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an Israeli mother and her three-year-old

1:00

being reunited, an unimaginable

1:02

54 days of

1:05

being held hostage by Hamas?

1:08

Why did you decide to do

1:10

the interview? My sister-in-law, Kamil, and

1:12

a bunch of other hostages

1:15

are still in Gaza. And

1:17

if we can't do anything to help that,

1:21

we will. For

1:26

a year, 60 Minutes has been investigating

1:28

the theft of Cambodia's cultural heritage. Thousands

1:31

of sacred stone, bronze and gold

1:33

artifacts from religious sites across the

1:36

country, leaving empty pedestals where gods

1:38

and deities once stood. We

1:41

found some of them on display at the

1:43

Metropolitan Museum of Art. How

1:45

did these looted treasures get here and

1:47

will they ever be returned? We

1:50

are on the verge of returning

1:52

a number of them. All of them? But

1:56

I can't say. I'm

2:01

Bill Whittaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm

2:04

Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia

2:06

Vega. I'm Scott Pelly.

2:09

Those stories and more tonight

2:11

on this special 90-minute edition

2:14

of 60 Minutes. It's

2:22

been one horror and tragedy after

2:24

the next, since Hamas's

2:26

killing and kidnapping attack of Israelis

2:28

10 weeks ago. On

2:31

Friday, three hostages were accidentally

2:33

killed by Israeli forces, even

2:36

though we now know they were waving

2:38

a white flag. This,

2:40

as the army's pounding of

2:42

Gaza, continues unabated. As

2:44

much as 90 percent of the population

2:47

has been displaced, and

2:49

the death toll keeps rising. About

2:51

a hundred Israeli hostages have been

2:53

released, mostly women and children, but

2:56

as many as 130 remain in captivity, an

3:00

open wound in Israel, where

3:02

we went this past week, and

3:04

spoke to one of the hostages who was

3:07

freed after 54 days, 36-year-old

3:11

Yarden Roman Ghat. She

3:13

and her husband, Elan Ghat, were

3:15

abducted on October 7th at a

3:17

kibbutz near the Gaza border. Elan

3:23

took us to the rubble that was

3:25

his parents' home in Beri. This

3:28

is the bantering. On October

3:31

7th, he, his wife Yarden, and

3:33

their three-year-old daughter, Gefin, were

3:36

visiting his folks when Hamas

3:38

stormed the kibbutz gate, broke

3:41

into their home, dragged out his mother, and shot her.

3:47

His sister, Carmel, disappeared,

3:49

and the Hamas fighters shoved the three

3:52

of them into a car and

3:54

took off. And they are taking

3:56

us into Gaza. We're

3:58

driving along there in the car. This is

4:00

the area where they drove the car to,

4:02

and there is a small army post

4:04

over there. And this is the place where

4:07

they stopped the car

4:09

because there was a tank passing. The tourists went

4:11

out of the car to hide in the trees.

4:14

He and your Dan seized the moment. And

4:16

we just jumped off both

4:18

sides and started running.

4:20

You had gaffen. I had

4:22

gaffen on me. I'm not a good runner.

4:26

And running with the 12 kilograms

4:30

of my baby, the

4:33

best odds is that Alon

4:35

would take her. And he's

4:38

a very good runner. I

4:40

just passed her on. It

4:42

was a no-brainer. It

4:45

was her best chances. You

4:48

passed your child along to

4:50

Alon. Yeah. So I

4:53

took gaffen, and I ran in front. We

4:56

started to hear the tourists shooting

4:58

at us. So we were

5:00

hearing bullets whistling next to us. Oh, my God.

5:03

On my both sides, really close by, I'm talking about

5:05

that distance of me. And you're

5:08

carrying gaffen. And I'm with gaffen. And

5:10

I found a small crack in the ground. Like

5:13

a small ditch? Yes. And

5:15

I put gaffen down on

5:18

the ground, and I was on

5:20

her, lying there with gaffen. Trying

5:22

to keep her quiet. And all this

5:24

time, you still don't know what had happened to

5:26

your wife. It's something that I thought about.

5:29

Should I go with gaffen and search

5:31

for your den? Is your den wounded?

5:33

Is she hurt? I

5:36

thought about all these things, and I said, no, I have

5:38

one mission now, and this is to save gaffen. How

5:41

long were you in the ditch? From 11.30 a.m. to around

5:43

8 p.m. Nine

5:48

hours? About. And gaffen

5:51

was amazing. She didn't

5:54

cry about food or water once. She

5:56

told me, Daddy, it's a

5:58

shame we didn't bring water. Hours

6:01

earlier, Yadin, too exhausted

6:03

to keep running, fell to

6:05

the ground as her captors closed

6:07

in. I played dead,

6:10

but holding my breath was

6:12

next to impossible. So

6:14

they said, no, she's not dead. There's

6:16

no blood. So pick

6:19

her up. And they grabbed

6:21

my arms and started dragging

6:23

me on the ground, throw it back

6:25

to the car. I

6:27

was in pajamas and my

6:30

clothes started to swipe

6:33

off my body. And

6:35

it was one of the

6:37

most frightening moments because

6:41

my thoughts were, even

6:43

if they didn't have that

6:45

intention, now they

6:47

might have, and I'm half naked.

