It was with growing revulsion that I read Pippa Skotnes' request for contact with 'someone out there who may have negotiated for African remains, or access to photographs of them' for exhibition.

I know that Australians have had contact with this same department on similar issues and with a similar lack of success, but I was hoping that there might be someone out there who may have negotiated for African remains, or access to photographs of them, or has any strong or useful opinion on this issue? We find this a fairly unacceptable act of censorship, an accusation they 'regret'. The British museum has refused our request for photographs, stating that they perceive that the images may cause offence to some of the viewers to the exhibition. I saw the heads in London last month, but was not allowed to photograph them, or draw or sketch them. A number of San groups have expressed support for the showing not only of photographs, but of the heads themselves. And that the EVIDENCE should be place before the public where ever possible. We have requested photographs of these heads, our reasoning being that they, once individuals, now artefacts, are pretty powerful evidence of a process that saw the Khoisan hunted, slaughtered, and subjugated. The exhibition is drawing together objects and photographs from many South African and ex-colonial museums and archives. I am preparing a large exhibition, and editing an accompanying volume, which examines aspects of San history and material culture and scrutinizes the construction of the category 'Bushman' for the South African National Gallery in April next year. The heads are dried, stuffed, with glass eyes inserted (most now missing).

Most are from South Africa, one from Mozambique. The British Museum (Natural History) has a collection of putative trophy heads, taken from Khoisan victims, most probably executed or killed during commando skirmishes at the beginning of the 19th Century. Organization: East Tennessee State Universityįrom: Pippa Skotnes, University of Cape Town Reply-To: H-NET List for African History

Civilization revolution trophies