 and taken them to the Netherlands as private proper-

ty. The return of this fossil was one of the cases discussed in the course

of Indonesian independence. As Fenneke Sysling and Caroline Drienhu-

izen have pointed out, the fossil was of huge significance for the new na-

tion as proof that Java had been one of the earliest populated regions

of the world. Returning the fossil would also have underlined the sig-

nificance of independent Indonesia as a nation of science, adding to the

cultural aspects of the debate the new dimension of Indonesia’s poten-

tial to preserve and scientifically study such fossils.119 As in the case of

Nutcracker Man

, this example too demonstrates that scientific finds can

carry the same significance for claimants as cultural artefacts and there-

fore should be equally included in restitution research.

A French case has been mentioned in a number of publications

without further detail: the return of cultural property to Laos.120 Andrzej

Jakubowski explains how various agreements were reached between

France and Laos in the context of the power transfer in the 1940s. Laos

officially gained independence in 1949, and on 6 February 1950 both

states signed an agreement that included cultural matters, initially plac-

ing, for instance, the museum collections of the

École française d’Ex-

trême-Orient

(EFEO) in Laos under joint ownership. When the EFEO had

to leave Laos in 1975, the collections were nationalised and, in the course

of restitution discussions at the UNESCO level, Laos reported in the

same year that matters of restitution were concluded for the country.121

East Asia

Restitution is a topic that is steadily gaining in importance for China. The

State Administration of Cultural Heritage is currently compiling a cata-

logue of Chinese cultural property located abroad and, as Zuozhen Liu

writes, the repatriation of cultural artefacts has become a national pro-

ject for China since the beginning of the 21st century.122 At the same time,

China can also look back on a long history of claims, returns and discus-

sions. Four early cases prior to 1970 will be outlined in the following.123

The earliest case that revolves around an artefact from China ac-

quired in a context of colonial violence is related to an inner-German dis-

119 Sysling, Fenneke; Drieenhuizen, Caroline (2021), ‘Java Man and the Politics of

Natural History: An Object Biography’, in:

Journal of the Humanities and Social

Sciences of Southeast Asia

177, 2-3, 290-311.

120 Greenfield (2007), The Return, 371; Ganslmayr, Herbert (1980), ‘Wem gehört die

Benin-Maske? Die Forderung nach Rückgabe von Kulturgut an die Ursprungslän-

der’, in:

Vereinte Nationen

3, 88-92, here 91. Van Beurden (2017),

Treasures

, 88.

121 Andrzej Jakubowski (2015),

State Succession in Cultural Property

, Oxford,

121-123.

122 Zuozhen Liu (2016),

The Case for Repatriating China’s Cultural Objects

Singapore, 20.

123 More generally on returns to China see Liu (2016),

The Case

On claims for

return in the

context of political

independence see

↗ Congo ↗ India/

Pakistan ↗ Laos

↗ Myanmar

↗ Senegal ↗ Sri

Lanka ↗ Uganda

Laos

On claims for return in

the context of political

independence see

↗ Congo ↗ India/

Pakistan ↗ Indonesia

↗ Myanmar ↗ Senegal

↗ Sri Lanka ↗ Uganda

China

On claims via lawsuits

see ↗ Colombia

↗ Liberia ↗ USA

42III. ASIA

cussion around the possible misconduct of a soldier in the Boxer War.124

Georg Wöhlert had been involved in the suppression of the Boxer Re-

bellion in China. After his return to Germany, he sold a number of ob-

jects to the then Hildesheim Municipal Museum (

Städtische Museum

Hildesheim

, today the

Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum

), including a

battle painting on silk. In 1902, Wöhlert was tried by a military court in

Leipzig for ‘unauthorised looting or theft’.125 The museum in Hildesheim

was requested to pass on the items in question to the court for appraisal

for the duration of the trial. The museum complied with the request but

emphasised that the purchase of the artefacts had been made in good

faith as to their legality, and that the museum had not received notifica-

tion that a third party was claiming the artefacts. Should a claim to the

objects be raised, the museum noted, the claimant should contact the

museum directly, and the military court was not authorised to decide on

the release of the artefacts.126 The court dismissed the case due to a

lack of evidence, and the painting was sent back to Hildesheim.127

The Treaty of Versailles stipulated the return of all the

astronomical

instruments

removed from China by Imperial Germany during the Boxer

War of 1900/1901 – within 12 months (Art. 131).128 This brings us to the

second example. This return was specified by the treaty despite the fact

that China was not one of the signatory states, and these objects were

returned shortly afterwards.129 The idea of claiming these items does not

seem to have come from China in this case, however, but rather from the

US delegation.130

A Chinese claim did reach the Weimar Republic in 1931. The Na-

tional Library of Beijing contacted Otto Glauning, director of the Leipzig

University Library, and requested the return of the three volumes of the

124 Many thanks to Sabine Lang of the Roemer und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim

for information about this case.

125 Letter from the Royal Court of Saxony, 2nd Division No. 24, to the Magistrate of

the City of Hildesheim, 13 March 1903, in: Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum

Hildesheim, Archive, miscellaneous files.

126 Director of the Roemer Museum to the Royal Court of Saxony, 2nd Division No.

24, Leipzig, 19 December 1902, in: Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum

Hildesheim, Archive, miscellaneous files.

127 Letter from the Royal Court of Saxony, 2nd Division No. 24, to the Magistrate of

the City of Hildesheim, 13 March 1903, in: Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum

Hildesheim, Archive, miscellaneous files.

128 Germany was also responsible for covering the expenses. Ibid., ‘Germany

under takes to restore to China within twelve months from the coming into force of

the present Treaty all the astronomical instruments which her troops in 1900-1901

carried away from China, and to defray all expenses which may be incurred in

effecting such restoration, including the expenses of dismounting, packing,

transporting, insurance and installation in Peking’. Treaty of Versailles, Art. 131.

