In 1938 an African building a house in the city of Ife, the cultural capital of the Yorubas and the mythical cradle of Yoruba civilisation, came upon an extraordinary cache of ancient Nigerian bronzes. In all, at least fifteen bronzes were uncovered in 1938 in a compound only 100 yards from the palace of the Oni of Ife. These bronzes were to prove of great historical and artistic significance. Until that time only two other bronzes had been unearthed in the Yoruba area, and one of those had disappeared, leaving Nigeria only a single original and a replica. In the disposition of the priceless new finds there ensued a tale of intrigue, prevarication, outraged nationalism, and narrow-minded ethnocentricism that drew into its maelstrom the British colonial government of Nigeria, the US Consulate in Lagos, and the USA's Department of State. Although the Ife bronzes, which today reside in a handsome if small museum in the city of Ife, are not so well known as, for example, the Elgin marbles or certain other antiquities taken from the Third World, the controversy surrounding their removal from Nigeria and their eventual return was filled with the same emotion and employed the same arguments heard today over the rightful location of national cultural treasures. The Nigerian dispute is made all the more poignant in that one of the major protagonists was not a money-seeking antiquities dealer, but a young American anthropologist destined to be one of the most astute and sympathetic interpreters of Yoruba culture.

W. R. Bascom et les têtes en bronze d'Ife

En 1938, William Bascom, anthropologiste de renom, alors qu'il effectuait des recherches en territoire Yorouba, assista à l'excavation des sculptures de bronze d'Ife. Il s'appropria deux des sculptures—considérées par beaucoup comme étant les plus belles—et les ramena aux Etats-Unis. Il s'ensuivit un féroce démêlé quant à la légalité de son acquisition au vu du retrait de ces trésors du Nigeria; les sculptures furent ramenées à leur lieu d'origine quelque quinze ans plus tard. L'article se penche sur cette controverse à la lumière de documents que le Department d'Etat des Etats-Unis a maintenant rendus publics.