From Cornwall to Kenya Gallery owner arranges return of totems

CORNWALL — It began as just a show of  African art but it has led a Cornwall resident to the United Nations.

On June 25, Kelly Gingras, of the Insiders/Outsiders Gallery in Cornwall Bridge was at the UN to hand over priceless burial totems — called vigango — to the African government. Her hope is that this one act of righting a wrong will not end there.

“It’s about awareness,� Gingras said. “People have been buying this art that is precious to the Mijikenda families of the people whose graves were robbed. Most have no idea it was stolen art. They bought it legitimately from dealers. I think once people begin to know about it, they will do the right thing.�

It was Gingras’ research for the show (which opened in May) that led her on a trail of discovery of the tale of vigango burial totems. Tall and flat, the totems are intricately carved, often in a rather primitive style. Removal from the grave is believed to bring bad luck on the deceased in the afterlife, and to surviving family members.

They were stolen by locals who found a lucrative market in art dealers and tourists.

Just two days after the UN presentation to Ambassador Peter N.R.O Ogego, Gingras was doing internet research on  vigango. The first thing that always popped up was a Los Angeles art dealer’s Web site.

“All of a sudden, the site is gone,� she said.

It is estimated there are 400 vigango in the U.S., in private collections and at least 19 museums, including the Smithsonian Institution.

But the problem extends worldwide, and was not helped by the fact that, until about three years ago,  Kenya had no laws prohibiting the export of African artifacts. The illicit trade is estimated at a value of a half billion dollars annually. Vigango are sold for thousands of dollars each here. But the value in terms of history for the Mijikenda people is priceless.

Participating in the hand-off ceremony at the UN was Charles Stith, director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center at Boston University and former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania. Gingras consulted Stith after discovering the artifacts were originally stolen. Her immediate reaction was that the works had to be returned.

The vigango that ended up in Cornwall Bridge came from the estate of producers and screenwriters Lewis M. Allen and Jay Presson Allen. Their daughter, Brooke Allen, asked Gingras to sell the totems, then agreed to their return upon learning of the story behind them.

But it took four months to arrange a return. A fear was that the artifacts would make it back to Kenya, but not the families. A process has been difficult to arrange. The vigango will go to a museum for now, in the hope that families will come forward and claim them.

Museums in the United States have been reportedly reluctant to part with the vigango, fearing they would not actually make it back to burial plots, and might be safer if left here. Many of the artifacts have been here for decades, and tracing them back is difficult.

The Illinois State Museum returned one of its 37 vigango after a Kenyan family showed proof, documented by an anthropologist, that the totem belonged to them. It seems apparent to those involved in fostering a mass return that the documented cases will be a rarity.