129 A short message of 1921 reports that ‘five bronze astronomical instruments’

were returned. See W.W.C. (1921), ‘Return of Astronomical Instruments to China’,

in:

Publication of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

, 33, 195, 272-273.

130 The US diplomat Shotwell seems to have initiated this – cf. Xu Guoqi (2005),

China and the Great War: China’s Pursuit of a New National Identity and

Internationalization

, Cambridge, 268. Shotwell, James T. (1937),

At the Paris

Peace Conference

, New York, 136-139. Many thanks to Niklas Leverenz for

discussing this claim. See also Niklas Leverenz (30 April 2014), ‘Chinas

Enttäuschung als Siegermacht’, in:

Die Zeit.

On claims for restitution

in the Treaty of Versailles

see ↗ Tanzania

↗ Saudi Arabia

43III. ASIA

Yougle Dadian Encyclopedia

that were in Leipzig. Only a small part of this

historically significant work was in Beijing, it was explained; the remain-

der of the encyclopedia was either destroyed or dispersed around the

world. The Beijing library was in the process of contacting the various

other institutions in possession of the works, requesting ‘photographic

or photostat prints of their volumes’. In return, Beijing offered the same

number of copies of the volumes in Beijing. According to the letter, the

Sinology department at Hamburg (

Seminar für Sprache und Kultur Chin-

), the British Museum in London, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and

the Royal Museum of Ethnology, Berlin (

Königliches Museum für Völk-

erkunde

), to name but a few, had already sent copies of their volumes to

China.131 Based on the correspondence records available in Leipzig, this

can be regarded as one of the most extensive claims of the era: even if

the matter ‘merely’ revolved around a limited collection of artefacts, ob-

jects were requested by a large number of actors from a wide range of

countries.

Leipzig University Library made inquiries of the other libraries and

eventually was even willing to return the original volumes in exchange for

a complete set of copies of the encyclopedia, given the support of the

Foreign Office of the state of Saxony.132 This example shows that Leip-

zig University Library, like other institutions, was sympathetic to and sup-

portive of this claim for their return.

The fourth case to be mentioned here is from the context of inter-

national relations with the GDR. In 1955, Otto Grotewohl, Minister-Presi-

dent of the GDR, visited China. In a speech to the People’s Chamber in

Beijing in December he presented his hosts with ten flags that German

troops had seized during the Boxer Rebellion. This handover took place

during a state visit that led to the signing of a friendship treaty between

the GDR and the People’s Republic of China.133 In his speech, Grotewohl

also spoke of having returned three volumes of the Yongle Dadian Ency-

131 National Library of Peking to Prof. Otto Glauning, Director, University Library,

Leipzig, 25 November 1931, in: Leipzig University Library, Archive, Leipzig,

Germany, miscellaneous files. Many thanks to Cordula Reuß for discussing this

case.

132 Von Seydewitz, Ministerium für Volksbildung to Sächsische Ministerium für

auswärtige Angelegenheiten, 10 March 1932. Letter to the director of the

National Library, Beijing, 19 April 1932, in: Leipzig University Library, Archive,

miscellaneous files. The National Library of Beijing sent thanks for the offer but

made a counter-offer: Prof. Lessing, Prof. Erkes and Prof. Weller had commen-

ted that current Chinese literature would be more useful for their work in China

than copies of the enyclopedia. Based on the market value of the three

volumes, the professors would be allowed to select titles of modern literature.

National Library of Peking to Otto Glauning, University Library, Leipzig, 17 May

1932. It is unclear which agreement was ultimately reached. In: Leipzig

University Library, Archive, Leipzig, Germany, miscellaneous files.

133 ‘Rede Otto Grotewohl, 11.12.1955’ (1995), in: Werner Meißner (Ed.),

Die DDR und

China 1945-1990. Eine Quellensammlung

, Berlin, 79-80. See also Felber,

Roland; Rostek, Horst (1987),

Der Hunnenkrieg Kaiser Wilhelms II

, Berlin, 42-43.

‘Vertrag über Freundschaft und Zusammenarbeit zwischen der Deutschen

Demokratischen Republik und der Volksrepublik China vom 25. Dezember

1955’, in: Werner Meißner (Ed.),

Die DDR und China 1945-1990. Eine Quellen-

sammlung

, Berlin, 81.

On returns in the

course of state visits

see ↗ Ethiopia↗

Ghana ↗ Indonesia

44III. ASIA

clopedia, although archive records indicate that the volumes had been

returned to China in the 1930s. It is possible that the title of ownership

had not been transferred with the volumes at the time.134

Grotewohl linked the decision to the fact that the Soviet Union had

already returned the volumes that had been in Soviet possession. This

too must be considered in the larger political context. In 1950, the Sovi-

et Union and China signed the

Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutu-

al Assistance

, which was followed by cultural cooperation.135 The Soviet

Union presented 64 volumes to China – 52 of these were released by

the Russian State Library in 1954 and another 12 volumes probably came

from the Leningrad State University Library in 1951. According to infor-

mation provided by the Russian State Library, the latter received 202 vol-

umes of the reprinted

Yongle Dadian Encyclopedia

in exchange, which

suggests that the exchange discussed in the 1930s regarding single

(original) volumes for reprints of the entire work (at least of the available

volumes) was completed to the satisfaction of both sides. The fact that

this process was deeply embedded in international relations is demon-

strated by the letter of thanks: ‘Your generous gift proves that the great

friendship between the peoples of China and the Soviet Union is getting

stronger and stronger day by day’.136

134 ‘Rede Otto Grotewohl, 11.12.1955’ (1995), in: Werner Meißner (Ed.),

Die DDR und

China 1945-1990. Eine Quellensammlung

, Berlin, 79-80. The archive materials of

the 1950s include a letter from students of the Teacher Training College, Beijing,

of 12 December 1955, which expresses thanks for the return of the encyclope-

dia. In the same file there is also a note on the various state gifts, which does

not mention the encyclopedia. This cannot be conclusively clarified without

further research in Chinese archives. See ‘Vorschläge für die Entsendung einer

Regierungsdelegation der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik in Volksrepu-

blik China’, n. d., both in The Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office,

Berlin, M1-A/6618. Many thanks to Jan Hüsgen for discussions on this case.

