Objects as Envoys: Cloth, Imagery and Diplomacy in Madagascar

Christine Mullen Kreamer and Sarah Fee, eds. Objects as Envoys: Cloth, Imagery and Diplomacy in Madagascar. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, 2002. 205 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Photographs. Notes. Glossary. Bibliography. Index. $35.00. Paper.

Leafing through Objects as Envoys: Cloth, Imagery, and Diplomacy in Madagascar, one might mistakenly assume that this beautifully illustrated book is nothing more than a museum exhibition catalog. Published in conjunction with a 2002 exhibit on Malagasy textile arts at the National Museum of African Art (Smithsonian Institution), it contains no fewer than 112 illustrations, many of them full-page, and 68 in color. A careful reading of the book's essays, however, indicates that there is much more to this book than its visual appeal. Objects as Envoys is, in fact, a collection of papers on various examples of material culture (predominantly Malagasy, but American and French as well) and the practices, relationships, and exchanges associated with them. In diverse essays ranging from an overview of different traditions of Malagasy textile production and use, to a discussion of the origins and development of foreign portrayals of Malagasy life and culture through various media, the focus of the collection is (for the most part) "the role of material culture in Madagascar's internal and external relations and in representations of Malagasy identity" (18), in the late nineteenth century in particular. The goal, as Kreamer promises in her concise introduction, is to "trace the movement and circulation of textiles and images [within and outside of Madagascar] as potent markers of social relationships, as powerful symbols of political power and global diplomacy, and as significant objects imbued with history and interpretation in museum collections" (22).

Following Kreamer's introduction and a brief and informative overview of Malagasy geography, history, and culture by Rakotoarisoa, the collection begins in earnest with Fee's comprehensive account of textile production and use through Malagasy history and in various Malagasy settings. Particularly interesting is her closing discussion of contemporary inspirations for and uses of textiles; whether producing for popular consumption within Madagascar, or for European art patrons, Malagasy weavers are revealed to be anything but practitioners of a fading tradition. Fee's work sets the stage for Arnoldi's subsequent examinations of the provenance and display of the Smithsonian's collection of nineteenth-century Malagasy textiles. Here we are afforded a fascinating glimpse of the role that gifts played in late nineteenth-century relations between the Malagasy court and the American government. (Malagasy dignitaries offered, among other things, handwoven silk cloths to American notables, receiving in turn the products of American industry, Singer sewing machines included.) The collection's next chapter, Krebs's and Walker's account of John Lewis Waller's brief (1891-95) career as America's first African American consul in Madagascar, seems a little out of place, given the book's focus on material culture, but it is compelling nonetheless for what it reveals of the tenor of American involvement in late nineteenth-century Malagasy politics. The book ends with Geary's discussion of the history of visual representations of Malagasy people and material culture (from the engravings that illustrated seventeenth-century travel accounts of the island to the mass-produced picture postcards of the French colonial era).

Objects as Envoys will be of interest to a wide audience. Individually, the essays are interesting, accessible, and beautifully illustrated; collectively, they constitute a significant contribution to scholarship on Malagasy material culture and Malagasy-American relations at the turn of the last century.

Andrew Walsh

Mount Allison University

Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada

Copyright African Studies Association Sep 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved