Review: Hollywood Icons, Local Demons Author(s): Dominique Malaquais Reviewed work(s): Hollywood Icons, Local Demons: Ghanaian

Popular Paintings by Mark AnthonyHollywood Icons, Local Demons: Ghanaian Popular Paintings by Mark Anthony [Catalog] by Michelle Gilbert Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 102, No. 4 (Dec., 2000), pp. 870-877 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/684219 Accessed: 07/10/2010 14:33
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MUSEUMANTHROPOLOGY

Exhibit Review Essays

Hollywood Icons, Local Demons
DOMINIQUE MALAQUAIS ColumbiaUniversity Hollywood Icons, Local Demons: Ghanaian Popular Art Gallery,TrinPaintings by Mark Anthony. Widener CT: 31-March 31, 2000 (reity College,Hartford, January view venue); Kansas City Gallery of Art, Universityof Missouri, Kansas City, September8-October 27, 2000; Center,Chicago,July 14-September 25, ChicagoCultural 2001; Lowe Art Center, Syracuse University,Syracuse, NY: December10-January 25, 2002 (pending funding). Hollywood Icons, Local Demons: Ghanaian Popular Paintings by Mark Anthony. MichelleGilbert.Hartford, CT:TrinityCollege, 2000. 72 pp. What is local? What is global? And where do the two meet?Forsome yearsnow, thesequestionshavebeenmattersof centralconcernfor students of sub-Saharan culture. Recentsymposiasponsored by the Centerfor International StudiesandResearch(C.N.R.S.-C.E.R.I.) in Parisandthe Centerfor Social Researchon Africa (C.O.D.E.S.R.I.A.) in Dakar;1 manifoldtalksgiven at the Fall 2000 meetingof the AfricanStudiesAssociation,publications on as wide a anddeforestation, economic rangeof topics as agriculture the politicsof destrategiesand sustainable development, mocratization,good governance, individual and group settlementpatterns,and the role of identity,architecture, NGOs in Africa southof the Saharaaddressthese key issues.2In studies of materialculture,too, there is talk of these questions,thoughperhaps not as muchas one would on contemporary artis concerned, a hope.3Whereresearch greatdeal remainsto be done. Thoughsome seminaltexts have been publishedand exhibitionsorganizedthat exbetweenthe local andthe globalin paintploreinteractions and the approachin many ing, sculpture, masquerade,4 studiesof artsouthof the Sahararemainsa fairlystraightand "modernity" forward,dichotomousaffair:"tradition" tendto be presented as distinctentities,morelikelyto stand in opposition to one another thanto meet. HollywoodIcons,LocalDemons,anexhibitionmounted MichelleGilbert,offers a welcome resby anthropologist from this pite generalstateof affairs.In this show,subtitled GhanaianPopularPaintingsby MarkAnthony, Gilbertsidraws and moves the multaneously beyond workof upon such key figuresof Africanistart historyas Susan Vogel (who, at the Centerfor AfricanArt, which she foundedin the mid-1980s,mountedthe first majorexhibitionof consub-Saharan artin the UnitedStates),Johannes temporary Fabian(best known for his work on Congolese popular cultureand painting),and Bogumil Jewsiewicki,perhaps the finest writertoday on contemporary popularculture south of the Sahara.Contentand presentation both make HollywoodIcons,LocalDemonsa must-see. As its subtitlesuggests, the exhibitionfocuses on the work of one artist:a Ghanaian painternamedMarkAnthe thony.Todayin his 50s, MarkAnthony(a pseudonym artistchose earlyin his career) is the best-known creator of a highly specific genre:paintingsthat advertiseperformances by itinerant in urban troupesof actorsand musicians and village settingsthroughout Ghana.The contemporary troupesthemselves are called concert parties;their performancesare referred to as concerts.Concertsare comevents thatdrawupon a wide rangeof plex, multifaceted art forms:music, stand-upcomedy, vaudeville,slapstick, and dramatictheater.Typically, the performance begins aroundeight or nine in the evening. Extensive introductionsfocusedon the musicians involvedarefollowed,until midnight, by a concertin the sense thatWesternaudiences the term,by a series of songs, thatis, acmightunderstand such as electrickeyboards and companiedby instruments guitars,drumsand maracas.Musical numbersare interstories.Following spersedwithjokes, puns,andhumorous which may last until dawn.The this, a play is performed, play, as Gilbertdescribesit in the beautifullyillustrated catalog that accompaniesthe exhibition, is "a multi-act that combines vaudeville, moralitydrama [performance] and Christianrevivalist sermon" (p. 1). The concert is