135 Knight, John M. (2020), ‘Mandated Internationalism: Sino-Soviet Friendship

1949-1956’, in:

Twentieth Century Communism

19, 27-60.

136 Translated by Mikhail Melanin, Deputy Head of the Oriental Center, Russian

State Library, whom I thank warmly for information on this case.

IV. The Americas and the Caribbean

The discussion in the USA on the return, restitution or repatriation of cul-

tural property is currently dominated by the

Native American Graves Pro-

tection and Repatriation Act

(NAGPRA) of 1990. This law governs the re-

turn of cultural property to Native Americans. This should not obscure,

however, the fact that there was a longer history of claims and returns in

the USA before NAGPRA was passed. A number of bilateral treaties were

intended to protect cultural property, such as the

Treaty of Cooperation

between the United Mexican States and the United States of America

Providing for the Recovery and Return of Stolen Archaeological, Histori-

cal, and Cultural Properties

(1970), which was signed towards the end of

the period of study defined by this paper and which subsequently led to

a number of returns.137

An important group of objects subject to claims are

wampum belts

beaded belts made to commemorate moments of significance. The first

known claim dates from around 1900, when the Onondaga Nation sued

the Mayor of Albany, New York, for the return of wampum belts kept in a

New York museum: ‘The object of this action in brief is to have it adjudi-

cated that the Indian League of Five Nations composed of the Ononda-

gas, Oneidas, Mohawks, Senecas and Cayugas, and afterwards made

Six Nations by the addition of the Tuscaroras, used wampum belts to

commemorate important events; that these belts by an association of

ideas with them served the purpose of a history; that there was an official

of the league known as wampum keeper whose duty it was to preserve

the wampums, and upon proper occasions to expound their meaning

and signification; that the Onondaga Indian from whom defendant’s as-

signors obtained the wampums in suit had possession of them as such

wampum keeper; that such sale by him was unauthorized, and that the

property, having a peculiar and special interest not to be measured by

money damages, this action may be maintained on behalf of the Indian

Nations in question to in effect recover their possession’.138 Although the

137 Trinidad Meléndez, Miguel Ángel (2014), ‘USA and Mexico (1970): Bilateral

Treaties and Patrimonial Property Restitution’, in: Claire Smith (Ed.),

Encyclopae-

dia of Global Archaeology

, New York, 7575-7577.

138 Onondaga Nation v. Thacher, 29 Misc. 428, N.Y. Misc. 1899, decided Nov 1, 1899.

Many thanks to Rainer Hatoum for discussing these claims.

USA

On claims via

lawsuits see

↗ China ↗ Colombia

↗ Liberia

46IV. THE AMERICAS AND THE CARIBBEAN

suit was dismissed by the New York State Supreme Court,139 the claim

was nevertheless pursued further. Martin Sullivan argues that in the 1960s

the return of wampum belts became a focus of Onondaga and Iro quois

activism, paralleling the rise of a movement advocating for the rights of

these groups within society.140 The issue was discussed further in 1969,

for example, when the Onondaga demanded the wampum belts be re-

turned from the New York State Museum.141 There were also privately or-

ganised returns, such as that by Mrs M. J. Jamieson in 1950, who, having

found herself in possession of a wampum belt but with no knowledge of

its provenance, sent the artefact back to the Hopi.142 In 1972, wampum

belts and

ceremonial masks

of the Seneca were to be auctioned off at

Sotheby’s. Onondaga Chief Oren Lyons protested against the auction

with activists and achieved a partial victory. While three wampum belts

were withdrawn from the auction, the ceremonial masks were sold. Calvin

John of the Seneca Nation purchased a mask but – according to his

statement – the Seneca did not have sufficient means to bid for the oth-

ers, which were bought by private collectors.143

In addition to these items, human remains were also subject to

claims. The Nez Perce people negotiated the return of human remains,

for instance, with the archaeologist Roderick Sprague and the anthro-

pologist Deward Walker in the early 1960s.144 The American Indian Move-

ment (AIM) brought the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles into the lime-

light by occupying the museum in 1972 and demanding the repatriation

of remains and sacred objects and the removal of various items from the

exhibit. These claims were increasingly articulated publicly, as is shown by

an Iroquois demonstration in front of the State Capitol in Albany in 1970.145

139 See also Onondaga Nation v. Thacher. Error to the Supreme Court of the State

of New York, No. 234, argued April 8, 9, 1903 – Decided April 27, 1903.

140 Sullivan, Martin (1992), ‘Return of the Sacred Wampum Belts of the Iroquois’, in:

The History Teacher

26, 1, 7-14, here 10.

141 For an overview see Zimmerman (2014), ‘Repatriation Acts’. Goldstein, Lynne

(2014), ‘Repatriation: Overview’, in: Claire Smith (Ed.),

Encyclopaedia of Global

Archaeology

, New York, 6327-6335. For a critical discussion of the Onondaga

claim, see William N. Fenton (1971), ‘The New York State Wampum Collection:

The Case for the Integrity of Cultural Treasures’, in:

Proceedings of the American

Philosophical Society

115, 6, 37-461. On early claims and later returns, see

Sullivan (1992), ‘Return’.

142 Newspaper article ‘Hopi Tribe’s Lost Wampum Belt Returned by Six Nation’, in:

The Brantford Expositor

, n.d. https:// vitacollections.ca/sixnationsarchive/details.

asp?ID=2695917 (accessed 29 September 2021). It is reported here that a

‘runner’s belt’ was also handed over; this cannot be clarified from the newspa-

per article, however.

