Earlier this week I went to a talk
at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). Titled: Primulas, Poppies and Rhododendrons – the ‘Botanical Endeavours’ of
Ludlow and Sherriff. It was given by Jan Faull, a retired film expert from
the British Film Institute (BFI), now writing her PhD on the use of film during
the 1920s Everest Expeditions. The purpose of the talk was to highlight the
recently digitised RGS film archive relating to the remarkable exploits of two
intrepid plant hunters, Frank Ludlow and George Sherriff.
I am also looking at the Ludlow and
Sherriff expeditions, but from a slightly different perspective, as part of my
PhD research. Beginning with Ernest H. Wilson and Augustine Henry at the turn
of the century, and followed by George Forrest, Reginald Farrer, William
Purdom, Joseph Rock, and Frank Kingdon Ward, the period covered by my study of
botanists on the Sino-Tibetan frontier up to 1949 is neatly bookended by Frank
Ludlow and George Sherriff. In June this year, whilst I was researching in the archives of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, I was able to take a
quick look through some of their personal papers, diaries, and photographs. They
made six extensive expeditions in total, steadily and systematically working
their way east from Bhutan to Tibet in the years between 1933 and 1949. Given
the level of their meticulous organisation in conducting these very methodical
expeditions it is surprising they published very little of the results, only
authoring a handful of articles on their botanical and avifaunal discoveries
themselves. Neither of them published any book length accounts of their
travels. Instead the main work to consult today is Harold Fletcher’s excellent A Quest of Flowers (Edinburgh, 1975), which makes
extensive use of their diaries and letters to retell their expeditions in their
own words. There is a wonderful chapter in Fletcher’s book which is written by
George Sherriff’s wife, Betty, recounting the years of the Second World War –
an ‘interlude’ from their plant collecting expeditions, which they spent on a
British Government posting to Lhasa. Hence I was fascinated to find out that
shortly before she died in 1978 Betty Sherriff recorded a narration to accompany
one of their original colour films, which has now been digitised by the BFI and
can be viewed here:
Jan Faull’s talk was illustrated by
several similar clips from their black and white films (now held in the
archives of the RGS) which they shot in Bhutan and SE Tibet, as well as one
filmed in Kashgar (in present day Xinjiang). These films show a wealth of
fascinating detail, particularly in terms of life on expedition; the wonderful
national dress found in these Himalayan communities; and the warm smiles of their
porters and the local people they met is very notable. However, I was
particularly struck by two things with regard to Ludlow and Sherriff
themselves: firstly, the fact that George Sherriff always appears to be
industriously occupied, busying himself with various tasks, whereas Frank Ludlow
often seems to be strolling around, meditatively staring off into the distance at the high, misty
peaks surrounding them. Writing in TheAlpine Journalin 1997, Michael Ward
notes that Sherriff was 15 years younger than Ludlow: “Their attitudes were complimentary; Ludlow was the scholarly academic,
whilst Sherriff was the precise, efficient, practical organiser and an expert
mechanic and electrician. Both were captivated by the magic of the Himalaya and
Tibet. They had a great mutual respect and harmony of views, and serious
arguments and friction were unknown: yet, during all the long years of their
friendship, they always addressed each other by their surnames only.” They
were also great friends of the King of Bhutan, Jigme Dorji Wangchuk.
The second thing I found most
striking about their films is how remarkably heavy and very cumbersome the loads
which the expedition porters had to bear on their bent backs seem to be
(although it’s possible these loads weren’t quite so heavy as some of the regular
loads of tea which were carried into Tibet from China), as well as the
precarious state of the ‘roads’ they had to travel, with precipitous inclines,
fording fast flowing rivers, or shinning across precarious ropeways and
suspension bridges. These were journeys for the hardiest of travellers. Jan
Faull pointed out that George Sherriff always swore by the health-giving
benefits derived from the large supplies of whisky which they took with them; something
which he also considered as highly effective against malaria too! … I didn’t
realise before but Sherriff was related to the famous family of Scotch whisky
distillers of the same name from Bowmore in Islay.
