A Starting Point, Not a Final Point

Dr. Valence Silayo is currently conducting research at the Linden Museum in Stuttgart on the cultural belongings of the Chagga people of Tanzania. In May 2025, Andreas Bohne (German Lost Art Foundation) spoke with him about his academic work and the consequences he believes this has for museum work, provenance research, and politics.

You have been researching cultural belongings at Stuttgart's Linden Museum for almost two years. Can you please briefly outline your research so far?
A scholarship from the Gerda Henkel Foundation has given me the opportunity to work at the Linden Museum. Initially, I wanted to focus on ethnographic objects from northern Tanzania, which consists of four regions: Tanga, Kilimanjaro, Manyara, and Arusha. However, I decided to limit myself to the cultural material of the Chagga community in order to enable more in-depth research. The Linden Museum has around 450 cultural belongings of the Chagga community, which have never been examined since they were delivered to the museum.

First, I started to review the archival material. The provenance researcher Markus Himmelsbach and the museum management were very helpful in supporting me with the German language and navigating through documents that I didn't even know existed. After the archival search, I analyzed the belongings in the storage rooms. I had an opportunity to work with Dr. Fiona Siegenthaler, the curator of the African Department. It was a very enriching experience; it gave me firsthand information and allowed me a closer look and to get in touch with these magnificent  objects . So, I will call them objects now because they are locked in the museum depots as objects. But in fact, we should call them  subjects. Through this exercise, Fiona and I raised the number of belongings from 350 to 450. Some objects were initially categorized as belonging to a different ethnic group, the Kahe, but were taken from about 20 km south of Moshi town. Because of this research, they could now be integrated into the Chagga collections.

Of course, we can identify many objects, such as weapons, jewelry, and other items that can be associated with everyday use in the community. But what is their underlying cultural significance? This is where the role of the source community is crucial. I selected a few items and went on a month-long research trip to sit down with the elders and other community members and let them tell me the story behind these  objects  and their thoughts: What is their perspective? What do they think should happen to the items? The conversations were very productive. Now we need to update the database with the new information I received from the community.

I also worked with Fiona Siegenthaler to curate an exhibition on the Chagga collections, which is currently on display at the Linden Museum. It is important to note that the information we are using is not mine, but what I have received from the people. They have a right to know about these belongings and to be part of the curatorial team for the exhibition. Due to the physical distance, I am representing them and I am still in touch with them and I still consult with them on various issues. To honor and respect the community, we will use some of the money from the Gerda Henkel Foundation to publish a brochure featuring most of the cultural belonging. The brochure will be distributed to the population, local authorities, and schools in Tanzania. I cannot include all objects in this brochure, but will provide detailed information on most of them.

Chagga cultural belongings are not only found in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. What is known about the collections in other German museums? And how can synergies be created, or what steps do you consider sensible for the future?
You are right, cultural artifacts from Tanzania are not only housed in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart. They can be found in almost every ethnological museum in Germany. To create synergies, museums and research institutions could collaborate on, among other things:

1. Joint exhibitions that comprehensively overview Tanzanian heritage in various collections.
2. Digital archives to make historical records and artifacts accessible to Tanzanian communities.
3. Community engagement with representatives and government officials to discuss restitution, reparation, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
4. Academic partnerships to further research and contextualize these artifacts.

I visited several museums as part of my scholarship. My questions were: What do these other institutions have in their possession? Were the cultural belongings from Tanzania in these institutions donated or collected by the same people who contributed to the Linden Museum? Are these the same people who took the Chagga objects, for example? The point is to see the diversity of these objects in German museums.

We must take stock in Germany, similar to the  Atlas of Absence  for Cameroonian objects. This will enable us to gain an overview of Tanzania's material culture and also to draw up a roadmap for dealing with it in the future. In the meantime, focused or case studies are crucial. A study focusing on Tanzanian collections in a German institution is long overdue and urgently needed. This will help us understand what I call  cultural genocide  or  cultural upheaval.  Please imagine that we have piled up 450 ethnographic objects from a small community in a single museum, multiply that by the number of ethnological museums in Germany. You can imagine the extent of the cultural damage to these communities. 

