a ae a aEaly Ig et as SA led sere tte Ig Ss “gl sett Ser aS a Hislag\ 5 ie |g EO 99,5 a xi! CPsliasey* ) CONTENTS Director’s Foreword | 7 Lenders to the Exhibition | 8 Contributors | 9 Map | 10-11 Introduction | 14 ALISA LAGAMMA Local Perceptions of Early Times: Odes to Sahelian Empires | 34 DAVID C. CONRAD On the Shoreline of History: The State of Archaeology in the Sahel | 46 RODERICK MCINTOSH AND MAMADOU CISSE Pre-Islamic Artistic Patronage | 72 ALISA LAGAMMA Islam in the West African Sahel | 108 PAULO F. DE MORAES FARIAS Architecture in Focus: Four Sahelian Landmarks | 138 GIULIA PAOLETTI Sahelian Diasporas: Migrations from Ancient Ghana and Mali | 146 ALISA LAGAMMA Collecting the Sahelian Past: Myth Building and Primary Sources | 194 YAELLE BIRO AND IBRAHIMA THIAW From the Rise of Songhay to the Fall of Segu | 218 ALISA LAGAMMA Praying for Life | 250 SOULEYMANE BACHIR DIAGNE Notes 260 Works in the Exhibition | 276 Selected Bibliography 285 Acknowledgments | 293 Index | 296COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST: MYTH BUILDING AND PRIMARY SOURCES VAELLE BIRO AND IBRAHIMA THIAWhe rich material culture of the Sahel has not been, to date, fully integrated into studies by historians. These original physical fragments of the Sahelian past are preserved in institutions such as the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire, Dakar (IFAN), and the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris.1 Whether the artifacts are ancient or relate to later historical periods, they are all pieces of a complex puzzle that together have the potential to reveal rich and multifaceted narratives. Despite the fact that these artifacts have been present in West African and French public institutions for the past 150 years, many are not currently on public view in permanent installations and have not been anchored to events that unfolded in the Sahel over the course of the last millennium. When considered together and aligned with the historical frameworks of 195196 their origins, these critical primary sources bring to life a vibrant, quasi-experimental artistic tradi- tion that was not static. In approaching them anew, this fresh look at the archives of those repositories affords an opportunity to consider the processes whereby specific artifacts came to be preserved. It further reveals what that selection says about the legacy of Sahelian creativity and the individuals responsible for collecting them. Awide range of people contributed to the isolation of specific manifestations of Sahelian culture as representative “primary sources,” from European adventurers and traders in the seven- teenth century to French colonial officers at the turn of the twentieth century to archaeologists engaged in surveys and excavations following the period of independence in the 1960s. In their respective roles, they helped shape the current understanding of the Sahel —its material culture, history, and diverse communities — in ways that continue to reverberate today. Following histo- rian Francois-Xavier Fauvelle’s reminder of the imperfect but indispensable nature of colonial documentation, this essay dives into the archives to bring to life the wide cast of characters involved in assembling these traces of the material past.” Across Europe, the gathering of objects per- ceived as exotic has a long history, dating back to the fifteenth century with the first princely collec- tions and cabinets of curiosity.* Although works collected in the region during the earliest period of the French presence in the Sahel are scarce,* an imposing ivory scepter, presumably from Senegal, attests to one of those first encounters (cat. 110). The scepter, which has a long cylindrical body topped by a wider, delicately sculpted finial, emu- lates the shape ofa flywhisk. Selected for a French cabinet of curiosity probably before 1786, it 110 SCEPTER Senegal, before 1786 (?). Elephant ivory. Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, ParisFIG. 64. Musée Ethnographique du Trocadéro, Paris, 1930 entered the municipal library of Versailles in 1806 and was deposited at the Musée Ethnographique des Missions Scientifiques du Trocadéro, Paris, the French state ethnographic museum, in 1934 (fig. 64).” Like the seventeenth-century robe now in Ulm, Germany (see cat. 85), the scepter may well be among the earliest works from the Sahel to enter a European collection, but its origins are poorly documented and thus its history and origi- nal site of creation remain enigmatic. The practice of collecting such works eventu- ally became a broader, more systematic process, an evolution of purpose that mirrored the major sociological and political changes of the late nineteenth century. During the last quarter of that century, a number of ethnographic museums were founded in major European cities — the Trocadéro was established in 1878 —to hold such collections. Echoing the development of modern European statecraft and national identities, such institutions canonized the notion of cultural dif- ference and superiority through their displays of African material culture. They reinforced a binary vision of the world— civilized versus uncivilized, modern versus primitive, historic versus pre- historic— that fed into and helped justify the imperial enterprise.