Exploring African art in Washington DC

I recently returned from a trip to Washington DC to visit family. My time there was a welcome break from Durham and the archive, but not a rest per se. I have never been to DC and I was happy to find it is a great museum city: the National Mall is a museum lovers dream with seven (yes, that right seven) Smithsonians, the National Museum of Arts and more. This is not to mention the generous scattering of memorials, including one of the most interesting sites of memorial there is going - the two Vietnam veterans memorials. One of them, the wall, designed by a college student has been wildly successful in producing a site of national mourning and identity, the other, a statue of three soldiers, denigrated as a failure and eyesore.

As soon as you get interested in museology, all museums become intrinsically interesting, even if you don’t like or agree with them. Museums ended up punctuating my whole time in the States, even the day I spent catching up with a friend in NYC I could not resist the magnetic pull of the Met drawing me in.

There was plenty to interest a student of Africa, especially one with an interest in the politics of display.  Some of the African collections in Washington (and NYC) are truly amazing, but not unproblematic. I saw here a lot of the problems and successes of exhibiting Africa that I have also seen in Europe.

The first exhibit on Africa I went to was in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. This location was the main problem I had with this exhibition. What is an exhibition about African history doing in a The Museum of Natural History? Surely it should be in a museum of human history if anywhere?  You should not have to walk through a gallery about the ice-age into a display on post-apartheid South Africa: that just has to be the wrong message. A sign at the beginning of the exhibition announced that purpose was to display the history of African cultures from the evolution of humanity to the present day. In reality, there was very little on human evolution and it mostly concentrated on Africa’s colonial and post-colonial period. In their defense, the curators had gone to a lot of effort to stress the diversity and modernity of various African societies. However, I think whatever was done with the content of the exhibit, you could not get away from a creeping feeling of intense discomfort with the way that African cultures were being put in the context of natural history. The Ancient Greek and Roman collections used to be housed in the Natural History Museum but they have been moved, I am told. Africa remains with the beasts and rocks.

There were two massive cliches in this exhibit. The first was the decision to dim the lights. Exhibits on Africa are often dimly lit (this is the ‘Dark Continent’ after all) the Africa Galleries at the British Museum are also very dark. The second was the enormous number of proverbs printed above the cases, as if thinking in Africa only comes in mystical and poetic form?

Next we went to the Smithsonian Museum on African Art. My first impression was that they had fallen into another classic trap of displaying Africa - confusing art with artifact.  In the main hall there was a door displayed in a glass cabinet.

Nice, but is this ‘art’ or is this a door?

As we went in, we found they had a really nice exhibit of some contemporary South African and Brazilian artists. And the museum is nice, although there are a lot of empty spaces, but they seem to put on a lot of interesting events. I can't resist drawing attention to some really bad labeling we spotted. For example the label below starts with the sentence “Images of women with or without children appear frequently in African art”, this is not something unique to African art, as the Guerilla Girls have brilliantly made the point that 83% of the nudes in the Met Museum are female.

Finally I went to the Met while in NYC. I thought they have done a really nice job of displaying the permanent Africa collections.  My picture below makes it look a little dark but its not at all, some pieces you can walk all around and others are put together in cases.  For me part of the success of the Met has to be down to how genuinely fantastic their collection is, particularly the Malian pieces, I fully recommend. 

Obscure books about Southern Issues...part 1

This is a plug for a book that is very difficult to find, so I apologise for that in advance.

I just read the autobiography of Stanislaus Paysama, called “How a Slave Became a Minister”. It was published in 1990 in Khartoum with an introduction by Abel Alier and edited by someone called Fr. V Dellagiacoma.

It’s very short, 82 pages. The first part is written by Stanislaus and tells about how he was abducted in raids from a village in South Darfur and taken into slavery in Kafia Kingi and eventually, through a series of events, he is taken to Wau (in Bahr el Ghazal) in 1914. The second half of the book is based on interviews with Stanislaus in Wau in 1985 and it describes how he was then educated in Wau, employment in the Government and his later, important political career. Stanislaus died in 1985 so the book is very much his reflections, particularly on the politics of politics in Southern Sudan around and post-Independence.

