LA CONGRÉGATION DU SAINT-ESPRIT ET L’AFRIQUE
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FIG. 18 (above): Power
fi gure, nkondi. Vili, Congo.
19th century.
Wood, pigment, vegetal fi ber, feathers,
metal nails, resin, cloth.
H: 55 cm.
Shown in the Catholic missionary
pavillion of the Exposition coloniale in
Paris, 1931.
Ex CSSp.
Private collection.
© CSSp.
FIG. 19 (right): Missoin
art museum at Orphelins
Apprentis d’Auteuil, c. 1935.
© CSSp.
Despite these efforts, missionary museums were
not scientifi c institutions, and while they fl ourished
during the same period that ethnographic museums
were developing, that is, the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, their approach was very
different. While the latter used their collections to
study and present carefully classifi ed and contextualized
pieces, the former were more rightly seen as
“instruments in the service of the missions”13 and
as tools intended to sensitize and educate missionaries
about the obstacles they would face as they
followed their path to spread the Gospel. As the
propaganda that it was, this “federating” function
of their ethnographic collections was to amplify in
power as a result of the phenomenon of the international
expositions that were to follow.
Propaganda and Expositions
In the Catholic world, the nineteenth century was
a period of rebirth for missionary activity as a
consequence of a major mobilization campaign
of Christians orchestrated by the church. Propaganda
in the truest sense of the word,14 missionary
discourse addressed specifi c audiences and
was disseminated by the various forms of mass
media available at the time: periodicals, novels,
biographies, illustrated almanacs, calendars,
postcards, “scientifi c” literature, and, later, radio,
cinema, etc.
One of the most important forms of exposure in
this period were the international expositions that
fl ourished throughout Europe in the second half of
the nineteenth century. These enormous displays
of progress were initially created to showcase the
industrial accomplishments of different nations,
but they gradually began to include the territories
of the colonial empires within their purview and,
with them, all the players involved in colonial expansion.
Within this framework, the missions
came to be admitted as participants. The Vatican
itself, aware of the importance of these popular
events, took advantage of the opportunity and
presented displays within this context devoted to
missionary work.
In collaboration with numerous other missionary
orders, the Congregation of the Holy Ghost
participated actively in these expositions, which
alternated with smaller-scale events like missionary
days and visits to seminaries, all of which helped
publicize Spiritan activities in the French areas of