International Museum Day ;)
I hadn’t seen her at the Institute before, and now she walked past regarding me like a truant child for some reason, and waving her hand, saying “No, no”. I smiled at her as she admonished me for what I didn’t understand, because she was a beautiful chocolate black, tall and unafraid, and her hair, lush, framed a defiant face, sharp cut like a gorgeous stone carving.
I kept on capturing the relics on video, moved on to the monochrome painting of … was that a mask? A masquerade? A spirit? I couldn’t tell. It was not detailed, just a pinching wonder at the top of your brows. The next one was coloured in different shades of green. People hanging out under a thatched shade. I didn’t have time to find out why they were gathered there. The beautiful chocolate black woman had returned.
“Can you please stop”, she said.
What? Why?
“This is our private collection”, she explained without anyone asking, “You can’t be taking pictures of them.”
“But you didn’t tell us” I tucked away my phone. The others were looking just as surprised and claiming innocence.
“You don’t take cameras into a museum,” a museum man pitched in, “in fact, usually you leave them at the entrance.”
That was a first. In the movies, people took pictures in museums all the time. By the way, weren’t they listening to that talkative professor in the oversized trousers talk about taking a museum virtual!
Many royal fathers had left their palaces to grace the unveiling of the Museum of the University of Nigeria’s Institute of African Studies. I was standing beside one now.
“Igweeee”, I greeted.
“Nwa m daalu. I ga-adi” he blessed me.
A small crowd was surrounding a glass showcase. I went to see why. In the showcase were metal rods of different shapes and sizes. They were labelled ‘’MANILA’’, and beneath that, ‘’OKPOGHO’’ in brackets. Another set was labelled ‘‘U-SHAPED CURRENCY’’. There were cowries too. Why did these ones look so familiar, these little metal rods the size of a wrist bangle, bent into a nearly complete circle, its ends extended and flat like the soles of feet.
“ — this was money in those days”, a curator was saying, pointing at the manilas, “that’s why you see them on the naira notes — “
The naira notes, yes! Those shapes are on the naira note!
“ — this one is the U-shaped currency.”
“U-shaped what?” somebody asked him
“U-shaped currency. Those days twenty of this was what you would need to pay a woman’s bride price.”
These mere metal rods? The kind you’d give a garbage collector for free now! Metal must have been scarce then. What else did they not have back then?
I glanced about, whipped out my phone, began photographing again. There was another kind of manila, wrapping round and round like a solenoid, ending also in metal feet on both extremes. Then there was an array of ancient notes, older than even the first naira.
The crowd was moving fast, going to the other room across the reception. I stayed behind, photographing the wooden carvings, what things you did not know how they were worshipped in the lands where they had been gods. These were Ikenga. Many of them, and in different shapes and images. I felt uneasy looking at them; photographing them. Were these the relics the Reverend had been referring to? I was glad he had discarded the ones with blood all over them.
The BBC had interviewed him just a few days ago, Reverend Okunerere. When villagers heard he was disposing idols for people, they would invite him. He would go into the shrine and you could see that the idol was indeed vibrating, alive on its own, a squat piece of wood filled with what spirit? Heaven knows. The people would not touch the carvings, he said. They had converted to Christianity and they just wanted these things out of their land. The BBC wanted to know why he wasn’t burning the relics like others would, especially when his name Okunerere literally meant ‘consuming fire’. He told them that those relics were artefacts, pieces of the culture worth preserving. That the people didn’t understand it so, and only when he had explained to them, how there is a difference between religion and culture, did they relax. The carvings, said the Reverend, were some time ago, part of the people’s culture, and nothing more… until you begin to worship them, then would you be getting into something beyond your understanding. You could really see the wooden images vibrating, he said. You couldn’t doubt that a power lived in it. He would make the spirit leave, do away with the ones covered in sacrificial blood and feathers, and take the rest as artefacts for his museum at the cathedral. This he did in every village that invited him.
Recently the University’s department of archaeology had come to him, asking for relics to display in their own museum. Having got permission they promptly carted away half his museum, taking one of every relic that had a duplicate. Now the Institute of African Studies wanted a piece of him too.
She was closing the door of the second room, the chocolate black woman.
“Students wait outside!” she hollered. “When the adults come out you can go in”.
I bleached my face of any expression and just kept walking in.
“Students wait outside.” She was talking to me. I turned to the rest of the students and repeated her prohibition to them, “Students, wait outside”.
“Are you not a student?” she asked me.
“No” I said. Immediately I felt like Peter denying his master. Was this how it felt to lie!
“Okay” she looked away, let me in.
I did not bring my phone out again. I was beginning to feel a little guilty. Official videographers were covering the entire show, bright camera lights and all. Beside them, a female curator was thrashing the dignity of one of the royal fathers, with maximum lack of home training.
“I have this vessel in my house now” the king was saying — her voice brought down his own.
“That ‘your own’ and this one are not the same — ”
“No it is in my house, it looks like this exactly — -”
“Your own now is not as old as this one. This one has been there for hundreds of years. That’s why it is archaeological findings, see the marks here. This is how you know they dug it up. They used it to grind — -“
On the other side of the room the young man who had decorated the entire museum was explaining the weapons of war to his crowd. He was a character, this man. When his name had been called during prize-giving for all his wonderful contribution to glittering the museum, he had come out in his jeans all self-conscious and clueless like a foreign scholar. He asked the Master of Ceremonies what he was to do and he was shown where the royalty was standing who would hand him the plaque. Foreign Scholar walked over, smiling at the royal fathers and professors seated under the canopy, then half-bowing half-waving to them. Waving! At dignitaries! …Well, I guess it’s not easy to preserve the culture even if your entire work is, to preserve the culture.
There stood now, to his right and left, spears of iron, cannon balls, a small cannon, metal guns. They were rusty, and crude, compared to the beautiful wood craft I had been photographing. You have to wonder how long ago these weapons had been made, what battles they were used in, who wielded them. Was it a boy soldier? Who was he fighting? Why?…
On my way out I saw her behind the reception desk, the beautiful chocolate black woman.
“Thank you ma, I had a wonderful time!” I glowed my most charming smile on her.
“Come, come” she called, smiling. She knew how to smile. “Tell me. What department are you in? Is it Archaeology?”
She was too smart to have been deceived by my confidence.
“I am an art enthusiast.” I said, unable to take my eyes away from her.
“You people ehhh” she wagged her finger playfully at me.
I shrugged, “We are the ones who take your work to the whole world”
“Ehnhehn? What level of visibility will you give us?”
“The U.S… the UK — “
“The way you said the UK ehhh” … she laughed.
She still didn’t believe me, but I didn’t care. What interested me was that she was avoiding my gaze.
I have enjoyed a few virtual museum tours. You might like to see the images of ancient Babylonian gods in Iran’s ancient museum, or the grave of the great Khan’s wife at the Taj Mahal. I got you some links, whichever part of the world you want to explore. Happy International Museum Day, in arrears.
