Title: The Scramble for Cultural Colonial Objects: Other Types of Acquisition
Abstract:Abstract This chapter demonstrates how collectors, traders, or missionaries benefited from colonial contexts. It argues that market labels, such as purchase or the idea of a ‘gift’ do not necessarily ...Abstract This chapter demonstrates how collectors, traders, or missionaries benefited from colonial contexts. It argues that market labels, such as purchase or the idea of a ‘gift’ do not necessarily reflect the context of colonial transactions. It also traces forms of resistance to colonial narratives and the social transformation of objects. It demonstrates entanglements through object histories from different colonial contexts (settler colonialism, extractive colonialism, and colonial occupation), namely: (1) the Māori ancestral house from Tūranga; (2) Moai Hoa Hakananai (1868); (3) the ‘Great Zimbabwe Birds’; (4) the Bangwa ‘Queen’ and the Ngonnso statue; (5) the grand canoe from Luf in German New Guinea; (6) missionary collecting of minkisi power figures in the Congo; (7) the gifting of King Nsangu’s throne; (8) the ‘sale’ and return of the Olokun head from Ife; (9) the removal of Nefertiti from British occupied Egypt; and (10) the Venus of Cyrene and the Axum Obkelisk.Read More