The Vigango Affair the Enterprise of Repatriating Mijikenda Memorial Figures to Kenya
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The Vigango Affair The Enterprise of Repatriating Mijikenda Memorial Figures to Kenya Joseph Nevadomsky n January , the California State were dident, and Kenyan consular ocials had no clue. Experts University, Fullerton (CSUF), repatriated I contacted—American anthropologists Monica Udvardy and twenty-seven Mijikenda vigango memo- Linda Giles and Kenyan ex-curator John Mitsanze—were as puz- rial wood posts. Ten days later the vigango zled as I was. gures were air-freighted to Kenya, their is is the story of that repatriation, a project complicated by place of origin. e success of this endeavor law, bureaucracy, advocacy, international marketing, Kenyan depends on one’s point of view. University administrators and internal aairs, and the Mijikenda. Although vigango are KenyanO embassy ocials in had signed the transfer doc- listed as “protected objects” by the NMK (National Museums uments with a no blame proviso. Bureaucratic procedures and of Kenya) and recognized as the cultural patrimony of peo- unanticipated hindrances delayed the repatriation and almost ples in the Republic of Kenya under the Antiquities and thwarted it. Assisted by the US State Department, repatriation Monuments Act of Kenya, Kenya until recently had not ratied went ahead, concluding a process begun in . Aer nearly a the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and decade success at last! A job well done! Mission accomplished! Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership But where in Kenya? And where are the vigango? of Cultural Property (Prott : –; Kouroupas : –). Donated in to the Department of Anthropology at CSUF, No international laws prevent Westerners from owning many people had a hand in the repatriation eort. Mitch Avila, vigango and Kenyan law does not prevent their sale. ey may then associate dean of the College of Humanities and Social be purchased “with impunity,” anthropologist David Parkin tells Sciences, noted, “… it took three deans, a couple of [CSUF] pres- us (: ). Available in Nairobi and Mombasa art galleries and idents, several provosts, and lots of faculty and sta involvement tourist cra shops, they are objects nobody initially made any to pull this o.” Ultimately, it included the Kenyan ambassador bones about. Joseph Murumbi, rst vice-president of Kenya and and a United States congressman. co-owner (with Alan Donovan) of African Heritage Gallery, a My involvement began as a casual observer. My curiosity was popular shop in Nairobi for upscale tourists and collectors, dis- piqued, however, by discussions about the eventual placement played and sold them (Kasr : g. ). ey appear in Nairobi of this disused collection—keeping it, giing it to a suitable coee shop window displays. In March Kenya gazetted museum in the United States, or repatriation to Kenya—and by vigango as protected objects, but restrictions on exporting them in-house debates about repatriation, an issue that looms large are weak. Wiped clean by legerdemain—cash transactions, fake in museum epistemology. As discussions became heated, the receipts—vigango reside in museums and private collections administration dropped a blanket over the vigango issue, then outside Kenya (Udvardy ). Actors Gene Hackman, Powers renegotiated repatriation. Aer the vigango arrived in Kenya, I Boothe, Linda Evans, Dirk Benedict, and Shelly Hack are among became more curious because no one knew or cared where the the Hollywood celebs who have owned them (Udvardy et al. gures were located. Colleagues had lost interest, administrators ). ree vigango were in the Sotheby’s catalog for Andy Warhol’s estate (Lacey ). ey are a collectible cultural art. J N is the California State University, Fullerton 2000 H&SS Distinguished Professor. He has also taught at the University of VIGANGO MEMORIAL SPIRIT MARKERS Lagos, University of Benin, UCLA, USC, and the University of Zimba- e Mijikenda live between Mombasa and Lamu just inland bwe. His focus is on Benin kingship rituals, brass-casting, prehistory, from the Kenyan coastal plain. Known as the “nine tribes” and palace architecture. [email protected] (Giriama, Rabai, Ribe, Kambe, Kauma, Jibana, Chonyi, Duruma, and Digo, although the latter two, heavily Islamized, do not carve african arts SUMMER 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 2 Downloaded from| http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00403 by guest on 24 September 2021 Vigango are Mijikenda commemorative spirit markers. ese representational egies, four to six feet high (Fig. ), are sacred reminders of deceased ancestors (Brown : ). Unlike the identifying headstones of Western internment practices, vigango honor the dead but are not grave markers. Solicited by mem- bers of an elite group known as Gohu (Wolfe : –) they memorialize powerful men of this society (Fig. ). e posts are placed near a Gohu member’s house in or near a thatched shelter (Fig. ). Linda Giles likens the Gohu to a fraternity not unlike the socially