The Return of Katana’s Vigango

Kigango (singular) or vigango (plural) are memorial funerary posts that maintain a perpetual connection between the living and the living dead. The vigango in this case study belonged to the family of Kalume Mwakiru Katana, a Giriama man who erected two Vigango in 1985 to commemorate his recently deceased brothers.

Vigango originate from the Mijikenda community, which is made up of nine closely related but distinct cultural groups that live along the Kenyan and Northern Tanzania coasts. The vigango belonging to Katana’s family originated specifically from Mombasa, where the Giriama – the cultural group they belong to – live.

The Mijikenda believe that their supreme spiritual being, Mulungu, does not intervene directly in the community’s affairs. Their ancestors, materially embodied in vigango, mediate between the community and Mulungu. In this way, they oversee the community’s well-being; bringing petitions of their living relatives to Mulungu, and returning blessings, messages of advice and warnings to their living relatives.

In 1999, Katana’s Vigango were located in the Illinois State University Museum collection, and the Hampton University collection in the United States of America (USA).

The looting of Vigango has been ongoing for the past 100 years, however, a spike in theft was experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. There was a growing demand for vigango, as “African art” pieces, in the tourist and Global North art market. In the face of worsening economic conditions, local Kenyan youth saw an opportunity to meet this demand. They began stealing vigango and supplying them to hotels, galleries and tourist shops, who openly displayed them in Mombasa. For them, the monetary value of vigango in these spaces outweighed the religious and cultural value they had for elder members of their communities. 

Many of the vigango that made their way to the USA did so through Ernie Wolfe III; a prominent collector of African belongings, who knowingly purchased looted vigango, and sold them to private and public American buyers. It was during this period that the two vigango were stolen from Katana’s homestead, and through these channels, they later appeared in the Illinois State University Museum and Hampton University Museum collections.

In 1985, Katana supported an American scholar, Monica Udvardy, with her PhD fieldwork research on the Mijikenda community. As part of her research, Udvardy captured photographs of his homestead, which included the two vigango that he had recently installed, to commemorate his deceased brothers. A few weeks later, Udvardy returned to Katana’s homestead to share the photographs that she had taken. This is when Katana advised her that the two vigango had been stolen in the night, and appealed to her to assist him with locating and returning the stolen vigango. She could not find the vigango in shops and hotels in Mombasa that were known to sell vigango, but she promised to continue searching.

The Giriama, and by extension, the Mijikenda community, believes that once a kigango has been removed, it cannot be reinstalled unless it is immediately recovered. This means that the connection to the spirit embodied in a kigango is permanently lost. They also believe that if a kigango is disturbed, displaced or stolen, misfortune will be cast by the embodied human ancestor, on their descendants and/or on the offender who committed this act of the highest disrespect. The repercussions of this spiritual sanction can take the form of unproductive land or poor harvest, physical or mental illness, physical disabilities of newly born descendants,  loss of family members and/or conflict between family members.

Katana was distressed by the loss of their vigango, as the vigango were the only remaining connection that the family had to his brothers. He also feared that the theft would result in misfortune and calamity for the family.

In 1999, Monica Urvardy attended the African Studies Association’s annual meeting, where Dr. Linda Giles presented a paper on vigango in the Illinois State University Museum’s collection. Udvardy recognised Katana’s vigango amongst the vigango collection displayed during Giles’ presentation. She advised Giles of this. Giles, in turn, invited Urvardy to visit the collection. There, they positively identified one of the kigango that belonged to Katana’s family, in the collection. They also looked through other museum’s catalogues and found that the other kigango was in Hampton University Museum’s collection.

In the same year, Giles, Urvardy and John Baya Mitsanze [also a Giriama man, and curator at the National Museums of Kenya] mapped the provenance of 294 vigango in North American collections, to better understand how the illicit trading of vigango had occurred. Through this process they found the vigango belonging to Katana’s family had most likely been stolen, then transported to the coast, and then almost immediately transported to the USA. They were then purchased by individuals, who donated and/or sold them to the respective universities a year later, in 1986. 

In 2006, Katana wrote a letter to the Mombasa branch of the National Museums of Kenya, requesting that they, as Kenya’s mandated protector of natural and cultural heritage, support his efforts to have the two vigango returned. Mr. Philip Jimbi Katana [also a Mijikenda community member, and the principal Curator of Coastal Sites and Monuments], wrote an official letter to both museums demanding a return of the two vigango, based on the provenance research that proved that both vigango were stolen. Illinois State University Museum immediately acknowledged this request, supported fully by Dr. Linda Giles, who had decision-making power over these processes. Hampton University, however, rejected this request in a press release, on the basis that they had legally purchased Katana’s kigango from an art dealer, making them the new owner.

On 13 September 2006, a delegation of eight Kenyans, including Suleiman Shakombo [Minister of State for National Heritage] and Peter Ogego [Ambassador to the United States], travelled to Springfield for what would be the first repatriation of a stolen belonging to Kenya, from the USA. A day-long series of events was held, and Katana’s kigango was packed into a specially built crate for passage to Kenya. The kigango was then stored at the National Museum of Kenya, while the negotiations to have the other kigango returned from Hampton University Museum continued.

Following the repatriation of the first kigango, major media outlets in the USA and the United Kingdom shone a critical spotlight on Hampton University Museum’s refusal to return a sacred belonging to the rightful owner. The negative media attention outed decision-making processes in the museum that were out of step with the spirit of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990; legislation that mandated state-funded institutions to return sacred belongings and human ancestors to indigenous communities. Although the legislation was not directly applicable in this scenario, Hampton University Museum leaders were worried that the reporting may lead to federal funding cuts. They, thus, reluctantly agreed to repatriate Katana’s other kigango to the National Museums of Kenya in 2007.

The National Museums of Kenya funded and facilitated an official handover ceremony at Katana’s homestead near Kaloleni in Mombasa, on the 27th of June 2007. Key figures from the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, the Ministry of State for National Heritage, and the National Museums of Kenya attended, as well as community members. John Baya Mitsanze, Dr. Linda Giles and Prof. Monica Udvardy, who had been critical contributors to the return, were also present. During the ceremony, Philip Jimbi Katana, who had written the demand letter that catalysed the return of the two vigango, oversaw the building of a steel enclosure for the vigango, to ensure that the theft that occurred 22 years earlier could not be repeated. The event included speeches, performances by local dance troupes and feasting.

Although the two vigango have been returned to Katana’s homestead, his living descendants feel that there is still restitution work to be done. They believe that reparations should be offered to them for the spiritual sanction and subsequent ill fortunes that they endured, and continue to endure, due to their vigango being stolen. They also feel that the American researchers who have studied vigango should keep channels of communication open, and return this knowledge to younger members of the community.