ART on view were often used in art and rituals. On this cross Jesus is portrayed 88 as an African. Above him are three small figures with clasped hands. It is not clear what these figures are meant to represent. They may be the Holy Trinity, three of the apostles, souls of the dead rising toward heaven, or simply praying figures.34 Below Jesus is a fourth figure commonly interpreted to be the Madonna, covering herself with her arms and hands. The crucifix was sent from Brussels by the Redemptorist Fathers of the Lower Congo for the Universal Missionary Exposition. Early twentieth-century ethnologists of the Missionary Society of the Divine Word Father Martin Gusinde, a member of the Catholic Missionary Society of the Divine Word, was one of the first ethnologists to work with the Vatican collection.35 Between 1918 and 1924, he made four visits to Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of South America to study the Yamana (Yagan/Yaghan), the Selknam, and the Kawesqar. He wrote extensively about the Yamana and other indigenous peoples of the area and conveyed the haunting mask in the de Young exhibition (fig. 17), along with four others, to Pope Pius XI in 1927. Gusinde illustrated the mask in a book published in 1937 about his expeditions in Tierra del Fuego from 1918–1924 published by the Anthropos Institute in Sankt Augustin, Germany.36 The mask was worn during kina, a special initiation ceremony for men that reinforced societal roles.37 In a special structure built for the ceremony, men prepared masks of painted sealskin or bark and painted their bodies. They appeared as spirits waving painted and decorated staffs to threaten and frighten women and uninitiated males. Gusinde took almost a thousand photographs to document Yamana culture, including many from a kina ceremony in 1922, in which he was both observer and participant. In 2012, Father Mapelli met with Cristina Calderón, a Yamana descendant. Her book Hai Kur Mamashu Shis (I Want to Tell You a Story) published in 2005, includes stories about the Yamana people and their cultural practices. She reported that her great-grandfather, Juan Calderón, made the mask.38 A similar mask was collected for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, by archaeologist and photographer Samuel Kirkland Lothrop in 1924.39 In his book, The Indians of Tierra del Fuego, Lothrop reported that the kina ceremony “fell into disuse among the Yahgan as early as the eighties of the last century the 1800s, but it was revived in 1922 for the benefit of Gusinde and Father Wilhelm Koppers.”40 The latter, who was also an anthropologist, accompanied Gusinde on his third visit to Tierra del Fuego.41 Father Franz Kirschbaum was another Society of the Divine Word missionary, and he had a major impact on the field of anthropology and field collecting in Papua New Guinea. He established a mission station in Marienberg at the lower reaches of the Sepik River and conveyed extensive collections to the Vatican. Among these are a Murik Lakes ancestral figure (fig. 18), which retains its face paint, skirt, and knee bands. It is just one of a staggering number of New Guinea objects from this source in the Vatican’s collection. New interpretations of the Vatican’s historic collection allow us to change the lens in our “window on the world” and create alternative experiences for the appreciation of these religious artworks.42 For centuries, these objects of belief have served the Vatican as witnesses to the endeavors of the Holy See. Within this context, their biographies were written by the church. Now a global community working in partnership with the Vatican is adding its voice and its meaning to their stories, reinforcing their importance as objects of belief in our time. The entangled individual and collective actions that brought these pieces to the Vatican are still being traced and some may never be recovered, but renewed openness to exhibit and share this important collection in a fresh context offers new opportunities for all. Special thanks to exhibition team members: Dr. Nicola Mapelli, Dr. Katherine Aigner, Dr. Nadia Fiussello, Dr. Matthew H. Robb, Ms. Bianca Finley Alper, Ms. Stefania Pandozy, Ms. Flavia Serena di Lapigio, and the staff of the Ethnological Materials Laboratory of the Vatican Museums. With thanks to colleagues for research assistance: Dr. Marshall Joseph Becker, Dr. Janet Berlo, Dr. Marla Berns, Dr. Suzanne P. Blier, Ms. Cristina Calderón, Dr. Herbert C. Cole, Mr. David Grignon, Dr. Carol S. Ivory, Dr. Christian Kaufmann, Dr. Frederick J. Lamp, Dr. Ruth Philips, Dr. Joachim Piepke, Ms. Margaret Rinkevich, Dr. Carlos Alberto Uribe Tobón, Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Dr. Virginia- Lee Webb, and Ms. Jacqueline Windh. Objects of Belief from the Vatican: Art of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas Through September 8, 2013 de Young Museum, San Francisco www.famsf.org September 28, 2013–March 23, 2014 Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, California www.bowers.org FIG. 16: Crucifix. Kongo, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Late 17th century. Brass. Sent from Brussels by the Redemptorist Fathers of the Lower Congo for the Vatican Universal Missionary Exhibition of 1925. Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #101057. FIG. 17 (near right): Kina ceremony mask. Attributed to Juan Calderón in 1922. Yamana (Yagan/Yaghan), Tierra del Fuego, Chile. Bark, pigment. Conveyed by Fr. Martin Gusinde to Pope Pius XI in 1927. Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #115488. Photo by Scott McCue. FIG. 18 (far right): Ancestral figure. Murik Lakes, Papua New Guinea. Before 1932. Wood, pigment, bark fiber. Conveyed by Father Franz Kirschbaum of the Society of the Divine Word to the Vatican in 1932 Ethnological Museum, Vatican, inv. #109647.
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