6:50

So you're worried about rape.

6:52

Yeah? Yeah. I

6:54

was worried to get raped. Yeah, of

6:56

course. And fortunately

7:00

enough, they didn't do it. The

7:04

goal was get

7:07

me into Gaza. Like

7:09

other hostages, she was driven

7:11

into Gaza through thick crowds

7:14

celebrating. My kidnappers

7:17

could not help themselves

7:20

showing me off as

7:22

a trophy and showing my face

7:24

as an object. I was

7:27

not a person. But the

7:29

windows were up, right? No one could reach

7:31

it. No. They were not

7:33

up. There were a

7:36

lot of people around. And

7:38

as we... Yelling and... They're

7:40

partying. After

7:42

similar gauntlets of terror, many

7:45

other hostages were taken down into

7:47

the dark, airless tunnels. Yarden

7:50

was never underground. And

7:53

where did they take you? Eventually, we got

7:55

to a house. alone,

8:01

but I was never alone because

8:04

I had my

8:06

guardian with me 24-7 from the second

8:08

I got

8:14

to Gaza to the second I

8:16

left. Were

8:18

they men or women or both? Only

8:21

men. You cannot

8:23

object to anything. It

8:26

could cost you your life. She

8:28

was given a hijab that covered

8:31

most of her body. I got

8:33

a very strong feeling. This

8:36

is my, that

8:39

fabric is my only

8:42

protection that, I

8:45

don't know, it's effectiveness, but

8:48

it was the only thing I got. You

8:50

could feel hidden a little bit

8:52

behind that form.

8:55

The word hidden has

8:58

no place. I was

9:00

watched and seen at

9:03

all times. I

9:06

was not hidden, not

9:08

for a moment. They could

9:10

do anything to me. I was helpless.

9:13

I was helpless. Did you try

9:16

to engage them so they would see you

9:18

as a human? I

9:20

tried to make them care. Did

9:23

it work? Do you think they began

9:25

to want to protect you? They

9:28

did not want to protect me. They

9:31

wanted to guard their trophy, but

9:34

I do think I managed

9:36

to make them care,

9:40

I don't know, in some levels. And

9:44

I don't think it

9:46

helped me survive. Do you think that

9:49

at some level you just shut down?

9:53

Almost as if it was happening to another

9:55

person. No, it

9:57

was happening to me. There

10:00

are details about her captivity that she

10:02

didn't want to share with us. Did

10:05

they feed you? Can I talk

10:07

about that? She

10:10

lived with persistent anxiety over

10:12

the fate of Elan and

10:14

Geffen. Then, three

10:16

weeks in, because she could

10:18

occasionally overhear news on a

10:20

radio, she happened to

10:22

catch one of Elan's cousins speaking.

10:25

And he mentioned, by the way, the

10:28

fact that Iam and Carmel, my

10:31

sister-in-law, were held in Gaza. You

10:33

heard her name come up on

10:35

radio? Yeah, but he didn't mention

10:37

Elan and Geffen. So I

10:40

could pretty much

10:43

assume that they were

10:45

fine. Along with relief about her

10:47

husband and child, she was

10:49

tormented about Carmel because

10:52

of the almost constant explosions

10:54

of the Israeli bombs leveling

10:57

neighborhoods all across Gaza.

10:59

Were you afraid that that was going

11:01

to kill you? Yes. It's

11:03

a very frightening experience to be

11:06

on a war zone. You

11:10

cannot ignore it. It's

11:12

very intense. Meanwhile,

11:14

in Israel, there was a growing

11:16

Bring Them Home Now movement

11:19

to pressure the government to prioritize

11:21

the hostages. Bring them back

11:24

home now. Now! Now!

11:26

Now! Posters

11:28

of the hostages are everywhere.

11:31

This is Romi Gonen, who was

11:33

shot and kidnapped. For her

11:35

mother, Mirav, it's October

11:38

7th every day. They

11:40

are not fed. They are starved. They

11:43

know about sexual harassment of

11:46

the women that lived there

11:49

and of the men also treated

11:52

with cruelty, the ones that stayed there.

11:55

And it's important to understand

11:57

that they don't have time. wage

12:00

their own campaign, setting up a

12:02

war room to get her and

12:05

Carmel freed, even traveling

12:07

to Washington for help. Eventually,

12:10

all the pressure paid off. Last

12:13

month, Israel agreed to cease

12:15

the bombing and free some

12:17

Palestinian prisoners, and Hamas issued

12:19

a daily list of hostages

12:22

it would free the next day. Every

12:24

day, mostly at night, in the middle of the

12:26

night, we would get a phone call

12:28

of whether we are on or off the list. Yarden's

12:32

brother, Gilly. The way

12:34

it played out was Hamas

12:37

would announce, who's

12:39

coming out tomorrow. That was the twisted reality

12:41

show that we lived in. Yes,

12:43

that is what happened. Once

12:46

the hostage releases started, the

12:48

entire country was glued to

12:50

television, as each transfer

12:52

was covered live. But

12:55

for five excruciating days, neither

12:58

Yarden nor Carmel were on the

13:00

list. Then came

13:02

day six of the ceasefire. After

13:05

54 days, Yarden's

13:07

captors told her, you're

13:09

getting out. They

13:12

wondered, why aren't I happy?

