FEATURE Should these sculptures have suffered all these indignities 90 for nothing? Are they condemned to remain mute like certain colonial collections that now speak of nothing but the arrogance of those who set foot on African soil thinking they had every right to do so?5 We could not resign ourselves to this state of affairs and were certain that they could be used to piece together a relevant history that is theirs by right and should not be taken from them. We did not embark on this project to explore their styles or to praise their beauty or the genius of their anonymous makers in order to legitimize their place in Western museums and collections by declaring them to be world heritage.6 Nor are we going to argue for their return to their country of origin.7 Both options merit discussion and a better balance should probably be found between them, but that is not our purpose here. Once again, others have addressed these issues with varying degrees of success. Taking Another Approach This may be the appropriate place to state that we began our investigation from a position of resignation: Hundreds8 of these works have entered our Western environment and this fact cannot be reversed, whatever our ethical stand or desire to work within the code of conduct that governs our academic work. Regrettable as it may be, this state of affairs does not seem a sufficient reason for burying—metaphorically this time— these terracottas from the Inland Niger Delta (hereinafter IND)9 in the sterile soil of our guilt. They are part of the history of Africa and of art, and they are intriguing enigmas that sharpen our perceptions. We wanted to know more, and we had an opportunity to apply two forms of knowledge acquisition that on the surface seem almost contradictory: firstly, the oral traditions of the Mande griots,10 who are the bards of the history of their region and relate the stories of its historical and mythical heroes;11 and secondly, the technical insights that can be revealed by medical CT scanning technology. For centuries, African oral tradition has been used to remember and recount the history of peoples who have often been treated with disregard precisely because they are thought to be incapable of writing.12 These preconceived ideas about the inefficacy and unreliability of oral sources are unfortunately not a thing of the past, but it should be remembered that before it is written down, a theory is only a volatile concept in the making. Writing it down and publishing it is no guarantee of its credibility or quality. Far from it. For its part, tradition should not be perceived as an inert substratum that repels change. Quite the contrary, if we adhere to Foucault’s definition, “tradition enables us to isolate the new against a background of permanence, and to transfer its merit to originality, to genius, to the decisions proper to individuals.”13 The shortcomings of memory and its limited potential14 have made writing indispensable. Writing is certainly practical, but that does not make its content infallible. It is undeniably material, however, which gives it determinate weight, especially in law, yet the ability to write has caused collateral damage in Western societies. It has weakened our ability to memorize, and since it is hard to admit our weaknesses, we have reframed them as advantages. From there, it was only a short step to considering those who had maintained a great faculty for memorization to be ones who have failed to be part of history. This assertion, which some still make quite openly and loudly, is a mix of arrogance and condescension, and it flies in the face of the most basic reasoning.15 The aphorism “words fly away, writings remain” demonstrates how completely opaque our understanding is of a world in which knowledge can also be transmitted orally even today. Despite the resistance of a number of traditionalist griots, who make it a point of honor to dispense their knowledge with great parsimony, 16 researchers have managed to transcribe, translate, and comment on Africa’s oral traditions, making them more accessible to the public.17 We draw upon a number of these studies below. In quite another field, for the last few decades CT scanners have been used not only to assist in medical diagnosis but as a non-invasive way to explore artworks. This yields varied and sometimes unexpected data. The technique is often used to determine the inauthenticity of an object by detecting irrefutable proof of forgery, and this has become one of its primary goals. But it also supplies an aggregate of information that scientists can use to formulate hypotheses, build theories, or perhaps find evidence of the object’s original use.18 We have drawn on these transcriptions of oral tradition and CT scans to find answers to the many riddles posed by the terracottas. We tested a few suppositions on one object that had given us some leads and then applied them to other pieces, which seemed to confirm our guesses. We present this analysis here as a working hypothesis, hoping that others will take it up, whether to prove or disprove it, and FIG. 2: CT scans of figure 1, opaque 3D views front and back. © Dr. Marc Ghysels, Brussels. FIG. 3: CT scans of figure 1, opaque 3D views taken from the side, with a vertical section through the center showing the pear-shaped cavity. © Dr. Marc Ghysels, Brussels.
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