How the return of priceless looted treasures sparked a creative renaissance
In November 1892, after two years of skirmishes between French colonialist troops and the African kingdom of Danxomè , several hundred soldiers led by the French-Senegalese general Alfred-Amédée Dodds marched into its fabled capital, today the city of Abomey in Benin. Its colossal fortified red-earth palaces were found semi-abandoned; the great King Béhanzin, said to have descended from the coupling of a leopard and a Tado princess, had fled with his court.
In a far corner stand half a dozen large plastic barrels containing leaves of the indigofera plant, fermenting in a soak; in the expanse between, twisted and knotted parcels of dark blue fabric are drying in the sun. On a work table, a bolt of cotton is laid out on to which Adanle has drawn a pattern based on one of the restituted thrones.
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