13:14

They almost demanded it. Be

13:17

happy, be happy already, you're going

13:19

home. You know, some of the

13:22

hostages were given drugs to

13:24

make sure that they looked happy,

13:26

well treated. If they want to go

13:29

there, you don't. On

13:31

the night of her release, her

13:33

family, the entire war room,

13:35

gathered round a television, and as

13:38

she crossed out of Gaza,

13:40

escorted by her captors, Yarden was

13:42

handed over to the Red

13:48

Cross and transported to

13:50

Israel. coming

14:00

back. The

14:03

reunion, the embrace, took place

14:05

at a hospital, the first

14:07

stop for all the released hostages. The

14:10

last time Yardenne had seen her daughter was

14:13

54 days earlier when she handed

14:15

her over to Elan. So

14:18

it hasn't been that long since she came

14:20

home. Is she still the same person?

14:24

Yeah. She is. I think

14:26

she is, yeah. Are you the

14:28

same person? No, I'm a different

14:30

person. I'm

14:33

tearing apart between finding more

14:35

info about Carmel. My

14:37

mother was murdered. So also, I

14:40

didn't have time to mourn on that. I

14:43

was disconnected emotionally. And

14:45

I think still I

14:47

am. Elan's old

14:49

kibbutz is now rows and

14:51

rows of burned out houses.

14:54

This is Geth in the swing. With

14:56

painful reminders, the

14:58

day after Yardenne was released, everyone

15:01

thought his sister, Carmel, would follow.

15:03

The whole day, I kept

15:07

myself expecting

15:09

Carmel. I was almost

15:11

sure. She's

15:13

the one. Oh,

15:16

dear. I'm sorry. I'm

15:20

sorry. The ceasefire deal

15:22

unraveled. No more hostages

15:24

have come out since. The

15:26

family war room is still

15:28

operating, now focused on Carmel.

15:31

And now you're part of the war

15:33

room. That's right. So why

15:36

did you decide to do the interview? My

15:38

sister-in-law, Carmel, and

15:40

a bunch of other hostages

15:43

are still in Gaza. And it's wrong.

15:47

And we have to stop it. And

15:50

if we can't do anything to help that,

15:54

we will. The

15:57

theft of Cambodia's cultural treasures, thousands of years

16:00

of sacred stone, bronze, and gold

16:02

artifacts from religious sites across the

16:04

country might just be the greatest

16:06

art heist in history. It

16:08

began nearly a century ago when Cambodia was

16:10

colonized by France, but in the 1970s, 80s,

16:14

and 90s, amidst genocide, civil

16:16

war, and political turmoil, the

16:18

looting became a global business,

16:21

much of it run by a British man

16:23

named Douglas Latchford. He kept

16:25

some of it for himself, but much

16:27

of what his gang of thieves stole,

16:29

Latchford then sold to wealthy private collectors,

16:32

and some of the most important museums around

16:34

the world. Cambodia's government

16:36

has spent the last 10 years trying

16:38

to track it all down, and now

16:41

they want their history and heritage brought

16:43

home. Angkor

16:46

Wat, with its towering spires, is

16:48

the glory of Cambodia. Nearly

16:50

a thousand years old, it's one of

16:52

the biggest and most extraordinary religious temples

16:55

in the world, sprawling across 400 acres.

16:59

Only built to honor the Hindu god

17:01

Vishnu, it then became a Buddhist temple

17:03

and remains a place of worship today.

17:07

You can wander here for weeks,

17:09

lost in a labyrinth of ancient

17:11

stone corridors and sacred chambers, but

17:13

the scars of plunder run deep. Looters

17:16

have hacked off the heads of many statues. They've

17:19

stolen bodies as well. Empty

17:22

pedestals mark where gods and deities

17:24

once stood. Even some,

17:26

only the feet remain. It's

17:31

worse in the rest of Cambodia's 4,000 temples. Nearly

17:34

all had been looted. This

17:38

one is 100 miles northeast of Angkor

17:41

Wat on a remote mountain called Sandak.

17:44

This was hit very heavily by the looting gangs.