° In particular, the nascent field of anthropology and its accumulation of cultural artifacts was integral to the “scientific” strategies deployed to underpin colonial gover- nance and policies. Nonetheless, the materials and the documentation assembled alongside them endure, awaiting to be studied anew. These essential primary resources allow scholars from various backgrounds and disciplines to explore and understand both the Sahel itself and the mosaic of myths, histories, cultural experiences, and competing interests (commercial, military, ethnographic, and archaeological) that informed these collecting histories. COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST 197FIG. 65. Paul Soleillet (1842-1886) dressed in a boubou, from Voyage a Ségou 1878-1879 (Paris, 1887) 198 Appropriating the Sahel in Words, Images, and Objects Prior to European circumnavigations of Africa in the fifteenth century, the accounts of Arab travel- ers and Berber traders had already established the continent in the popular imagination, including the mirage of gold in the western Sudan, which attracted many European explorers to the region. By 1659, the French had traveled to the mouth of the Senegal River and founded the trading out- post of Saint-Louis. Their influence spread pro- gressively along the Atlantic shores and inland, following the main waterways and tributaries. The visual representations disseminated by these explorers in their published travel journals shaped the region’s cultural identity for the Western world. Reacting to the tales of gold mining, nar- ratives of wealth fueled the earliest European con- ceptions of the Sahel and its peoples.” As more Europeans ventured farther into the heartlands of the Sahel— from individual adventurers, mer- chants, missionaries, and geographers to those commissioned by imperial powers, commercial entities, and learned societies — they brought back with them an enthusiasm for the region indelibly tinged with patriotic fervor. In 1623, British explorer Richard Jobson’s pub- lication of his accounts of travels on the Gambia River popularized such exploration. Similarly, René Caillié’s early nineteenth-century depictions of Timbuktu and its great mosque (see fig. 49), which he glimpsed during his travels in the west- ern Sahel and the Sahara desert, helped define the Sahel’s visual identity for his French audi- ence.* This trend was reinforced a few decades later by explorers such as the civilian Paul Soleillet (1842-1886), whose travel journal Voyage d Ségou, published in 1880, disseminated a familiarity with the Sahel through its text and images (fig. 65). Modern scholars offer conflicting portraits of Soleillet, blaming him for his naiveté as one of the last Romantics of the era but also praising him as a pacifist and an opponent to any form of slavery.” One constant in Soleillet’s own writings that war- rants closer examination is his abiding interest in textiles. Soleillet, who took to wearing large boubous (a common type of West African flowing robe) during his travels, enthusiastically described local fashions and woven goods. He also paid close attention to their distinctive role as markers of social status, demonstrating a particular sensibil- ity for this quintessential form of West African craftsmanship. Soleillet began his career working with a textile manufacturer in the south of France who made textiles for the North African market. After traveling to Algiers to sell these textiles, he began considering the commercial possibili- ties afforded by France’s expansion into Africa.*° Soleillet found allies in the French chamber of111 ae BONNET AND BOUBOU Bamana peoples, Segu, Mali, before 1879. Cotton, silk, and dye. Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris112 BONNET Mande peoples, The Gambia, before 1840. Cotton and dye. Musée du Quai Branly— Jacques Chirac, Paris 113 BONNET Mande peoples, The Gambia, before 1840. Cotton and dye. Musée du Quai Branly— Jacques Chirac, Paris 114 BLANKET Bamana peoples, Segu region, Mali, before 1840. Cotton and dye. Musée du Quai Branly- Jacques Chirac, Paris 200 commerce as well as some of the geographic soci- eties that flourished in the nineteenth century. He began traveling with the intention to create commercial posts, first in Algeria and, in 1878, the Sudan. On November 11, 1878, while spending time in Segu, Soleillet visited the nearby Sikoro market and admired “at least twenty different qualities of wrappers in at least thirty different patterns. Some are as fine as gauze, while others are strong and thick. Colors are very beautiful and include all nuances of blue, yellow, red and orange.” A month later he went back to the market to “acquire for the Ethnographic Museum in Paris an armful of wrappers” ** as well as boubous and weaving samples, all of which he described in his travel journal with great care. An outstanding boubou in brown cotton embroidered with multicolored silk threads and its matching bonnet, today in the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly, may represent some of Soleillet’s acquisitions from the market, although they are not clearly mentioned in his account (cat. 111). Donated to the Trocadéro a year after his return, they are described only as having been collected in the Segu region.*” They could also be unrecorded presents he received or, judging from their extensive signs of wear, items he used himself. Together with a significant group of textiles and other samples Soleillet donated to the Trocadéro, these garments constitute the first collection of textiles to enter that institution. In both his interest in textiles and convictions, Soleillet followed in the footsteps of France’s most famous abolitionist, Victor Schoelcher (1804-1893). As president of the French commis- sion on the abolition of slavery, Schoelcher was responsible for the decree that definitively put an end to slavery in France and its colonies, signed on April 27, 1848. Over the decades that led him to this advocacy role, Schoelcher traveled widely, bringing him to West Africa in the early 1840s. From this trip, he brought back an ensemble of undocumented textiles (cats. 112-114), which he donated to the Trocadeéro in 1886 together with more than two hundred sculptures and objects of115 WRAP Senegal, 19th-early 20th century. Cotton and indigo. Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris a ASE ED @ aa | ei | | 4 everyday use that he had gathered in other parts of the world. There is a striking difference in tone between the clear admiration of Soleillet, who was moti- vated by commercial rather than political ambi- tions, and the denigrating prose ofa colonial officer such as Frantz de Zeltner (1871-1930) written forty years later, in 1910, when the colo- nial enterprise was well underway.*? De Zeltner was appointed by the French Minister of Public Instruction to study the archaeology, anthropol- ogy, and folklore of Senegal and Sudan. Whereas Soleillet made up for with enthusiasm what “it tbe 4 Th ale n f ee DD ie a 1 aylil aid “i HH LC ry e — _ - peas ee rd ae ul ae he lacked in precision, De Zeltner employed a “scientific” approach in his writing that could be construed as paternalistic. Like Soleillet, De Zeltner took a particular interest in textiles, as demonstrated in an article he wrote on resist-dye patterning, a technique he first observed in Sudan while documenting the creation of bogolanfini (“mud cloths”) (see cats. 142, 143) and stitch- resist dyeing in Senegal.** He described at great length the variety of techniques used to pattern the surfaces of indigo-dyed textiles, identifying four different genres of patterning (from tie-dye, to stitch resist, to resist decoration with wax or COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST 201rice paste) and within these at least nine differ- ent individual methods, indicating their names in Soninke and sometimes in Wolof, including the terms for tie-dye (dor or digui) and stitch resist (niongui). Such lists of vernacular names of pat- terns and materials remain relevant to research- ers today.** After his painstaking descriptions, however, he concluded that neither technique developed in what he called “our poor Africa” was very advanced. “The refinement observed in the Senegalese dyers’ art,” he noted, “can only be the result of the use of imported European textiles.” *° Evidently such opinions did not stop De Zeltner from acquiring some fifty striking textiles from Mali and Senegal, which he then bequeathed to the Trocadéro in 19309, all of them demonstrations of West African dyers’ mastery of those tech- niques. Among them is an indigo-dyed cloth that is a classic example of the chic garments popular with elite women in Saint-Louis-du-Senegal in the early twentieth century (cat. 115). Unfortu- nately, he did not apply or convey the information he gathered in the field to the documents he provided with the works he bequeathed to the Trocadéro, leaving them largely undocumented. In many ways, De Zeltner thus embodied the tension in colonial discourse between diminish- ing African accomplishments while appreciating their aesthetic appeal. Indeed, he lent several of his bogolan cloths to the 1923-24 exhibition of arts from the French and Belgian colonies held at the Pavillon de Marsan (a wing of the Louvre), con- sidered a milestone in the European appreciation of African objects as works of art.*” Scrutinizing Soleillet’s, Schoelcher’s, and De Zeltner’s respec- tive intentions, approaches, and interests in West African textiles contributes to an understanding of how these works came into French national collections and their place in shaping perceptions of the Sahel in the metropole. While this part of their history looms large, the textiles themselves remain glorious nineteenth- and early twentieth- century testimonies to the mastery of the Sahel’s weavers and dyers. FIG. 66. View of the French Post in Segu, from Atlas Colonial Ilustré (Paris: Larousse, 1903), p.103 202FIG. 67. Entrance to the Palace of Ahmadu at Segu-Sikoro, from Eugéne Mage, Voyage dans le Soudan Occidental (Paris: Hachette, 1868), p. 210 FIG. 68. S. M. Ahmadu, King of Segu, from Eugéne Mage, Voyage dans le Soudan Occidental, p. 291 The Treasure of Segu With the heightened allure of gold and a recent chapter of its history tied to the French colo- nial context, the Treasure of Segu invites us to make assumptions about its origins. Claimed by Colonel Louis Archinard** during his April 1890 capture of the town of Segu (fig. 66), the Treasure has come to be seen as emblematic of France’s imposition of its dominion over the region. Such a monofocal understanding singling out France’s actions tends to obscure the nature of the Trea- sure itself, however, and the convolutions of local politics that predated France’s military involve- ment. As historian Daniel Foliard has demon- strated in his extensive study of the topic, *’ the so-called Treasure is, in fact, a complex assem- blage of artifacts best understood through the prism of its multiple lives in the Sahel and France over at least three centuries. Long before they entered French collec- tions, the jewels worn by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Sahelian elites or kept by the Bamana rulers in Segu were a source of wealth and power targeted by political tensions and religious conflicts in the nineteenth century (for more on Segu, see Alisa LaGammia’s essay “From the Rise of Songhay to the Fall of Segu” in this volume). They were also military booty for two successive waves of imperial conquerors: the first was ‘Umar Tal and his followers, the second was the French troops. Since its transfer to France and dispersal across museum collections, the Treasure has been the focus of considerable reflection, most of which ponders the European dimensions of its past and considers it, at various times, a colonial trophy, ethnographic material, works of art worthy of aesthetic admiration, and, finally, a source of heated postcolonial debate. Segu was ultimately defeated in 1861 when ‘Umar Tal and his followers, moving westward from the Futa Toro region, seized its capital and took possession of the palace and wealth of the Bamana sovereign Bina Ali (fig. 67). Narra- tives collected at the time describe gold in such quantity that “one could not measure it.”