responsive Rotary Club in the United States (Giles : ), while Nancy Ngowa likens them to clergy in the traditional religion of the Mijikenda (: ). e posts form a visual link between the world of the living and the memorable dead, and interfacing these worlds is important to a family’s welfare. An unhappy spirit is blamed for crop failure, illness, even death. Spirits may appear in a dream; a healer may suggest erecting a kigango (the singular of vigango) or—if for an ordinary citizen—a koma, half the size, plain, little more than a stick gure. Koma are generalized ancestral spirits more widely distributed than vigango. As long as the ancestor is remembered, 1 Map of coastal Kenya from the CSUF exhibition, showing names and locations where the vigango originated. Photo: Lisa Gonzalez 2 CSUF exhibition showing several vigango exhibit- ed in buckets of sand. Caption adapted from Alfred Scheinberg (August 2, 1990), Courtesy Ernie Wolfe III. Photo: Lisa Gonzalez The foregrounded post is from Sokoke village (col- lected by Ernie Wolfe III (n.d.). The post has no facial features other than the notched rectangle that depicts the nose. Starting slightly above the waist, both sides of the torso are edged with interconnected triangulated chip work. vigango), they are mostly Muslims or Christians, girdled by local animist traditions. ey share economic niches and a coalesced identity derived from colonialism (Willis : –). ey are said to have migrated from what is now southern Ethiopia, nd- ing a safe haven in the rolling hills of southeastern Kenya, along the Indian Ocean, with sucient rainfall for farming (Wolfe : ). e map in Figure shows the original village locations of CSUF’s repatriated vigango. VOL. 51, NO. 2 SUMMER 2018 african arts Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00403 by guest on 24 September 2021 | 3 Kigango installation ceremony, Mijikenda Group, Giriama People, Matembeni Village, Northern Kilifi district. Sacrifices mark the high and concluding point of the ceremony. August 1981. Photo: courtesy Ernie Wolfe III 4 Mijikenda Group, Msumarini area, Giriama People. The large figure to the right with typical carved, incised, triangular designs is a kigango, representing a Gohu member. The four smaller round-headed and uncarved figures are vibao representing Gohu members who have been previously depicted by a kigango at another loca- tion. The six smallest posts are koma, brothers or wives of the Gohu member. This arrangement represents a visual kinship chart of a deceased Gohu member. The thatched background structure is a communal grain and cooking area. Between it and the posts is a barely distinguish- able grave marked by a large rock. Photo: courtesy Ernie Wolfe III family and Gohu members make oerings to these gures. WHAT ABOUT EXPATRIATED VIGANGO? Flat, two-dimensional, chip-carved boards, vigango follow a for- ey are also subject to the. Vigango are illicitly removed as mulaic simplicity but vary in detail. Some have faces with rounded part of an inside job, by somebody in the household or a neighbor. naturalistic heads (Fig. ), or discs with highly schematized designs Posts are clumped, in haphazard fashion, not dicult to identify (Fig. ). Also common are oblong (Fig. ) and rectangular heads and not easy to sneak up on. Vigango posts are now sometimes (Fig. ), and ones with minimal facial features (Fig. ). ey are embedded in concrete or protected by a wire cage (Udvardy et usually elaborated with incised triangular motifs (Fig. ) that may al. ). represent ribs or incisions that are indicative of other body fea- Because the vigango have commercial value, family arguments tures. Many are notched to represent the waist (Fig. ) or other arise over selling their vigango or continuing to honor them as anatomical features (Fig. ). Some are painted (Fig. ) with ancestral markers. As a rule, elders care more about tradition, white pigment and red vegetation stains, charcoal or soot black, while the young opt for sale. Nancy Ngowa is very clear on this even modern laundry bluing. Some are adorned with a twist of matter: Youths collect the vigango, seeing these gures as a busi- cloth at the neck or waist (Fig. ). Some have unusual architec- ness opportunity “in supplying tourists … and failed to take into tonic markings (Fig. ) and show unusual congurations (Fig. ). Incision marks and paint do not carry a load of meaning, but identify an individual. (e absence of markings indicates a leper.) Modern or refurbished posts supplant the traditional paint palette with foreign or imported oil- based pigments (Sieber : –; Wolfe : –). “Planted” near local homesteads, they are le there when these seminomadic agricultural landholders move. Udvardy says that “ey are nearly always in a homestead, mostly at the edge … to pro- tect them from the elements … [and] if one is found outside the homestead it has probably been le behind when the homestead moved.” In a slash-and- burn environment, they are sometimes destroyed by re or a tractor plow (Parkin : ). Made of hardwood from the muhuhu tree, they are also subject to rot and rain, but not termites.