A RARE COLLECTION OF ‘SPIRITS,’
TRANS-CONTINENTAL LOVE WILL SOON PROTECT BLACK ARCHIVES RESEARCH CENTER AND MUSEUM BY [ L.A. CARROLL ]
A gift of 19th century Ghanian artifacts will soon attract scores of students, stakeholders, scientists, and artists to the campus of Florida A&M University (FAMU). Toss in a flock of historians, scientists, an epidemiologist, and tools with a heritage older than Magellan and you have a spirited tale – and rare gift to the Southeastern Black Archives Research Center and Museum. FAMU is now the official recipient of “Field Spirits,” a donation from Richard Douglass, Ph.D., author, collector and archivist; he placed a probative telephone call to a University professor, Robbya Green-Weir — and the rest is what was previously disappearing African history from the fields of Ghana, now preserved in Tallahassee, Florida. Douglass, his good friend, and his late wife helped to make the collection a reality at the University. “About two years ago, communication between Douglass and the Archives began,” recalled Nashid Madyun, the former executive director of the Meek-Eaton Black Archives. “He wanted to donate a rare collection of wooden sculptures from Ghana to FAMU. He was still in the process of preserving the pieces before the pandemic. Madyun, now the executive director of the Florida Humanities Council in St. Petersburg, Fla., recalled that Douglass soon visited the campus, “to discuss his interest in placing the pieces with us. We have yet to find a full collection or duplicate collection like it anywhere.” Each piece of the “Field of Spirits” collection is “incredibly unique” Madyun said. They were hand carved to protect the fields, families and proper-
ty from snakes, predatory animals, and people. They could be found standing guard throughout Ghana. At that time, centuries ago, their purpose made them valuable and ubiquitous.
Protecting and preserving the ‘kinship’
Nana Apt, a Ghanian native, inherited the art pieces from her father, and, later, from her grandfather, a Fante farmer. She was vice president for Academic Affairs at Ashesi University (Accra, Ghana) and also a lifelong collector of cultural art, ancient art, ethnically specific and kinship art, with the oldest pieces dating back to the 1870s, the newest to the 1940s, Douglass says. She and Douglass, “dearest colleagues,” met in 2000 when she had moved on to become a professor at the University of Ghana (Legon). Over the years, Douglass’s wife and Apt became close friends. The couple, the collector, and an inventory of more than 52,000 pieces — were forever linked. “When I was in Ghana for my second Fulbright (fellowship), Nana offered me a room at her home for six weeks,” Douglass recalled. “Her house was a living museum.”
36 // FLORIDA A&M UNIVERSITY // A&M MAGAZINE
