The London Consortium Static. Issue 02 – Trafficking

The London Consortium Static. Issue 02 – Trafficking

http://static.londonconsortium.com/issue02/

Dietrich Heißenbüttel

Traffic, trade and the realm of signification: An ongoing exchange between continents

http://static.londonconsortium.com/issue02/heissenbüttel _traffic.html

© Dietrich Heißenbüttel / Static / London Consortium / March 2006

Static is the web resource of the London Consortium, a unique collaboration between the Architectural Association, Birkbeck College (University of London), the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and Tate.

Aiming to initiate interdisciplinary intellectual debate about paradoxes of contemporary culture, Static presents contributions from an international team of academics, artists and cultural practitioners.

The materials, assembled for each issue around a theme, include analytical essays and articles, interviews, art projects, photographic images, etc. Static will welcome feedback, argument and commentary from scholars, artists, and other readers, and will be regularly updated in order to communicate the most recent and relevant ideas and interpretations on the chosen topic.

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Static. Issue 02 Dietrich Heißenbüttel, Traffic, trade and the realm of signification

© Dietrich Heißenbüttel/Static/ London Consortium, 2006 http://static.londonconsortium.com

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Ten years after the incineration and plundering of the royal city of Benin (Edo) by the British Punitive Expedition, artefacts that had once been reserved for the Oba (king) had become a commodity sold on the international art market. Glass negative, 1907, attributed to Wilhelm Trautwein, courtesy Galerie Franke, Stuttgart.

When, in 1996, the Cameroonian artist Barthélémy Toguo, who had studied in Abidjan, Grenoble and Düsseldorf respectively, flew in from Duala to the airport Roissy Charles‑de‑Gaulle of Paris, he carried with him three roughly carved, massive wooden suitcases. In his own words: ‘Evidently, policemen experienced a devilish pleasure to ransack my suitcases. That gave me the idea to give them a new opportunity to prove their talents.’ The unusual luggage attracted the attention of children and fellow passengers, and then the security forces, who directed the artist to the customs office. ‘There, the police literally began to auscultate my luggage and attempted to open it up. An impressive arsenal was summoned in order to examine my three suitcases: X‑rays, torches, laser, and a fluoroscopic screen. The examination lasted for two hours.’ 1

In the end, the customs officers gave up. Toguo’s suitcases were not suited to transport any material commodities. Massive and opaque, they would not give away what the artist had put in them; they were art works. Along with other objects he had used for similar purposes, they were in fact later displayed in art exhibitions. But what made them become artworks wasn’t the artful carving. On the contrary: their status as art was best visible in their rough form and surface. At the airport, this was what attracted the gaze of children and fellow passengers. These rough wooden objects would highlight the foolishness of the customs officers far better than any perfect imitation of a real suitcase.



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In an art exhibition, their crude form made immediately clear that they served only as a sign, of something which was then explained by the written account of the artist. Between Toguo’s wooden objects and real suitcases, there was a relation of both similarity and dissimilarity. According to semiotic theory, this can be said of any sign or art object. In Toguo’s case, though, art did not reside in the object itself. His objects were art only insofar as they alluded to a particular event; in the case of the suitcases, where they had been mistaken for some weird receptacles of contraband, before being finally identified as art. Whereas in the context of an exhibition, it was clear from the beginning that they were art objects. They disclosed their full meaning only in relation to the first situation where they were not at once identified as such.

Traffic and customs

Trafficking would be the right word for the crime that the customs officers suspected the artist of. The theme of trafficking is not at all a side issue for what has been increasingly talked about in recent years under the label of globalization: traffic is just the flipside of trade, and free trade is believed to be the essence of the new world order. Evidently, this doesn’t mean freedom for all and in all directions. Trafficking is the name of the kind of commerce that is not free, be it with human commodities or any other ware that is not allowed to circulate freely.

But obviously, Toguo was not a trafficker. He was engaged in neither traffic nor trade, but the process of signification itself. Reinvesting what he had learned in the academies of Abidjan, Grenoble and Düsseldorf into the act of crossing the border, Toguo made visible the hidden mechanisms of the customs system. Usually, customs officers are not exposed to much public attention. They work in silence, more or less efficiently. But it is a one‑sided affair: they will not allow people or goods to pass through due to the regulations they have to follow. This is what aroused the anger of the Cameroonian artist.

