[MSN] Hampton University continues to hold an African statue.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

From: john mitsanze <jmitsanze at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [AFRICOM-L] Hampton University continues to hold an
	African	statue
To: africom-l at list.africom.museum
Message-ID: <20060624154730.25796.qmail at web52115.mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

I am much surprised and pained by the utterances of E.Wolfe. 

I am convinced that the vigango were stolen. I also hold valid the
sentiments of Prof.Linda Giles and Prof. Monica Urdvardy. The National
Museum is the National Custodian for Kenya heritage thus the proper organ to
intervene in this case. I humbly call upon the university Management to look
into the issues a second time. Africom please assist!. African students in
western universities help ! I call upon E. Wolfe to come to Kenya for a
discussion with me and the family as well as the Gohu society. Let own up
modesty and see that a mistake has happened and return the vigango back to
its rightful owners. The family has suffered long earnough! The family
deserves compensation for such mistreatment.

Yours faithfully,

John Baya Mitsanze

--- AFRICOM <secretariat at africom.museum> wrote:

> > Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 10:54:33 +0200
> > From: Museum Security Network Mailinglist
> <msn-list at te.verweg.com>
> > Subject: [MSN] Hampton University continues to
> hold an African statue
> > 	nearly three months after receiving a letter from
> the National Museum
> > 	of Kenya demanding its return. The museum
> contends the statue was
> > 	stolen.
> >
> > Hampton U. resists demand to return statue by Marvin Anderson June 
> > 1, 2006
> >
> > Hampton University continues to hold an African
> statue nearly three
> > months
> > after receiving a letter from the National Museum
> of Kenya
> > demanding its
> > return. The museum contends the statue was stolen.
> >
> > Hampton museum officials say they are still
> investigating how the
> > blue-and-white kigango statue was acquired and
> will not return the
> > statue
> > until they are convinced it was stolen. Hampton
> has obtained a
> > letter from
> > Ernie Wolfe, a prominent African art dealer in Los
> Angeles, who
> > said he
> > purchased the statue legitimately.
> >
> > Hampton possesses a kigango that originally
> belonged to Kalume
> > Mwakiru, a
> > Kenyan villager who died in 1987. His statues were
> stolen in 1985,
> > about two
> > years after he erected them. Although there is
> evidence that the
> > kigango
> > once belonged to Mwakiru, Hampton officials say
> they are not sure
> > it was
> > obtained illegally.
> >
> > "There is no question that the statues were
> stolen," said Monica
> > Udvardy, a
> > cultural anthropologist and an associate professor
> at the
> > University of
> > Kentucky. "This single case illustrates what is a
> growing social
> > problem."
> >
> > Udvardy visited Mwakiru's village in 1985, two
> years after Mwakiru
> > built and
> > erected his vigango, the plural form of "kigango."
> At the time,
> > Udvardy was
> > working with the Mijikenda people, and she took a
> picture of him
> > next to the
> > statues after interviewing him for two hours.
> >
> > Mwakiru had vigango built and erected in 1983 to
> memorialize the
> > deaths of
> > his brothers, Udvardy said. A kigango is sculpted
> as part of a
> > Mijikenda
> > ritual memorializing the spirit of a male who has
> died, followed by a
> > celebration. The Mijikenda believe the spirit of
> the dead would
> > come back to
> > haunt the family and the land if the kigango were
> not created. The
> > cost to
> > pay a sculptor, who must also be of the Mijikenda
> people, usually
> > runs more
> > than a Kenyan's annual salary, Udvardy said.
> >
> > A kigango is erected in an area where, once
> complete, it is never
> > to be
> > moved.
> >
> > Days after Udvardy left the village and had the
> film developed, she
> > returned
> > to give Mwakiru a copy of the photograph.
> >
> > He cried, she said, telling her he had been
> heartbroken because his
> > brother's vigango were stolen. He asked Udvardy to
> promise to find and
> > return them.
> >
> > "Vigango are what we anthropologists call
> inalienable objects,"  
> > Udvardy
> > said.
> >
> > "The equivalent in the United States would be the
> actual paper the
> > Declaration of Independence was written on, or the
> Statue of
> > Liberty." It
> > wasn't until 1999 that Udvardy found one of
> Mwakiru's missing vigango.
> > During an annual meeting of the African Studies
> Association,
> > Udvardy spotted
> > what she thought was Mwakiru's kigango in a slide
> presentation by
> > association member Linda Giles. Udvardy stood up
> and interrupted the
> > presentation.
> >
> > "It was one of the uh-huh moments," Udvardy said.
> "I recognized
> > that statue
> > and knew it was stolen."
> >
> > Once Giles and Udvardy compared and matched
> slides, they paired up
> > with John
> > Baya Mitsanze, a Mijikenda curator of the National
> Museum of Kenya,
> > to find
> > the other kigango. Together, they went through
> museum catalogs, and
> > Giles
> > and Udvardy eventually found the second kigango at
> Hampton University.
> >
> > International Business Management Inc., in Culver
> City, Calif.,
> > donated the
> > kikango to Hampton after purchasing it from the
> Ernie Wolfe Art
> > Gallery in
> > Los Angeles. Wolfe said he has been to Africa 48
> times and that such
> > conflicts over ownership are a first for his
> gallery. He maintained
> > the
> > statues were not stolen.
> >
> > "I stand by where I am," he said. "I did my due
> diligence."
> >
> >
> > Wolfe said he considered the quest to return the
> kigango a personal
> > crusade
> > of anthropologists and interpreted the
> significance of the object
> > differently. He said the Mijikenda told him
> vigango were priceless
> > at one
> > time, but as their culture changed, so did the
> importance of the
> > vigango.
> >
> > "Vigango are a sort of bridge to a modern time in
> society," Wolfe
> > said.
> >
> > Wolfe said the Mijikenda use an agricultural
> technique called slash
> > and
> > burn, in which they burn old crops to make new
> ones. The village
> > remains in
> > its place until the land becomes unfertile and
> forces it to move.
> >
> > Wolfe said when the villages moved, the vigango
> remained. A group
> > that did
> > not recognize the statue would burn it or let it
> rot.
> >
> > On one of his trips to Africa, Wolfe said, he sat
> around a fire
> > with the
> > Mijikenda drinking palm wine, trying to learn more
> about their
> > culture and
> > beliefs. It was at one such gathering that Wolfe
> said he learned
> > that these
> 
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