*° To this booty ‘Umar Tal added goods he had taken as part of his jihad, which had led him across vast distances from present-day Senegal to Segu. As a telling example of the accumulative nature of the Treasure, an inhabitant of Fuladu (Haute- Casamance), in modern Senegal, remembered that a bracelet from the local royal family, said to have been given to them by the Scottish explorer COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST 203116 COMPOSITE MANUSCRIPT WITH AHMAD BABA’S POEMS Segu region, Mali, 1693-1890. Manuscript on paper. Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris 204 amar tatd | 5 a} ree Mungo Park, had entered ‘Umar Tal’s possession during his conquest of that region.”* The French army, led by Archinard, arrived in Segu thirty years after ‘Umar Tal had died follow- ing an uprising of his Masina subjects. The power of the state he founded had greatly diminished owing to continued Bamana rebellion and a splin- tering of his state into three rival factions. His son Ahmadu Sheku (fig. 68) now ruled from Nioro, while the latter’s own son, Al-Madani, stayed in Segu. In the meantime, what came to be known as the Treasure of Segu (or Treasure of Ahmadu) had gained considerable fame across the Sudan and France, rumored to be valuable enough to finance continued resistance to the French military. As a result, Archinard’s capture of Segu and its famous treasure became at once a dramatically symbolic act for France and a powerful feat of propaganda through which the French sought to assert their unequivocal claim to the region. In May 1890, less than a month after Archi- nard captured Segu, the Journal officiel du Sénégal et dépendances, a weekly periodical that informed both the metropole and the colonies about regional matters in the Sahel, published excerpts of his description of the Treasure’s contents. It was far from the sums that its regional fame had led Archinard to expect, but it was still signifi- cant. In addition to 250,000 francs of gold and silver jewelry (equivalent to 74 and 157 kilograms, respectively), it also included “El Hadj Oumar’s saber, numerous historical objects including the Segu library, being around 2000 kilograms of Arab books” (cats. 116, 117).?” The ensuing partial sale, dispersal, and transfer of the remaining components of the Treasure to Paris transformed it into a French trophy. Once in France, the Treasure of Segu— part jewelry, part library, part military paraphernalia— ignited a debate about its custodianship. By 1893, the manuscripts had been integrated into the Bibliothéque Nationale, while a selection of the jewelry was made part of a permanent exhibition on the French colonies at the Palais de I’Industrie. The works of gold and silver in the Treasure of Segu potentially tell the stories of elite Segov- ian families at the moment they were vanquished by the Umarian armies (cat. 118). Historically, such adornments were typically melted down and transformed, following the latest fashion trends. One of the ironic consequences of the Treasure’s contorted history of ownership is that, having escaped this common fate, it constitutes a unique surviving ensemble of precolonial jewelry produced in the region and an exceptional source of information about its early metalwork.”* Three photographs of the jewelry taken shortly after its first display testify to its refinement. Strung117 MANUSCRIPT ON ISLAMIC LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE 1827. Manuscri ipton vellum. Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Paris at ak RON a rs nba) all ek gs Uy ud oligo is) shor cali 2 all ale WUT tLe ja tels ee gebepson lg BRP RAP AR mo allay pies J ae itor, wera 7 feet aad Nyaa g Mes hast gh ib opin slat yal crepe ly Sida Vac pane esta ab sips NB pe I53 yep Ss J a anlese< eiNiyestit os ation eb tet stl Sarin cagA gL) baby 3) | Lala aa be piraalbé wha sax os b eee > balliswnidh adores rill hid» i pil bid eta hes oy Clas bab mS plas sop Uae wad) PU bh ir aL Js Dia demo! Leal! “aad be Mey thin Jt as ily tas Ko pee io dade ree ste COLLECTING THE SAHE LIAN PAST 205FIG. 69. Gold Jewelry, showing selections from the Treasure of Ahmadu, ca. 1900. Archives of the Musée du Quai Branly- Jacques Chirac, Paris (D004164/46988) SELECTIONS FROM THE TREASURE OF AHMADU Mali, late 18th-early 19th century. Gold, silver, and leather. Musée du Quai Branly- Jacques Chirac, Paris on leather cords, the delicate filigree pendants, bracelets, rings, and boxes all show a distinct Songhay influence (fig. 69). Interestingly, even in France, the jewelry proved influential to a new generation of Sahelian goldsmiths. On the occa- sion of the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, it was exhibited in the Senegal-Sudan pavilion, and goldsmiths from the Thiam family in Saint-Louis became a sensation by selling their creations, pos- sibly inspired by the Treasure, in a nearby work- shop. In the 1950s, reproductions were made by the master goldsmith Baba Ballo from Segu and entered the collection of IFAN, Dakar.