The English word ‘customs’ appropriately describes what is at stake here. In the sense of border control, it indicates the authority that is there to prevent trafficking. But customs also has a second meaning. Ultimately, in the above mentioned sense, the term is derived from trade customs. But customs, almost by definition, are not the same. ‘Different countries, different customs’, says a German proverb. Anyhow, as soon as it comes to an exchange, there has to be a common denominator. This, in abstract terms is the respective currency, in other words: money.

The question is: is the worth of money purely conventional, as Aristotle would have it? Or is it an abstract entity, powerful almost beyond human will as Marx would say? 2 This question can best be answered by going way back into the ancient history of trade between the European continent and sub‑Saharan Africa.



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Trans‑Saharan trade and the rise of capitalism

Trade between Europe and sub‑Saharan Africa is far older than our history books would suggest. Memory of this exchange is conserved not so much in European documents and historical writings, but in an enormous legacy which is just about to reappear, both of oral history and written documents on the African continent. Documents in Arabic writing, though not always in Arabic language, are now mostly held in private collections in Mali and Mauretania, but also in other countries such as Ghana or Nigeria. They attest to a trade that, in medieval times, filled European treasuries with gold from across the Sahara. In fact this trade was not controlled by the Europeans. It was controlled by the empires of Ghana, Mali, Songhay, etc. that began to rise at the southern edge of the desert. 3

But there is something here that seems not to fit in the standard theory of trade and currency. Usually, currency is conceived of as a neutral equivalent to the worth of a ware. In this case, instead, what sub‑Saharan producers and traders would sell, would become the standard currency of the Europeans. The pound and the ounce were a pound or an ounce of gold. In the case of the gulden, the word speaks for itself. The common abbreviation ‘fl’ that indicates the currency of Florence, equally refers to gold. The guinea even takes its name from African origin.

In West Africa, currency was different. It was constituted mainly by cowry shells that had to be imported from the Indian Ocean, to a lesser extent by glass beads that were produced in Bida and Ife, Nigeria, from imported glass. 4 Later this currency began to lose value when beads and cowries arrived in greater amount through European trade. But Europeans could offer another cherished material in the form of bracelets, so called Manillas, copper would soon become the principal West African currency.

The hauling of copper in Central Europe, and the Portuguese expeditions around the west coast of the African continent (and later to the West Indies) were both financed by the big European bank houses. 5 The trade of precious metal was in fact a constitutive element of the rise of capitalism: direct import of gold and silver would allow for the accumulation of capital. This is what the Portuguese were after when they arrived at what was then termed the Gold Coast.

But, as it often turns out, the reality was more complex. The Portuguese didn’t get direct access to the gold trade. They began to trade with other merchandise such as the war prisoners they bought as slaves from one African ruler in order to sell them to another. Very soon, what had been a two‑sided affair became a triangle: slaves were shipped in large numbers to the colonies of West India. And at the same time, the gold trade became less profitable when huge amounts of silver were imported to Europe from Bolivia.



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Whether we talk of traffic or trade here remains debateable. But it is certain, that all of this brought about considerable change in West African economy. Although in the case of the trans‑Saharan gold trade, we might talk of a kind of proto‑capitalism, the difference was – in comparison with later European economy – that wealth was not accumulated by independent, internationally acting agencies, but by centralized kingdoms that through wealth alone could become bigger than others, bymaking allies and establishing vassal relations.

In between these kingdoms, there were all sorts of trade. Anyhow, the system of power itself was determined by redistribution of wealth, both within one kingdom and in between kingdoms. Since all used the same weapons, a ruler’s ability to enlarge his influence through war was limited, and other means had to be employed to gain the favour of others. There were other kinds of economies: neither traffic nor trade, but constituted by the exchange of tokens as well as symbolic exchange with the supernatural, the deities, and defunct ancestors.

