Post #509573 by bigbrotiki on Sun, Feb 7, 2010 8:44 AM

I agree. The difficulty is that not ALL carvings were meant to be discarded to rot after their ceremonial use. But it is impossible to assess nowadays WHICH were intended to be permanent cult objects ....and where to return them too. Many of the cults/cultures that these pieces hailed from do not exist anymore. Though the advance of white Western culture has caused their disappearance, it did not ALL happen forcefully. Often these godheads were dispatched voluntarily, as natives destroyed their idols themselves to join the new belief and order. Man is always quick to want the next new shiny thing, letting prior achievement fall by the wayside and be forgotten...as happened to Tiki culture. :)

A couple of years ago there was a scandal at the Bishop Museum, when an employee heeded the restitution claims of a Hawaiian native interest group (of which there are several) and gave them some artifacts from the museum without clearing it with the board. The items where then clandestinely placed into a secret burial cave by that group, as the group felt that that was where they belonged. Well, being valuable artifacts, they swiftly disappeared from the cave, never to be heard of again.

I am all for cultures being revived and ancient traditions being kept alive, but most are minorities now that do not have the means and organization to safely repatriate pieces. Papua New Guinea's government for example is in constant flux, with bribery rampant. A soon as anything of high value gets placed into those unstable environments, it is up for grabs. This might sound arrogant, but I belIeve I merely see it pragmatically.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2010-02-07 12:39 ]