If the spiritual importance of the artefact matters to its owners, why deny them? This is a political issue, not an aesthetic one
Be prepared. The great museums of Europe are about to see an invasion of former colonies demanding the return of their stuff. This week the governor of Easter Island, Tarita Alarcón Rapu, tearfully pleaded with the British Museum to have back her ancestor, immortally embodied in a statue in its possession. “You have our soul,” she said. Her audience must have cringed.
For Rapu’s people the statue, one of many, carries with it the spirit of her island. For Britain it is just a statue, stolen by a British frigate as a bauble for Queen Victoria in 1868. But then Britons can be equally dotty about the Stone of Scone and the crown jewels.
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