It was this kind of exchange, a well‑proven means of politics that some rulers, especially those next to the coast, took recourse to in order to gain the favour of the Europeans. A unique case in point is a wooden divination board now in the museum of Ulm, which was probably given to missionaries by King Tezifon of Allada in exchange for written documents. As the art historian Olabiyi Babalola Yai suggests, the carved figures on the edge of the board, that in a 17th century description are called devils, are what comes closest to the historical, juridical or religious writing on the documents of the missionaries. 6

Transition: two case studies

1. Benin, or Edo, late 15th century ‑ 1897 The description of the divination board in the museum of Ulm,

written in 1659, mentions the king of Allada to be a vassal of the great king of Benin, an ancient city situated in the modern state of Nigeria, not to be confused with the country of the same name in which Allada is located. It is not clear where the name of Benin comes from, since inhabitants call themselves, and the city, the reign, and their language Edo. 7 Although oral history of Edo/ Benin goes back to 13th century, the growth of the kingdom to greater importance was, as it seems, in many ways linked to the arrival of the Europeans.

As is often the case, not only in oral, but also in written history, later accounts can not be taken as the factual truth. Moreover, only a relative chronology as to the succession of the rulers can be established. But most sources agree that the first Oba (king) to bring about major changes in the history of Benin was Ewuare, who is thought to have ruled around mid‑ fifteenth century. It is he who is said to have rebuilt the whole city and to



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have begun to adorn the palace with the brass plaques which became famous after the English had conquered the city in 1897 and taken away as booty all of the artwork of the palace.

Although the date seems a little early, the monarch who first came into contact with the Europeans is thought to be one of the successors of Ewuare, either Ozolua or Esigie. Still, several facts seem to indicate that the growth of the monarchy and the new means of representation were determined by the arrival of the Portuguese around 1470. In one oral account, Ewuare is said to have stolen the beads ofOlokun (god of the waters) and to have brought them to Benin. Likewise, Europeans are frequently depicted with attributes of Olokun, since they came across the sea and brought with them great wealth and power.

They brought brassManillas, which could be melted down and cast in the form of plaques and other artwork that adorned the palace. Their unique form, which is not found anywhere else on the African continent, may in some way also have to do with European models. Europeans were in fact depicted in Benin brassworks quite early, frequently holding fire‑arms, which may have bolstered the strength of the kingdom. It remains unclear whether or not Portuguese weapons or soldiers played a role in the growth of the monarchy. What is certain, however, is that Edo/ Benin was at war with its neighbours, and that among the first things it could give back in exchange forManillas, already in the fifteenth century, were war prisoners sold as slaves.

Another thing that Europeans were always interested in was ivory. Benin was neither the only nor the most famous producer of the so‑called Afro‑Portuguese ivories; that is saltcellars, hunting horns and spoons evidently made by African artists for European customers, in a unique blend of African and European forms. But since little is known about the original provenance of the earlier and more numerous ivories from today’s Sierra Leone, the case of Benin is better suited to examine the mechanisms at play in the trade. 8

In the city of Edo, the ivory carvers’ as well as the brass casters’ guild were directly subject to the Oba, living next to the compound of the palace. Ivory and brass were reserved for the king and the high nobility. At ceremonial occasions like the burial or commemoration of his defunct mother, the Obawore at his hip an ivory mask, whereas the mask given to his subjected chiefs would be made of brass. Trade with the Europeans was conferred to the Iwebo (one out of three mighty palace associations) which also cared for the king’s regalia and supervised the crafts.

So the Portuguese didn’t simply go to the ivory carvers to commission spoons and saltcellars. Trade was organized by the Iwebo which also controlled the carvers who used to work for the king. Ultimately, trade was controlled by the Oba himself. It would seem that the artful carving of the



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ivory objects, and the amount of both European and Edo status symbols depicted on them were in fact designed to make them more valuable.

