J.26 Statement of significance

Figure 1: Full view of J.26 object, photograph taken by the author, 2022.

Before its acquisition into UCL's Ethnography Collection in the 1950s, the J.26 object resided in the Wellcome Collection (Mercier, pers. comm., 2022; fig. 1).  Relatively little is known about the object aside from the fact that it travelled from Africa, and it was most likely acquired by the Wellcome Collection through an auction (Wellcome Collection, 2021). However, there are certain materials and contemporary uses that attest to the object's educational, economic and political importance. 

Current and future use of object 

Today, this object forms a part of UCL's vast collection, and it is primarily used for teaching and handling (fig. 2). The object has become-- and will continue to be-- a site of academic research and discovery as well as an item that university staff, faculty and students may examine and touch in person. 

Figure 2: View of the object in its mount, conveying the educational value of handling it, photograph taken by the author, 2022.

Nonetheless, this type of interest has not always defined the object's function. In the Wellcome Collection, the object participated in a knowledge-system of medicinal history that characterised it as inferior compared to its Western counterparts, which were understood as scientific (Hill, 2006, p358). 

Addition of cowries

The object includes ten cowrie shells, attached to it through various twine (fig. 3). Although beautiful in appearance, the object's African origin and nineteenth-century date of creation allude to an insidious past associated with the Atlantic slave trade (Hogendorn and Johnson, 1982, p153). 

Figure 3: Detail of four cowries at the top, label-side end of this object, photograph taken by the author, 2022.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, cowries also held symbolic status in West African society, signifying wealth, prosperity and fertility (Ogundiran, 2002, p442). As such, it is possible that the inclusion of cowries was amuletic in nature (Kovács, 2008, p12). 

Conclusion

There is still much to be learnt about this object, but its importance has tangible implications, and it encourages a postcolonial agenda, producing multiple avenues of inquiry for the future. 

References

Hill, J., 2006, "Travelling objects: the Wellcome collection in Los Angeles, London and beyond," Cultural Geographies, 3, p340-366, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1191/1474474006eu363oa.

Hogendorn, J. and Johnson, M., 1982, "A new money supply for West Africa in the era of the slave trade: The import of cowrie shells from Europe," Slavery and Abolition, 3(2), p153-162, DOI: 10.1080/01440398208574839.

Kovács, L., Vulvae, Eyes, Snake Heads. Archaeological Finds of Cowrie Amulets, Oxford: BAR Publishing, https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407303338. 

Mercier, D., personal communication with the author, 2022. 

Ogundiran, A., 2002, "Of Small Things Remembered: Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland," The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 35(2-3), p427-457, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3097620.

Wellcome Collection, 2021, "The colonial roots of our collections, and our response," accessed March 15, 2022, available at: https://wellcomecollection.org/pages/YLnsihAAACEAfsuu.