Traditional Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

About

Western museums have long grouped the arts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, Australia and the Indigenous Americas, a colonial-era habit that joins traditions separated by oceans and millennia. They include terracotta heads of Nigeria's Nok culture, made around two thousand years ago, brass plaques from the Benin royal court, Māori carved meeting houses, Hawaiian feather cloaks, Olmec colossal heads, Andean textiles and Northwest Coast masks.

Many objects were made for use: worn in masquerade, carried in procession, consulted in healing or displayed as signs of rank, so a museum case shows only part of the work. Nor were the makers anonymous, even when collectors recorded no names; the Yoruba sculptor Olowe of Ise carved palace doors and veranda posts in the early 20th century. Much was removed under colonial rule, most notoriously when British forces looted Benin City in 1897, and questions of return now shape these collections.