Later the Dutch, French and English showed less interest in artful design and were keener on the raw material of ivory. The growing demand is reflected in an incident of Edo history, when around 1700, Iyase (one of the highest military leaders) ne Ode, who was based in the village of Oregbeni, the home of the elephant hunters’ guild, revolted against the Oba. It seems that the Iyase wanted to bring the profitable ivory trade under his own control, but was in the end defeated. 9 Nevertheless, the situation became worse, later on, in King Leopold’s Congo. We may suggest that what had once been trade, turned into something not far from open robbery. 10

The kingdom of Edo/ Benin was defeated in 1897 by the British Punitive Expedition. The city was incinerated and more than 2000 brass plaques and other artworks were brought to Europe as booty, where they were soon auctioned and are still being kept in museums and private collections. Scholars like Felix von Luschan were astonished by the seemingly naturalistic design Africans were not held to be capable of achieving. 11 Theories developed that would explain away their distinctly African features by constructing a hypothetical Malaio‑Nigritic civilization of the past. 12 But it soon turned out that the holy city of Ife had produced some even more naturalistic works at an earlier stage.

Art was not a term Europeans had used so far in order to describe African sculpture. When scholars like von Luschan did, they only projected their own, classicist aesthetics into an art world that had grown in a completely different context. Only later was the meaning of the imagery deciphered and the complex relation between brass as a currency, and as a sign of nobility, was understood. It was the combination of central rule and ancestors’ worship with long‑distance trade relations, mediated by palace associations and set to work by brass casters and ivory carvers, which brought into being the unique art forms of the Edo kingdom that somehow reminded Europeans of their own art.

2. Bamun in the colonial and postcolonial era By the time Benin was destroyed and plundered by the British forces,

the town of Foumban, capital of the kingdom of Bamun (Bamum, Bamoun) in today’s Cameroon, had not yet come into direct contact with the Europeans. But the news had spread that they were proceeding. The ruling Fon, Njoya, was wise enough to realise that he had no chance of resisting their forces. Already around 1894, he had relied on the help of the Fulbe (Fulani, Peul), to the north of the country, to put down a revolt within his own kingdom and subsequently adopted Islam along with his second name Ibrahim. Since then, the Fon of the Bamun is also called by the title of sultan. 13



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Shortly afterwards, Njoya introduced a new writing system. In the beginning, it consisted of 511 signs which were later reduced in several stages to 72 in 1918. The system, called Shumom (Shü‑mom in German spelling), was taught in schools designed to educate the administration of the reign. Njoya himself wrote the chronicles of his kingdom, using the shumom alphabet. He even constructed a printing press which he later destroyed because the French colonial administration would not approve of his ambitious projects. 14

Germans arrived in Foumban in 1902, which was then a centre of ivory trade. 15 Again, Njoya adopted a policy of mutual agreement, relying also on the Germans to balance the power of the Fulbe. 16 Since 1906, the Basel mission was present at Foumban. In 1908, Njoya sent to the German emperor a beaded throne which is now preserved in the ethnological museum of Berlin‑Dahlem. When in 1912 his palace, probably the largest wooden building in Cameroon, burned down, it was replaced by a three‑ storied brick building in German colonial style. To the Fon of Bandjoun who resides in the largest West‑African grass‑roof building preserved to this day, Njoya sent a lion sculpture that looks more European than African in style. 17

Ultimately, Njoya’s attempt to emulate the European style of government could succeed only as long as he was confronted with the relatively weak German colonial forces. Instead of being subjected to military control, he chose to cooperate with the Basel missionaries. He adopted changes in customary law by cutting royal privileges and reducing the number of crimes punishable by death. He even enjoyed taking certain liberties that did not conform to traditional court etiquette, like caressing his wives in public. But when German colonial rule ended after the First World War, the French proved less favourably disposed towards the inventive monarch. By 1924, Njoya was destitute, and was finally exiled in 1931. He died two years later in Yaoundé.

It was Njoya’s ingenious intuition that the force of the European powers resided not only in the superiority of their arms, but in the whole of their administrative system which was based on literacy. Yet he failed to see that this force did not lie in the written administration as such, but in that it made possible to govern a territory much larger than the traditional, centralized reign of an African ruler based on orality.

