The Soul of the World: Anima Mundi, Why the Tiwi Islanders Sang in the Vatican Museums, and Created New Knowledge from 100 Years Ago, for the Future

The ethnographic section of the Vatican Museums, Anima Mundi, Peoples, Arts and Cultures, was created mainly from cultural objects sent for an exhibition in 1925, curated by esteemed ethnographer Fr Wilhelm Schmidt. He worked with other missionary ethnographers who had travelled around the world searching for an understanding of what he believed to be an ancient human monotheistic religion. From Africa to Tierra de Fuego, they also worked with communities in the Pacific and Australia.

Fr Schmidt’s exhibition which took the public on a tour of intangible cultural beliefs represented through material objects, was closed, on and off, throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Anima Mundi museum re-opened with a new layout in 2010, to great ceremony, and to the ancient sound of the didgeridoo. In 2018, Tiwi elder and knowledge holder, Pedro Wonaeamirri infused the halls of the Vatican Museum with traditional Tiwi chants. In 2023, Senior Australian of the Year and well-known Indigenous educator from the Northern Territory, Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann also left an impact, donating an artwork for the collection called We Found God in Nature. She spoke about her spiritually called Dadirri, ‘it is deep listening, silent, still awareness’ she said.

These collaborations, into the heart of Western culture, mark a shift in how the peoples and their material objects have been perceived in ethnographic collections, from contested to shared narratives.