** Throughout the twentieth century, in tandem with the evolving relationship between France and the Sahel, the status of the Treasure of Segu changed as its various components have been continually transferred from one museum collec- tion to another.” Deposited at the Musée du Quai Branly since 2006, it remains a source of profound difference of opinion in France and, with regard to its precolonial history, a topic of debate among contemporary Sahelian nations.”° The practice of ethnographic collecting changed significantly in the decades following the estab- lishment of the various state museums of Western Europe in the late nineteenth century. Artifacts were seen as untainted physical witnesses that could provide access to peoples and their ways of life, which were thought to be fast disappearing, and thus had to be collected as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. By the mid-1920s, profes- sionalized field collecting became a key aspect of ethnographic research as the discipline of ethnography further evolved in France under the teaching of sociologist Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) at the Collége de France. This practice was most famously tested through the Mission Ethno- graphique et Linguistique Dakar-Djibouti, led by Marcel Griaule (1898-1956), a former student of Mauss. The mission had two goals: to train the first generation of ethnographers in fieldwork, and to collect works for the Trocadéro, which COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST 207208 119 RING WITH HORSE Dogon peoples, Mali, before 1931. Copper. Musée du Quai Branly—-Jacques Chirac, Paris after years of neglect was witnessing a moment of reinvigoration under the dynamic leadership of Paul Rivet (1876-1958) and Georges-Henri Riviére (1897-1985). While the old “Troca” closed in 1936, it reopened two years later with a newly established mission as a research institution and anew name, the Musée de l’Homme.”’ In effect, the Dakar-Djibouti mission was part of a highly publicized campaign that signaled this moment of transition for the ethnographic museum while also popularizing France’s colonial ambitions. Much has been written about the Dakar- Djibouti mission and the controversy surrounding its collecting practices.”* Of particular interest here is how the mission distinguished itself in its collecting methodology in the Bandiagara escarp- ment, particularly as compared to previous collect- ing campaigns in the Sahel, and its long-lasting impact on Dogon scholarship. Indeed, while earlier collections of ethnographic material in the region had been in large part the result of personal initiatives and of men such as Soleillet or archae- ologist Louis Desplagnes (discussed below),”? the Dakar-Djibouti mission was from the outset an official, and thus national, endeavor. Influenced by Mauss’s insistence on field collecting as an essential aspect of ethnographic research, shortly before their departure for Dakar, Griaule con- ceived an instructional guide to ethnographic col- lecting, the first of its kind to be published.*° The approach was essentially one of exhaustiveness, following Mauss’s instruction and Rivet’s recom- mendation not to make a selection but, rather, to collect complete sets and fill gaps in the museum’s holdings: “Collect all objects possible, ordinary or not. All objects are aesthetic to a certain degree. There is no real difference between the potter when he manufactures and the potter when he decorates.” ** The results were staggering: over the course of twenty-two months, from May 1931 until February 1933, the team traveled 20,000 kilometers across twenty-two countries, from Dakar to Dji- bouti; collected 3,600 objects and 300 manuscripts and amulets; and made some 6,000 photographs and 200 audio recordings. Regardless of Rivet’s orders, objects of everyday use quickly gave way to masks and ritual objects chosen for their distinctive aesthetic qualities. Each work selected was recorded ona fiche, or catalogue card, filled out following a pre- scribed format, including data such as location, type of object and its vernacular name, material, context of collection, and additional informa- tion provided by its former owner. The practice was an essential part of the scientific nature of the endeavor.** The team spent fifty-one days in the Bandiagara region (from September 28 until November 29, 1931), operating from a base in the town of Sanga. Despite this short amount of time on the ground, they collected no fewer than three hundred works, including a sensitively cast copper ring representing a horse (cat. 119). An exquisite piece that no doubt carries substantial symbolic meaning, the ring would have appealed to the ethnographers for its surface, which has been smoothed by wear and time, and its simplebut powerful depiction of the horse. The accom- panying fiche, true to its purpose, tells a complex Sahelian story of ownership and use. Known as Menu So, the ring was purchased on November IO, 1931, in the town of Ireli and was worn on an iron chain around the neck of its owner, who had previously bought it from a Songhay blacksmith from the town of Bamba, in the region of Gao. Dakar-Djibouti, the most famous French ethnographic undertaking of the 1930s, was the first in a series of such missions whose central goal was to study Dogon peoples and culture.** Not as well known as the Griaule-led missions is that of two women ethnographers and linguists, Denise Paulme (1909-1998) and Deborah Lifchitz (1907-1942), who in 1935 spent nine months in Sanga.