143 Montgomery, Paul L. (1972), ‘Indians get Partial Victory on Sacred Objects’ Sale’,

in:

The New York Times

, https://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/21/archives/

indians-get-partial-victory-on-sacred-objects-sale.html (accessed 29

September 2021). Bruchac, Margaret (2018), ‘Broken Chains of Custody:

Possessing, Dispossessing, and Repossessing Lost Wampum Belts’, in:

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society

162, 1, 56-105, here 58.

144 Zimmerman, Larry J. (2014), ‘Repatriation Acts: Before NAGPRA’, in: Claire Smith

(Ed.),

Encyclopaedia of Global Archaeology

, New York, 6298-6303, 6298.

145 On this see the newspaper article ‘Iroquois are Seeking Return of Wampum

Belts Held by State Museum’ (17 April 1970), in:

The New York Times

, printed in

Margaret Bruchac (2018), ‘Broken Chains of Custody: Possessing,

On returns by

private individuals

see ↗ Liberia

↗ Nigeria ↗ Sri

Lanka

47IV. THE AMERICAS AND THE CARIBBEAN

With regard to Canada, Ira Jacknis has reviewed the case of the

Kwakiutl Artefacts (today Kwakwaka’wakw). In 1885, the Canadian parlia-

ment passed the Indian Act, which among other aspects forbade certain

rituals (e.g.

potlatch ceremonies

). While the rituals were nevertheless

continued in secret, a number of artefacts were ‘confiscated’ over the

years. It was only following a change in the law in 1951 that it became pos-

sible to take action against this dispossession. The first documented ef-

fort to recover potlatch collections dates from 1958. Andrew Frank (Coast

Salish Indian married to a Kwakiutl woman) claimed artefacts from the

National Museum, Ottawa, for permanent loan for a Native Community

House that was being planned at the time. In 1963, Kwakiutl chief James

Sewid requested the return of a collection from the National Museum.

When he was informed that the objects had been purchased legally he

offered to repurchase them for the same amount. While no return was

made at that time claims continued to be made, and in 1967 the stance of

the government and the museums changed – the next few years would

see a number of returns.146

Mariana Françozo and Amy Strecker have investigated how the

Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has, since 2014, repeatedly request-

ed of former European colonial powers ‘reparations for slavery and na-

tive genocide’, drawing attention to artefacts of Caribbean provenance in

European museums. Until now, however, no formal claims have been as-

serted, which Françozo and Strecker attribute to three primary aspects:

First, the artefacts in question include archaeological material originat-

ing from Caribbean groups who lived on the islands prior to 1492, while

today’s Caribbean population is multi-ethnic. Second, the artefacts have

not yet been sufficiently digitised for potential claimants to learn of their

existence. Third, political interest in pre-1492 societies is limited in the

modern-day Caribbean.147 In the course of this study only one case

emerged for the period prior to 1970 in this geographic region, which will

be discussed in the following.

In 1793, three Taíno carvings were discovered in a cave in the Car-

penter’s Mountains, Jamaica, amongst other artefacts. The carvings

were first exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries, London, in 1799 and

later found their way into the British Museum. Joanna Ostapkowicz has

traced the exhibition history of these artefacts and shown that a possible

claim to return the objects may have been asserted by Jamaica around

1940.148 Wayne Modest ascertains, however, that no formal request was

Dispossessing, and Repossessing Lost Wampum Belts’, in:

Proceedings of the

American Philosophical Society

162, 1, 56-105, here 74.

146 On this case see Jacknis, Ira (2000), ‘Repatriation as Social Drama: The

Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia, 1922-1980’, in: Devon Abbott Mihesuah

(Ed.),

Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains?

Lincoln,

266-280.

147 Françozo, Mariana; Strecker, Amy (2014), ‘Caribbean Collections in European

Museums and the Question of Returns’, in:

International Journal of Cultural

Property

24, 451-477.

148 Plaster casts were made in 1939 – it appears according to Georg A. Aarons that

a ‘repatriation request’ had been made by the Jamaican government. See

Canada

Jamaica

48IV. THE AMERICAS AND THE CARIBBEAN

submitted during this period and questions why the loss of the carvings

is nevertheless a matter of deep grievance in Jamaica. He also points

out that today no Taíno live in Jamaica, so in this case there would be no

cultural descendents to claim them.149

The restitution debate is also a much-discussed topic in the states

of modern-day Latin America, despite a lack of historical antecedents.

Of the few claims identified from the period prior to 1970, a well-known

example is the case of the

San Agustín Sculptures

from Colombia. Kon-

rad Theodor Preuss travelled to Colombia in 1913 on behalf of the then

Royal Museum of Ethnology, Berlin (

Königliches Museum für Völkerkun-

), in order to gather material for the museum. Although Colombia had

already declared its independence from Spain in 1810, the collections

from this region can nevertheless be considered within a colonial con-

text.150 Manuela Fischer has analysed the history of Preuss’ collection

and points to a protest against the dispossession of cultural property.

Preuss included in his journey a three-month excavation in San Agustín,

during which he discovered various sculptures from the pre-Hispanic

era. The significance of these finds is documented in the establishment

of an archeological park in San Agustín as early as 1935, which has been

a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site since 1995.151 Some of the sculp-

tures were exported and are now in Berlin. Preuss was a distinguished

guest in 1930s Colombia and would meet with then President Carlos Eu-

genio Restrepo, among others. The landowner on whose premises the

excavations had taken place had already allowed others to examine the

area. The sculptures that Preuss wished to export were left to him by the

administrators, one of whom was Sixto Ortiz. Despite the formally au-

thorised procedure there were regional protests against the plan. The

community of San Agustín, for example, submitted a formal complaint to

the

Academia de Historia

(later the

Instituto Colombiano de Antro-

pología e História

) regarding the planned export by a German scientist

and also reported the matter to the local press, calling upon the depart-

ment governor to prevent the export, which had already been approved.