Stanislaus’ life is interesting on many levels and the book is a remarkable account. It also benefits from Stanislaus’ talent as a writer. He starts the book by explaining how, for many years, he had been asked by all sorts of people, if he had read the book “History of Wau Town” by Fr. Santandrea. He was somewhat perplexed by these questions, but one day the mystery was revealed

“I found out that Fr. Santandrea had mentioned my name in one of the chapters of the book dealing with Wau Mission School, and I found out that they were afraid to tell whether a man mentioned there was I myself or another Stanislaus A. Paysama. Had they asked me that question I would have answered them frankly and they would have gone away satisfied. To say that I was a slave is not shame: I brought up myself and therefore I am not afraid to tell the truth…I was not born a slave, but I came from a respectable family, who lived and earned their living in the most honorable way. I would feel ashamed and a slave had I used my life extravagantly and doing shameful and degrading things”

As Eddie Thomas explains in his report, this autobiography is one of the most detailed accounts we have of the early twentieth century slave trade in Darfur. Stanislaus was captured around 1904, amidst violent upheaval when the Sultan of Darfur, Ali Dinar, was leading a punitive campaign against Baggara groups (like those who originally captured Stanislaus) in South Darfur. When he was taken to Kafia Kingi, a town under British control where slavery was officially banned (although this ban was not very rigidly enforced) he met slave traders again. This time he was abducted by a professional Fur slave dealer and his account of this experience reveals something of how the slave industry operating at the time.

After being freed from slavery, Stanislaus is taken to Wau. He is educated and takes a job as a clerk in the British administration in the south. He worked in Rumbek and Yirol between 1933 and 1943. Again, his very short account this experience is fascinating. There has been a lot of interest in African history in recent years about African colonial intermediaries (clerks, court workers, interpreters etc). Scholars have shown how they can help us to understand the ways British ‘hegemony on a shoestring’ worked in practice as well as break down a binary between coloniser and colonised. Stanislaus describes how he negotiated his promotions with the British system and the attitude of the District Commissioners towards Sudanese employees. In one paragraph he explains how the Governor of Bahr el Ghazal enforced a strict uniform policy (a significant material aspect of colonial experience), preventing Dinka chiefs from wearing anything but the jellabiah (strictly not European clothes) and how the clerks could not wear shoes from the shop and had to wear a sort of shoe called shamut khalit.

One of the most interesting parts of Stanislaus’ life is how he became a Southerner. Born into the Fur ethnic group in South Darfur, through his move to Wau, conversion to Christianity and instrumental role in early Southern politics he became Southern Sudanese. My flatmate, Nicki, has been doing research into the definition of ‘Southern Sudanese’, how it has emerged historically and how it has been used in current referendum processes.  Who is and who is not a Southerner, and the different ways someone can be Southern Sudanese (or South Sudanese) is very complicated. Stanislaus’ account throws light on how he negotiated these complexities – which have become much more critical in light of South Sudan’s vote for Independence. 

Still Time to Party

This may or may not be research. But at least it is good to be able to in some way justify going to parties as part of your research.

On Saturday I went to a party to celebrate the results of South Sudan’s referendum. Southern Sudanese voted (as predicted by all observers) in a landslide for Independence. So on 9^th July 2011, South Sudan will become Africa’s newest country (does this mean I need to change the name of my blog?). Such a momentous event is cause for celebration indeed.

I arrived with a friend a little bit late and the venue was already packed. The event itself was a lot of speeches, performances and dances. A particularly nice one was a potted history and song performed by a group of children wearing matching ‘I am South Sudan’ t-shirts. They were great, and your heart would have to be made of stone not to enjoy it.

