Amidst the confusion, the restituted vigango have gone to the Kenyan National Museum. Since it conforms to Western museological expectations and practices, it has been deemed the proper steward of the vigango. (12/14)

Some institutions have begun the process of returning their vigango statues. Recently, for example, the Illinois State Museum returned theirs in 2023. However, the statues’ final destinations are still unclear, since it can be difficult to determine the original families who created them. (11/14)

Soon, thefts of vigango became rampant. Their prices skyrocketed. Tourists brought them home from vacations. Wealthy art connoisseurs and celebrities, including Andy Warhol and Gene Hackman, bought them for their collections. (6/14)

Beginning in the 1970s, art dealers, specifically a man named Ernie Wolfe III, created a market in the West for vigango.

Wolfe knew about their cultural context and the consequences of their removal. He even contributed to a book all about them, but falsely claimed they can be “deactivated.” (5/14)

These are vigango (kigango in the singular) funerary statues of the Mijikenda peoples, a group inhabiting modern-day Kenya and Tanzania.

After a member of a gohu, or a secret society, passes away, his family commissions a kigango to represent his spirit. (2/14)

#Repatriation isn’t automatically justice. These aren’t “art objects” – they’re ancestors, and when Western museums impose their own ideas of art and conservation, even returning them can continue to harm living communities. (1/14)
#restitution #westernmuseums #museums #art #culturalproperty