Though the Bamun script is no longer in use today and is known only to a handful of people, Njoya’s intuition was right that the knowledge of writing, of advanced techniques, and the use of the latest media (like photography) were central for African states in order to compete with the Europeans. For the monarch not only promoted traditional arts like brass casting, 18 but seems to have consciously relied on photography as a means of representation. Four hundred and fifty‑two photographs taken in the kingdom of Bamun in the first two decades of the 20th century are now available through the website of the Basel mission. They show the Fon in



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front of his old and new palace, his wives and relatives, traditional costumes and mask dancers, but also guards on horseback wearing dragoner‑style uniforms: all in all a unique source of images of an African kingdom in transition by the beginning of the 20th century. 19

Njoya failed, but his heirs have continued to follow his footsteps in different ways. In 1985, for example, his successor, Seidou Njimoluh Njoyah, re‑opened a school of Shumom in the palace of Foumban. He was succeeded in 1992 by Ibrahim Mbombo Njoyah, born in 1937, who is presently assisted by his sister Rabiatou, herself a renowned playwright who has treated the affairs of the palace in her tragedy “Raisons de Royaume”. 20 Their younger brother, Njoya Seidou, is a major entrepreneur, owner of the Njoya group that has established internet cafes, a car rental company, a photo laboratory, a home construction company and is dealing cars and computers, mobile phones, graphic design, networking equipment and satellites. 21

Obviously, the present king is not an independent ruler any more, but a keeper of the tradition, working more on a representative level. But besides the Fon and his playwright sister, and their younger brother, the entrepreneur, there is also a cousin who plays a prominent role in the politics of the country. The tensions between the palace and Amadou Ndam Njoyah (Mayor of the city of Foumban, President of the oppositional Union Démocratique du Cameroun (UDC) which he co‑founded in 1991, and candidate for the presidentship of Cameroon in 2004), reflect the problematic relations between traditional and modern ruling systems. 22

Both the Fon of Bamun and his cousin, who is President of the oppositional UDC and has written a book on King Njoya, have in different ways followed the example of the latter. 23 They have both repeatedly taken over diplomatic functions and ministerial responsibilities in the governement of Cameroon. Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya served as ambassador throughout the 1970s, first in the neighbouring country of Equatorial Guinea, and then from 1974 to 1980 in Egypt. Subsequently, he became a national minister, serving in several offices until his enthronement in 1992. 24

Amadou Ndam Njoya has been a minister from 1975 to 1982. Consequently, he became a member of the executive committee of the Unesco, has led a campaign against corruption, and enjoys great credibility with the local population as well as on an international level.

Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya represents the centralized rule of the traditional Fon, responsible for the well being of his people, the Bamun. Amadou Ndam Njoya, son of Arouna Njoya, one of the architects of the unification of Cameroon, stands for modernity, multiple‑party‑system and inter‑ethnic concord. In 1996, he won the elections in his native department of Foun, bringing together cities of different ethnicity and uniting them under the leadership of the UDC, thus establishing a new ground for what he calls decentralized cooperation beyond the will of the government. 25



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Conclusions

Benin and Bamun represent different steps in the history of West African – European relations. Although both are unique cases, they illustrate the more general problems of transition in the long era from the arrival of European vessels at the African shore to the high tide of colonialism and after. Under different circumstances, the rulers of both kingdoms sought an arrangement with the Europeans, and benefited from trade as long as they were able to maintain their autonomy. But after a first phase of friendly relations with the arrivals, stronger powers took over and in the end, in both cases, rulers were destituted and exiled. When their successors were restored to their thrones, they were no longer independent rulers, but merely symbolic figures, representing tradition and ethnic communality, but with little power to balance the rule of national government.

Benin and Bamun also stand for different media. The brass plaques that adorned the palace of the Oba of Edo are unique in the history of African art forms. As a purely representative art that is not concerned with performative gestures, they are not only related to the import of copper, but were possibly also inspired by European art forms. Likewise, Afro‑ Portuguese ivories displayed symbols of status, African as well as European, but later on in history, Dutch traders were more interested in the raw material of ivory. This also reflects the change going on in Europe, from an aristocratic, feudal society to the age of capitalism. In the end, all of the representational art of the palace of Edo was plundered.