AmericanAnthropologist Association 102(4):870-882. Copyright? 2001, AmericanAnthropological

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over a meterand a half in advertised by huge signboards, up against heightandwidth,set on the groundandpropped walls, trashbins, and electricposts. The signs, paintedon For enamelcolors,arecalledcartoons. plywoodin brilliant any one play, three to five boards are usually created. Commissioned by the troupes,they depictkey scenes or ideas fromthe play; above or below the image,usuallyin the nameof brightwhiteorblood redblock letters,appears the bandthatwill be providingthe evening's musicalentertainment and, in smaller cursive, the title of the play 1). (Figure HollywoodIcons, Local Demons is the first exhibition ever held in the United States of Ghanaianconcert cartoons. On its own, the materialwould be fascinating.It becomes all the more so at the hands of Gilbert.With seemingeffortlessness-in fact, a judiciousbalanceof explanatorylabels, neither too telegraphicnor too wordy, and musicalambiance-the show contextual photographs, renders accessibleto a foreignpublicworksit wouldothersuccessful is the wise likely misunderstand. Particularly of the cartoons laconic times almost at presentation simple, in the galleryspace.Ratherthanhangthe pieces, museumon has positionedthemas they wouldappear style, Gilbert a streetin Accraor Akuapem:leaningagainsta wall, atop small woodenblocks (extensionsof the plywoodboards). What this means in practicalterms is that the museum the images at preciselythe sameheight viewerencounters

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Figure 2. Street Scene. Passersby on a street in Ghana survey a signboard painted by Mark Anthony, advertising a concert to be by Michelle Gilbert. performedthatevening. Photograph

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Figure 1. Mark Anthony. Signboard advertisinga concert entitled "InThis World, If You Do Not Allow Your Brotherto Climb, You
Will Not Climb" (Ama Wonyonko Antwa Akron a .. .). Photograph

by David Stansbury.

street(Figure on a Ghanaian andangleas woulda passerby that the as well are the fact 2). Important images are not shown in a specific order.This too is as it would be in to advertise a Ghana.Thoughseveralboardsare produced on viewers scene or an each idea, depicting important play, a city streetrarelyhave the occasion of seeing all of the boardsin a row, one scene following anotheras wouldbe the case in the play itself. This stateof affairsleaves much are to the viewer's imagination.Multiple interpretations and on his/her beliefs, background, possible, depending the sameis true.Inframeof mind.Forthe museum-goer, it deed, the ideal way to visit this show is to walk through then once withoutreadingthe labels at the panels' sides, as a secondtime, with Gilbert'sexplanations pass through one takes a guide. The wealth of ideas and perceptions complemenaway, some conflicting,others surprisingly tary,is remarkable. as well are the hybridnatureof the images Remarkable the fluidity with which these depictedon the signboards, and,once again, imagesweaveinto andoutof one another, the seeming ease with which the ideas underlyingthese to the viewerby Gilbert.In few conimages arepresented of sucha seamlessintermingling textscouldone encounter sources,forms, and ideas as one does in these paintings. andideologicalbordersseem to fall away, resultCultural ing in scenes that are simultaneouslysurrealand believa meldingof is properly able.The endproduct captivating: the local and the global, the present and the past, the mythicandthe everydaythatputsto shameMadisonAvesalesploys. nue's mostimaginative The hybridityof the paintingsreflects that of the concerts themselves.From the moment one enters the performancearena,Gilbert explains,it becomesclearthatone forms wherethe most extraordinary is in an environment and ideas can meet. For a Westerner, perhapsthe easiest thismix andcomplexityof genresis to way of approaching at concerts.Duringthe first considerthe music performed

