The National Museum of Mali, 1960–present

Restitution vs. Retention: Reassessing Discourses on the African Cultural Heritage

“…In all fairness, African museums also suffered major security infringements. The National Museum of Mali’s collections, for instance, dwindled from 15,000 objects in 1964 to less than 1,500 in a 1975 inventory (Arnoldi et al 2022:140). Pointing to similar failures in Nigeria, Paul Wood (2012:134) delivers the gist of the retentionist reservations: “There is a real danger that if works were returned […] in the present political and economic situation, they would be lost: either through physical decay or through various forms of theft, looting, etc.” On the grounds that public museums might lend objects to source communities for ceremonial uses, Wood (2012:126) also fears that their accessibility could be lost.…”

“…Whereas the well-documented sacking of Benin City offers a straightforward case justifying restitution, more nuanced provenance studies should cast light on a series of fault lines between precolonial and colonial history, acquisitions and requisitions, donations and trade, and extra- and intra-African restitutions, to name but a few apparently non-coercive contexts. From a precolonial perspective, the saber of El Hadj Omar Tall restituted to Senegal could equally be counterclaimed by Mali, where the Toucouleur empire stretched (Arnoldi 2022:154). The AfricaMuseum’s archives also abound with ambiguous information: although collectors received cash in advance from the Musée du Congo Belge (now AfricaMuseum) to buy or exchange objects, sometimes chiefs would refuse to sell their regalia (Wastiau 2006:10), which administrators would then forcibly obtain at undervalued prices or directly requisition (Mumbembele 2022:145).…”