17:47

They found gold, they found statues, they

17:49

found many, many things. That's

17:52

Brad Gordon, an American lawyer who's

17:54

been working for the Cambodian government

17:56

for 10 years, tracking down its

17:58

stolen treasures. He

18:00

brought us to Sondak with his team

18:02

of investigators, archaeologists and art scholars. This

18:04

is so cool. In

18:07

the temple's crumbling courtyard, little remains, mostly

18:10

empty pedestals scattered among the strawlout

18:12

trees. It's remarkable to me

18:14

just how much stuff is just scattered on

18:16

the ground. Yeah, it's like a

18:18

pedestal graveyard. We've all

18:21

seen in museums these statues with

18:24

no feet on them, and

18:26

I don't think people realize the feet were

18:28

hacked off because in order to steal them,

18:30

that's the easiest way to get them off

18:32

the pedestal. We know when the looters came

18:34

to sites like this, the first thing they

18:36

took was the head. That was the easiest

18:38

thing to grab. And then later on, maybe they come

18:40

back and get the torso, but

18:42

they were not very careful, so they

18:45

left behind pieces. For

18:50

Cambodians, these statues are not just works of art,

18:53

they are sacred deities that hold the

18:55

souls of their ancestors to whom they

18:57

ask for guidance and pray. This

19:00

is incredible. These were all looted. Yes,

19:03

all looted. All of these heads cut off. For

19:07

Rong Sakuna, Cambodia's Minister of Culture, is

19:10

in charge of the government's efforts to

19:12

track down their stolen gods. We

19:14

met her in a closely guarded warehouse not

19:16

far from Angkor Wat, where more than 6,000

19:18

pieces from temples across the country are

19:21

stored for safekeeping, each

19:24

one sculpted by an artisan from an ancient

19:26

Khmer empire that lasted

19:28

for more than five centuries

19:30

and spanned Cambodia, Laos, Thailand

19:32

and Vietnam. So the statues

19:35

have a soul. The statues are... are

19:37

they living? Of course, yes.

19:39

And we believe that we can talk with

19:41

them. They will hear.

19:43

They will see. What do you

19:45

want? What do you see? What do

19:47

you do in your life? In your house? Outside

19:50

in the society also.

19:53

They're watching. They're watching. Everywhere.

19:57

For Rong Sakuna's entire family was killed in the

19:59

city. the genocide that began in 1975 when

20:03

the Khmer Rouge, a radical communist group,

20:05

took over, forcing millions

20:07

of Cambodians into labor camps. Some

20:10

two million people, nearly a quarter

20:12

of the population, were slaughtered or

20:14

starved to death. The

20:16

Khmer Rouge lost power in 1979, but

20:19

fighting and instability continued for

20:22

decades, leaving Cambodia's temples unprotected

20:24

and vulnerable, easy targets

20:26

for unscrupulous antiquities dealers like Douglas

20:29

Latchford. Who was Douglas Latchford? I

20:31

would say that he was in

20:33

many ways the mastermind behind the

20:35

greatest art heist in

20:37

history. The greatest art heist in history?

20:39

Yes. In terms of scope

20:42

and multitude of crime sites

20:44

and the enormous amount of statues that

20:47

were taken out. Latchford lived

20:49

in Thailand, an enigmatic British businessman

20:51

he began collecting in the 1960s.

20:53

He had, it seems, two

20:57

great loves, Cambodian antiquities

20:59

and high

21:02

bodybuilders. Sponsored Bangkok's

21:04

biggest bodybuilding competition, the Latchford

21:06

Classic. How would you describe

21:08

him? He was extremely

21:11

deceptive. I think in many

21:13

ways was ruthless, but

21:16

he hid that behind this

21:18

incredible facade of charm.

21:21

Latchford portrayed himself as a scholar

21:23

and protector of Cambodia's culture, a

21:26

reputation he burnished by donating sculptures, the

21:28

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,

21:30

and other prestigious institutions. He

21:33

also published three books filled with

21:35

the finest examples of Cambodian antiquities.

21:38

Many of them, it turns out, Latchford

21:40

had stolen. He was using the books

21:42

as sales catalogs. He was handing them

21:45

out. He was using them to sell

21:47

pieces, and he understood a

21:49

certain psychology of collectors out there that

21:51

if they see something in a beautiful

21:53

book, they think it's legitimate.

21:56

Those books have been an invaluable guide. for

22:00

Brad Gordon and his team, helping

22:02

them compile a database of thousands

22:04

of missing artifacts, many of

22:06

which they didn't know existed until Latchford published

22:09

photos of them. Gordon's team got

22:11

their big break when they met this man

22:13

in 2012. He was a former

22:15

Khmer Rouge child soldier and leader of

22:17

a gang of looters. His name

22:19

was Dade Duck. That first meeting I

22:21

didn't really know who we

22:24

had met. You know I knew I knew that he was important.

22:26

I knew that many

22:29

people were telling me he was the best

22:31

and I knew that he was feared. Why were people

22:34

afraid of him? You know over the years he had

22:36

killed many people. It turned

22:38

out Dade Duck had worked for decades

22:40

supplying Douglas Latchford with thousands of treasures

22:42

and he was amazed to see them

22:45

again in Latchford's books. He

22:47

kept opening the book and going back

22:49

to the front cover and going through and

22:51

tapping and saying I know this one, I know

22:54

this one, I know this one. And

22:56

when he says he knew this one means

22:58

he helped loot those

23:00

ones. That's what we learned later

23:02

yeah. Dade Duck became

23:04

a key confidential source for

23:07

Gordon's team. They gave him

23:09

a code name, Lion, to protect his

23:11

identity and followed him to dozens of

23:13

temples where he confessed what he'd found

23:15

and how he'd stolen it. He would

23:18

say to us I'm gonna transfer everything

23:20

in my head to you. I'm

23:23

gonna tell you everything, every secret. You

23:25

felt like his memory was very good,

23:27

it was accurate. I was unbelievable. He

23:29

remembered the size of everything measured

23:32

against his body. He would use his arm to

23:35

show us how long a statue was. Why do

23:37

you think he wanted to cooperate? You

23:39

know he felt tremendously guilty

23:41

about many

23:44

things he had done in his life, about the killing, about

23:47

the looting. And we offered him a

23:49

road of redemption, a way to

23:51

do something really good at the end of his

23:53

life. They recorded hundreds of hours of

23:56

Lion's testimony. He

24:00

explained how gangs of looters would

24:03

spend weeks at remote temples using

24:05

shovels, chisels, metal detectors, even dynamite

24:07

to find and dig out treasures.