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few hoursof the show, a wide rangeof musicalgenresare played, including reggae, funk, Congolese and North American rhythms, punctuatedby interludesof breakdancing.Once the play begins,the genreschange.Adowa (songs of the dominantAkanethnicgroup),funeraldirges high(alsoAkan),Christian hymns,and,mostimportantly, life tunes are the music of choice. The originsof highlife and bring added complexity to this mix of -underscore styles. Born in the 1920s, highlife is the music parexcellence of Ghana.Its sources are numerousand multinaintrotional:it derivesfrom a blendof osibisaba,rhythms Ghana(originators ducedby the Fantepeople of southern kaiso andwestCaribbean also of the firstconcertparties), ern European foxtrots, dagomba (a Liberian musical form),andashikoandgoombe(genreshailingfromSierra riffs Leone).Contemporary highlifeaddsCongoleseguitar and dance music to the mix. Individual introduce groups further influences still, makinghighlife an ever-evolving form.One musician,EricAgyeman,is knownfor a type of highlifehe inventedcalledsikyi,basedon medleyssungby Ashantimusiciansto the beat of a percussiveinstrument In the 1970s, severalgroupstravcalledthepremprensua. therea high-techform West to eled Germany,producing Some known as "Burgher groupssing in Enghighlife." Akan related and in Fante others lish, languages;many switchbackandforthandmayhave severalversionsof the before same song, to be used in differentcircumstances, audiences. of different types The originsof the plays themselvesareequallydiverse. The genre,Gilbertnotes, reachesback to the early 1900s. Early sources included Akan tales centered around a figure by the nameof Ananse,a trickster mythiccharacter concerningwhom multiple stories are told, songs sung, devised.Otherearlyinfluencesincludednaandproverbs tivity plays organizedby Christianmissionaries,Hollywood movies broughtto Ghanain the 1920s and 1930s, CharlieChaplinand Al Jolson,Americanvaudestarring of viewville acts,and,oddlyenoughfromthe perspective the Over minstrel shows. ers in the year2000, "blackface" have that introduced been have decades,new influences changes in the genre. Once an elite promptedimportant concertshave become a popular form of entertainment, medium,attended by low-incomeruraldwellers primarily urbanmigrants.As a result,the lanand first-generation guage in which they are presentedhas changed:whereas the tongueof choice,todayconcerts Englishwas originally severalvernacular tendto be multilingual, tongues marrying as broada rangeof viewers as possible. to accommodate has changed,so too As the class compositionof audiences has the lengthof the performances. Earlyconcertslasteda shows commonlylast all night,in few hours;present-day and marketfolk partto providea haven for young traders (thebulkof the public),who typicallyhaveno home in the city. Longer hours have also been institutedto compete allsuchas prerecorded withotherformsof entertainment,

of music dance and light shows and video presentations movies. foreign popular have had a Video shows, the exhibitionunderscores, of the on concert effect Many imagery. party powerful thatadvertise on the signboards one sees painted characters are drawnfrom foreignfilms shown in the performances on video format sheets or on the sides of buildings in cinemas.Particularly makeshift popularare neighborhood images hailingfrom horror,science fiction, and caveman movies: depictionsof the living dead (mummieswhose wrappedcotton bandagesare coming unwound,decomposing corpsesand skeletons);monstersvariousand sunPark-like beings,viscous creadry (Godzilla-andJurassic men and animal-headed tures from the black lagoon, with multiplehumanheads,disemcreatures zoomorphic bodiedtorsos equippedwith flipperswherehandsshould andgapingmouthswhereone wouldexpectto see a appear navel); and King-Kong, Yeti and Medusa-likefigures (Figures3 and 4). Sourcesfor these images vary widely, fromMichaelJacksonvideos (one MarkAnthonycorpsein-motionlooks for all the world like an escapee from televisionserials, to Japanese Jackson's1980s "Thriller"), Indian musical films (so popularin Ghana that, in the saris),Nigerian North,youngwomenhavetakento wearing videos thatfeatureanimalslinkedto horror-cum-morality

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Figure 3. MarkAnthony.Signboardadvertisinga concertwith music by SuperYaw Ofori's famous band. In the backgroundof performed a blood-soaked decapitation scene, a figure of death wrapped in cotton appears,as if burstingforthfrom a screenbands of mortuary The Curse of of the Mummy.Photographby David Stansbury. ing

