The repatriation of the 26 artefacts
The 26 pieces repatriated by France to the Republic of Benin were donated to the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1893 and 1895 by General Alfred Amédée Dodds after the conquest of the Kingdom of Dahomey during which the pieces were stolen from their owners.
The choice of items to be returned is said to have been a unilateral decision by France. The pieces summarize the history of the Fon kingdom (and its dynasty), which dominated the southern part of Benin for nearly three centuries before the French colonisation.
On 10 November 2021, Benin organized a major celebration in the garden of the presidential palace to welcome the 26 repatriated objects, or ‘Treasures of Behanzin’ to quote Charles Ratton. It was the opportunity for Beninese President Patrice Talon to start building a new heritage around the 26 artefacts, and encourage the Beninese to build a ‘new’ post-colonial identity. Hence the presence of traditional chiefs, heirs of the ancient kingdoms that populate nowadays Benin.
Within the context of the repatriation to Benin, the artefact has become a tool of seduction, an item of reconciliation with an idealised past. The artefact comes from the ‘royal treasures of Benin’ that belonged to Behanzin, the last great Dahomeyan king. He is considered as a national hero. However, some people have a strong negative opinion on the military conquests of the Dahomey kingdom and have kept a terrified memory of them.
The construction of a national discourse around the returned pieces also takes the form of an important exhibition organised at the presidential palace, three months after their return to Benin.
Poster of the exhibition ‘Art of Benin. From yesterday to today: from restitution to revelation’
Source: Benin’s National Gallery
The ‘Art of Benin, from yesterday to today, from restitution to revelation’ exhibition: repossession cultural goods and the scripting of a national discourse and a Beninese identity
Organising this exhibition is the second main step in the scripting process of a Beninese national unifying identity. The choice of venue is indicative of the unifying role the Beninese president has bestowed himself: gathering all the citizens around the same identity discourse.
Exhibiting the 26 returned pieces and contemporary works in the presidential palace also serves to legitimise the current government, but above all, to make the president appear as a modern-day monarch, whose actions are intended to be a continuity of those of the former kings of Dahomey. It instates him as their rightful successor.
The diptych exhibition took place in two separate spaces, with two distinct stagings. It began with the display of the 26 ‘Royal Treasures of Benin’, and ended with Beninese contemporary artworks. The space in which the 26 returned works were displayed recalled a staging quite similar to that of the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, ‘in a dimmed-light that magnifies mysticism’. The contemporary art pieces, on the other hand, were shown in a better-lit space. 106 works by 34 Beninese visual artists were on display, in a three-part exhibition with each theme intending to reconnect with the past, traditions, the 26 ‘royal treasures of Benin’ and a certain Beninese identity.
Display area of the ‘26 Royal Treasures of Benin’
Source: Adéwolé Faladé, 2022
Contemporary art pieces display area
Source: Adéwolé Faladé, 2022.
Everything seems to show that the Beninese people is actively repossessing the 26 repatriated items. However, some comments might question the fact that every single Beninese is actually able to relate to that heritage.
The shortcomings of the heritage creation process through iconic objects within the context of Benin’s heritage repatriation
The aim of the diptych exhibition ‘Art of Benin, from yesterday to today: from restitution to revelation’ was to reconnect the Beninese with their culture and show, through contemporary art, the continuity of their creativity, despite the colonial pause. The goal was also to construct a discourse with which all Beninese would identify themselves and embrace. However, this desire to construct a unified Beninese identity based on the Dahomeyan material culture, conflicted with other memory representations which did not consider the kingdom of Dahomey as a unifying element. The resentments inherited from the pre-colonial period by a number of populations, who have seen themselves as victims of the Dahomeyan raids, make it difficult to imagine a national unity. Especially when it has to be achieved with objects belonging to an oppressive kingdom.
The returned works are part of the iconographic imagination of Abomey. Resentment inherited from the pre-colonial period towards the kingdom of Dahomey, its culture and its descendants is still very much alive. The people who suffered from the Dahomeyan raids that supplied slave ships, find it hard to accept that the symbols of a rediscovered national pride are the same praising the kingdom of Dahomey. (Akogni and Houenoude; 2023)
The shaping of an identity that underpins the Beninese government’s discourse around the 26 artifacts comes up against contradictory memories. Given these circumstances, it would be interesting to analyse how Benin can come up with a new form of heritage that will win unanimous support and enable it to rebuild a shared cultural ideal.