The Discoverer of the Discoverers: On the Scope of Reciprocity in a Skewed Relationship

C.S. Nicholson’s 2022 documentary The Discoverer of the Discoverers upends the usual perspective of colonialism and slavery by changing whose narrative we are watching. In this 25-minute documentary exploring the contours of a centuries old story, colonisers are the object, and the protagonist is Kpatè, the West African man who first spotted and invited a Portuguese ship ashore in Whydah in 1548. 

Nearly 500 years later, Kpatè’s descendants still celebrate that moment and the courage (that Kpatè’s friend, Zingbô, the story notes, did not have and thus ran away immediately) to call forth strangers who looked so decidedly unlike anything he had seen before. The novelty of the premise—pink-skinned beings in the distant horizon—is alluring, but the real draw is the celebration of the arrival of the slavers. It means economic prosperity—for those who were not sold. It gazes at the pink man as a strange being and even a kind of god. And because Kpatè hailed them in, he is also a kind of god. And because it all happened in Whydah, Whydah is also celebrated. 

The film’s gaze is undoubtedly anthropological. But instead of empirical data, it embraces collective memory, oral history, and generational storytelling, all culminating in a people’s continuous effort to maintain the thread of connection over hundreds of years. The interest is in that effort, and the latest descendants of Kpatè who retell the story in fabric, in song, in memorabilia, the Kpatènons. Filming coincided with the enstooling of a new Kpatènon leader. At the commemorating lunch, the memorabilia is produced. Oil lamps, cutlery, crockery. The objects are totemic rather than evidential (read more on the production company’s website) and the film emphasises both their careful, reverent handling, and their representational nature. 

There is an attempt towards self-reflexivity where the film’s white gaze is concerned. And it is likely why the film presents the story without reaching too hard into historical evidence. Instead it maintains the relationship as the framework. In place of intrusive pretenses of superior knowledge, there is the enthusiastic narration from elders, as they would to someone new. A sequence follows from the elements of the lunch. The camera fixates on the new leader, Mitó Kpatènon Mijlèhounkpon Mènouéwa, and he in turn, on that gaze. There is calculation, guardedness, a front open to observation but not proximity. 

In the opening shots of the The Discoverer of the Discoverers, a reenactment imagines the moment when Kpatè waved his flag to flag the Portuguese ship’s attention. It is an earnest gesture, and to the documentary’s credit, there is no artifice, only a thrilled impression of a legend, as though from the mind of a child. The final sequence, eyes of Beninese travelers turned to the European filmmaker, spreads Kpatè’s discerning eye throughout a population. Each party acknowledges their attention on each other. But five centuries of naked exploitation have cooled the relationship. There is curiosity now, but little welcome.  

Check out the teaser of Nicholson’s latest project, I Wonder If I’m Singing What You’re Thinking Me To Sing. 

Watch The Discoverer of the Discoverers Documentary Trailer