King Njoya in turn had the unique idea to introduce writing, and to make use of photography for the purpose of representation. Today, better known than Shumom is the case of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré from Ivory Coast who invented a script in the 1950s which is now regarded as fine art. 26 Long before, Njoya had already introduced his writing system for the use of his administration. Though Shumom is not used any more, his intuition was right as regards the importance of writing as well as of modern media. Amadou Ndam Njoya has studied in Paris. Another member of the Njoya family, Oumarou Njoya, is teaching ethnolinguistics at the university Gaston Berger at Saint‑ Louis, Senegal, and has written his doctoral thesis on “Language, Power and Sociopolitical Changes in the Reign of Bamun after 1991”. 27

Like the rulers of Benin, Njoya also promoted the arts and allowed brass casters to sell their ware on a free market. 28 But when the powers of the Fon vanished, they became dependent on foreign customers. What had once been court representation, gradually turned into souvenir for the tourists. We can see the same process of devaluation all over the African continent. In Foumban, at least, there are two museums, one founded by Njoya, the other one later, where original artworks and regalia can still be



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viewed in their country of origin, which is not the case in the city of Benin and many other places on the African continent. 29

In Gabon, for instance, there remain very few of the famous masks of the Fang, nor the brass covered reliquary figures of the Bakota, both of which have contributed to the rise of modern art and are celebrated periodically in big exhibitions on the American and European continent. 30

The case of Benin is an extreme one, but what is to be found now in European and American ethnographical museums did not arrive there by the will of producers and previous owners. Already when it was founded, in 1886, the ethnographical museum of Berlin possessed 10 000 artefacts from the African continent. 31 In his diaries, Michel Leiris has described in detail how he and Marcel Griaule used ruses and power in order to collect figures that were regarded as holy, but this case is remarkable only for Leiris’s candour. 32

Modern European terms like arts or trade can only give an approximate picture of African reality before 20th century. In the centralized, oral societies of West Africa, art was part of the ruling system, and more often than not, was also a performative gesture that brought together the whole of society. Likewise, trade was under the control of the ruler. But to say that art, or trade, was ‘not yet free’, would be to go back to evolutionist theory. Nevertheless, what we call art and trade cannot always easily be distinguished. The preference for cowrie shells over coined metal had also to do with currency not only being a ‘neutral’ equivalent of value, but something that, in order to be effective, had to be publicly displayed.

Thus, what we have termed ancient African currency was also considered as adornment. And certain materials and objects were valuable not only due to their limited supply, but also due to restricted circulation. Value, even in modern economic theory, is constituted by the scarcity of a ware. Once available for all, provided there was enough raw material, brass works became less exceptional. Likewise, if certain forms of modern African art have some difficulty to find wider acceptance and economic success, it is not because there are not enough gifted artists. On the contrary, sometimes there are too many, as in the case of modern Makonde art. Artists are inventive and skilful, and even work with the precious and increasingly rare material of ebony, yet their art doesn’t sell well and is sometimes treated more like folk art or craft.

In the long history of European – West African relations, we have encountered several forms of exchange, ranging from trade with gold, cowries, copper, and slaves, through the exchange of tokens and diplomatic notes, to conquest and plundering. Ultimately, what distinguishes traffic from trade is the question of legitimacy. This question can be answered in two different ways: either from a legal or from an ethical point of view.



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In the first sense, rulers like the Oba of Edo regarded it as legitimate to sell war prisoners as slaves. Today, there is another form of trade with human commodities. Each year, with the help of commercial traffickers, 80,000 people cross the Sahara northwards, destined for Europe. 33 This rouses the anger of European governments, because according to immigration laws, it is not considered legitimate. But in several modern African countries, the aid that African immigrants in Europe and America send back to their families forms a considerable part of the economy.

After the devaluation of old art forms that went along with the decline of traditional rule, art had to be reinvented, following the European model. We may talk of trafficking when it comes to smuggling in African values into the modern art world, but this process has been going on now for quite some time and today, contemporary African art is well established in biennials and international exhibitions. What seems more important is the inverse process. Artists like Fernando Alvim, Groupe Amos, or Kan Si/ Huit Facettes have begun to reintroduce contemporary practices in the local context of their home countries, trying to bring back self‑esteem and self‑ understanding. 34