** They, too, were students of Mauss, who encouraged them to deepen some of the findings of Dakar-Djibouti, particularly with regard to the possible existence of women’s associations, which Mauss thought they might be able to access. Given the large number and high quality of works collected four years earlier, Paulme and Lifchitz at first didn’t feel the necessity to seek even more materials for the Trocadéro.*” As opportunities arose, however, they eventually assembled 180 objects, focusing on anthropomorphic figures and a group of more than seventy adorned door locks, with the stated goal of defining typologies of such works but also to balance Griaule’s focus on masks and their related social institutions. Mauss’s concept of ethnographic “neutrality,” with its insistence on acquiring without pass- ing aesthetic judgment, seems far removed from Paulme’s description of the collection they assem- bled. “We are bringing back to you a magnificent FIGURE Dogon peoples, Yayé, Mali, late 15th-early 17th century. Wood. Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST 209121 HEADREST Tellem civilization, Mali, 890-970. Wood. Musée du Quai Branly— Jacques Chirac, Paris 122 STOOL Tellem civilization, Mali, 1th-14th century. Wood. Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris 210 collection of 180 pieces,” she wrote to Riviére, “all selected with love; we are very proud of it.”*° Although they likewise filled out the requisite eth- nographic catalogue cards, a sense of quality, or perhaps more specifically an aesthetic emotion, is at the core of Paulme and Lifchitz’s collecting: what art historian Susan Vogel has described as “a subversive love of beautiful objects.” *” If there is a single sculpture that epitomizes 2 the Parisian ethnographers’ “emotional” response to art they collected among the Dogon, it is the large hermaphrodite figure with a serpentine body collected in Yayé by Paulme and Lifchitz in 1935 and now on permanent display in the Pavillon des Sessions, the branch of the Louvre dedicated to the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas (cat. 120). In a letter dated May 30, Paulme wrote to Riviére about the figure: “We have the statue — the famous statue that you asked for... We dug it out of the ground ourselves with our hands; only the head was above ground and no one dared touch it... . The inhabitants claim that this piece is earlier than the arrival of the Dogon invaders. It doesn’t at all resemble the usual Dogon sculp- ture, but expresses an incredible emotion. .. . The museum will get here a unique example, which, I believe, will quickly become famous.” ** Paulme’s missive encapsulates the excitement induced by the “discovery” of an exceptional work as well as the prevailing trends and tastes among Parisian dealers and collectors and her deep knowledge of them. It also clearly articulates a concern for aesthetic quality while raising many questions regarding the sculpture’s function, origin, and the context of its find. The Yayé figure is physical evidence of the superimposed layers of history to be found in Sahelian material culture. Although it apparently no longer had an active role in Dogon society at the time of the Paulme-Lifchitz mission, it continued to carry meaning as a creation linked to the region’s deep past. In later years, Paulme provided additional details: “I had spotted it from the top ofa terrace. The head, which was all that was visible, was being used as a post for hitching horses... . When l asked that the whole thing be dug up, the villagers refused to touch it... . I have not forgotten our emotion at the sight of what proved to be a masterpiece.” *° As Paulme had predicted, the sculpture quickly became famous upon its arrival in Paris. The spare ambiguity of its form, its “found object” quality, the ingenuity of the artist’s use of the tree’s natural shape to define the movement of the body, its stated old age, and the overarching mystery surrounding its origin: all these aspects made the figure an instant subject of admiration within artistic circles. It also became an irresist- ible subject for photographers. As early as 1936, Man Ray (1890-1976) documented it to accom- pany an essay by Michel Leiris, secretary of the123 NECKLACE Killi Tumulus, Gundam region, Mali, 1oth-14th century. Carnelian. Musée du Quai Branly- Jacques Chirac, Paris Dakar-Djibouti mission, in the journal Cahiers d'Art, who described it poetically as a “thin figure with a troubled air of a roughly carved mandrake root.”*° Connections between the development of ethnography and the Surrealist movement as well as ties between some of the ethnographers involved with the French missions of the 1930s and Parisian avant-garde circles quickly made Dogon art part of the visual vocabulary of Euro- pean artistic modernity.** This new reading con- tributed to the creation of a Dogon identity that was not informed by the works’ original contexts and meanings. Simultaneously, the tremendous amount of information collected in the 1930s in the region would be difficult to corroborate today given the amount of change that has happened on the ground over the course of the last century.