SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) - In 2018, employees for the Illinois State Museum learned that 37 wooden memorial statues in their collection had been stolen from several tribes in Kenya.
These statues are called vigango and were created by Mijikenda communities in Kenya. The State Museum received the statues from another museum when it closed. They were donated to that museum from a person who had bought them as art from people who had taken them from Mijikenda land.
Vigango are carved in a single plank of hardwood found in the forests of Kenya. They are carved with a human likeness and can be as tall as 9 feet.
"These are really more than a memorial posts, they really embody the spirit of the ancestor," said Brooke Morgan, the curator of anthropology at the Illinois State Museum. "When these statues were put in place, they were considered to be the actual spirit of the person, and the family or loved ones would go visit with them, make offerings, say prayers, ask for help with their crops, ask for help with their children, you know, anything that kind of helped them get through the day and help their lives better."
Morgan was part of a group of leaders from museums across the world that traveled to Kenya to return the vigango and meet with tribal leaders. The vigango were returned to their respective tribes and placed back in the sacred forests.
"We participated in a ceremony of return with the Mijikenda communities in their sacred forest to celebrate the return of these items," said Morgan. "We all kind of got together and were able to talk about the importance of this project and how we can continue supporting the National Museums of Kenya with working with the communities to get them returned."
The curator said returning the objects was the right thing to do because of the significant spiritual value they had for the Mijikenda people. She said seeing the items returned to their proper homes is something museums should continue to focus on moving forward.
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