The Senegalese, Berlin‑based artist Mansour Ciss, who started a project in 2001 under the name of ‘Laboratoire Déberlinisation’, is a unique case in point. Ciss has installed, in a beautiful, traditional style mansion in the town of N’Gaparou, an artist’s residence – called Villa Gottfried – that was opened in 2002 at the occasion of the biennial of Dakar. The purpose is to provide a place for a dialogue between artists of North and South that, for once, is not located in the rich countries of the European or American continent. The villa is equipped with guestrooms and can be used for exhibitions, workshops and seminars. 35

As a second part of his project he designed artist’s bank notes, called the Afro, resembling real bank notes as much as possible. After the first edition, presented at the biennial of Dakar in 2002, had been sold out, a second was printed for the next biennial. 36 As Christian Hanussek writes, the second edition presents ‘the utopia of a prospering Africa with high‑tech infrastructure, an international network of modern traffic routes as a predisposition for the circulation of ware and goods, for a fruitful cooperation of regions and states of the continent.’ 37 In this utopia, trafficking would no longer have a place.

Endnotes

1 7. Triennale der Kleinplastik 1998: Zeitgenössische Skulptur Europa Afrika (Ostfildern: Cantz, 1998), p. 222 [my translation]. 2 For a discussion see: Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).



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3 Jack Weatherford, Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas transformed the World (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989) ; Till Förster, Glänzend wie Gold: Gelbguss bei den Senufo, Elfenbeinküste (Berlin: Reimer Verlag, 1987), pp. 92‑132; Jean‑Michel Djian, ‘Die Schätze von Timbuktu’, Le Monde diplomatique [German edition], 7434, 13 August 2004, p. 2; Mohamed‑Said ould Hamody: ‘Manuscrits africains anciens’, Colloque International sur ‘les bibliothèques nationales en Afrique francophone subsaharienne au XXIème siècle’ (Sheik‑Anta‑Diop‑University, Dakar, 5 – 7 may 2003), http://www.ebad.ucad.sn/sites_heberges/manifestations/colloque_BN_2003/sohamody.htm. 4 http://www.cpamedia.com/history/maldives_east_africa; Frank Willett, Baubles, Bangles and Beads: Trade Contacts of Mediaeval Life (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, Centre of African Studies, 1977); Margaret Carey, Beads and Bead work of West and Central Africa (Princes Risborough: Shire Publications, 1991); http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/beads/bead.html; http://www.thebeadsite.com. 5 Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism 15th‑18th Century, 3 vols. (New York: HarperCollins, 1981‑84). 6 Ezio Bassani: African Art and Artefacts in European Collections 1400‑1800 (London: British Museum Press, 2000), no. 437. 7 R. E. Bradbury, Benin Studies (London: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1973); Paula Ben‑Amos, The Art of Benin (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980). 8 Bassani. 9 Cfr. also Barbara Winston Blackmun, ‘The Elephant and its Ivory in Benin’, in: Elephant, The Animal and its Ivory in African Culture (Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History/ University of California, 1992), p. 231. 10 Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Boston, New York: Mifflin, 1998). 11 Felix von Luschan, Die Altertümer von Benin, 3 vols. (Berlin: Museum für Völkerkunde, 1919). 12 Leo Frobenius, ‘Der westafrikanische Kulturkreis’, Dr. A. Petermanns Mitteilungen aus Justus Perthes’ geographischer Anstalt, 43, 1897, pp. 225‑236, 262‑267; 44, 1898, pp. 193‑204, 265‑271. 13 Christraud M. Geary, Images from Bamum: German colonial photography at the court of King Njoya, Cameroon, West Africa, 1902 – 1915 (Washington, D.C : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988); ‘König Njoyas verhinderte Gegenkolonisation, Erfindung einer Schrift in Kamerun vor über 100 Jahren’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 November 2001, quoted without indication of author in: http://land.heim.at/toskana/210137/Berichte/MitteilungKamerun.htm; http://www.grioo.com/info2010.html. 14 Ibid.; for the Bamun script see: http://www.grioo.com/blogs/DJIBRILCHIMEREDIAW/index.php/2005/10/19/484‑ecritures‑ africaines; http://www.proel.org/alfabetos/bamun.html; http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/Writing_Systems/Shumom.html. 15 Christraud M. Geary, ‘Elephants, Ivory, and Chiefs, The Elephant and the Arts of the Cameroon Grassfields’, in: Elephant, p. 231. 16 Emmanuel Akyeampong, ‘Introduction to Visual Interpretation of the Basel Mission Archive Photo Project’, http://www.bmpix.org/visip_emmanuel/introduction.htm. 17 Wolfgang Lauber, Palaces and Compounds in the Grasslands of Cameroon: Traditional Wood Architecture of a West African Country (Stuttgart: Karl Krämer Verlag, 1990); http://www.biologie.uni‑hamburg.de/b‑online/afrika/kamerun/foumban_moschee.htm; http://www.biologie.uni‑hamburg.de/b‑online/afrika/kamerun/palast.htm; http://www.biologie.uni‑hamburg.de/b‑online/afrika/kamerun/palast_neben.htm. 18 Walter Hirschberg, ‚Die Künstlerstraße in Foumban (Kamerun)’, in: Tribus, 9, 1960, pp. 90‑106. 19 http://www.bmpix.org; Geary, Images. 20 http://royaumebamoun.com/fr/index.php; http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/AFLIT/NjoyaRabiatou.html. 21 http://www.cameroon‑info.net/cmi_show_news.php?id=15719&cid=756; http://www.groupenjoya.com/. 22 http://www.ccep2004.com/fr/; http://www.cameroon‑info.net/cmi_show_news.php?id=1757; http://www.cameroon‑info.net/cmi_show_news.php?id=16042; http://www.quotidienmutations.net/cgi‑bin/alpha/j/25/2.cgi?category=1&id=1096281743; http://www.lemessager.net/details_articles.php?numero=1&code=57&code_art=1722; http://www.fsa.ulaval.ca/personnel/VernaG/EH/F/cause/lectures/Cameroun.html.