*” Griaule’s publications came to be seen as primary resources on Dogon art and culture, so much so that for many Westerners the researcher and his subject are inextricably linked. As such, study of the Dogon was integral to the coming of age of French ethnography in the 1930s. Just as ethnog- raphy gave shape to the Western idea of Dogon identity and art, study of the Dogon informed the French understanding of the discipline itself. Archaeology and the Mission to Collect The missions of the 1930s were not the first scientific expeditions in the Sahel sponsored by the French colonial government. In the first decade of the twentieth century, amateurs and trained archaeologists arrived in the region, all working under two basic assumptions in order to legitimize their studies. The first was that African societies represented a kind of prehistory or were suspended in time, offering a window through which scientists could explore the bygone primitive past of civilized Europe. In that con- text, the study of the prehistoric past became conflated with the ethnographic present. The second assumption was based on the view that the African past differed from the present owing solely to external forces, namely, Arab Islamic influences in the late first and early second mil- lennia and the subsequent arrival of Europeans in the fifteenth century. Accordingly, the French focused on finding and identifying archaeological ruins and on collecting works of art and artifacts that could be interpreted as evidence of external influences that brought civilization and prog- ress into the region, in particular luxury goods, inscriptions, Islamic architecture, and monumen- tal sites such as tumuli and megaliths.** French archaeological work in the Sahel during this period was sponsored largely by major museums such as the Trocadéro as well as colonial administrative institutions. Among those sponsored was Desplagnes’s explorations of the Niger River south of Gao in present-day Mali in the region of Gundam (gor, 1903-4) and the Bandiagara escarpment (1905; cats. 121, 122).** A military officer with a degree from the Institut de Géographie, Desplagnes was a self-proclaimed archaeologist, historian, and anthropologist but had no particular training in any of those fields. COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST 211FIG. 70. Finds from the Killi tumuli, from Louis Desplagnes, “Etude sur les Tumuli du Killi,” Anthropologie 14 (1903), p. 162 FIG. 71. Excavation of the tumulus at El-Oualedji, 1904 124 wr BOTTLES AND VESSEL Killi Tumulus, Gundam region, Mali. Terracotta. (a) 140-1300; (b) 1000-1160; (c) 1320- 1480; (d) 120-1320. Musée du Quai Branly- Jacques Chirac, Paris His first excavation of the Killi Tumulus, in rgo1, yielded a variety of beads as well as locally manu- factured earthenware and imported examples (cats. 123, 124; fig. 70). These finds brought him to the attention of the French colonial minister of public instruction and fine arts, who in 1903 granted him the title of Officier de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts. In addition to support from the Tro- cadéro, Desplagnes’s 1904 archaeological excava- tions at the tumulus of El-Oualedji—an elaborate burial chamber made with planks of palm wood covered with earth—received funding from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (fig. 71).*° Desplagnes’s ethnographic and archae- ological study of El-Oualedji, published in 1907, is still the primary source of information on the site. Given the contents it yielded, El-Oualedji appears to have been the grave of a high-ranking individ- ual. In addition to faunal remains, Desplagnes’s excavations found ceramics, two human skel- etons, copper jewelry (bracelets, rings), and iron arms, including swords, knives, pointed spears, and arrows. Large numbers of necklace beads in copper, agate, and jasper were also recovered (cat. 125), as were animal figurines, tools such as punches and needles, and several examples of fine red-slip earthenware of different shapes and sizes embellished with white paint. Desplagnes’s careful field notes, photographs, and drawings of tumuli excavations offer a detailed account of his process and the materials he collected (fig. 72). As the first ensemble of this magnitude to have been collected in the Sudan, Desplagnes’s findings —comprising some 448 archaeological and ethnographic objects, all of which he donated to the Trocadéro shortly after his return to France, in 1906 —is of rare value.*° The assemblage from El-Oualedji reflects a combination of fine local craftsmanship and global trade connections link- ing the Sahel to the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Middle East from the mid-first to the early second millennium.*’ The fact that Desplagnes and his sponsors in France extracted and staked claim to ownership of antiquities with such profound cultural significance was part of ie. RIPYTENEN Lo neeP ova wh sormontin Gen bol ples om moins lung, egllidehpin ou bonce mequy, poriots mnie avec des relies, A ech lo onl nal -SOUrenE een a anid iu plitsesilies anmeelctes, Cheah jae het Hiren ont ontiQ remand teenies ain soie soit rowge, soil vinkaree 7 i wtilea. tery sig qu'rn partic Leursalégnes vorinot tayalsimilt eller qui ported tine pagal fame Linktefas iat ieetvder he rhein zioomltriquina file’ wan pesinballi af oie es Gercles-comeaicequr, dente abe Innp, tdecvrons, ele.) es waitress port des iaronialiibetie sieaibis: lis points, dew Bes dk, — Poleriee andieonte aan liwialde du Mull litte ai dee Revie pet bet pends en Due, ton meer 0 fe mar ARE Des rouperwoupedion (ip. (22h 48), wisurand de 905 A Oa ie dinniéiee er &, 00 cotati de liner, ap prisendent suis fae peel li, demeaphires no da cubits aphieriques: ui afrediva|, Alle ay hive comey et alle orem ame belie unig rit | mis: allie aunt Gribeea un ternh assed aq badditiny el gle tee ennnteenl ji mre 1 etd ae be Lravail, tu engode. tad bears. (uiiclyiien- foes pometiliinl a [iuiLiineate uit bevaton manila quan Baik nee pea fees be semterids cyan (Hig, 1S], Coe polerice aeraien! pu serie ily hidepey ek, dams ee ras, lt deea- fn worst cu pew ohjol da xepporion dy miele donk a Uaurnil endif. li dal fine eeenpliy, Leulefots, de [pe