Something else which these films show
are the remarkable vistas of flowers that were the commercial and scientific
purpose of all their expeditions. I’d pictured these scenes from the very vivid
descriptions found in Farrer and Kingdon Ward’s books, as well as Fletcher’s,
along with my own experience wandering through the region further to the north,
but seeing these vistas as rendered first-hand in their films is quite something
else. As Jan Faull explained, Ludlow and Sherriff pioneered the use of colour
photography on their journeys, at first using Kodacolour film made by the
Eastman Kodak Company, a type of film stock which was only in use for a few
years before it was superseded by the more familiar Kodachrome film. It’s
thought that these films were primarily made by Sherriff and Ludlow for their
own records, or for use as part of their public talks and lectures rather than
for proper distribution. As can readily be seen these films now comprise a
unique record. They certainly constitute an invaluable source of information for
historians, anthropologists, and for the local communities of the Himalayas
themselves. Through the joint work of the RGS and the BFI, it’s wonderful to
see that many of these films (and others like them) are currently being
preserved through digitisation, and it’s even more wonderful that they are now being
openly shared with everyone across the globe via the world-wide-web for free:
This is something which has been
bugging me for a while now. The question of colonial loot and museums. It is a
question which features in our newspapers, TV and social media with increasing
frequency these days. Its prominence began with the rise of the ‘Rhodes must fall’ movement in South Africa. It is an issue which primarily a rising
younger generation is promoting to our wider social consciousness. I have
worked in the museum sector for over twenty years and I’ve seen the slow rise
of this consciousness coming to the fore and it has a lot to do with this
generational shift.
Click on the image above to read the full article
When I began work in this sector
the museum where I work was still very hierarchical, still run according to old
and seemingly long established Civil Service rules. Junior staff were expected
to be deferential to their senior colleagues in a far more rigid and inflexible
way than they are nowadays. Over the years I’ve watched this mindset relaxing
itself. There are still elements of the old school, the Museum Director is
still king (and more often than not, still a man), but we no longer have to
doff our caps and be mindful of using the appropriate honorifics of our heads
of department in quite the same way as we used to. Academia has been
democratised. I’m now witnessing both my contemporary and my junior colleagues
(i.e. – those younger than me, who have graduated or got their PhDs long after
I myself graduated) rising to the positions of senior curators and even heads
of department. And with this transition of one generation succeeding the one
before, change is inevitable. It may seem like traditions are falling by the
way, but as any anthropologist knows all traditions evolve. Culture isn’t
static. Hence formal colonialism is no longer an active foreign policy, at
least not on the broad blanket scale that it used to be. But that colonialism
which went before is undoubtedly the foundation of our current world system.
Globalisation began with colonialism. Without it we probably wouldn’t have the
kind of trade deals we have today, nor global institutions such as the World
Bank, The World Trade Organisation, The United Nations, etc. In many parts of
the world the social and geographical concept of the modern nation state was an
idea in and of itself which was exported with the imposition of empire on other
parts of the globe, later taken up by the resistance movements which eventually
succeeded in gaining independence for those peoples who had been colonised.
Click on the image above to read the full article
Colonial expansion in the modern
era (i.e. – from the late 1600s onwards) was a big project which spanned
several centuries. It was not always a coherent project however. It often
evolved as an ad hoc, contingent and
improvised thing. In some places where colonialism took hold it set down roots
and grew, in some places it managed to cling on for a while before either
fading away or being fought off (think of India, the republics of Latin
America, the old Ottoman domains), or in some places it managed to reshape the
entire region and so morphed into something entirely its own (think of
Singapore, the USA, Australia). It wasn’t always invading armies which set the
process in motion either. Independent traders were often the first to make
contact with other cultures (for instance, it’s been suggested that European whaling ships may well have reached many of the Pacific islands and Australia before
Captain Cook), and these first contacts could often be mutually profitable, but
as with any kind of social interaction disagreements, disputes, instances of
fraud (real or perceived) could lead to conflict and the desire for
restitution. Hence the next European to reach a particular Pacific island might
unwittingly reap the knock on effect (quite literally) of his unknown
predecessor’s wrong actions and thereby find himself koshed on the head, or alternatively
he might be welcomed wholeheartedly had the last European visitor been more
benign. In the case of the former situation such a ‘tit for tat’ might well
have escalated out of proportion if a European gunboat was dispatched to ‘teach
the natives a lesson.’ In the case of the latter, a trading post might thereby be
established which then evolved over time into one of today’s major trading
cities. All such interactions however involved the exchange of things and this for me, as an academic researcher, is
the crux of the ‘colonial loot’ debate.
Click on the image above to read the full article
I say ‘debate’ – but is it really a
debate? … Many of the news media articles currently appearing on this topic highlight
an increasingly black and white view of the past. Undoubtedly some aspects of
the past can be read in such terms. It is impossible to countenance the
Amritsar massacre or the Holocaust as anything but unquestionably bad. But
other historical incidents and individuals constitute more of a grey area. Take
Cecil Rhodes for example. He might not have been a particularly nice character,
but should he (or the lingering evidence of the sway he once held over our
societies), like Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s cigar, be airbrushed from our history?
– Part of the calls made by the ‘Rhodes must fall’ campaign is that it is time
for the public statues of Rhodes to be moved from the centre of our towns and
institutions into our museums as a way of making things historical history.