Children's performance

The speeches eventually gave way in to eating food, dances, chatting and later music (and an excellent local drink made from sesame and slighting alcoholic – thanks to the lady who gave me that). The most enjoyable part of the evening was seeing a lot of friends and making some new ones. If I am being honest I would probably say that going to parties is an essential part of research anyway and when was there ever an easy distinction between life and work? I am sure, since I will be in South Sudan on Independence Day this will not be the last chance to party.  

Audience

Elephants and Aliab patrols

Peculiar things come up at auctions. Like the Paris home of infamous Central African dictator, Jean-Bedel Bokassa which just sold for £720,000. I admit it is less flashy than a mansion, but I took a lot of geeky smugness is discovering this lot of medals at Bonhams.

They were awarded posthumously to a Major Chauncey Stigand of the Royal West Kent Regiment.  On the 8^th of December 1919, Chauncey Stigand was shot through the heart with a spear and he died instantly. He had been on ‘patrol’ in the home of the Aliab Dinka, located in the most south easterly part of Lakes state.  I drove through this area on my way to Yirol in December.

The patrol he was on was sent in response to an uprising that started at the end of October of 1919. The Aliab felt (not unreasonably, one might think) resentful of the British presence. As even the Governor of Mongalla Province admitted “The Government has done nothing for the Aliab. It has not protected them from aggression, has given them no economic benefits…it has forced them to do a certain amount of labour, to pay taxed and to endure a not negligible amount of extortion by police” (quoted in Daly’s Empire on the Nile…).

So it is no great surprise that in October 1919, a group of Aliab attacked and killed eight of these policemen. When Stigand et al went to investigate these deaths, 24 of their party (including Stigand) were killed. The Government, as you can image, responded to this with a macho display of superior fire power, but it still took them several more patrols and burning of villages to assert themselves in the area. The British administration then held, as far as I can see, a rather schizophrenic perception of the Aliab for the next 30 years. Despite the problems in 1919, by the late 1940s the Governor of Bahr el Ghazal was writing in the letters home to his mother how great the Aliab were (the letters are in the archive here, and I can assure you he was a very good boy about writing to mum regularly).

According to the auction details, Stigand was then buried at Tombe (on the bank of the Nile) with stones sent by his wife from his home in Kajo-Keji (on the border of Sudan and Uganda). Military officers in Southern Sudan were not technically supposed to have wives or families because it was considered a hardship posting. But, in Stigand’s case this rule had been overlooked on account of the fact that he had been trampled by an elephant (while hunting) the year before.  'Sorry you got trampled by an elephant, have a wife', kind of thing.

Elephant hunting appears to have been Stigand’s great passion. Despite his successful army career he found time to write a guidebook/manual to elephant hunting, which was introduced with utmost respect by Theodore Roosevelt. I have read (ok, skimmed…) this book and I am not sure how helpful it would be in actually getting your hands on an elephant. But given the trampling incident I don’t think I would take Stigand’s advice as gospel anyway…

The past seems like a very odd place sometimes.

Not yet Uhuru?

 Something resembling this picture may be about to happen in Sudan

(as represented by SSRC voter education guidebook)

No, Southern Sudan is not floating away, but it is probably about to become Africa’s newest country. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the last civil war stipulated that after a 6 year interim period, the South could vote to go its separate way. And now, that appears to be what is happening. I remember going to see a panel of experts on secessions discuss the phenomenon at Oxford last year; most of the discussion was on former Soviet states, but when Sudan’s situation was raised the panelists all scoffed incredulously! How could think that anything other than a vote for separation was a real possibility? Staying together is just not the sort of thing that people tend to choose in this kind of situation.

My research is not about the referendum, in any way, really. In my original PhD proposal, my period of study ends at the referendum, so following that, today is the last day in Sudan’s history I am looking at (but who is counting? Or holding doctoral students to their original proposals!). Such a massive political transformation is impossible to escape from and I will be joining the ranks of people anxiously biting their fingernails over the coming days. Although the Southern Sudanese friends I have spoken to over the last few days seem very happy and excited, and why not relish this moment?