24:11

Dozens of men would hoist heavy

24:13

stone statues onto ox carts before

24:15

transporting them across the border into

24:17

Thailand and into the hands of

24:19

Douglas Lashford. Lyon never

24:21

met Lashford, but he'd sent him photographs

24:23

of artifacts he could choose from. We

24:26

hear about them saying, oh, we had to go

24:28

to this temple and take a photo and then

24:30

sending it back. You know, my sense is

24:32

he was shopping. He had a

24:35

list. The looters knew his priorities.

24:38

Like these, which came from a

24:40

temple complex called Kokay, the

24:42

statues from there had a distinctive style

24:44

that Lashford loved. It

24:47

was, however, a dangerous business. Most

24:50

looters only made enough to buy food

24:52

for their families, and fighting between rival

24:54

gangs was common. People

24:56

were killed over these, these antiquities.

24:58

Do you look at these as blood statues?

25:01

For sure. They're blood antiquities.

25:04

Whenever I see a statue, I think about, you

25:07

know, who died to get

25:09

this out of the ground or get it out of a

25:11

temple and to move it here. So

25:13

so much of this looting was done in the shadow of

25:15

the war, shadow of the genocide. It

25:18

was this 500-pound sandstone warrior from

25:20

Kokay that appeared in a Sotheby's

25:22

auction catalog in 2011 that

25:24

put Douglas Lashford on the radar of

25:27

U.S. law enforcement. Its

25:29

feet were missing, and the price tag?

25:31

An estimated $2 to $3 million. When

25:35

it appeared in the market, there were a

25:37

number of archaeologists, a number of people who

25:40

immediately recognized the source

25:43

of the statue as being

25:45

a specific temple in Cambodia.

25:47

It came from Kokay. That's

25:49

right. Until he retired last September,

25:51

J.P. Labat was a special agent

25:53

on the Cultural Property, Art and

25:56

Antiquities Unit with Homeland Security. A

25:59

team from the The U.S. Attorney's Office at

26:01

the Southern District of New York traveled

26:03

to Cambodia to inspect

26:05

the site where the statue had been

26:07

removed. And so the base was

26:10

still there with the feet still

26:12

in the ground. And so they

26:14

were able to match that

26:16

base and feet to the

26:19

statue. And that was enough evidence

26:21

to get the statue pulled off the market.

26:23

That's right. After

26:25

years of legal wrangling, Sotheby's finally

26:28

agreed to send this stolen warrior

26:30

back to Cambodia. A

26:34

ceremony was held welcoming it home. And

26:37

investigators were able to trace its original

26:39

sale back to Douglas Lassford, who was

26:41

asked about its repatriation in a German

26:43

documentary in 2014. Is

26:46

it a good day for Cambodia or is it a bad

26:48

day for the art market if these things are coming back?

26:51

It's a good day for Cambodia. It's a bad day

26:54

for the art market. Law enforcement

26:56

in New York was closing in on Lassford,

26:58

but he claimed prosecutors had them all

27:01

wrong. Their imagination has

27:03

gone wild. They've

27:05

seen too many Indiana Jones films. As

27:08

far as I know, there is

27:10

no such thing as a smuggling network. And

27:13

I certainly don't belong to any smuggling network.

27:17

The attempted sale of this

27:19

statue in 2011, was that

27:21

a turning point in

27:23

the unraveling of Douglas Lassford? I would say

27:25

yes. That case put more of a focus

27:27

and a spotlight on him. And

27:29

then efforts were then doubled to

27:32

really peel back the onion and

27:35

look into Lassford's activities. The

27:38

testimony of former looters found by Brad

27:40

Gordon and his team was critical for

27:42

the U.S. attorney's case against Lassford. How

27:45

rare is it to actually have

27:47

access to the looters? To people

27:50

who actually stole these things 10, 20, 30 years

27:52

ago? I know

27:54

of no other case where that's happened. And

27:57

it's quite remarkable to have

27:59

looters. actively assisting

28:02

a team of investigators to recover

28:05

artifacts that they had a first

28:07

hand in helping remove from

28:09

the country. Douglas Latchford was finally indicted by

28:12

U.S. authorities in 2019 for smuggling, conspiracy,

28:15

wire fraud and other charges.

28:18

But he died before he could be put on trial.

28:21

Brad Gordon eventually convinced Latchford's

28:23

family to return his personal

28:26

collection of stolen treasures. Among

28:31

the first pieces to come home

28:33

in 2021 was this statue from

28:35

Coquay. Lyon,

28:37

weakened by cancer, came to inspect

28:39

it in Cambodia's National Museum to

28:41

verify it was the same one

28:43

he'd dug out of the ground.

