French ministry blocks return of mummified Maori head
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "oh puhleeze, can't we just return all those heads to wherever is/was their home and get this all over with?" - well, this article brings up an important point which may change things somewhat."The ministry argues that the human head is a work of art that belongs to France and its return could be an unfortunate precedent for a huge range of the national museum collections...
Rouen officials insist that the Maori head is a body part, not a work of art, and that according to France's bioethics law it must be returned to its place of origin. "This object reflects the barbaric trafficking in body parts, the belief that another race was inferior to ours," said Catherine Morin-Desailly, the deputy mayor for culture and a senator, who proposed the return of the head. "It belongs to the heritage of humanity, not in storage somewhere in a museum."
The director of the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, a museum I recently visited, thinks that having these ancient relics put on show is the only way:
"From my point of view they are cultural artifacts that had a function in society... Sending back these artifacts to New Zealand, and destroying them by burying them is a way of erasing a full page of history."
Now this maybe so, but I wonder if there is any sort of code of conduct for conservators and curators to know how to handle such things? Do they still follow the customs and rituals of wherever that artifact is from in the way they treat them in death? Some of the heads have not even had a chance to be placed within Tribes, as Museums won't even release photos of them fo further study... and the Musee du Quai Branly is a Museum of indigenous artifacts, so of course this director would say this- if they had to return everything that have received in somewhat dubious ways, all they would have left is their building!
It makes me wonder what ethical considerations are put in place in a Museum context, and also just how many artifacts would be left in some of the larger Museums in the world if everything got returned to its rightful owners. I think there are quite a few fishy stories hidden about preserved heads, mummies and other "exotic finds" that we have never been told. Maybe the dusty old exhibits would be better for it if they were.
3 comments:
I'm beginning to think that the age of the 'toff's treasure trove' museum should be brought to a close. Ever since I read about the provenance of the Parthenon's marbles in the British Museum (chipped off by an aristocrat in the early 19th Century, thank you very much) the idea has disgusted me. You can travel to Athens quite easily nowadays, you don't need to bring Athens to the masses anymore...
It's all very colonial-European to have a museum like that though, isn't it? A relic from a different time when calling them 'savages' was perfectly acceptable, and their customs and artifacts 'quaint'. Obviously it is the 21st century now, and nobody thinks like that now, so why should museums still represent such outdated modes of thinking?
Of course, I see where the MInistry are coming from: allow one through and you're faced with a bureaucratic nightmare and an empty building. But I also think that New Zealand isn't doing too badly in terms of how it stores, handles and displays Maori artifacts, perhaps all those in posession of 'our' stuff should educate themselves on how we do it. After all, you don't find any cities here with a Museum of Old World Artifacts of Dodgy Provenance.
But yes, Gmail is fun, if a little eerie. I personally haven't forgiven it for telling me 'He's not into you, find out why' next to an email from a boy I fancied.
I don't really have anything intelligent to add. I just think their argument that it would be erasing a page of history is a bit weak with the multitude of ways we have of recording things (I'm sure resident archivist Lotte could name a few!).
Really, I just wanted to say that I think the gmail 'he's not into you' anecdote is hilarious.
*ahem*
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