Architecture of Unforgetting

Two children, a little girl and her kid brother, sitting on a carved wooden bench in an Edo courtyard, Benin City, mid 1930s. 2nd Image: The Iyasere of Benin, Iyase Okhoro-Otun. Photographer: Duckworth, E. H., a colonial era photographer for the colonial rule. Courtyard likely of Iyasere Okhoro-Otun In background,  the Edo architecture of horizontal wall fluting . An important part of the structure of a building, the horizontal fluting is anchored by supporting vertical wood beams forming the frame of each building. These striations are as well architectural aesthetic specific to Edo. It is not clear how often in the year, given the yearly rains, these walls were repaired.  Much knowledge has been lost, especially as local materials have been abandoned for the more durable cement. What is clear is that in the decades that followed the invasion of 1897 and the subsequent propaganda and discrimination Benin suffered at the hands of the colonial rule and its newly forming 'state'...

How did Berlin Museums get the Benin Bronzes? Part One What role do the self-dubbed, ‘great’ museums of the Western world play in colonialism?  Hari Kumar 19/01/2022 Earliest known photograph of Oba’s compound, Benin City, May 1891. Photo by Cyril Punch. Public Domain After much bluster, the Berlin Humboldt Forum finally agreed to return  its collection of the ‘Benin Bronzes’  to its native Nigeria. What are these Bronzes, how did many end up in Berlin? First of a two part article. 1. World museums gloss over brutal acquisitions Walking through museums we are often awed by their beautiful artifacts. The most famous museums dub themselves a venue of “the world’s civilizations!” Some believe this and do not see any of the blood of former owners or makers dripping over the art. But an important image that should come to mind is the violent, physical robbery of the colonies. This was fused into a core racism around ‘enslavement’, as Marx  put it : “The discovery of gold ...

How did Berlin Museums get the Benin Bronzes? Part Two Anti-colonial activists have succeeded in having some plunder returned to its original country, but the struggle goes on Hari Kumar 22/01/2022 Humboldt Forum. Photo: Derbrauni CC4.0 International This is the second part of this article. You can read part one  here . The complex nature of Western scholars in colonial times It would be one-dimensional and anti-dialectical to ignore the scholarly and sweeping visions of some of the leading “Orientalists”. Sir William Jones, for example, first translated Kalidas of 400 AD (“the Indian Shakespeare”) from Sanskrit into English. He undertook his studies in 1785, in the colony of “British india”. In his book,  India discovered , he declared Sankskrit “more perfect than either Greek or Latin”. It is true he was seen by Edward Said in a more diminished way than perhaps he deserved: “He was appointed to ‘an honourable and profitable place in the Indies’, and (took) up a post with the...

REGARDING THIS IMAGE here, Humans of Edoland is absolutely correct: They started with Great Benin Obaship title and moved to Benin royal sword of Authority (Ada and Eben) and now going for the Great Benin red beaded crown.   With this beaded crown that this current ooni is today wearing, tomorrow they’ll start carrying new lies about how it’s all theirs, how it’s simply ‘yoruba’; just like how they took the word ‘Oba’ ie the original Edo word and title for ‘emperor’ to mean a Yoruba word ‘king’. Today we hear of all sorts of ‘kings’ attaching ‘oba’ to their already existing particular title. The first creation of the title of ooni as ‘king’ was the election of Aderemi, a  charismatic politician by the British who made him ‘ooni king of the yoruba’ in 1930 when Ademiluyi the priestly holder of the title passed on that same year. Before Aderemi, there was no ‘oni, king of Ife’. Rather ‘ooni’ a priesthood title of Ife. The previous guy, Ademiluyi, was merely a ‘priest’. When ...