The Restoration of the Collective Psyche: Ngonnso’ and the Systemic Mediation of Colonial Trauma

Abstract This study examines the century long displacement of the Ngonnso’ statue the ancestral mother of the Nso’ people through the dual lens of German systemic psychological counseling and Nso’ traditional mediation. Currently housed in Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, Ngonnso’ transcends the category of a mere "museum object" to emerge as a vital node in a transnational systemic field. By integrating conflict mediation frameworks (Hellinger, 2001), systemic resilience theory (Bello, 2026), and postcolonial trauma studies (Fanon, 1963; Mbembe, 2017), this paper argues that Ngonnso’s restitution is a necessary act of systemic re-ordering. The analysis demonstrates how reconciling German legalistic mediation with Nso’ ontological healing offers a revolutionary blueprint for global restorative justice, with implications for museum ethics, transnational law, and cultural psychology. Keywords: Systemic mediation, postcolonial trauma, restorative justice, Nso’ cosmology, German conflict resolution, cultural restitution, collective psyche