I heard a talk in September by the historian Douglas Johnson who pointed out that self determination has been a major and recurrent theme in Southern political thought. Yesterday, while I was going through Durham’s collection of documents from Sudan I came across a pamplet, written by  Gen. Joseph Lagu and produced for the Anyanya, the rebel movement of Sudan’s first civil war (1955-1972).

Its fascinating to read the official statements from the intellectual and military leaders of this past struggle for self-determination. This pamphlet, interestingly published just weeks before the signing of the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement in 1972, is a rallying call to support the Anyanya movement. Of course, it is political positioning written in war and not meant to be moderate. With that in mind,  a few excerpts from this pamphlet are interesting to compare with today’s political discourse in the South and to think about the evolution of these ideas.

“South Sudan is African

Since Independence was granted to Sudan in 1956 the Arabs of the North have never regarded the South as a real part of their country and the Southerners as a people with equal status. They regarded the South as a colony left to them by the previous colonial regime and they felt themselves free to exploit the land and enslave its people. The enemy cannot even conceive of independent of autonomous existence for our country because he considers it his property. So force must be used to prove to the enemy his ignorance and stupidity, to make him accept and recognize our national identity, We had not been a colony of the North when the whole of the Sudan was under the Anglo-Egyptian comdominium. The North and South won independace together as equals, now freedom must be equal for all.”

How they saw their position in the region is fascinating too - especially today

“Defending Black Africa

Our Brothers and Sisters in East Africa must realize that ever since the first Arabs reached Malakal, Juba and Wau, we, the people of South Sudan, have been defending not only ourselves but also them from the onslaught of Arab colonialism…while we fight this war we also protect our brothers in East and Central Africa”

My flat mate pointed out to me last night that some of the Kenyan press are embracing narrative of African solidarity in their coverage of this referendum. There is vast news coverage of the referendum from Europe and the US, but I will be making sure I follow East African reaction just as closely in the coming weeks and months.

Cattle Camp Sartorialists

The weekend before I left Sudan (I am now in England), a friend took me to visit a cattle camp where his brother was looking after their cattle. I am getting really interested in how people who live in towns organise their herds and their relationships with rural kin…this was a perfect opportunity to ask a long line of questions. Although the real reason for visiting was to bring vaccinations to the cattle and for the brothers to meet before the cattle camps move further out into the toic (flood plains) and become difficult to access.

It was an early start, and our motorbike got a flat tyre so we had to walk the last bit, made it fine in the end. Some time after we arrived a large crowd formed around us. The reason for this crowd, it emerged, was a desire for ‘sura’ – photos.

I (not so secretly) really love it when people ask me to take their photo.  It’s just so fun. I love how, with a digital camera you can show the photos to people afterwards and it’s always a good reaction. How dull the photography experience must have been in the days before digital cameras. Just, snap, that’s it, all mine. But, I also enjoy taking photos because I am fascinated by the way that people choose to present themselves and compose the shot. Image and beauty are important everywhere and being photographed just makes people pay attention to the details and ensure everything is just right.  And how people make themselves beautiful is just so interesting. In the process of arranging clothes, people and props the “subjects” are often the most active in creating the image.

Most requests for photos came from young men who wanted photos of themselves with their display oxen. I am still trying to understand the meaning and role of these song oxen, (also called song bull/personality ox/display ox). Francis Deng says that young men identify with them as symbols of virility and wealth. And, from research in Upper Nile, Sharon Hutchinson has seen them as a marker of the link between masculinity and cattle wealth.

Well, I couldn’t say no to these photo requests. Below are some of the results of a considerable amount of grooming (of people and cattle) and posing. I took these, but they aren’t my creations.

