“When the Byéris cry”: exhibition and cultural commodification

Abstract

In recent years, ethnological museums and Western art galleries, hosting and exhibiting byéris plundered and seized during the colonial period, are reorienting their museological representation. Questioning the ethical and moral justification of exhibiting sculptures belonging to other ethnic/social groups, and whose cultural meanings they do not know/understand. This article seeks to interweave the history of Fang societies through their byeris with contexts where they are commodified and exhibited in Western markets and art museums and the thorny issue of restoring them to indigenous societies. The main objective of this publication is not to delve into the legal or procedural aspects of the return and restitution of ethnological objects (in this case the byéris) to the native Fang populations, but rather to approach their history and question the moral and ethical legitimacy of possessing part of their material culture exhibited in western museums. From Anthropology and Ethnology, scholars are pressing by pointing out that this last context have to be re-thought and reoriented, while asking museums and Fang culture agents for finding channels of understanding and negotiation. From a collaborative anthropology approach while the participation of native Fang voices is required, real solutions have to be found in two different areas: ethnological artifact exhibitions in museums and Fang people’s rights to reclaim their own cultural heritage.