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Figure 4. MarkAnthony.In a signboardpaintedby Anthony,a fierce being with impossiblypendulousbreastsseeks to throttle supernatural the heroine of a play entitled "InThis World, If You Do Not Allow Your Brother to Climb, You Will Not Climb" (Ama Wonyonko Antwa Akron a ...). Nearby, a skeleton skulks. A noose (in the foreground)and cemetery (in the rear)add to the forebodingatmosby David Stansbury. phere of the painting.Photograph

preachersswathedin the white robes and red sashes of Pentecostalworship(Figures5 and 6). Justas the images borrowedfrom video introducea strongelement of the so too do the figglobal in concertpartyrepresentations, the PenChristian uresdrawnfromrevivalist iconography: churchesthathave burgeonedin tecostaland charismatic AnglophoneWest Africaoverthe pastten years,note Gilhave bert and otherswho have studiedthe phenomenon, the to United international States,Europe,and links, strong Asia.6 The imagesdrawnfromthis vastpool of foreignsources are employedin concertpartypaintingin ways thatare at once highly original and, for the unacquainted viewer, of or No one figure type depiction mind-boggling. properly in termsof both as is. All aretransformed, is incorporated to and content, put wholly unexpectedand appearance use. They serveto bringto life visually richlyimaginative of deities greatand small a worldof the mind,a pantheon thatplaykey rolesin the plotsof concertperformances yet, the articulates hadneverbeen depicted.Gilbert previously, as follows: point The Akanhaveno figural imagesof theirremoteSupreme with the in plays and sermons [equated Being (Onyame) of no absence there is while and Christian anthropogod]; andrelated of theAkan [inthearts peoples], imagery morphic power. effigiesas theloci of supernatural theyresistmaking

the worldof evil (whichat the whimof theirownerscanbe waterdivinities madeto vomit money),andawe-inspiring knownas MamiWata.5 as a sourceof concertimageryaredeAlso fundamental In Ghanaas in iconography. pictionsdrawnfromChristian Pentecostal and revivalist the over decade, past Nigeria, churcheshave emergedas a powerfulsocial force.In polirole: tics they play a prevalent elecforthe 1996Presidential Commission Electoral posters a a flanked voter tions[Gilbert horned, by portrayed reports] Devil witha fist full of moneybeing fangedandred-faced to thevoter Ghanaian angelexhorting by a haloed challenged voice." "vote 1998:63-64] [Gilbert your In daily life they appear Slogansdrawnfrom omnipresent. on the sidesof the gospelof born-again Christianity appear trucks and buses. Prayermeetings are held in schools, and parkinglots; they bring buildingsunderconstruction, drawnby the fire-andof thousands worshipers, together bearsuch whose churches sermonsof preachers brimstone Mountains and Bible" Life as names "Deeper "Moving FoundationsCentre."From the realm of fundamentalist comcome a widerangeof images.Particularly Christianity and swords scabbards, of angelsbearing mon aredepictions shields and trumpets,leering,horn-bedecked devils, and

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Figure 5. Mark Anthony. Above a figure drawn from Indian cinematic genres, an angel appears,his right handthrustforth.He seems to issue from the disembodied hand of God Himself. Disconcertingly, as Gilbert notes, angels in Mark Anthony's paintings are almost invariablyCaucasian.Photograph by David Stansbury.

