Tony Beall · Where Sacred Fires Burn
@ajbeall.bsky.social
Historian of religions, using archival and ethnographic methods. A decade in Namibia on ritual, memory, and the dead who orient the living. I write Where Sacred Fires Burn; subscriptions support the Etanga Development Foundation. ajbeall.substack.com
Ancestral remains begin long journey home after 143 years at museum: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-16/repatriation-of-rapa-nui-remains-australian-museum-easter-island/106917256
Ancestral remains begin long journey home after 143 years at museum
The remains of members of the Rapa Nui people from Easter Island are "finally going home" after sitting in the Australian Museum's collection for over a century.
abc.net.au
“Dead body politics” is not an exotic theory I imported from Namibia. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/who-gets-a...
Who Gets a Stone
Dead Body Politics at Home
ajbeall.substack.com
A TikToker filmed Ibadan's Oloolu masquerade, forbidden to record, and was cleansed for it. Its power lives in what may not be seen; the phone only tests that line. The full story: www.vanguardngr.com/2026/08/oloo...
Namibia was not free until 1990. For decades South Africa simply refused to hand back the territory the world said it could not keep, and the petitions kept going to the UN while the apartheid state drew its “homelands” northward. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/the-widow-...
The Widow Who Stayed
A missionary's wife, a war for independence, and the last town before the bush
ajbeall.substack.com
A PanAfrican Archaeological Association congress at Eduardo Mondlane, with the African archaeology collection opened up to mark it. Scholarship rooted on the continent and reaching everyone. Worth a look.
Antiquity Journal@antiquity.ac.uk · last wk.The PanAfrican Archaeological Association congress is ongoing at Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique 🏺 To celebrate, our collection of #AfricanArchaeology is completely free to access! Check out the latest research in Antiquity 🆓 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Barbed wire began as a cheap way to manage cattle on the American plains. Then it fenced reservations, corralled civilians in the Boer War, enclosed forced-labor camps in Namibia, and finally spanned occupied Europe. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/our-obsess...
Our Obsession with the Nazi Analogy
Borders, Camps, and American Forgetting
ajbeall.substack.com
A missionary’s widow still runs the guesthouse in Opuwo: a guesthouse, a church, and a school, kept going on her own effort. Whether I agree with the mission is beside the point, and runs counter to it. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/the-widow-...
The Widow Who Stayed
A missionary's wife, a war for independence, and the last town before the bush
ajbeall.substack.com
An ivory-bleaching yard in Tempelhof, the same firm that fed Benin bronzes into Berlin. Colonial trade turned elephants and communities' sacred objects alike into commodities. Exhibitions that trace that chain, back to where the things came from, are the memory work that counts.
Decolonial Memories@colonial-memories.bsky.social · last wk.Dekolonial Erinnern in Berlin-Tempelhof: Faszinierende Ausstellung des Museums @batempschbg.bsky.social zur Produktion von Elfenbeinware aus kolonialen Quellen. Fabrikant Francke hat auch Benin-Bronzen an @kulturspk.bsky.social geliefert. h/t RM* via @rbb24.de www.rbb24.de/kultur/beitr...
I live somewhere between buffoon and academic. A decade of training taught me to write clean, structured, footnoted prose for a narrow audience. This publication is the other thing, the story that did not fit in the footnotes. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/welcome
Welcome to Sacred Fires
Contested Histories, Ancestral Worship, and Religious Worldviews
ajbeall.substack.com
I had to stop asking “do you believe in witchcraft?” and start asking “have you ever been afraid of a curse?” One is a yes or no box built by centuries of Protestant thought. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/beyond-bel...
Beyond Belief
Christianity, Ancestors, and Witchcraft
ajbeall.substack.com
Hitler pointed to the American West as a model: the conquest of Indigenous nations, race-based citizenship law, precedent for his own ambitions. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/our-obsess...
Our Obsession with the Nazi Analogy
Borders, Camps, and American Forgetting
ajbeall.substack.com
How conservation can make cultural heritage invisible: oral histories and land claims in north-west Namibia. Anyone who has walked conservancy land in Kunene knows how much history the tourism map leaves out. Worth your time.
Prof. Sian Sullivan@siansullivan.bsky.social · 6mo ago🌍 New co-authored article in the Namibian Journal of Environment - special issue on #Conservation and #Land (more below!) Cover by Clarance Geingob, who has completed multiple illustrations for research we're doing on one of the first anti-colonial Uprisings in north-west #Namibia (1897-1898)
Several times a year, an activist goes out to the mass graves on the edge of Swakopmund with a shovel and covers the genocide victims’ exposed bones back over with sand. The institutions will not. So he does. The bones keep surfacing. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/who-gets-a...
