FEATURE
FIG. 16 (upper right):
View of the International
Mission Exposition
at the Vatican, 1925
showing a display by the
Congrégation du Saint-
Esprit.
© CSSp.
FIG. 17 (right):
Caryatid stool. Luba-
Hemba, DR Congo.
19th century.
Hardwood. H: 55 cm.
Collected in 1913 by Father Henri
Maurice (CSSp) in the village of
Buli (DRC) and presented in 1914
at the exhibition of African art to
support Souvenir africain organized
by Father Daniel Brottier,
CSSp.
Ex CSSp.
Private collection.
© CSSp.
140
formation from that time, it is impossible to know
what kinds of objects those might have been or
how many there were. A desire to organize and expose
them apparently was felt almost immediately.
In 1885, the priests of the Congregation set up a
museum at a religious school in Chevilly in what
had formerly been the common room for its novitiates.
10 Soon after, other provincial Congregation
houses—in Langonnet, Mortain, Blotzheim, and
Piré—also staged displays in the form of rudimentary
“cabinets.” Many of the other major missionary
orders did likewise during the second half of the
nineteenth century.11
The Spiritan museum in Chevilly made it possible
to consolidate and organize the objects that were
already on hand, but also and more importantly,
it served as a kind of call to action. The Bulletin
Général announced that “any and all curious or
interesting objects from Africa or the colonies that
priests could bring back to help complete the museum’s
collections would be gratefully accepted.”12
The museum initiated a systematic organization of
its objects, which included all kinds and categories
of artifacts, including highly sacred ones.
works, including his three-volume Ethnographie du
sud-Ouest de l’Angola (1961).
Is there a direct connection between the research
these missionary-scientists engaged in and the important
ethnographic collections that the Congregation
of the Holy Ghost accumulated over the
years? The answer is categorically no. While some
of the objects that Tastevin brought back were indeed
held by the Congregation—while others went
to the Musée de l’Homme—most of the objects
that make up these collections were collected under
circumstances that remain unknown to us today.
Moreover, when one examines how these objects
fared in France, it becomes clear that the collections
were not assembled to be studied in any scientifi c
manner, even one involving an ambiguous “Catholic”
ethnological approach with predetermined
conclusions, but rather to serve as tools and supports
for missionary propaganda discourse.
III. THE CONVOLUTED HISTORY OF
THE SPIRITAN COLLECTIONS
The Spiritans brought back their fi rst objects from
Africa in the period between 1860 and 1870, as
increasing numbers of missionaries returned to
France. In the absence of any reliable inventory in-