The Ministry of Cultural Affairs then researched the circumstances and

reminded regional offices of the Decree for the Protection of National

Cultural Property, in force since 1906. Although various deliveries to Ger-

many had already been carried out at the time of the complaint, some

were delayed until 1921 by the First World War, and the government does

Ostapkoqicz, Joanna (2015), ‘The Sculptural Legacy of the Jamaican Taíno. Part

1: The Carpenter’s Mountain Carvings’, in:

Jamaica Journal

52-61, here 54.

149 Ostapkoqicz (2015), ‘The Sculptural Legacy’, 54. Modest, Wayne (2012), ‘Material

Bridges: Objects, Museums and New Indigeneity in the Caribbean’, in: Joy

Hendry, Laara Fitznor (Eds.),

Anthropologists, Indigenous Scholars and the

Research Endeavour: Seeking Bridges Towards Mutual Respect

, New York,

2012, 185-195, here 186-189.

150 Deutscher Museumsbund (2019),

Guidelines

, 19-23. See also Introduction, FN 3.

151 On the history of the collection see Fischer, Manuela (2019), ‘Die Skulpturen von

Skulpturen von San Agustín (Kolumbien) im Ethnologischen Museum, Staatliche

Museen zu Berlin. Eine strittige Sammlung’, in:

Bassler-Archiv

65, 1-21.

Colombia

On claims via lawsuits

see ↗ China ↗ Liberia

↗ USA

49IV. THE AMERICAS AND THE CARIBBEAN

not seem to have undertaken serious efforts to prevent the later exports.152

This example is interesting for two reasons: First, the export took place

despite the existence of a law or decree which could have prevented it;

second, the case seems to suggest a domestic conflict within Colombia

in which the government was in support of Preuss’ research while cri-

tique of the exports was expressed at the regional level.

152 Ibid., 13-18.

V. Oceania, Australia and New Zealand

The collection history of secret sacred objects from Australia, especially

tjurunga

, occupies a prominent position in current restitution debates.

The collection practice for tjurunga was extremely complex and ranges

from the voluntary handing over of objects to outright theft. Protests

against the dispossession of cultural property can be traced back to the

period of collectors’ activities. Philip Jones, for example, describes se-

veral incidents in which individuals involved in the trade of tjurunga were

aware, or became aware in the course of their activities, that the loss of

these objects was a subject of intense grief on the part of the Indigenous

population.153 This knowledge led collectors to at least consider retur-

ning selected tjurunga to Aboriginal individuals.154 This did not funda-

mentally challenge the collectors’ practices, however, not even when it

became known that the Aboriginal people were not only protesting

against European collectors but also against those who cooperated with

them, including Aboriginal people who showed the collectors where the

tjurunga were kept and thus enabled the theft. During the ‘Horn Expedi-

tion’ of 1894, for example, Racehorse, an Aboriginal guide, had shown a

group including Edward Stirling (anthropologist from the

South Australia

Museum

) and Charles Winnecke (a land surveyor) a secret site from

which the group purloined 45 tjurunga. Francis Gillen, ‘special magistra-

te and Aboriginal sub-protector’155, later reported that Racehorse had

received threats from the keepers of the sacred objects and required

153 See for example Baldwin Spencer’s report on the ‘Horn Expedition’ of 1894, in:

Philip G. Jones (1996), ‘

A Box of Native Things’: Ethnographic Collectors and the

South Australian Museum, 1830s-1930s

, Adelaide, 301-302. To elaborate on the

critical challenging of collectors and – later in the museal context – their

practices would exceed the scope of this paper; on this see the text ‘I believe

that half of your museum is stolen’ by Sarreiter, Regina (2012), ‘Ich glaube, dass

die Hälfte Ihres Museums gestohlen ist’, in: Anette Hoffmann, Britta Lange,

Regina Sarreiter (Eds.):

Was Wir Sehen. Bilder, Stimmen, Rauschen. Zur Kritik

anthropometrischen Sammelns

, Basel, 43-58. Many thanks to Olaf Geerken for

a discussion on Australian restitution claims.

154 Gillen, for instance, ordered Cowle to return tjurunga in 1897. Jones (1996), ‘A

Box of Native Things’, 304. See also Smith, Laurajane (2000), ‘A History of

Aboriginal Heritage Legislation in South-Eastern Australia’, in:

Australian

Archaeology

50, 109-118.

155 Mulvaney, D. J., ‘Gillen, Francis James (1855–1912)’, in: Australian Dictionary of

Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gillen-francis-james-6383/

text10907, (accessed 29 September 2021).

Australia

51V. OCEANIA, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

police protection. In some cases such inner-Aboriginal conflicts, provo-

ked by the collectors’ theft, ended in the murder of the collector-compli-

ant Aboriginals.156 This example shows how colonised peoples, often not

in a position to express their protest, claims for restitution or revenge to

the European collectors directly, would take action against persons who

acted in their favour.157

These early examples of resistance to the dispossession of cultur-

al property were isolated incidents. In 1927, following one particular case,

the discussion of Aboriginal cultural property was publicly and funda-

mentally addressed. Mr D. H. Durean, a white businessman, and a group

of tourists on the Reso Central Australian Tour were shown a tjurunga

storage site near Oodnadatta by an Aboriginal guide, where they pur-

loined several objects. Following their return to Melbourne, this ‘Reso

Incident’ became public and led to probably the first instance of public

criticism of collection practices in Australia. A wealth of political and so-

cietal actors took positions on behaviour towards tjurunga and collec-

tor practices.158 The Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Lees, publicly

took the position that the objects should be returned. Herbert Basedow,

at the time a Member of Parliament, argued: ‘I am of [the] opinion that

the removal of any sacred implement of the aborigines should be pro-

hibited by Act of Parliament, as long as any of the tribe are living. The

sacred stones collected during the recent tour to Central Australia, be-

longed to the Arunta tribe, one of the most thickly populated and intel-

lectual of Australian tribes’.159 But despite the ensuing public discussion

on the legal protection of cultural property, it was still some decades be-

fore changes were made in this area.160

156 Strehlow later wrote in reference to this case that Racehorse was executed for

his deception. Jones (1996), ‘A Box of Native Things’, 301-302. Batty, Philip

(Draft), ‘A Secret History. The Collection and Repatriation of Aboriginal Sacred

Objects’, https://www.academia.edu/36025989/DRAFT_A_Secret_History_The_

Collection_and_Repatriation_Aboriginal_Sacred_Objects (accessed 29

September 2021).