Some of the responses to the Guardian headline posted on Twitter
Museums are good repositories for
this kind of baggage. By putting Rhodes’s statue in a museum we can categorise
it, label it, explain who he was, why a statue of him was made, and why it
stood for so long where it did, as well as why it was high time for it to be
moved, re-contextualised, re-thought, and re-positioned. But what then of all
the other things already in museums? Museums have long been the repositories of
colonial knowledge, as colonial institutions themselves they are often freighted
with just such baggage of their own. The British Museum being a straw man par excellence of this kind. Even its
name – British rather than World or Global – deeply rankles some people. There are now increasing calls to ‘decolonise
our museums.’ Hollywood recently highlighted this in what will probably come to
be seen as an iconic cultural moment in cinema – the scene in which an African
colonial-era descendent questions the legitimacy of a present day European
curator’s assumption of custodianship of the past in the Marvel comics
blockbuster, Black Panther (2018).
This is a debate which in many ways
is only just beginning. And I for one feel that the media acting as a catalyst
are very much goading this movement to run before it can properly walk. In
saying so, as a museum professional, I don’t mean to be defensive. In some ways
I think this is a good thing and long overdue at that. And I have certainly
noticed these issues coming to the fore very rapidly in the curatorial forums
I’ve attended more recently within the museum in which I work as well as at
study days, conferences, and exhibitions which I’ve attended at other museums
and universities over the last few years. The hidden stories behind museum
objects – the history of collecting –
is definitely coming to the fore. For many years I have been fascinated by this
hidden history. One of the first things I ever did when I began working in
the museum was to leaf through the departments' catalogues with the question at the
forefront of my mind as to how did this
object arrive in the museum? Not just who found it, but also how was it
bought, dug up, found, discovered, traded, inherited, donated, acquired,
deposited? – All of these words add layers of nuance to an object’s history.
They can alter its meaning and its value, both symbolically as well as
financially. Provenance is key to museum work.
Label in the British Museum (Room 33) describing the 'forcible' taking of objects during the British Invasion of Tibet in 1904
Some of the responses to the Guardian headline posted on Twitter
Without a provenance an object can
only tell us so much about the past – a good provenance (i.e. – not just knowing
where it came from, but how it was acquired and by whom, etc.) can reveal a
wealth of information which simply seeing and recognising what the object is
won’t do on its own. But here too can arise the post-colonial
complications which the decolonise museums movement tend to gloss over. ‘All
colonialism and its effects are bad’ is a black and white view which negates
the nuances of how the world actually worked and functioned under colonialism.
Everyone within the colonial world (both coloniser and colonised) was making his or her way through that
system within the parameters which colonialism laid down around them. They
negotiated their world just as we negotiate ours. Individuals travelling within
the bounds of empire bought, traded, and collected – interacting with one
another just as we do today. If you go on holiday and buy a tourist souvenir
are you exploiting or ‘culturally appropriating’ any more from the local
population than someone who similarly travelled within the British Empire and
bought souvenirs 100 or 200 years ago? – If you slip that piece of tourist tat
into your bag and manage to leave the shop undetected, not having paid for it,
you most definitely are – hence the
analogy of objects ‘collected’ from the sacking of the Summer Palace in 1860,
to give but one example. Queen Victoria famously had the audacity to call a
Pekingese dog she was given as a result of this incident ‘Looty.’
Did you keep the receipt? - If you did, is that good enough?
But even then such instances aren’t
always quite so cut and dried if we dig down into them a bit more; as for
instance in the minds of those colonial types who did such looting it was an
entirely justified punitive act, reparation for the wrongs they felt they had
sustained beforehand as informed by their world view at the time. Similarly
Lord Elgin paid for those marble sculptures he removed from the Parthenon (even
though that payment went to the Ottoman authorities then in control of Athens),
he even got a receipt (or firman) to prove it.* Today we probably (hopefully) don’t wholly agree
with the Victorian world view, but how then do we deal with its definite
legacy; the fact that it happened and this is why that particular object or
artwork is where it is today? – It is perhaps easy to argue outright that such
objects should be returned – but sometimes even the black and white of such situations
cannot be redressed. Think of some of the traditional societies which
colonialists encountered, for instance in Tasmania or Tierra del Fuego. What if the people who were
robbed have no direct descendants? Who do you give that loot ‘back’ to? – To the
descendants of colonists who replaced them?
There’s no simple answer to this
conundrum because it is inherently more complex than it at first appears. Not
all objects have a clear history. How many receipts have you kept for the
tourist nick-nacks you’ve bought on all your travels? – But that’s not to say
nothing should be done in this regard. It’s important to acknowledge the
perceived wrongs of the past, to explain how and why they happened, and to
suggest ways we should reflect and actupon
those wrongs in the present. That’s the debate which needs to happen now. It is
part of the evolution of museums and museum practice, part of how we engage
with our collective past. Otherwise there is a real danger of present faddism only
promoting a superficial engagement with the past.
