Displaying Traditional Yorùbá Religious Objects in Museums: The Western Re-Making of a Cultural Heritage

This paper, based on doctoral research carried out from January 2003 through July 2005, addresses the interpretation and representation of non-Western religious material culture in Western museums and offers a comprehensive view of the way traditional religious Yorùbá objects are displayed in contemporary museums in Britain. Museum exhibitions can be conceived as a visual narrative, which absorbs the religious essence of traditional religious non-Western objects into broad categories. At the same time, these categories are still strongly affected by Western aesthetic appreciation, understanding, and classificatory systems. In museum displays, traditional Yorùbá religious material culture loses its distinctiveness and is absorbed into global pan-African representations. Therefore, in order to be able to reach more informed or “authentic” interpretations, museums should include the memories and voices of the people who are “closer” to the original meanings of traditional religious objects. Introduction When enthusiastic and erudite collectors created their first cabinets of curiosities, they could not foresee in which complex, public, and socially significant institutions their private and intriguing rooms would develop. Indeed, since their creations, the notion of the “museum as a room filled with curiosities” has changed and museums, as organizations, have accomplished different purposes. They have shaped their role according to the changeable needs of contemporary society and from elitist, academic institutions have become public, informal learning environments; from intimidating, dusty mausoleums they have transformed into open, intercultural forums. Displaying Traditional Yorùbá Religious Objects in Museums: The Western Re-Making of a Cultural Heritage