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23 Adamou Ndam Njoya, Njoya réformateur du royaume Bamoun (Abidjan – Dakar – Lomé: Nouvelles Editions Africaines (NEA), 1978). 24 http://royaumebamoun.com/fr/portraits.php?pid=1. 25 http://www.cameroon‑info.net/cmi_show_news.php?id=13335. 26 Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (Heidelberg: Edition Braus / Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 1993). 27 Langage, pouvoir et mutations sociopolitiques dans le royaume bamum depuis 1991, http://www.teluq.uquebec.ca/cgi‑ bin/diverscite/genermtl/url.cgi?no_cours=cv&action=3&nom_cle=nom&nom=NJOYA. 28 Hirschberg. 29 Ibid. 30 http://www.botschaft‑gabun.de. 31 Jean‑Louis Paudrat, ‘Aus Afrika’, in: Primitivismus in der Kunst des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, edited by William Rubin (Munich: Prestel, 1996), p.135 [Primitivism in 20th Century Art (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1984)]. 32 Michel Leiris, L’afrique fantôme (Paris : Gallimard, 1988 [1934]) ; cfr. : Sally Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). 33 ‚Exodus aus Afrika – unterwegs mit Flüchtlingen’, taz 27 – 29 December 2004, p. 5 respectively. 34 Alvim has founded, in 1999 in Brussels, “Coartnews”, a center for African art, and initiated the triennial of Luanda, which will be held for the first time in 2006; Group Amos and Huit Facettes, of which Kan Si is a member, have taken part in the documenta 11, see Documenta11_Platform5: Ausstellung/Exhibition: Kurzführer: Short Guide (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2002), p. 102/ 114; other projects have been presented by Christian Hanussek in the exhibition “Gleichzeitig in Afrika” [Meanwhile in Africa], Nürnberg 3 – 17 June 2005, Bayreuth, 3 June – 4 September 2005, Berlin 16 January – 12 February 2006, http://www.bpb.de/veranstaltungen/F6Z4SK,0,Gleichzeitig_in_Afrika__.html. 35 http://www.galerie‑herrmann.de/arts/art6/projekte/Villa_Gottfried; http://www.deberlinisation.de. 36 When the president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, saw the banknotes in occasion of the biennial of 2002, he asked: ‘Is this spurious money?’, http://www.afrik.com/article7317.html. 37 http://www.deberlinisation.de/nouvelles/hanussek.htm.

The London Consortium Static. Issue 02 – Trafficking

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