vegmedlee ene dees esha ity barren: Achbides onmpra-coupelics, iasaa ienliomnerons datos monje Peseta li lanl i eae egtrified am bony Apde ok myniil ane: trate abd der COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST 213125 BEADS El-Oualedji Tumulus (surface find), Gundam region, Mali, 10th-14th century (7). Earthenware. Musée du Quai Branly- Jacques Chirac, Paris 214 a global phenomenon at the turn of the century that was not restricted to the African continent. Such practices continue to animate contemporary debate, raising important questions regarding the ownership of archaeological and ethnographic material culture collected in colonial contexts. The Desplagnes mission helped speed the establishment of a colonial administrative appara- tus in the Sudan, beginning with the development of dedicated research institutions, in particular the Comité d’Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de AOF (Committee for the Historic and Scien- tific Study of French West Africa), created in 1915 and replaced by IFAN in 1936.** The bulletins published regularly by both bodies were power- ful platforms for the dissemination of research in the Sahel region and beyond. IFAN, in particu- lar, eventually became an African hub for many other French metropolitan research institu- tions specializing in the collection of historical, ethnographic, archaeological, and even natural history materials.*° The creation of these prominent research institutions was integral to the development and evolution of regional museums throughout French West Africa. The first, the Musée Indus- triel Ethnographique et d’Histoire Naturelle in Saint-Louis, had been founded in 1863-65 by General Louis Faidherbe, one of the main archi- tects of the consolidation of France’s position in the western Sahel. It displayed material collected across the nascent colonial empire, focusing on agriculture, industry, ethnology, and natural history. With the advent of the regional research institutes, this museum as well as IFAN’s ethno- logical museum in Dakar, established in 1941 by Théodore Monod (1902-2000), became impor- tant secondary repositories (after the Musée de Homme) for works collected by scientific mis- sions throughout French West Africa. Among the works excavated under IFAN’s aegis is the celebrated Rao pectoral, considered one of Senegal’s national treasures (see cat. g). It was found at the site known as Nguiguela (gener- ally referred to as Rao), which, like El-Oualedji, was the burial tumulus of a high-ranking indi- vidual and contained imported prestige goods. Excavated by Jean Joire, a teacher at the LycéeFIG. 72. Finds from the tumulus at El-Oualedji, 1904, from Louis Desplagnes, Le Plateau Central Nigérian: Une Mission Archéologique et Ethnographique au Soudan Frangais (Paris: E. Larose, 1907) 126 BEAD Tumulus H, Rao, Senegal, 14th century (?). Carnelian. Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal Faidherbe in Saint-Louis-du-Senegal and an amateur archaeologist, the gold pectoral was found in Rao’s tumulus P, in the same archaeo- logical context as several other necklaces, gold and carnelian beads, and rings (cat. 126).°° The spectacular finds from Rao—which have been dated from the eleventh to the thirteenth cen- tury, a critical period of increasing commercial exchange between the Sahel and northern Africa and the Arab world—had a major impact on the organization and legislation of archaeological research in French West Africa, especially Sen- egal. As early as 1941, reports of the discoveries posed a security concern, to which the colonial authorities responded by hiring the village chief of Nguiguela, Balla Gueye, to guard the sites and tumuli for a monthly salary of fifty francs. Gueye, in turn, proved a remarkable source of information on local communities perceptions of the Nguiguela tumuli, which was known to local Wolof speakers as Mbanar U Diol Khass and to Peul speakers as Mbanar U Koumbel. The archaeological discoveries in Rao prompted Monod, then director of IFAN, to draft the first legislative framework for regulat- ing archaeological excavations and research in French West Africa. IFAN’s ethnographic museum in Dakar, founded partly in reaction to the Rao excavation, brought to this important material standard conservation practices, inventories, and recording procedures. Despite the galvaniz- ing effect of the Rao pectoral’s discovery on the development, organization, and dissemination of archaeological research in Senegal, not to mention its status as a national treasure, it is still relatively unknown to most Senegalese and is rarely displayed. At the time the Rao pectoral was discovered, the orientalist paradigm that underlay colonial assumptions about West African societies was still predominant, and the region’s medieval king- doms were still viewed as a subnarrative of the Arab Islamic world. The continued archaeological focus on imported luxury goods from the trans- Saharan trade and Islamic inscriptions and archi- tecture were understood as strong testimonies to those influences. In the 1960s, however, the period of West African history analogous to the medieval era in Europe came to be seen increas- ingly as a formative stage for most modern West African societies prior to the expansion of Euro- pean influences.°* Although there was continued interest in sites with monumental architecture, regional surveys began to pay more attention to nonmonumental ones, and there was a growing interest in studying the local manufacture of met- alwork and ceramics, in particular, as a means of establishing a more accurate historical sequence COLLECTING THE SAHELIAN PAST 215