157 The fact that collectors and informants alike were aware that passing on

information and/or objects could be dangerous is also relevant for other

regions. Andreas Reischek writes in reference to his grave robbery in New

Zealand that he risked his life to export mummies and funerary objects – even if

some of his descriptions must be seen as self-glorifying, the fact remains that

he was aware that he was committing an injustice.

158 Gibson, Jason M. (forthcoming), ‘Dealing with the Sacred: The Value of

Secret-Sacred Collections from Central Australia’, in: Howard Morphy, Robyn

McKenzie (Eds.),

Museums, Societies and the Creation of Value

, 6-7. See also

Jones (1996), ‘A Box of Native Things’, 312-313. Newspapers reported widely on

the incident.

159 Quoted from ‘Aboriginal Sacred Stones. Removed by Tourist. Action De-

nounced’ (3 September 1927), in: Observer, 7. See also the newspaper article:

‘The Mainland Day by Day’, in:

Melbourne

, 20 August 1927, 8. With reference to

the actions of Aboriginals in this context, the

Chronicle

reports: ‘Ethnologist

stated that the plundering of the caves was a sacrilege, and there was little

doubt that if the native who gave away the secret was discovered he would be

put to death by the tribesmen’. See

Chronicle

, 27 August 1927, 50.

160 Cultural Heritage Protection is primarily the responsibility of the individual states

and territories of Australia. West Australia passed the

Aboriginal Heritage Act

the first law protecting cultural property in 1972. The Northern Territories passed

52V. OCEANIA, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

One of the earliest claims asserted by the Maori dates back to

1867. As Toon van Meijl has pointed out, a meeting house (

whare tupuna

)

with the name Te Hau ki Turanga was confiscated in 1867 at the behest of

the Minister of Native Affairs, James Richmond, in the course of the

‘Maori wars’. In consequence, Te Hau ki Turunga became a museum ex-

hibit (in the Colonial Museum, Wellington, later the Dominion Museum).

However, Raharuhi Rukupo, a Maori leader, submitted a petition to the

New Zealand parliament together with seven other Maori in the same

year. When this failed, a second petition was filed in 1878, this time by Wi

Pere, another Maori leader. This also failed and it was not until the year

2012 that New Zealand’s parliament agreed to return Te Hau ki Turanga

to the Rongowhakaata people, and indeed the return has still not been

carried out to date.161

While this was a claim negotiated within New Zealand, the ‘Reis-

chek Collection’ constitutes an example of an appeal to a European in-

stitution, in this case a museum in Austria, from which the Maori peo-

ple have been requesting the return of artefacts and human remains for

a relatively long period of time. Paneta Maniapoto Otene and ten sup-

porters filed a petition to the New Zealand parliament in 1945, shortly

after the end of the Second World War.162 In the light of the occupation

of Austria by the Allied Forces, the petition requested the return of hu-

man remains as well as artefacts that Andreas Reischek had exported

from New Zealand towards the end of the 19th century and which were

now in the Natural History Museum, Vienna (

Naturhistorisches Museum,

Wien

).163 The government of New Zealand attempted to facilitate the re-

a law in 1977 protecting sacred sites (

The Aboriginal Lands and Sacred Sites

Bill

), see

Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority: Protecting Sacred Sides Across

the Territory. History

: https://www.aapant.org.au/about-us/history (n.d.)

(accessed 29 September 2021). This legislation was often closely linked to

environmental protection laws; on this see for example the case of New South

Wales, which protected pre-1788 remains of Aboriginal occupation with the 1967

Wildlife Act

(rock art, sacred trees, burial sites), see ‘What legislation protects

Aboriginal heritage in NSW?’, in: Office of Environment & Heritage:

Aboriginal

Heritage Legislation in NSW. How the Aboriginal Heritage System Works?

Sydney 2012, 4-6.

161 ‘Raharuhi Rukupo et al.: Petition of Natives at Turanga (1867), commented by

Toon van Meijl’ (3 April 2020), in:

Translocations. Anthologie: Eine Sammlung

kommentierter Quellentexte zu Kulturgutverlagerungen seit der Antike

, https://

translanth.hypotheses.org/ueber/turanga (accessed 29 September 2021).

162 Petition No. 66/1945. Petition of Paneta Maniapopo and Others, in: The National

Archive, Kew, TNA DO 35/1195/36. If not otherwise noted, the following details

are based on Müller, Lars (2020), ‘Ringen um Rückgabe. Frühe Forderungen der

Maori nach Restitution und Repatriierung, 1945-1947’,

boasblog

(https://

boasblogs.org/de/dcntr/ringen-um-rueckgabe/ (accessed 29 September 2021).

See also O’Hara, Coralie (2020), ‘The Andreas Reischek Collection in Vienna

and New Zealand’s Attempts at Repatriation’, in: Cressida Forde, C. Timothy

McKeown, Honor Keeler (Eds.),

The Routledge Companion to Indigenous

Repatriation

, New York, 438-451.

163 On the Maori human remains in the Natural History Museum, Vienna, as well as

the handing over of the Reischek Collection to the museum, see Eggers,

Sabine; Herewini, Te Herekiekie; Mamaku, Te Arikirangi; Schattke, Constanze;

Buttinger, Katharina; Eggers Gorab, Matthias; Berner, Margit (2021), ‘Māori and

Moriori Human Remains in the Natural History Museum in Vienna: Exhumed,

Shipped, Exchanged and Inventoried’, in: Pia Schölnberger (Ed.),

Das Museum

New Zealand

On claims for return

following the Second

World War see

↗ Egypt ↗ Ethiopia

↗ Nigeria ↗ Turkey

53V. OCEANIA, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

turn via the UK, with the primary objective being the inclusion of the re-

turn in a peace treaty. When this became likely the return was discussed

via diplomatic channels. This is one of the early cases in which the re-

turn of human remains and objects was discussed publicly in a country

of origin while the process did not become public in the UK or Austria.

