Simon Ottenberg

Seeing with Music: The Lives of Three Blind African Musicians

Concepts -- The setting -- Sayo Kamara -- Muctaru Mansaray -- Marehu Mansaray The world of three kututeng musicians.

FURTHER LIGHT ON W. R. BASCOM AND THE IFE BRONZES

Norick at the museum. The letters in the file present a somewhat different view of the role of Bascom in the matter than Tignor does. His article relies largely on US State Department archives (which do include some Bascom correspondence) and upon some published articles by Bascom, by E. H. Duckworth, then editor of Nigeria Magazine and also Nigerian Inspector of Education, and by others. The whole business of the two Ife heads which Bascom acquired throws light on the history of the gradually evolving Nigerian colonial government policy toward antiquities. The issue concerning Bascom, which Tignor (1990: 427-8) outlines, was that, while carrying out his Ph.D. dissertation fieldwork for Northwestern University at Ife in 1938, Bascom purchased for a nominal fee two or three recently uncovered ancient bronze Ife heads found near the palace of the Oni of Ife and took them back to the United States shortly afterwards, when his research had ended. Again, that he took them as personal property and without the knowledge of the Oni, though he shortly published an article on them in the Illustrated London News (1939). Duckworth and Kenneth Murray, an education officer in Nigeria, both concerned with keeping Nigerian antiquities in the country, were upset at Bascoms actions, although there was no antiquities law in the country at