When is the repatriation of an object justified? Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Olivia Grange, believes that two carvings made by the indigenous Taíno people, removed on archaeological digs conducted when Jamaica was a colony of Britain, should be returned to her country by the British Museum. 

Both carvings were acquired by the Museum from the prolific London collector and dealer in ethnographic art William Ockleford Oldman (1879-1949) during the early 20th century.

The Taíno were the first indigenous people to encounter Europeans setting out to discover the New World. But they were soon enslaved, treated with great brutally and almost extinguished as a people. No historical records survive.  However, through excavations and surviving artefacts, it is evident they were skilled craftsmen who produced many striking and beautiful carved artefacts, several of which are now in major collections in the United States and Europe. 

The two carvings, described by Minister Grange as “priceless”, include a 500-year-old carved wooden male figure, possibly representing the Rain Giver Boinayel, and a carved bird-man spirit figure, both discovered in a Jamaican cave in 1792.

Does returning an object to the country where it was made alone justify its restitution?  Are there particular circumstances that warrant the return of these two carvings to Jamaica? 

Unfortunately, details of their acquisition are unclear.  They arrived at the British Museum from the Oldman collection at the beginning of the 20th century and there's a further reference to the Isaac Alves Rebello collection on the Museum's website .  But there's no record of their provenance history before that date and, in particular, no information on the circumstances of their removal from Jamaica, probably at the very end of the 18th century. 

A more thorough investigation of Oldman’s archive materials might throw additional light on where he acquired these items and how they entered the UK.

Setting up his business in the late 1890s, Oldman became a hugely influential player in the collection and dealing in ethnographic art. His vast collection of Pacific and African artefacts was sourced from many different places, but in particular from auction houses, private collectors and small museums in Britain. After closing his business in 1913, he continued to trade from his home near Clapham Common, South London. Even though he never travelled to the Pacific region, Oldman was particularly renowned for his connoisseurship of Pacific Island art and works from his collection have ended up in museums across New Zealand, as well as in the National Museum of the American Indian, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the British Museum. 

There’s no suggestion that either Oldman or the British Museum acquired the two Taíno sculptures illicitly. Furthermore, claims by Jamaica that neither item is on display have been rejected by the British Museum, which insists that Taíno objects have been on display in their Enlightenment Gallery since 2009 and have been lent extensively. The Taíno ritual seat was part of A History of the World Tour that toured multiple venues between 2014 and 2018. 

The Museum confirms they have received no official communication from Jamaica’s Ministry of Culture, although Minister Grange is understood to be working with her government’s National Commission on Reparations to secure the two carvings. 

Even despite the restrictions on disposals imposed by the British Museum Act 1963, it’s hard to see how any formal application for their return could be entertained by the British Museum without more information from the claimants on how these carvings arrived in Britain and what specific grounds there may be for their return. 

Photo: A carved wooden figure of a bird-man spirit made by the Taino people (detail)

© Trustees of the British Museum