28:46

And then he turned to me and he

28:48

said, it's the real

28:50

statue. You know, it was

28:52

a remarkable thing to watch. And

28:54

just his relationship,

28:56

it was living to him. Do you think

28:58

he was happy it was back? Well,

29:02

so happy. He knew that he had done

29:04

something good. Lyon

29:06

died a few months later. But

29:09

the secrets he revealed continue to

29:11

bring statues back to Cambodia's National

29:13

Museum. Masterpieces that left

29:15

the country long before these school

29:18

children were born. Does the

29:20

return of these statues, these gods,

29:22

help some to heal? Yes,

29:24

to get back the soul of the

29:27

nation. The soul of the nation? It's not

29:29

only for me, but all of my family who

29:31

was died during the war. And

29:34

for all Cambodian people. There

29:37

are still many more stolen Cambodian

29:39

statues and artifacts in museums and

29:42

private collections around the world. When

29:44

we return, Cambodia's fight to

29:46

get those looted relics back.

30:00

It's taken a team of Cambodian

30:02

investigators led by Brad Gordon, an

30:04

American lawyer, more than ten years

30:06

to document the theft of thousands

30:08

of ancient statues and relics by

30:11

a British collector named Douglas Lasshert.

30:13

They've managed to get some of what

30:16

he stole back, but many of Cambodia's

30:18

greatest treasures are still out there, hidden

30:20

away in the mansions of millionaires

30:22

and billionaires, and hiding in plain

30:25

sight on display in some of

30:27

the most prestigious museums around the

30:29

world. The

30:32

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

30:34

has one of the most important collections

30:36

of Cambodian antiquities in the world, but

30:38

many of the finest pieces on display

30:41

here in the Southeast Asian art wing

30:43

are stolen, like this one

30:45

and this one. This as

30:47

well, all pass through the hands

30:50

of Douglas Lasshert. Lasshert

30:52

sold this one to the Met in the early 1990s. This

30:55

one he donated. Do you think people visiting

30:57

the Met know that these were looted? I

30:59

think most people walk to the Met. They

31:01

have no idea those are blood antiquities. They

31:04

have no idea what the history is behind those

31:06

pieces. They don't know the temples

31:09

they came from. They don't know the people who were

31:11

killed to get them here. The dirt has been brushed

31:14

off. There's a little note that says where

31:16

it came from. Should people believe what's

31:19

on that little note? No, absolutely not. Last

31:23

March, we went with Brad Gordon to

31:25

see where in Cambodia the Met and

31:27

other museums collections really did come from.

31:29

This is incredible. This

31:32

seven-story pyramid is more than a

31:34

thousand years old and rises out

31:36

of the jungle in Kokay in

31:38

northeast Cambodia. It's one of

31:40

dozens of temples and what was once the

31:42

capital of an ancient Khmer empire. Looters

31:45

have been all over this site for

31:47

decades. Correct. Douglas

31:49

Latchford loved the statuary. In love with

31:51

the beauty, in love with the artistic.

31:54

The statues from here have a distinctive

31:56

style that he particularly loved. Correct. And

31:58

perhaps the most famous. The statues in that

32:01

distinctive style that Latchford stole from

32:03

Coquet were nine stone warriors, once

32:05

arranged together in a battle scene.

32:09

Today seven had been returned to the

32:11

National Museum in Phnom Penh, including this

32:13

500-pound sandstone sculpture.

32:16

It's the one Sotheby's tried to sell in 2011. They're

32:20

back on their original pedestals. Their

32:23

ankles reunited with their feet hacked

32:25

off by looters. This

32:27

was at Sotheby's. This is at Christie's.

32:29

This is the Northern Simon Museum. Hab

32:32

Touche is the Secretary of State in

32:34

Cambodia's Ministry of Culture. He's working with

32:36

Brad Gordon to bring back the two

32:39

Coquet statues whose empty pedestals sit in

32:41

the museum. So do you know what

32:43

are supposed to be on this? We

32:45

know. You know what is supposed to be here and you know what is supposed

32:48

to be here. We know. Among nine sculptures we have

32:50

seven already. Only two missing. One

32:52

of those missing sculptures was discovered in

32:54

the glossy pages of Architectural Digest in

32:56

2008. This

32:59

mythical army commander and a stunning

33:01

number of other stolen works were

33:03

all together in the Palm Beach

33:05

mansion of the late billionaire George

33:07

Lindemann and his wife Freida. The

33:10

ancient treasures of Cambodia were sitting

33:12

in the living room of an incredibly

33:14

wealthy family in America in Florida on

33:17

display while people were having

33:19

cocktails. The one thing

33:22

that I'm always struck by is how many people

33:24

witnessed it and have been silent and continue to

33:26

be silent today. The Lindemann spent

33:28

an estimated $20 million building

33:30

the collection with the help of

33:32

Douglas Latchford. Freida

33:34

Lindemann didn't respond to our request for

33:36

an interview, but in Coquet

33:39

we showed her home to two former

33:41

looters. What do you think of this house?

33:43

It's a beautiful house, he said. It looks like

33:45

it belongs to a king. The

33:48

former looters pointed out another statue in

33:50

the Lindemann's living room they said they

33:52

helped steal, this reclining figure

33:54

of the Hindu god Vishnu. They

33:57

said it was dug out of the ground from this

33:59

exact spot. late 1995. You're

34:02

100 percent sure this was taken from

34:04

here by you and others in 1995?

