Published on : 18/09/2022 – 04:00
While the return of African heritage to the continent is gradually imposing itself on Europe, the Franco-Finnish author Taina Tervonen set off between France and Senegal, on the trail of a fascinating treasure.
For a long time, on the labels placed below the objects of African heritage exhibited in museums in France and Europe, one could read the words “collection”, even “donation”. Sometimes, in addition to the date and the mention of the place of origin of these objects, one could read the name of a man, often an officer, who would have “collected” them. A silence and elements of language that leave little doubt about the colonial context in which these objects were captured, looted, to then arrive in the collections of French and European museums.
For Taina Tervonen, who grew up in Senegal, learned French at Senegalese school but above all the African heroes of the Resistance to colonization, this silence in the Africa rooms of French museums is deafening. The Franco-Finnish author then decided to go in search of the treasure of Ségou, which was seized in 1890 by the French colonel Louis Archinard, at the time of the fall of the capital of the Toucouleur Empire. Consulting the archives and the African oral tradition, Taina Tervonen tracks this colonial loot, which will disperse and join the reserves of French museums, far from view, as if forgotten in our memories. This Ségou treasure is made up of manuscripts, weapons, jewellery, ritual and everyday objects, but also an Abdoulaye child, kidnapped by Colonel Archinard and sent to France at the end of the 19th century. He was the grandson of the great mystical leader El Hadj Oumar Tall, hero of the Resistance to colonization.
For decades, the Oumarian community has been asking in vain for the return of these objects. In November 2017, during his speech in Ouagadougou, President Emmanuel Macron officially pleaded “for the return within 5 years” of works of African heritage, an announcement that sparked heated debate in France. In 2018, France officially returned to Senegal the saber attributed to El Hadj Oumar Tall, which would have been taken in Ségou, but whose trajectory and provenance are difficult to determine. This saber is now on display at the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar.
It is therefore the story of an outward AND return journey that Taina Tervonen tells us, a common history between France and Africa, populated by ghosts of colonization, children torn from their land and their culture, of officers devoured by their personal glory, of strategy of conquest and manipulation, but also of colonial trophy objects, witnesses of this violent era long passed over in silence. In her fascinating choral story “Les otages” published by Éditions Marchialy, she then gives voice to her objects; and in her own way, she brings them to life.
Learn more:
– On the report delivered in 2018 on the restitution of African heritage by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy
– On “The lives of the Treasure of Ségou“. An article by Daniel Foliard. Historical Review 2018. Cairn International
– On Abdoulaye Tall, grandson of El Hadj Oumar Tall, captured in 1890 and sent to France by Colonel Archinard. Abdoulaye Tall will be the first African to join the Military School of Saint-Cyr in France
– On the return of the royal treasures of Abomey exhibited in Benin and the reappropriation process. A Great Report by Delphine Bousquet.