At completion of October, Berlin’s Prussian Cultural Institute (SPK) introduced that 3 products utilized in spiritual routines get on the course to being reimbursed to the native Kogi individuals of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria hills. The products to be returned consist of a personnel, a basket and one more woven thing. All are utilized in spiritual routines still executed today by the Kogi.
The 3 products are presently at Colombia’s sociology and background institute, ICANH, on a lending basis. Research is being carried out by Kogi reps and in December, the official restitution agreement is readied to be written.
Back in 2023, the SPK returned 2 Kogi routine masks at the demand of reps of the Indigenous company Gonavind úa Tayrona and ICANH. The masks gone back to the 15th century and had actually remained in the gallery’s belongings for greater than 100 years, since ethnologist Konrad Theodor Preuss, the manager of the leader of Berlin’s Ethnological Museum, had actually purchased them. Preuss had actually coped with the Kogi individuals for 3 months and obtained the wood products from the kid of a departed Kogi clergyman in 1915.
After the masks’ return over a year back, Kogi lobbyists asked for the 3 added routine products likewise be returned because of their relevance in spiritual events. Exactly just how Preuss obtained these certain products continues to be vague; he gathered a tiny collection of Kogi things throughout his time with them, of which 80 have actually been maintained up until today.
Around 20,000 Kogi individuals stay in the forest of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta hills, and have actually maintained their society active for the last 500 years. The Kogi, that describe themselves as Kágaba, are the biggest undamaged people in Colombia and live a way of living extremely harmonic with nature.
Cooperation is essential
Professor Lars-Christian Koch, supervisor of Berlin’s Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art, took a trip to Colombia in October and met Kogi leaders that had actually boiled down from the Sierra Nevada to see the products firsthand.
“It was just me and another ethnologist and two Kogi representatives sitting there and discussing the details of the items — it was a very open situation,” Koch informed DW. “This is the first step: to just look at the items and see what to do next.”
During the conference, the feature of among the woven, basket-like items entered concern. It was initially believed to be a headpiece, yet might in fact have actually been utilized as a basket– a factor Kogi lobbyists are currently looking into prior to the main lawful restitution procedure happens in December.
For Koch, working together with Indigenous areas such as the Kogi, along with various other stakeholders, such as federal governments and establishments, is the very first and crucial action to any kind of prospective restitution circumstance. Without close teamwork, blunders can conveniently be made, he claims. “We need the perspectives of both sides. In this case, Koch explained, the museum hadn’t understood how important the items were in the Kogi’s spiritual rituals, which are still actively practiced today.”
Colombia desires products back
Colombia has actually been really energetic recently when it concerns asking for the return of social products from galleries and personal collections around the globe. The nation has actually revived numerous products in 2024 alone.
In September, Colombia repatriated 115 historical artefacts from personal enthusiasts in theUnited States The artefacts consist of pre-Columbian Indigenous masks, clay porcelain figurines, and ceramic flower holders. Daniel Garcia-Pe ña, Colombia’s ambassador to the United States, called the return a “clear example of international cooperation” and asked for various other enthusiasts to return products to Colombia to protect the nation’s social heritage.
“The majority of the objects will stay in the collections of museums nationwide,” stated Elizabeth Taylor Jay, vice preacher for multilateral events in theColombian Foreign Ministry “We have a protocol in place to transport these objects, to ensure their conservation and safety, as well as their preservation once in the country,” she told Colombian paper “El Tiempo”
Germany’s restitution background
While the restitution of art robbed by the Nazis has actually been a famous subject in the previous years, Germany has actually likewise been reimbursing a variety of various other products, consisting of those drawn from previous European swarms.
In 2022, a number of German galleries, consisting of the Humboldt Forum, signed up with pressures to return over 1,130 products toNigeria The beneficial products– sculptures and alleviations constructed from bronze and brass, along with jobs constructed from cream color, reefs and timber– were taken from the previous Kingdom of Benin by the British in a ruthless corrective exploration in 1897.
Unlike top-level reimbursed products like the looted Benin Bronzes, the Kogi’s routine products are stated to have actually been lawfully gotten, although Koch explains that Pruess most likely understood obtaining the products was morally bothersome because of their spiritual standing and the truth they were utilized in routine events. The problems around the meant acquisition likewise stay unidentified.
“The Kalguakala [masks] are of total importance to us as they are sacred,” Arregoc és Conchacala Zalabata, an agent of the Kogi, informed the Guardian in 2023. “They are not a historical artifact; they are alive. With the masks, we perform ceremonies to connect and work with the spirit of the sun, the waters, the mountains and the world’s many species.”
Setting the tone
Could the return of the allegedly bought products send out a message to various other galleries around Europe? The British Museum, for instance, has actually long avoided returning the “Parthenon Marbles” to Athens partly by suggesting they were gotten lawfully in the 19th century.
Koch discusses that restitution choices are made on a case-by-case basis and constantly together with all companions in an offered circumstance. “It’s not something we are deciding only from here [Germany],” he explains. In the instance of the Kogi products, the truth that they are still proactively utilized in spiritual routines indicates their return is essentially specific, he stated.
Collaboration is essential when it concerns finding out just how to disentangle a thing’s usually complex past, Koch claims. “For example, we have documents our partners don’t have and they have histories we don’t have. Understanding through collaboration means they’re extending their perspective and we are also extending ours.”
Edited by: Cristina Burack