34:07

Yeah. I'm sure. They

34:12

also identified a number of other statues

34:14

they say they stole that appear in

34:16

books published by Douglas Latchford. They

34:19

say they found this copper statue

34:21

using a metal detector. This is

34:23

Bury-Safidees? They

34:25

dug it out of the ground here in 1990. JP

34:29

Labatt, former special agent with Homeland

34:31

Security, found photos of the statue

34:33

covered in dirt on Douglas Latchford's

34:35

computer. Latchford sold it to the

34:37

Met in 1992. And

34:40

here it is, still on display. You're

34:43

able to get access to some of Latchford's

34:45

emails? Yes. And in there,

34:49

there are detailed

34:52

stories about the manner in which

34:54

he obtained pieces, the fact that

34:56

he was having them reassembled and

34:59

repaired, that dirt and crustaceans were being

35:01

cleaned off of them. They were freshly

35:04

dug out of the ground? These

35:06

were fresh pieces that he would describe in his

35:08

emails that needed a level of

35:11

restoration before he could even attempt

35:13

to sell them. Douglas

35:15

Latchford was indicted in 2019,

35:17

but died before he could be put on trial.

35:20

Federal prosecutors in New York, however,

35:22

continued tracing his looted artifacts. They

35:25

believe at least 18 of them have

35:27

landed up at the Met. I

35:30

am very involved in our work

35:32

on provenance. Andrea Baier is deputy

35:34

director for collections and administration at

35:36

the Met. The Met has said

35:38

that they will return objects based

35:40

upon rigorous evidentiary review. What

35:44

rigorous evidentiary review was

35:46

done before acquiring these pieces? Not enough.

35:50

It seems like the Met had a don't ask, don't tell policy. They

35:52

wanted to build up their collection and nobody

35:55

was really asking questions where it came from.

35:57

For people, many

35:59

people... In the art world, there

36:01

was a sense of protecting great objects

36:04

that stood a chance of being destroyed.

36:06

We no longer feel about it that

36:08

way. Under pressure ten

36:10

years ago, the Met did return two

36:12

statues called Kneeling Attendance, which had been

36:15

donated to them by Douglas Latchford. In

36:18

2013, when you returned the Kneeling

36:20

Attendance, did you investigate the other items that

36:22

Douglas Latchford had brought to this museum? I

36:24

don't know the answer to that question. I

36:27

can only pick up the story

36:29

several years later when Douglas Latchford

36:31

was indicted in 2019

36:33

when we immediately and proactively went to

36:36

the U.S. Attorney's Office and offered our

36:38

full cooperation. Well, I can pick up

36:40

the story actually in 2013 because

36:43

a spokesman for the Met said that no

36:45

special effort was going to be made to

36:47

check the provenances of any other Douglas Latchford

36:49

donated work. Why

36:52

wouldn't the Met want to look into everything

36:55

else that Douglas Latchford had brought to this

36:57

museum? I can't speculate about why

36:59

that didn't happen. But no one

37:01

investigated all the other items that Douglas Latchford gave?

37:05

Not to my knowledge. The

37:08

Met is not the only major museum

37:10

with looted Cambodian artifacts, but its collection

37:12

is one of the largest in the

37:14

world. In May, the museum

37:16

announced it would create a research team

37:19

to examine the provenance or acquisition history

37:21

of all its collections. It's

37:24

taken 10 years since Douglas Latchford was

37:26

shown to have given stolen

37:29

property to the Met for

37:32

the Met to set up

37:34

this provenance

37:36

team. Why has it taken 10 years?

37:39

It was a slow process. I'll grant

37:41

you that. It was a slow process.

37:44

But I think that the fact that we

37:46

are fully engaged now,

37:49

fully cooperative now is our

37:51

only answer to this really. It's a moment of

37:53

reckoning and we're ready to do what it takes

37:55

now to right whatever the wrong

37:57

is. Four years ago when Douglas Latchford was a

38:00

was indicted by prosecutors. Did

38:02

you set up a team to check

38:04

the provenance of every Latchford work? We

38:07

started, absolutely, we started to dig in

38:09

right then and there. It's not

38:11

easy. I mean, the fact that we don't

38:13

have much information has to do

38:15

with the fact that it's very hard to

38:17

find the information. There's enough information

38:19

for federal prosecutors to charge Douglas

38:21

Latchford with stealing and looting and

38:23

trafficking and smuggled items. How

38:26

much more evidence do you need? You

38:29

haven't returned any of the, any Douglas

38:31

Latchford related items since he's been indicted

38:33

and that was four years ago. We are on the verge of

38:36

returning a number of them. All of them? I

38:40

bet I can't say. That

38:43

interview took place in September. Two

38:45

days ago, federal prosecutors announced the

38:47

Met would return 13 antiquities that

38:50

came through Douglas Latchford. But

38:53

the Met is not returning this statute,

38:55

which was specifically cited in the indictment

38:57

of Latchford or this one, which Latchford

38:59

sold to the Met in 1992. Cambodia's

39:03

culture minister called the Met's announcement a

39:05

first step and says she looks forward

39:07

to the return of many more of

39:09

our treasures. Shouldn't museums have

39:12

thought twice about buying things that

39:14

were coming out of Cambodia

39:16

during the genocide and civil

39:18

war and decades of strife?