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tionandjealousyin polygamous thecomplexities marriages; of life at the courtof Akanchiefs andkings;the power of the placeof the ancestors (asaman)andlesserdeisorcery; ties (abosom) in the daily existence of human beings. local politicsandeconomics,fragmentation "[P]resent-day of the extendedfamily, changingpatterns of inheritance, of urbanyouth,andconflicting relations underemployment between 'tradition' churches [amanne] and the Christian I and Islam"are concernsas well (p. 14), thoughthey may not be treatedin as director straightforward a manneras the foregoingsuggests.Stock characters includethe lineage elder(abusuapanyin),the QueenMother(a womanof the royalfamily,thoughnot necessarilythe ruler'smother proper), the spirit medium (okomfo), the Mallam, or manof Islam,andthe Christian learned priest.A joker figure, presentsince the earliestdays of concertparties,is a The plays do more, staple in virtuallyall performances. and issues alone. however, than addresssuch characters Figure 6. MarkAnthony.Signboardadvertisinga play entitled "The not come about a as JudgementDay." A Pentecostalminister,dressed in the white robe d[o] "[T]hey merely responseto quesand red sash of his faith, ministers to a less-than-attentiveflock: tions and conditions," Gilbertnotes, "theyalso ask quesseveral parishionerssleep (one man is slumped in the first row); a tions and create conditions"(Gilbert 1998:63). In doing woman counts money; two couples fondle. Concert plots, Gilbert so, they producenew discoursesand therebyemerge as notes, commonly focus on the misbehavior of allegedly devout activeforcesin the construction of contemporary Ghanaian Christians and the misdeeds (or worse yet, the ties to the Devil and to society. evil forces more generally) of corruptmen of the cloth. Photograph Withthe paintings createdto advertise the plays,a simiDavid by Stansbury. lar state of affairs obtains.The signboardsborrowfrom and"moderand,in so doing,addressideasof "otherness" Those rivers and trees whose spiritual powers are traditionmuch do more. The uses however, nity."Ultimately, they to which the monsters and ghouls, devils, angels, and ally appeased with small offerings are never represented in areputby MarkAnthonyradically transform the sculptural form. [p. 6] preachers and so into a discourse-comimagessampled bring play a problem forconcertpartypainters: This,clearly,presents mentary,questions, reflections-on the nature and the How... wasMark toportray Anthony supernaturally powermeaning of the images borrowed.Other "modernities," ful rivers and trees that figure prominently in the concert otherformsof "otherness" arecreated.Indeed,I defy anyplays? [p. 6] one who sees this exhibitionever to look at a StevenSpielfilm in the samemanner as bergor an "AlienResurrection" Enter the images sampled by the painterfrom foreign he or she have before. might sources,much as a musiciansamplessoundsin a hip-hop One of the greatstrengths of Gilbert'sexhibitis its abilor rapcomposition: to show the and the plays they referencein ity paintings To paint theAkan river andtreedeities in concert that feature of these concerns light complex yet, atthe sametime,to reMark draws onWestern from classiplays, Anthony imagery maingrounded, in the works themselves.Analysis always, cal andmodern as wellas images fromHongKong, sources, is neverallowedto detract fromthe narrative wealthor the andIndian cinemaandtelevision. To portray the Japanese, formalqualitiesof the paintings-two key factors,Gilbert forestspirits withbackward feet of Akan tinymischievous pointsout, in the success of MarkAnthonyas an artistand folklore calledmmotia, he transforms the bearded dwarves a businessman. Simply put, concerttroupescome to him fromillustrated children's tales[longa staple European fairy rather than to others who ply a similartradebecause his in WestAfrican vernacular edigradeschools].Illustrated attract crowds. paintings They are excellent advertisetionsof the New Testament in anymarketplace] [available ments. That Mark almost certainlya formally Anthony, andpictures in Rosicrucian andother occultliterature fa[a trained artist holds that his is a gift fromGod rather 8), (p. voriteof the political classin manysub-Saharan countries] than the of product any learning experienceor apprenticealso influence... his [work]. may [p.6] ship no doubt adds to his mystique,keeping his prices These various global images, revised and articulated of the funds expendedto producea (often a full quarter anew by MarkAnthony,enterthe local worldof the play concert)quitehigh. andits audienceto a rangeof different ends.By andlarge, as well is Gilbert'sabilityto underscore the Noteworthy the plotsfocus on local concernsandpersonages: competiLabels accompanying complexityof cartoonproduction.

