African princesses appeal for help from President Higgins to return heirloom

(Left to right) Princess royals Ncedisa Maqoma and Princess Mamtshawe Zukiswa Kona of the Xhosa nation holding their ancestor Chief Maqoma's warrior stick in Collins Barracks on Tuesday, January 9. Photo: Maciek Bator

Two African princesses have appealed directly to President Michael D Higgins to help them ensure a 150-year-old family heirloom looted from their ancestor is returned to South Africa.

19th-century Xhosa leader Chief Maqoma’s sacred warrior stick, taken to Ireland after his death on Robben Island by a Captain French MacDermott in 1873, had been in storage in the National Museum of Ireland since 1880 without any knowledge of descendants. The chief’s stick has huge cultural, spiritual and historical significance for the Xhosa nation. 

Chief Maqoma. Photo: WikiCommons

Princess royals Ncedisa Maqoma and Princess Mamtshawe Zukiswa Kona finally got to see it in a private viewing at the Museum in Collins Barracks on Tuesday.

“This is important to us as a family and as a generation and descendants,” an emotional Princess Ncedisa Maqoma told the Irish Examiner afterwards. “We would ask President Higgins if could he participate in or assist in ensuring that we get our family heirloom back,” she said.

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The women, who met the Director of the National Museum of Ireland Lynn Scarff and Curator of Ethnography Dr Aoife O’Brien, were granted the special privilege of touching and photographing Maqoma’s stick, becoming the first Xhosa family members to do so in 150 years.

Princess Ncedisa Maqoma said: “It was really quite something. It’s well carved and you can’t help but wonder what was going on in his mind when he was doing this. He used to lean on it so to think that he once held it and now we have the privilege to hold it. It’s also (significant) that no other people in our family have ever seen it, so it was quite a privilege and an honour.” 

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Her relative Princess Kona said she “felt very good that I saw and touched the stick that my ancestor touched as well". The women are now hoping the stick can be repatriated to South Africa as part of a “journey of restitution for a whole lot of other artefacts that are all over the world".

“We certainly would like to take the stick back. I mean there’s no point in coming all the way here and leaving it — not that we want to take it tomorrow — but we certainly would want it, even if we find some way to get it back, there’s no debate about that. It’s an heirloom,” said Princess Maqoma.

They also appealed to Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media Catherine Martin to open negotiations on repatriating the stick: “We would like to have a conversation and we would like to have the stick back but it’s not just the stick. There’s a whole lot of other artefacts around that we would have to have conversations about,” added Princess Maqoma.

Minister Martin’s expert committee on the restitution of historically and culturally sensitive objects in Ireland met for the first time in December.  A department spokesperson said the repatriation of such objects would be done on “a case-by-case” basis.

The princesses were joined in their appeal to President Higgins by the South African playwright, poet and scholar Nandi Jola, who first discovered Chief Maqoma’s stick was stored in the National Museum last September. 

She wrote a play about it which premiered in the Collins Barracks on Tuesday also. The two princesses attended the premiere — which featured Maqoma’s actual stick — and described the audience’s reaction to the story of the stick as “astounding".

Nandi Jola first discovered Chief Maqoma’s stick was stored in the National Museum last September. 

“It was so lovely. I so appreciated the man who had just seen the Irish Examiner article and came. There were so many other people emotionally invested in the topic, it was quite a spiritual and emotional event actually. 

"This is why even the museum directors felt like they wouldn’t be on the right side of history if they were reticent about (returning) it,” said Princess Maqoma.

It’s not the only challenge they’ve faced with their heirlooms in Ireland — a tribal spear they brought with them from South Africa was promptly seized by Customs on their arrival.

“The princesses brought a spear and Customs wouldn’t let them through with it because it’s a weapon,” said Jola. 

“I had to explain to them that they are culturally incorrect; it’s not a weapon, it’s an heirloom. They have to travel with a spear that signifies their ranking,” she explained. 

Happily, Customs realised the error of their ways and were due to release their spear on Tuesday evening.