Paper long abstract:

African art though dynamic has changed in form, function, and meaning over time. However, the concept of Indigenous African art has remained static. This is because pre-colonial sacred objects have an aura of untainted timeless past reflecting the way of life of the African people. The colonial encounter with Africa witnessed a rush for African traditional religious artifacts and antiquities which left indelible marks of hostilities and cultural clashes among the African people. These sacred objects carry with them the people who venerate them. Writing from the Cameroonian perspective, Linus Asong in A Crown of Thorns demonstrates this rush from the West for antiquities in Africa through the buying of “Akuekeur”, the people’s god by the German explorer Virchov, from the D.O and his accomplices. This yields financial benefits while at the same time setting ablaze spiritual unity, the one thing that binds the people of Nkonkonoko Small Monje together. The paper is read from the social representations theory of Serge Moscovici which projects the possibility to classify persons and objects, compare and explain behaviours and objectify them as part of our social setting. The paper contends that colonial encounter with Africa, led to the disappearance of many African artifacts and sacred objects, some of which are currently found in European museums as decorations. These have generated debates and a clarion call by Africans for a return of their plundered cultural artifacts back to the African continent.

Keywords: Colonialism, Commodification, Sacred Objects, Social Representations, Linus Asong