Benin art - what can it tell us about cross-cultural encounters?

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Part 1 - Option B

In no more than 500 words, after reading the following text, how can it tell us about cross-cultural encounters?

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This piece of text can offer a great deal of information on cross-cultural encounters between the Western world and the Benin people. It is an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica from the entry on 'Negro', published in 1910-1911. The author was T.A. Joyce, an Assistant in the Department of Ethnography at the British Museum, at the time of publication. It was written aimed for educated people.

Upon reading the text, we can clearly see it was written by someone using racial stereotypes. Joyce refers to the natives as 'impressionable', 'vain', with 'servant dog-like fidelity' and performing acts of 'singular atrocity' (Brown, Cultural Encounters, p81). The picture that he paints is of a primitive, backwards and savage people, who need the guidance of a more 'civilized' race. This was the view of quite a significant amount of people during the time this text was written, and it has only been in more recent times that this picture is changing.

However, he does sate that the natives surpassed