Reflecting on my photos made me think more about historical photos from Southern Sudan and wonder what went in to their composition. There are very few written records for the area I am studying and I am beginning to realise the stories that are lost to the written record, but still survive in the visual (more to come on this in a future blog…or you might have to read my PhD thesis!). All of these photos are from the brilliant Pitt Rivers museum Southern Sudan resource

Nuer Youth (with display ox), from Eastern Jikany Gaajok in 1935. Photographed by E.E Evans-Pritchard 

Dinka man with an ox, in Warrap, 1947-51. Photographed by Godfrey Lienhardt

Two Mandari youths with their display oxen, in Bahr el Jebel,  1950-52. Photographed by Jean Buxton

In search of Wol Athiaŋ

I’m still working out how to talk to people about their past in a productive way. I am finding it difficult, especially when cultural notions of time are so different, to get the kind of information I want from people. Responses to some of my questions have been very vague, lacking the sort of details that I want and hard to relate to a specific period. Of course, if you ask general questions, you get general answers, and some of my best and most enjoyable research so far has been from collecting memories and versions of famous people and events.

Take the example of Wol Athiaŋ, the warrior-chief from the Pakkam section of Agar, whose home is 75 miles north of Rumbek town. Wol Athiaŋ is a legendary figure in the Rumbek area. He is most famous for attacking, and capturing, the Turkish slave fort in present day Rumbek in 1883.  Joining with different section of the Agar Dinka in Lakes and Nuer from Upper Nile they successfully captured the fort from the Turkish Army (it was retaken by the Turks the following year). Wol remained an important figure in political relations between different Dinka sections in Lakes State up to and throughout the British Period. He mediated in the biggest grazing dispute of the 1930’s and 40’s between the Luac Dinka of Warrap and the Pakkam. I am fascinated by the Pakkam area anyway, it’s at the northern most point of Lakes state, bordered by Unity and Warrap states – a frontier area with a difficult history or confrontation and displacement. Many of these problems are still unresolved. I hoped Wol’s life could give me a hook into finding out about some of this past.

Wol comes up a lot in British colonial records, clearly a highly intelligent man and brilliant strategist, he was consistently able to both captivate and outsmart the British officials. Despite this there is little written about Wol. While I was in Rumbek I wanted to find out more about him - what are the oral traditions around Wol? How is he remembered and what is his legacy, in Rumbek and Pakkam? What are the local versions of this history?

I started asking people I knew in Rumbek, and soon found out that everyone had something to say about Wol. Then I was introduced to descendants of Wol, many of whom live in Rumbek town. They told me fascinating things  – stories about his childhood, how he planned the attack on the Turkish, how he resisted the British and tried to keep the government out of Pakkam areas, about his wives, children and the complicated relationship with the Luac Dinka.

I soon found out that Wol’s grandson, Kuloŋ Marial Wol, is a paramount chief of the Pakkam Dinka and lives in Maper, a town about 75 Miles north of Rumbek town. I was desperate to interview Kuloŋ, everyone insisted that I must. After some inquiries, I managed to get a lift to Maper with the Lakes State Ministry of Animal Resources, who wanted to take some vaccines for cattle up there. We set off, myself, someone to translate, a young relative of Kuloŋ’s to introduce us and several ice-boxes of vaccines and para-vets.

We arrived, and Kuloŋ was kind enough to take an hour and a half out of his court hearings to speak to me about Wol and the Pakkam area. We sat in a small shack, surrounded by people listening, and laughing at me pronouncing Dinka names, as I furiously took notes. When we were done, I thanked Kuloŋ and agreed I would bring him a pair of glasses from the UK next time I came, as he has become short sighted. A good excuse to come back and ask him questions about his own life – as he has been paramount chief since Sudan became independent.

But, before we left, the wife of Kuloŋ's brother took us to see the place where Wol is buried. A tree was planted in the spot and it is surrounded by the horns of sacrificed cattle. Next to the grave is the cattle byre were Wol lived and kept his cattle. His descendents still live there and I was allowed inside. It looked and smelt incredibly old, and still had Wol’s drum and spear in the corner. I felt so privileged to have had this glimpse into the life of Wol Athiaŋ.

On the left is the tree over Wol's grave, the large byre on the right is his. This is at the edge of Maper town

Wol's byre