Who Gets a Stone
Dead Body Politics at Home
ajbeall.substack.com
Zambia's Lunda court has barred party regalia from Saturday's Umutomboko rite. Religion and politics have never sat far apart; the line between them is redrawn in every age. The full story: www.zambiamonitor.com/political-re...
The same five-kilo bags of maize meal we once bought as a goodwill offering are now twenty-kilo sacks. The smallest jug of oil is now the largest. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/the-widow-...
The Widow Who Stayed
A missionary's wife, a war for independence, and the last town before the bush
ajbeall.substack.com
After 120 years, the railway workers' collection is home in Usakos. Restitution is not only about famous bronzes; it is a town getting back the objects that carry its ancestors' labor and memory.
All Namibian News@namibiannews.bsky.social · last mo.This is not about saving anyone. When the chief I have worked with for years finally made a request, it was not for my theories. It was for cattle. Livestock revitalization. Because a herd is not just economic out there. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/welcome
Welcome to Sacred Fires
Contested Histories, Ancestral Worship, and Religious Worldviews
ajbeall.substack.com
The Manhattan DA said three antiquities are being repatriated to Mexico. One of them, 1,600-year-old sculpture, was previously held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Manhattan DA’s Office Returns Three Antiquities to Mexico
The office’s sixth repatriation to the nation included a Nayarit sculpture seized from The Met and an Aztec stone previously possessed by a convicted antiquities trafficker.
hyperallergic.com
After 143 years the museum's specimens go home as ancestors. I saw what that return means when OvaHerero skulls came home from Germany: ajbeall.substack.com/p/stones-bon...
ABC News Australia@news.abc.net.au · 3w agoAncestral remains of Rapa Nui people begin long journey home after 143 years at Australian Museum
Namibia has sent a delegation to Cape Town to bring home the remains of two liberation-era figures who died in exile, for state reburial on Heroes' Day in August. Exile ends only when the graves come home. The full story: english.news.cn/20260710/36a...
Repatriierung der Maka-Ahnen: Historische Übergabe durch @uni-freiburg.de an Nachfahren & Regierungsdelegation. Durchbruch für deutsch-kamerunische Aufarbeitung der verflochtenen Geschichte. @mwk-bw.bsky.social @diplo.de @actunifreiburg.bsky.social @mehler.bsky.social @janhuesgen.bsky.social
A chief once told me, flatly, that he did not believe in witch doctors. It would betray his Christian faith. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/beyond-bel...
Beyond Belief
Christianity, Ancestors, and Witchcraft
ajbeall.substack.com
My much-older brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In his manic episodes he would claim to be a prophet of the Second Coming, describe battles with angels, conversations with the Devil. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/into-the-d...
Into the Darkness
Demons, Delusions, and New Resolutions
ajbeall.substack.com
We reach for “Nazi” as the ultimate measure of evil, and in doing so we quietly tell ourselves the evil was foreign, something we heroically defeated. But many of the tactics did not originate in Hitler’s Germany. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/our-obsess...
Our Obsession with the Nazi Analogy
Borders, Camps, and American Forgetting
ajbeall.substack.com
Malawi's rival Chewa king has barred his chiefs from Kulamba, the homage to paramount Gawa Undi in Zambia. Colonial borders cut the Maravi kingdom in three; the ritual calendar is where the seam shows. The full story: mwnation.com/kalonga-soso...
A Namibian delegation is in South Africa to exhume and repatriate the remains of two Robben Island prisoners. Liberation history is also a history of the dead, and of who may rest where.
@europe-africa.bsky.social · 3w agoRemains of Namibian Robben Island prisoners to be repatriated – Top Story 1 https://www.europesays.com/africa/328169/ A Namibian delegation has begun a five-day mission to South Africa to facilitate the exhumation and repatriation of…
Opinion | Ancestors’ dignity cannot wait for repatriation 💬 The Horniman's Heba Abd el Gawad on the ethics of storing human remains.
Ancestors’ dignity cannot wait for repatriation - Museums Association
The Horniman's Heba Abd el Gawad on the ethics of storing human remains
museumsassociation.org
The first question at the hostel bar is always “what brings you here?” For years I gave the version about history and culture. Now I start with the answer that is actually true: I am here to see my friends. The full story: ajbeall.substack.com/p/the-land-a...
The Land Arrived First
Mental Rehearsals Planning the Next Trip
ajbeall.substack.com