A small 'skull house' standing in front of a larger building in the Solomon Islands
The Skull House on display in the British Museum (Room 24)
Last Friday I attended the first of
a series of short gallery talks at the British Museum which is endeavouring to
meet this debate and facilitate this kind of reflection. This is something
which has been in development for a while, but the initial coverage in the
Press is painting this as a defensive response to independent initiatives to
highlight the colonial aspect of museums and their histories. In this talk the curator
circumnavigated a single showcase in the Wellcome Trust Gallery of Living and Dying
(Room 24) – looking at a number of objects from the Solomon Islands, and
thereby highlighting the ambiguity of the historical record. For instance, a skull house, an object which the museum records describe as “having been found
under a cairn of stones.” – You don’t just find something under a cairn of
stones, you first have to remove the stones to get at the object which is a
deliberate act of seeking it out, with no mention of whether or not permission
was sought from the local population who had originally placed the object under
the cairn. And even if such permission was given, how are we (or even the
collector at the time) to know that the person giving permission was in a
legitimate position to do so? … Similarly that object – though it wasn’t actively sought
by, or collected on behalf of the museum – may have been traded or handed down
through several different hands or generations, then from one museum to another
before it eventually reached the museum it is currently stored or displayed in.
Does that make the current owner complicit in its initial theft, appropriation,
or acquisition, whether that initial collecting method (extraneous to the
museum itself) was documented and so is provable as being legitimate or
otherwise?
Some of the responses to the Guardian headline posted on Twitter
In most cases it’s a can of worms.
But that’s not to say these questions shouldn’t be asked. They undoubtedly
should be asked. But what we need to debate is how we respond and deal with such questions collectively.
Maybe some of the answers will indeed prompt clear cases for restitution claims
to be made and upheld. But also, for
those objects of more ambiguous / unascertainable backgrounds or those legitimately collected when judged by
today’s standards, perhaps we can view their being preserved in a museum as
being a good thing? – There are many
instances of museum curators working with local communities to better
understand the objects held in their care, understanding the contexts from
which these objects originated, as well as feeding back into those communities,
who, in studying these objects for themselves, might re-learn lost techniques and
skills of manufacture, and so on. The skull house mentioned above could well be an important example of this type of cultural survival. A British colonial official, Arthur Grimble, writing in his memoir, A Pattern of Islands (1952), gives a harrowing account of how Christian missionaries in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (today's Kiribati and Tuvalu) compelled the local peoples to destroy this type of ancestral shrine which he says the zealous missionaries and their equally zealous indigenous converts found offensive in their ardent intolerance of what they perceived as superstitious 'paganism' and so destroyed in an unequivocal act of colonial violence.
This beneficent vision of the museum asresource
as well as repository is a view which all museum scholars tend to agree on, after all knowledge
is nothing if it is not shared. Perhaps in the past, knowledge – particularly
in the colonial context – was power, hence in many ways the museum was both a functional
database and a symbol of conquering and possessing other peoples, places, and
resources, thereby being an implement of control; but in similar ways the
knowledge which museums contain today can be reverted into something which goes
deeper than simply giving back the material things of the past. They can be the
means of giving back and growing that knowledge, refracting it in ways the old
colonials could never have imagined!
Click on the image to read the full article
And while we are thinking along
these lines, it’s also worth bearing in mind that not all curators today are
necessarily the direct descendants of those nasty old European colonial
overlords, and those that are their descendants (asides from the nuance that
not all colonials were imperialists) don’t necessarily hold the same opinions
as their forebears did in this respect. Modern museums are recalibrating – but
they are huge lumbering oil tankers not zippy speed boats, it’s difficult for them to
comprehensively change direction overnight. But if you look closer, as this new
series of gallery talks at the BM show, this generational shift is beginning to
assert itself. The BM will look like a very different place in a few years’
time, because that’s what it does – it reflects the world which created the museum back then, as
well as the world which continues now to create it over anew.
The modern museum is in one sense
and memory bank, but it is also an active mind which is there to be
collectively and individually engaged with by everyone who cares to use it. Automatic assumptions are
exactly the kind of things which need to be challenged on multiple levels for
any debate to have a constructive and meaningful outcome. There is no point
being reductive about these questions, otherwise we are no better than that
which we condemn. Broad brushes sweep both ways, but in sweeping out the bad we
need to ensure we don’t inadvertently sweep out the good as well. Rhodes mustn’t
simply fall, he must be reassessed,
re-categorised, re-positioned, and above all – he must be remembered – otherwise the past has no future. Perhaps our minds
need decolonising as much as our museums do?
~
Please note the views expressed in this article are mine alone and are not intended to represent the official position of the British Museum.
* NB - For more detailed information and informed discussion concerning Lord Elgin's firman, see: Dyfri Williams, 'Lord Elgin's firman,' Journal of the History of Collections, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2009), pp. 49-76
