Early this month, the Government of India unsuccessfully tried to stop the sale of Gandhi's belongings in New York on grounds that these were part of India's national heritage. The struggle over the Gandhi memorabilia was reminiscent of the epic battle between Cameroon and a Manhattan art dealer over the stolen Afo-a-Akom. Here is that story as reported by Time Magazine in 1973.
Lost Totem. Time Magazine, Nov. 05, 1973
The Afo-A-Kom is far from the world's greatest piece of art—or even Africa's. A 5-ft. 2½in. image of a king, it is rather crudely carved in iroko wood, the torso covered with sackcloth stitched with reddish-brown beads, the face masked in copper. But the Afo-A-Kom (literally, the Kom thing) is sacred to the approximately 30,000 people who constitute the Kom kingdom, a tribal enclave in the northwestern part of the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
Last week this rather ungainly sculpture caused a flurry of diplomatic exchanges and created an uproar that stretched from the elegant salons of New York's art world all the way back to Laikom, the capital of Kom.
For it seemed that the Afo-A-Kom had been stolen in late 1966 from a storage hut near the royal palace and smuggled out of the kingdom. According to the New York Times, the statue was mysteriously spirited away by thieves using a highly organized system of logistics that included Land Rovers, trucks and airplanes. When he realized his loss, Law Aw, the King (also called the Fon) of Kom was thought to be "psychologically killed," and soon died.
The King's nephew, suspected of complicity in the disappearance of the statue, was ostracized, and, according to one account, nearly everyone in the country took to quarreling.
The new Fon, Bobe-Meya, had a new Afo-A-Kom carved and displayed, as is customary, with female figures representing his wife and mother. But the new sculpture was no substitute for the old. According to Sandra Blakeslee, a former Times reporter living in western Africa: "There has been no peace in the kingdom since the statue was taken out."
Then a few months ago, a catalogue of a show called "Royal Art of Cameroon," mounted at Dartmouth College, reached Evan Schneider, a longtime Kom scholar and a member of the Peace Corps in Cameroon. There, resplendent in full color on the cover, was the lost Afo-A-Kom. It had been lent to Dartmouth by its new owner, Aaron Furman, a respected Manhattan dealer in primitive art, and it was reportedly on sale for $60,000.
Beyond Money. It was no surprise in Cameroon that the statue was in the U.S. (The U.S. embassy had been asked to discuss the matter with the Cameroon government in August.) But the new publicity about the sculpture caused a stir. Last week Thaddeus Nkuo, first secretary of Cameroon in Washington and himself a Kom, demanded its return, explaining: "It is beyond money, beyond value. It is the heart of the Kom, what unifies the tribe, the spirit of the nation, what holds us together. It is not an object of art for sale, and could not be."
Embattled Dealer Furman retreated behind his lawyer but declared that he was "not inclined to return it or to sell it back." He had bought it for a five-figure sum from an "impeccable dealer," probably in France, though Furman declined to say. His story, as reported by the Times, had the intricacy of plausibility. He had first been told by the go-between that the statue was being offered for sale by the King of Kom. Furman paid for it, it was delivered to him some time in 1966, then he was told that the King had changed his mind. Says Furman: "I shipped it back, and my check to my agent was torn up. That was the last I heard of it for six months. I got another letter saying that the King had cooled off and was in a position to sell again. Then I bought it."
Was the Afo-A-Kom stolen? Or, as the organizers of the Dartmouth show suggested, was it sold by the King or someone in his family? This second theory was supported by the fact that smaller "sacred objects" have been sold off by past Fons of Kom in exchange for such commodities as zinc roofing and a Land Rover. Cameroon's Ambassador to the U.S., Francois-Xavier Tchoungui, thinks otherwise: "We cannot avoid the fact that the Afo-A-Kom was stolen," he says. "We cannot believe that a chief could sell his own totem."
In this specific instance, the question scarcely matters, since with all the diplomatic hassle, the statue may well be returned to Kom, perhaps with compensation to Furman. Even so, it will leave moot the questions that more and more agitate the art world: Can or should even a legitimate owner sell an art object outside his own country if it is declared a national treasure, and can an art dealer legitimately buy it, in good faith, for mere cash?
Click here for a more colorful version of the Afo-a-Kom odyssey.
For the triumphant return of Afo-a-kom to Kom, see The New York Times: Afo-A-Kom Joyously Greeted on Its Return Home; Afo-A-Kom Is Joyously Welcomed Home 'Mbang Has Returned' Explosion of Joy Purification Is Ordered
See also:
Ferretti, F. (1975). Afo-A-Kom: Sacred art of Cameroon. New York: Third Press.
Shanklin, E. (2003). The odyssey of the Afo-a-Kom. Arterial: Visual Arts Magazine.
Dutch to return Ghana king's head
The head of a Ghanaian king executed by Dutch colonists in the 1830s is to be returned to its homeland for burial, say authorities in the Netherlands.
Badu Bonsu II, leader of the Ahanta group, is believed to have been decapitated in retaliation for the killing of two Dutch emissaries.
The Leiden museum, which has been storing the head, said it hoped it could now have a dignified burial.
Ghana had said the king would not be at rest if the head remained where it was.
King Bonsu is thought to have been executed after the two officials were killed during a rebellion against European rule in the country, hanging their heads on his throne as a trophy.
At some point, the king's head was taken from Ghana to the Netherlands, and has been kept in a jar of formaldehyde at the Leiden University Medical Centre ever since.
Author Arthur Japin told Dutch media last year that he once saw the head while researching a historical novel.
"He's got a little ring beard, his eyes are closed as if he's sleeping," said Mr Japin.
"My first thought was, this is not fitting."
After hearing of the head's location in 2008, Ghana filed a request for its return, saying if it remained unburied the king would be incomplete and therefore "hunted in the afterlife".
'Good thing'
Now, a Dutch culture ministry spokesman has said the museum has decided to "restore the head to Ghana" as a matter of dignity.
“ As he was a king, putting his head on display would amount to some form of humiliation for his people ”
Prof Addo-Fening
"This is a king," Freek Manche told the AFP news agency, emphasising its importance.
The museum said in a statement that officials had been in contact with Ghana to arrange for the careful return of the preserved head.
They said they had not allowed any photographs to be taken out of respect for the human remains.
The BBC's Will Ross in Accra says respect for the dead has huge cultural significance in Ghana.
Ghanaian historian Prof Addo-Fening told the BBC that the museum's decision was "very, very important".
"When people die and their bodies are not found and buried, it leaves a lingering fear that they will not find rest with their ancestors until this is done," he said.
"As he was a king, putting his head on display would amount to some form of humiliation for his people - but they now have an opportunity to show some reverence to their late king before they bury him."
"I imagine that this will be a a good thing for the psyche of the community," he said.
Museum spokesman Marleen van't Oever told AFP that no date had yet been arranged for the return but it was "likely to be in the long term".
The museum's move follows decisions by other western museums to return items taken during colonial times or explorations.
In 2006, the University of Aberdeen in Scotland returned to New Zealand the preserved heads of nine tattooed Maori tribesman seized in the 19th Century.
The same year, Britain's Natural History Museum returned the remains of 18 indigenous people taken from Australia.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7955997.stm
Posted by: kumalo | March 23, 2009 at 11:44 AM
This site post rare stories which at times are very educative and interesting. So what finally happened to the Afo-A-Kom? Was it returned to Cameroon? That is how art dealers come to our country and steal away objects of great value only to end up selling them in their country of origin. Again one will ask the question that where were our customs when the Afo-A-Kom was being ferried out of Cameroon? Surely they were bribed as usual to look the other way. Shame.
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