150
16. Laurick Zerbini, “La construction du discours
patrimonial: les musées missionnaires à Lyon (1860–
1960),” art. cit., p. 126 and 127.
17. Anonymous, “Ce que l’on verra à l’exposition d’art
africain,” Souvenir africain, May 1914, p. 151. The
press itself also dwelled on the exhibition’s artistic value.
18. Guillaume Apollinaire, “Arts d’Afrique,” Paris-Journal,
June 1, 1914.
19. Address by Pope Pius X on April 29, 1925, quoted by
Jean-Michel Vasquez in La cartographie missionnaire en
Afrique, Paris, Karthala, 2011, p. 323.
20: The Spiritan Superior General defi nitely felt these
objects had to be acquired by buying them and clearly
indicated that the missions would have to make
the necessary advances for their purchase, but the
Congregation would later reimburse them: Alexandre
Le Roy, “L’Exposition des Missions au Vatican,” appels
aux Supérieurs des missions spiritaines dans le monde,
1924, Cssp archives. See also Bulletin Général, vol. XXX,
May 1923, p. 152–153.
21. Louis Le Hunsec, in: Notre place à l’Exposition
coloniale, instructions à l’attention des congréganistes
spiritains, undated, Archives Générale Cssp.
22. In 1982, Louis Perrois obtained a loan from the
Congregation of several objects for an exhibition at the
Musée des Beaux-arts de Caen, for which he also wrote
descriptions in the accompanying catalog: A propos
d’une donation: Les côtes d’Afrique équatoriale il y a
100 ans …, Caen, Musée des Beaux-Arts, October 29,
1982–January 10, 1983.
23. In the 2000s, Charlotte Grand-Dufay and Anne-
Marie Poirier worked on the archives and objects in
the Langonnet museum, and their research resulted in
the publication of several articles in the Congregation’s
periodicals. See, for example: Charlotte Grand-Dufay,
“Histoire d’un masque Pounou de la ‘collection Mortain’
à Langonnet,” and Anne-Marie Poirier, “A Langonnet,
deux statues d’ancêtres gheonga, sculptures mitsogho,
Centre Gabon,” Mémoire spiritaine, no. 12, second
quarter 2000, p. 89–118.
24. Louis Perrois, “Trois regards sur un chef d’oeuvre
mbédé,” Arts & Cultures, 2004, p. 159.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
History of the Spiritans in Africa:
Coulon, Paul (R.P.), Paule Brasseur, and collaborators.
Libermann (1802–1852). Une pensée et une mystique
missionnaires, Paris, Le Cerf, 1988.
Ernoult, Jean (R.P.). Les Spiritains au Congo, de 1865 à nos
jours, Matériaux pour une histoire de l’Église au Congo,
Paris, Congrégation du Saint-Esprit, 1995.
Goré, Henri. Un grand missionnaire, Mgr Alexandre Le Roy,
Supérieur général des pères du Saint-Esprit, Maison
provinciale, 393, rue des Pyrénées, Paris, 1952.
Koren, Henry. Les Spiritains. Trois siècles d’histoire
religieuse et missionnaire, Paris, Beauchesne, 1982.
Les Missions catholiques, no. 2984, September 3, 1926.
Saaidia, Oissila and Laurick Zerbini (eds.), L’Afrique et la
mission. Terrains anciens, questions nouvelles avec
Claude Prudhomme, Paris, Karthala, 2015.
Missionary Ethnology:
Berger, Augustin. “Henri Trilles (1866–1949),” Hommes et
Destins : Dictionnaire biographique de l’outre-mer, t. 2,
vol. 2. Paris: Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer,
p. 729–731, 1977.
Briault, Maurice (R.P.). Dans la forêt du Gabon, Grasset,
Paris, 1930.
———. Sur les pistes de l’A.E.F., Alsatia, Paris, 1945.
FEATURE
lead to the reunifi cation of all of the Spiritan collections
within a new museum. The space, conceived of
in partnership with NeM Architectes, which is also
working on the future Pinault Foundation museum
in Paris, is scheduled to open its doors in 2018. Its
inauguration will be preceded by the upcoming publication
in September 2017 of a collectively authored
work that will be published by Editions Somogy and
titled Afrique, à l’ombre des dieux. Collections africaines
de la Congrégation du Saint-Esprit (Africa: In
the Shadows of the Gods. The African Collections of
the Congregation of the Holy Ghost). It will feature
more than 200 illustrations—photographs of objects,
rare archival documents, etc.—as well as articles by
eminent Equatorial African specialists. It will fi nally
allow the general public to appreciate the diversity
and wealth of the Spiritan holdings.
NOTES
1. A name that designates a part of the West African coast
of the Gulf of Guinea, which largely corresponds to the
coast of what is now Ghana.
2. Of the 108 men sent by the Spiritans between 1842
and 1862, forty-two died prematurely, often even
before the age of thirty, and thirty-four had to leave
Africa, sick and discouraged.
3. Name given to the members of the Society of the
Catholic Apostate, founded in Rome in 1835 by Saint
Vincent Pallotti (1795–1850).
4. “To do good for mankind, the fi rst condition is the same
everywhere: it is to love them,” wrote Alexandre Le Roy
in “Le rôle scientifi que des missionnaires,” Anthropos,
no. 1, 1906, p. 8.
5. Ibid. p. 1.
6. André Mary, “La preuve de dieu par les Pygmées,”
Cahiers d’études africaines, 2010/2, p. 882.
7. Philippe Laburthe-Tolra, “L’ethnologue Alexandre Le
Roy,” Mémoire spiritaine, n0. 12, second quarter, 2000,
p. 67.
8. André Mary, art. cit. p. 884.
9. Laburthe-Tolra, art. cit., p. 63.
10. Anonymous, Bulletin Général, no. 187, T. 13, 1885,
p. 764.
11. At the same time as the Spiritans did, all of the major
missionary congregations created similar museums,
including the London Missionary Society, the Protestant
Societies of Paris and Geneva, and the Société des
Missions Africaines et OEuvre de la Propagation de la Foi
in Lyon.
12. Anonymous, Bulletin Général, op. cit.
13. Laurick Zerbini, “La construction du discours
patrimonial: les musées missionnaires à Lyon (1860–
1960),” Outre-mers, 2007, volume 94, no. 356,
p. 134.
14. Etymologically, the term “propaganda” derives from
the Latin for the congregation of the propaganda fi de
(literally: “concerning a faith which must be spread,
or propagated”) created by the Holy See in 1622 to
supervise the activities of missions and to coordinate the
missionary message.
15. They were from the Musée de la Société des Missions
Africaines and the Musée de la Propagation de la Foi.