At the recent colloquium, you called for  engagement that extends beyond simple expert-led  what do you mean by that?
Researchers in Germany and Tanzania are doing very good work. But we need to go beyond our circles. This means moving away from a traditional top-down approach, where experts dictate knowledge, to a more collaborative, dynamic, and inclusive way of learning and problem-solving. Instead of relying solely on expert knowledge, the focus is on shared, lived experiences, different perspectives, and collective intelligence. Thus, an approach that goes beyond expert knowledge would include integrative, participatory frameworks for restitution and reparations in Africa that center on the voices of affected communities rather than relying solely on legal scholars, politicians, or historians.

The question is: Should we continue to produce books and articles? Yes, books are great. Magazine articles are great. The reports we submit to our funders are great. But then what? I mean, the people whose knowledge we use rarely understand the books and articles! They don't benefit from the publications, but have given you and us their knowledge. Instead of you and us presenting it as experts, shouldn't the people from the source community tell us who we should invite to be part of our team?

I was once in the Kilimanjaro area doing research. I showed my informants a photo of a calabash and a cloak. I later learned they were part of a wedding garment made of cowhide and cowrie shells. The discussion was organized as a focus group discussion, and the group consisted of six people. One woman looked at the photos and was utterly thrilled when she saw the motif. Then she laughed and said,  You don't know how we honor and respect that, that was our wedding dress. A mother or grandmother would make something like that for her daughter before the wedding.  How wonderful it is to hear that from someone who has practiced it.

Exhibition curators must invite local people, for example, from Kilimanjaro, to present this rich knowledge and material and participate in the design of the exhibitions. Curators must be courageous to tell the communities of origin:  Let's work together on this museum. Let's design an exhibition.  Curators must approach researchers to allow local people to conduct the research. That is what I mean. Away from expert leadership, toward community leadership. Conversely, this enables the institutions that own the artifacts to redefine their role: not just as a repository for artifacts, but as a space for meaningful collaboration, cultural revitalization, and equal partnerships.

But your demands go further: you call for a shift from provenance research to knowledge production that serves the community of origin.
I propose shifting the focus from traditional provenance research, which primarily traces the origin and ownership history of cultural property and other colonial collections, to knowledge production that benefits the communities from which these objects originate. In many cases, provenance research has been conducted for museums, collectors, or institutions, often without meaningful involvement of the communities of origin. The call for further development means going beyond merely identifying an object's past and working with the communities affected by colonial acquisitions or cultural removals to create new knowledge and make old knowledge accessible. Instead of merely documenting the history of an artifact, researchers could, for example, work with the communities of origin to understand the object's cultural significance, ensure its appropriate representation, and even support efforts toward restitution or local education. This approach empowers communities and makes them active participants rather than passive  objects  of scientific inquiry.

Representatives of Tanzania's National Committee for Discussions on Antiquities, Artefacts and Human Remains residing in Germany recently visited Germany. How does the committee see itself and its tasks, how is it organised, and what are the next steps?
In recent years, we have seen some progress on the German side, such as the apology from Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. In every culture, it is customary that when someone says,  I'm sorry for what happened,  and asks,  Can we talk about it?  we should talk. As Tanzanians, we value this global cultural aspect dialogue and our president, Her Excellency Samia Suluhu Hassani, has accepted the German president's call for a conversation about Germany's colonial past in our country on behalf of the Tanzanian people. The Tanzanian government is ready to talk to the German government and engage in meaningful dialogue on an equal footing. The national committee you refer to results from the meeting between the two presidents. Ambassador Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro, a long-time UN diplomat, chairs the committee; Minister of Culture Prof. Palamagamba Kabudi is the vice-chair. There is also a  technical committee  composed of experts and senior administrative officials from various institutions, such as the National Museum, the Antiquities Authority, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Arts, and the Ministry of Science.

I must say that I am neither a spokesperson for the committee nor a member, but I see the committee as a bridge that needs to be built between Germans and Tanzanians. It is a group of experts that advises our government on how to deal with colonial ties to the German government.

Dr. Valence Silayo is an archaeology and heritage studies lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. His research interests include various aspects of African archaeology, pre-colonial defence systems, socio-political structures, materiality and social complexity, restitution and reparation. He is currently on a Gerda Henkel research fellowship at the Linden-Museum Stuttgart to research the ethnographic belongings from the Chagga community held at the Linden Museum.