President Sauli Niinistö testified today when the shards of the holy Ondonga stone, removed by a Finnish missionary in 1886, were returned to their original owners.
WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA In February 1886, a Finnish missionary Martti Rautanen was on a research trip in northern Namibia by a Swiss geologist By Hans Schinz with.
The men encountered a ritual rock in the terrain of the Kingdom of Ondonga. They removed fragments from the sacred stone of the Ondongos because they wanted to find out if the stone was a meteorite.
Touching the mighty stone was strictly prohibited by the law of the Ondongo kingdom, and the men therefore committed a state crime. Rautanen and Schinz had to pay large compensations and Schinz was expelled from the country.
However, the fragments of the holy stone remained in the possession of Martti Rautanen, in his home in Olukonda. The shards passed through Rautanen first to the collections of the Finnish Missionary Society and finally to the National Museum of Finland.
The National Museum wants to act ethically
On Thursday, the director general of the National Museum Elina Anttila signed the official documents for the handover of the stones in Windhoek.
The return of art and cultural objects stolen during colonial rule to their original owners is currently a hot topic in the museum world.
Finland has no real colonial history. But over the years, objects whose rightful place is somewhere else than in Finland have also ended up in our museums.
The National Museum wants to live in the spirit of the times.
– Martti Rautanen’s act must be considered a violation of the Kingdom’s values and norms and therefore unethical, says Elina Anttila, director of the National Museum.
Negotiations to return the Ondonga stone fragments to their original owners have continued since 2019. The fragments were handed over to the Namibian Minister of Culture as part of the President Sauli Niinistön official visit to Namibia.
The current ruler of the Kingdom of Ondonga was also present at the handover ceremony Fillemon Shuumba Nangalo. About the handover ceremony and the President of Niinistö and Namibia Hage Geinbon the recorded video of the press conference can be viewed via the main image of this story.