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the boards indicate that things are not as simple as one might imagine. Commonly, the artist has but a very rough sense of the play's overall plot: illustrate scenes froma play basedon a writer'sor [C]artoons actor's summaryof the plot to the artist.As eitherthe bandleader,musicianor writermay providethe artistwith rough sketches of what should be depicted, the multiple perspectives involved in the actualcreationprocess may be highly betweenorality,music complex, as indeedis the relationship and visualrepresentation. This also meansthatthe painter... may have only a vague idea of the actualstory-line.[Gilbert 1998:65] Imagination, in this context, and a broad knowledge of forms upon which to draw count for much. The one weakness of Gilbert's exhibition is one that may be unavoidable-the product of presenting in a museum works meant to appear in a distinctly more interactive setting. As she herself points out, the paintings, like the plays, are but one aspect of a vast, complex, and interconnected whole. Showing one without the other(s) results in a truncated, and in certain senses unsatisfactory, experience. When the show was in the planning stages, Gilbert reports, there was some talk of bringing an entire troupe to perform in conjunction with the opening (personal communication, April 2000). This, however, presented significant problems. A U.S. audience, most involved (Ghanaian and American alike) agreed, would find the length of the performance-an entire night-off-putting. A shortened show would of course have been possible but would have been little more than an ersatz creation. Language presented a further difficulty. While, in recent years, the citified bourgeoisie has taken to watching shorter, Englishversion concert performances broadcast on Ghanaian television (an innovation that allows the educated, who otherwise have tended to shun "real"concerts, to enjoy this popular genre from the privacy of their living rooms), the types of concerts that Mark Anthony's paintings advertise are not English-language events. In the United States, hours upon hours of translation would have been necessary, much of which would have been incomprehensible in any event for non-Akan audiences, as the plays rely heavily on puns, word games, and ethnic jokes that only a public well-versed in Ghanaian popular culture could possibly grasp.7 Had a concert been held in tandem with the exhibition, U.S. viewers would have found that a play in the context at hand bears little resemblance to what American audiences might expect: Concertsare performed on improvisedstages in community halls or out of doors in the courtyards of large family compounds. The stage itself often consists merely of wooden boardsrestingon top of benchesor concreteblocks;the backdrop curtainsfixed to a stringmay be paintedor simply be a piece of ordinarywax-print cloth [worn as wrappersby

women].The stageis shallow;actorsoften sit facingthe audience, rising only to speak into the microphone. [Gilbert 1998:75] The exhibition's viewers can experience neither time nor space as would their concert counterparts. Insofar as she can, Gilbert seeks to provide a sense of these two fundamental factors-a sense of what we are missing-but, in the end, the museum, as locus and institution, foils her. In all other senses, she and the show she has mounted prove immensely successful. Notes Acknowledgments. For the insightsthey were kind enough to offer me as I was writingthese pages,I wish to thankRomain BartLegum,andRuthMarshall-Fratani. Bertrand, 1. "La guerre entre le local et le global: societ6, Etats, Paris):May 2000; "Histoireculsystemes"(C.N.R.S.-C.E.R.I., turelledu present" (C.O.D.E.S.R.I.A., Dakar):1998-2000. 2. To cite but a few examples:Berger (1998) (on environmental issues); Dowswell (1989) (agriculture); Fairheadand Leach (1998) (deforestation); Joseph (1999) (governanceand Manzo(1992) (politicsof dominationandredemocratization); sistance); Onimode (1995) (urbaneconomies); Semboja and Therkildsen andRanger(1996) (iden(1995) (NGOs);Werbner tity);andYasand(1996) (sustainable development). 3. Of particular interestare the following: a compilationof essays entitledAfricanMaterialCulture,editedby MaryJo Arnoldi, ChristraudGeary, and Kris Hardin (1996); Johannes Fabian's Moments of Freedom: Anthropologyand Popular Culture (1998); and a monograph on material culture in Cameroonby Frenchanthropologist Jean-Pierre L'esWarnier, au Cameroun prit d'entreprise (1996). Noteworthy as well, thoughthey do notdeal withAfrica specifically,areArjunAppadurai'sThe Social Life of Things:Commoditiesin Cultural Perspective (1986) and Modernityat Large: CulturalDimensions of Globalization(1996) andWarnier'sConstruirela culturemateirielle (1999). 4. Barber(1987); Drewal(1996); EnwezorandZaya(1996); Fabian(1996); Jewsiewicki (1995, 1999);Jules-Rosette1984; Kasfir (1992, 1999); Nunley (1987); Oguibe (1997); Phillips and Steiner (1999); Hassan (1995); Steiner (1994); Strother (1998); Vogel (1991), interalia. 5. AnthropologistsBrianLarkin(1997) andRuthMarshallFratanihave conductedextensive researchon movies of this typein Nigeria.Similarfilms, Gilbert(pp.4 and31) andanthropologist Birgit Meyer (1997) note, are now being made in Ghana as well. Mami Wata are a subject of interest in many countries of West and CentralAfrica, from Sierra Leone to Cameroon and the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo. (On MamiWata,see Drewal 1996.) 6. "Thestrand of Americancharismatic thatemChristianity phasizesdemonicbeings (e.g., LesterSumrall,KennethHagin, GordonLindsay, FrankHammond)" Gilbertnotes, "hasbeen influentialin Ghana" dataon particularly (p. 16). Foradditional andrevivalistchurchesin Ghana,see Pentecostal,charismatic, Meyer(1995, 1998a, 1998b). 7. The text of one play, "Whena Royal Dies, He is Taken in 1997,appears in translation, Home,"performed withcopious

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notes, at theend of Gilbert's (andoften fascinating)explanatory catalog(pp. 35-69).

