The readings this week caused me to reflect on the novel Enigma Variations by Richard and Sally Price (Harvard University Press, 1995). Enigma Variations is a colonial novel that explores many of the ideas of authenticity discussed here, particularly the questions where local handcrafted materials become commodities in an international market. In the novel, a small fictitious Creole town in search of an identity wishes to open a cultural center and museum. Fortunately for the new and enthusiastic center director, a foreign collector named Lafontaine helps supply her with “authentic” Creole art and artifacts. (spoiler alert! Read on if you don’t care…). As the novel progresses, the reader learns that Lafontaine is a fraud. Rather than traveling deep into the jungle to find antique items created and used by the local Creole/indigenous tribes he claims to buy from, he has hired a talented indigenous craftsman (Awali), provided him with sketches of the items he wishes to sell to the museum, and instructed him on how to convincingly carve and antique the wooden artifacts so they appear old and long-used by local hands.
The often unclear line between authenticity, fraud, and the construction of identity is toyed with throughout the novel. The museum director finds herself in a difficult situation where she eventually realizes the pieces are neither antiques nor used by local tribespeople as Lafontaine had claimed. Yet by the time she understands this, the museum is built, replicas of the fakes are selling in tourist shops, and a narrative of creole cultural identity had been woven around these items. Does the director reveal what she has discovered? All community or national identities, perhaps Creole identities most saliently, are both narrative constructions and recent inventions. At what level does the invention cross the line into false or unreal? The one clear source of deceit in Enigma Variations is in Lafontaine’s presentation of the pieces as something they are not. Despite this, they are still Creole in the sense that the combination of Lafontaine’s foreign imagination and Awali’s local skill brought them into being, and they did so to meet a local community need (the cultural center). If one can forgive Lafontaine his dishonesty and accept the origin of the pieces, could one then define them as Creole?
In a further twist on the question of authenticity, Awali is asked to carve a mill with a mechanical action that turns out to provide great leverage for grinding. Awali’s wife admires the usefulness of the hand-powered machine and asks if he can make one for her. Soon their family and others in the indigenous community are building and using these useful items for their daily existence. The original mill built under contract was sold to the museum under false pretenses as an item that had been in use by the local community for centuries. Yet the mill, never before been seen locally, had by then became part of daily indigenous life and culture. The mill is a new introduction to these communities, brought by a fraudulent entrepreneur, but is no less an integral piece of daily life by the end of the novel. Thus, even if one were to remove all the museum artifacts that were not actually used by the local communities, the mill might still be represented. Does this mean the original model carved by Awali belongs in the museum? If it is removed from the museum and then used by a local family for a number of years, could it then go into the museum? Instead of indigenous artifacts, could the pieces be sold to an international market as art? They are unique pieces crafted by a talented local artist. Does their origin story disqualify them as art? Or might it increase their value because of the irony and uniqueness of the story behind them?
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