Author: Davison, Patricia

Source: Public Archaeology, Number 1, 2001 , pp. 3-20(18)

Publisher: Maney Publishing

Abstract:

From the early decades of the 20th century, plaster casts of Khoisan people have been on exhibition at the South African Museum. The most popular visitor attraction, they have also become the most controversial and hotly debated exhibits. Initially made as part of an anthropological project to document the physical characteristics of a race believed to be near extinction, the casts outlived their scientific moment to become compelling exhibits in their own right. As academic paradigms shifted so too did the conceptual contexts in which the casts were shown. By the 1960s, ecological approaches were displacing former evolutionist theories, although the latter did not entirely disappear. Accordingly, a number of the casts were redisplayed in a large diorama depicting an early 19th-century hunter-gatherer camp in the Karoo. No longer were the casts presented only as examples of a primitive race but as idealized hunters and gatherers. Since that time there have been relatively few significant modifications to the diorama, but it has increasingly become the subject of critical scrutiny and negative comment. It was recently screened from public view. In this paper I review issues relating to the diorama, outline the history of the casting project and the ideas that shaped it, and discuss ongoing curatorial debates against a changing political context in which Khoisan people have reclaimed their right to be heard and to engage in how their past is represented to the general public.

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/146551801793157205

Publication date: 2001-01-01

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