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Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People

ROBERT H. SAYERS Arlington,VA readydoneits work.Of course,the Ainudidnotvanish.As the present co-curated exhibition, by WilliamFitzhugh and Chisato O. Dubreuil,makes clear, a growingindigenous peoples movement has strengthened and energized the groupin the modemperiod.At the sametime,the opening Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. WilliamW.Fitzhugh of the former Soviet Union to archaeologists and other and Chisato O. Dubreuil, eds. Washington,DC: Arctic scholarshas fosteredrenewedinterestin Ainu originsand Studies Center,NationalMuseum of NaturalHistory,in culture history. collaboration with Universityof Washington Press, 1999. Ainu: Spirit of a NorthernPeople was born in large 415 pp. measureout of a diplomaticcontretemps. Bill Fitzhugh,it seems, had wanted include to the whose seal- and Ainu, Ainuhistory itselfhasa history, andit is notstraightforward. and art shamanism, whale-hunting, suggest connections Richard Siddle, Ainu: with other northern Spirit ofa Northern People(p.67) peoples, in an earlierArctic Studies Centerexhibition,Crossroadsof Continents: Culturesof It seems thatlittleaboutthe Ainupeoplesof northern JaSiberiaandAlaska.His Russianpartners at the time,howTheir origins and language,their pan is straightforward. ever, lacked formal relationswith Japanand feared that and their in history, such an inclusion would resurrectunpleasant place contemporary Cold War Japanesesociety are still in dispute.A formerseafaringpeople, they once history,namely,the final expulsionof Ainu peoples from commanded a large territoryknown as Ainu Moshir Sakhalinand the Kurilesin 1945. It was an "unfortunate from northern Honshuup throughHokkaidoto stretching omission,"Fitzhughconcedes,thatlikely would not have Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. Today Hokkaido,the occurred in the post-Sovietera. of Japan's four main islands, remainsthe northernmost The exhibitionwas inspiredas well by an inventoryof Ainu's principalhomeland.Approximately25,000 indiAinu materials in European andNorthAmerican museums viduals self-identifywith the communitythroughformal conductedby Japaneseanthropologists and museumspearepresumed to have registration; manytimesthatnumber cialists. Surveysbetween 1990 and 1996 (coordinated by blendedinto the largerJapanese both for ecoYoshinobuKotani of Nagoya University)identifiedappopulation, nomic reasonsand to avoid the discrimination and social 3,200 ethnologicalspecimensand associated proximately for centuries. stigmathathave shadowedtheirnumber archival holdingsin natural historyandartmuseumsin the Scholarlyinterestin the Ainu beganalmostimmediately United States and Canada.In additionto uncoveringa of 1868, which permitted following the Meiji Restoration wealth of significantnew materials,the surveyteam disforeignerslimitedaccess to Japan'snorthern coveredthatWesternholdingswere oftenolderandbetter region.Motivatedin partby racialtheoriesthatattributed Ainu origins documentedthan Ainu collections in their own country. to a remnant Caucasian theseearlyresearchers population, a primary Accordingto Fitzhugh, was objective,therefore, culturein soughtto documentAinu lifeways and material to "get the Americanstuff' out in public. In all, abouta the expectationthat their subjects would soon "vanish" quarterof the nearly 250 artifactsin Ainu: Spirit of a into history.Such effortsculminated in groupsof Ainu beNorthernPeople, as well as the photographs and archival in AmericaandEnglandearlyin the twening "exhibited" film footage,derivefrom Smithsonian collections.With a tiethcentury.By 1915, however,interestin Japan'snorthfew exceptions(thearchaeological specimens, genrepaintem people had waned,owing partlyto the press of world ings, and modem artworks,which Japaneseinstitutions events and partlyto the feeling that assimilationhad alcame fromotherNorthAmerican supplied),the remainder Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. NationalMuseumof Natural History, SmithsonianInstitution, Washington, DC, April30, 1999-January 2, 2000.