Memorialization and Repair
Ancestral Reburial on St. Helena, West Africa
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Join us for a screening of A Story of Bones, a film documenting the reburial of enslaved persons on St. Helena and the fight for their memorialization. This impactful event, presented by Penn’s Center for Experimental Ethnography, includes a discussion and kumina performance celebrating cultural connections between St. Helena and Jamaica.
A Story of Bones, featured at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and PBS TV's POV, documents the reburial of approximately 9,000 formerly enslaved persons on St. Helena, a British Overseas Territory about 1,000 miles off the coast of South Africa. The film features the efforts by Annina van Neel (Chief Environmental Officer for St. Helena’s airport project) and African American preservationist Peggy King Jorde, along with community members, to fight for the memorialization and protection of the burial site, unearthing a lesser-known story about the United Kingdom’s colonial empire.
A moderated discussion with the film’s consulting producer Peggy King Jorde follows the screening. Dr. Deborah Thomas will also briefly discuss the connections between St. Helena and St. Thomas, Jamaica. The ritual practice of kumina emerged in the parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica, when indentured laborers were brought from the Kongo region of Central Africa after the abolition of slavery in 1838. For practitioners, kumina is born in you; it is an inheritance, and it defines a lineage. Within a kumina ceremony, the counterclockwise dancing, driven by the drums and marked by the singing, is meant to invite myal, a complex of being and knowing that heralds the return of ancestors and a surrender to spirit.
The evening will conclude with a kumina performance by the St. Thomas Kumina Collective, a living, breathing testament to the resilience and vibrancy of Jamaican culture.
RegisterDiscussion Panelists
Peggy King Jorde is a Harvard Loeb Fellow and Principal of KING JORDE Cultural Projects Consulting, which focuses on cultural heritage and preservation for marginalized communities. She managed capital construction projects for three New York City mayors and played a key role in preserving the African Burial Ground in New York City, leading to her appointment as Special Adviser by Mayor David N. Dinkins. As Executive Director, she oversaw the design competitions for the nation’s first African Burial Ground Monument and Interpretive Center.
Deborah A. Thomas, Ph.D., is the R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation, Exceptional Violence, and Modern Blackness, and co-director of the documentary films Bad Friday and Four Days in May. She is currently the co-chair of the American Anthropological Association’s Commission on the Ethical Treatment of Human Remains.
Rachel Watkins, Ph.D., is a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Visiting Associate Curator for the Biological Anthropology Section. Her work focuses on African American biohistory and social history including the ethical study and treatment of human remains, and descendant community engagement. Her research is published in journals such as American Anthropologist, Current Anthropology and Historical Archaeology. She is currently a member of the American Anthropological Association’s Commission on the Ethical Treatment of Human Remains.
Laura Hortz Stanton, Director of Collections, oversees the stewardship of more than a million objects in the Penn Museum’s collection. With more than two decades of experience in museum and conservation work, she previously served as Executive Director of the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA). She holds degrees in Museum Studies and Anthropology.