The British Foreign Office (and the Dominion Office) gathered informa-

tion on the collection history, the whereabouts of the human remains and

objects as well as on comparable cases in order to establish a position.

While the UK was initially sympathetic to the request, its support waned

somewhat once more extensive information about comparable cases in

British and New Zealand museums had come to light, and Austria was

offering no encouragement. The British closed the case, and soon af-

ter the government of New Zealand also dismissed the matter. But the

public debate in New Zealand kept the case alive. When, a year later, still

no progress had been made, Raureti Te Huia and 23 others initiated a

second petition.164 In 1947 a businessman offered the Minister of Maori

Affairs his Austrian contacts in order to support the claim, but the offer

was refused.

It was not until the 1950s that New Zealand undertook a new offi-

cial attempt. New Zealander George F. Kiwi Howe informed the Minister

of External Affairs in 1956 that he was negotiating with Austrian repre-

sentatives on behalf of the Maori people and that there was a chance

that the return would be carried out if the government of New Zealand

placed an official request. Despite scepticism, New Zealand contacted

the Austrian Embassy and proposed continuing the negotiations that

had been left open in the 1940s. Austria once again rejected the claims,

however, as the mummies – such were the arguments – were (1) of con-

siderable scientific interest; (2) because a return would set a precedent

that could have implications for other countries that accommodated hu-

man remains; and (3) Austria had been advised against returning the ob-

jects by other museums worldwide.165 A repeated claim by New Zealand

in the early 1960s was also rejected in internal discussions. It was not

until the mid-1970s that the issue was revived, and talks took place be-

tween the government of New Zealand and the Wikato and Manipapono

communities as well as with Etta Becker-Donner, director of the Vien-

nese Museum of Ethnology (

Völkerkunde Museum Wien

). At this point,

the New Zealand side was optimistic that the objects in Vienna might

be exchanged for (contemporary) Maori art. When Becker-Donner died,

however, at the end of 1975, the process was once again discontinued

im kolonialen Kontext

, Vienna, 281-303.

164 Petition No. 38/1946 Raureti Te Huia and 23 Others, presented by Mr Cotterill

for Mr Ratana to the Hon. The Speaker and Members of the House of Repre-

sentatives in Parliament assembled, in: Archives New Zealand, Wellington, ANZ

AAMK 869 W3074 674/b 19/1/547.

165 Department of External Affairs to Department of Maori Affairs, 16 April 1958, in:

Archives New Zealand, Wellington, ANZ AAMK 869 W3074 674/b 19/1/547. This

at least implies that international agreements were reached as to how to

proceed in this and similar cases. It is currently unclear which museums were

contacted by Vienna.

54V. OCEANIA, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

in the New Zealand files. It took another 10 years until, in 1985, the first

human remains from the ‘Reischek Collection’ were given back to New

Zealand.166

While claims from Australia and New Zealand have been relatively

intensively debated, those from other regions of Oceania, including his-

torical examples, are hardly audible in the current discourse. In his over-

view of claims for the return of human remains held by Germany, Andreas

Winkelmann reports of a claim from Samoa from the year 1911 pertaining

to two skulls. As in the cases of Belck and Schinz, here too skulls were

returned in less than good condition; in other words, the specifically re-

quested skulls were not returned and remain in Berlin today.167

166 On the later returns, see Weiss-Krejci, Estella (2013), ‘Abschied aus dem

Knochenkabinett – Repatriierung als Instrument kultureller und nationaler

Identitätspolitik am Beispiel österreichischer Restitutionen’, in: Holger Stoecker,

Thomas Schnalke, Andreas Winkelmann (Eds.),

Sammeln, Erforschen, Zurück-

geben? Menschliche Gebeine aus der Kolonialzeit in akademischen und

musealen Sammlungen

, Berlin, 447-476.

167 Winkelmann, Andreas (2020), ‘Repatriations of Human Remains from Germany

– 1911-2019’, in: Museum & Society 18, 1, 40-51. Also on this case, see Zimmer-

man, Andrew (2001),

Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany

Chicago, 161-162.

Samoa

VI. Discussion

This first ‘global’ mapping of restitution claims against (former) colonial

powers, usually European, their representatives and above all their col-

lecting institutions, and the resulting returns illustrate, first, that there

had been a wealth of both claims and returns prior to 1970. But it also

becomes clear that these have until now only seldom been considered

in relation to one another. The state of research of a possible new rese-

arch field, (

postcolonial

)

restitution studies

,168 can be described in many

respects as fragmented. This hinders the development of a common re-

search field that might move beyond individual case studies or compare

the various cases of claims and returns. A further challenge is the highly

interdisciplinary nature of the field. Publications have appeared in jour-

nals of historical scholarship, political science, social studies, science of

art, archaeology, law or ethnology as well as in disciplines that are per se

interdisciplinary, such as regional studies (including African studies), he-

ritage studies, museum studies, etc. Other cases are only known as a re-

sult of reports in the press. This not only makes it difficult to find existing

work but also means that very different perspectives are taken on the

subject of claims, returns and restitutions. We must also consider that

the few existing publications on the subject have largely been written by

researchers in the Global North, whose research questions are shaped

by their academic socialisation, access to sources and their research

interests.

Second, while there has been a large number of claims, there have

also been many different types of claims, negotiations and also returns.

Simple explanations, such as that claims were fundamentally rejected

by western institutions or that the current visible increase in claims to

European and North American museums are for the most part a result

of growing confidence on the part of the formerly colonised, tend to fall

short. Already in colonial times or during decolonisation, extensive de-

mands were made of the former colonisers and in some cases success-

fully enforced. Nor is an overly simplistic, binary categorisation of former

colonisers and colonised necessarily useful when reconstructing the of-

168 Scott, for instance, locates her book within the ‘field of cultural restitution

studies’, cf. Scott, Cynthia (2000),

Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of

Empire. Negotiating Post-Colonial Returns

, book description.

56VI. DISCUSSION

ten complex negotiations around claims for the return or restitution of

an object. Example cases can be found for the colonial period in which

returns were supported by representatives of the colonial powers – in or-

der to secure the loyalty of the colonised peoples, for example. Similar

political arguments were put forward in and beyond the context of politi-

cal independence. Alongside arguments either supporting or rejecting a

claim, closer attention should be paid to the various actors themselves.

On the claimant side, these might range from individual family members

to local administrative offices and interest groups to postcolonial states.

Sometimes, representatives of the (former) colonial powers would ac-

tively support and encourage returns procedures. On the side of the

holding institutions, private individuals – collectors as well as scientists –

were involved, as were a wealth of museums and state institutions such

as ministries of education or of foreign affairs. The modes of asserting

claims were equally diverse, from private inquiries to unofficial requests,

paragraphs in international treaties, or official restitution claims made by

state actors or pursued via lawsuits.

Third, we see that numerous restitution claims – even those that

were temporarily suppressed, forgotten, or at least not repeated – are

still effectively ‘open’, having been either completely ignored, rejected,

or given an evasive response. It would be instructive for the current de-

bate to engage in historical reflection on the individual claims, to contex-

tualise and – where appropriate – build on them, particularly those that

resulted in success.

VII. Concluding Remarks

Based on the example cases discussed here, I would like to make the

case for a systematic analysis of returns and restitution claims that, abo-

ve all, firmly and openly includes voices from the countries of origin. Res-

titution history only becomes comprehensible when the various sides –

in some cases multilateral constellations – are taken into consideration.

The absence of – and sometimes disregard for – voices of claimants in

the discourse is particularly striking.169

Given this aspect, it is especially important to focus on the ear-

ly restitution claims, which generally formed the basis for later develop-

ments, even in the absence of a direct connection or if the earlier case

appeared forgotten in the meantime. Studying the claims of individual

countries from a longue durée perspective is thus particularly instructive.

Even if recent work considers the 1960s as the beginning of a new resti-

tution debate, or if the 1970s are interpreted as a period in which ques-

tions of (post)colonial returns received fresh attention on an international

level and new forums of exchange emerged,170 it is also clear that many

initiatives and activities were pursued in spite of political and cultural up-

heaval. Although the international framework changed in the process, in-

terests, arguments, strategies and so on were reinforced, repeated and

continued, or indeed they were adapted and changed.

The documentary film ‘You Hide Me!’ by Ghanaian Nii Kwate Owoo

symbolises the upheaval during this period. Owoo was already filming

this documentary about African and Ghanaian artefacts in the British

Museum in 1970, in which he had clear recourse to earlier discussions.

The film can be interpreted as an impressive plea for returns and/or as

169 In the most recent issue of the

Contemporary Journal of African Studies

, Apoh

and Mehler articulate research questions that are helpful for a better under-

standing of current debates and practices around returns and claims for such.

Apoh, Wazi; Mehler, Andreas (2020), ‘Mainstreaming the Discourse on

Restitution and Repatriation within African History, Heritage Studies and

Political Science’, in:

Contemporary Journal of African Studies

7, 1, 1-16. Bianca

Gaudenzi and Astrid Swenson argue primarily for an examination of returns

from a transnational and global perspective and propose a framework in which

diverse returns can be analysed: Gaudenzi, Bianca; Swenson, Astrid (2017),

‘Looted Art and Restitution in the Twentieth Century – Towards a Global

Perspective’, in:

Journal of Contemporary History

, 52, 3, 1-27.

170 Most recently on this: Savoy (2021),

Afrikas Kampf

, 8.

58VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS

an indication that the topic of returns and restitution was not only a mat-

ter for museums or international politics but also enjoyed attention from

a wider public, such as the Ghanaian diaspora in the UK. The conclud-

ing words of Owoo’s film were taken as the point of departure for a large

BBC documentary on the topic of restitution in 1981: ‘These works of art

which belongs [

sic

] to the African peoples were looted and brought back

to Europe by missionaries, colonial army officers, tradesmen and the so-

called experts of today known as anthropologists and ethnography. Why

should Africans, including African artists, only be able to read about their

works of art in books written by white people? We, the people of Africa

and of African descent, demand that our works of art, which embodies

[sic] our culture, our history and our civilization should immediately and

unconditionally be returned to us’.171

Acknowledgements

For instructive discussions on a number of cases I extend my warmest

thanks to Bethany J. Antos, Samantha Blake, Jos van Beurden, Larissa

Förster, Sarah Fründt, Olaf Geerken, Rainer Hatoum, Amanda Hellmann,

Anette Hoffmann, Jan Hüsgen, Gökay Kanmazalp, Eva Künkler, Andrew

Reid, Ceri Z. Ashley, Sabine Lang, Niklas Leverenz, Mikhail Melanin, Pier-

re Losson and Aura Reyes.

Translated from German by Wendy Anne Kopisch

171 Owoo, Nii Kwate (1970),

You Hide Me! The Colonization of African Art

. British

Museum. There seem to have been varying versions of this text. The version

referred to here is from the script by Ben Shepard (1981),

Chronicle: Whose Art is

it Anyway?

27 May 1981, BBC Written Archives Centre. My thanks to Samantha

Blake, BBC Written Archive, for sending me this manuscript.

59REFERENCES 59

Returns of Cultural Artefacts and Human Remains in a (Post)colonial Context. Mapping Claims between the Mid-19th Century and the 1970s

Abstract

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