39:21

And this question that you raise

39:23

is really the crux of what

39:25

we're wrestling with. You are acquired

39:27

pieces from a known smuggler who

39:33

used a team of looters that the

39:35

government has interviewed and taken statements from.

39:38

They have emails which refute the

39:40

information in your own provenance at

39:42

the museum. You have items in

39:44

the museum which were named in

39:46

the indictment of Latchford that are

39:49

still there. And so these

39:51

pieces should go back. There's

39:53

no question. It's the right thing to do. This

39:56

past September, the Lindemann family whose collection

39:59

was showcased in. Architectural Digest

40:01

struck a deal with federal

40:03

authorities, voluntarily agreeing to return

40:06

33 stolen treasures. In

40:09

a statement to the New York Times, the

40:11

Lindemanns said, having purchased these items from dealers

40:13

that we assumed were reputable, we were saddened

40:15

to learn how they made their way to

40:17

the market in the United States. Why

40:20

did the Lindemanns agree to return their collection to

40:22

Cambodia? The pieces were dirty. I

40:25

think they finally came around to the fact

40:27

that Latchford was dirty.

40:29

Their collection was all looted pieces.

40:32

It was obvious, and so they

40:34

decided to surrender them. We

40:36

got a peek at what was the Lindemann

40:38

collection shortly after the deal was done. It

40:41

was sitting in a warehouse in upstate New York,

40:44

a nation's living gods and ancestors

40:46

waiting for a ride home. This

40:49

is like a whole wing of a museum. A

40:51

wing of a museum that only the

40:53

Lindemanns and their friends had access to.

40:56

If the Lindemanns hadn't published these in

40:58

Architectural Digest back in 2008... I

41:02

think there's a good chance we maybe never would

41:04

have found it. We always say the

41:06

gods want to come home. We feel like the gods

41:08

have spoken today and want to come home.

41:13

As one of the biggest crates

41:15

was being opened, waiting eagerly was

41:17

Mui Kung Tang and Tita Long,

41:19

two members of Brad Gordon's investigative

41:21

team. This would be their

41:23

first look at the mythical army commander

41:26

taken from Kokay. They were

41:28

likely the first Cambodians to set eyes

41:30

on it since Douglas Latchford stole it

41:32

more than 50 years ago.

41:34

Here! There's a look

41:36

in his eyes and on his face. It's much

41:38

bigger than I expected it to

41:41

be. It's present. It's extraordinary. I

41:43

did not expect to feel this way. Even

41:46

the commander seemed to be smiling. Then

41:51

it was time to see the rarest

41:53

piece in the Lindemanns collection. The

41:55

Cambodian team knelt in reverence as

41:57

the Hindu god Vishnu was uncracing.

42:00

Despite all the fuss, he

42:03

appeared unperturbed, reclining in

42:05

a cosmic slumber. When

42:08

this statue arrives in Cambodia, it will

42:10

be welcomed as one of the most

42:12

important ever returned. Once

42:22

again, this week, the last minute of

42:24

60 Minutes isn't really the last minute

42:26

of the broadcast. Stick around

42:28

after the break on this extended

42:31

edition as Bill Whittaker heads for

42:33

Morocco to explore a musical tradition

42:35

that is at once exotic and

42:37

ever so slightly familiar. The

42:40

mother of all bases, the gimbry

42:42

is made from wood, camel skin,

42:45

and strung with goat guts. Time

42:51

for Celia Vega. We'll be off to

42:53

the Gnauba Music Festival after this. Most

43:00

people have never heard of gnauba. Originally,

43:02

you weren't supposed to. For

43:05

centuries, the music was only played

43:07

in secret ceremonies by enslaved black

43:09

Africans brought to Morocco. Gnauba,

43:13

an indigenous word for black people, is

43:15

music born of the suffering of slavery.

43:18

For many African Americans, those rhythms

43:21

are familiar. What

43:23

we know is the American blues

43:25

evolved from this swirl of ancient

43:27

African and Islamic rituals. Centuries

43:30

later, gnauba is exploding

43:32

in popularity. Today,

43:35

hundreds of thousands of music fans

43:37

make the trek to the ground

43:39

zero of gnauba music, the annual

43:42

festival in Essawera on Morocco's Atlantic

43:44

coast. 480

43:47

musicians, 16 countries, 50 concerts.

43:51

How could we say no? As

43:57

the sun set over the Moroccan town of

43:59

Essawera, era, the huge crowd

44:01

grew more impatient. They'd been

44:04

waiting all day for Malam

44:06

Hamid Al-Qasri, a 21st century

44:08

ganawa superstar whose playlist dates

44:10

from the 11th century. Al-Qasri's

44:18

backup singers came on first. Wearing

44:20

the same ornate silk robes and

44:22

tasseled fezzes, the ganawans have worn

44:25

for hundreds of years. Finally,

44:28

the Malam, or master

44:30

musician, appeared and strapped

44:33

on his gimbri. The

44:40

mother of all bases, the gimbri is

44:42

made from wood, camel

44:44

skin, and strung with goat gut.

44:49

Al-Qasri started slowly. One

44:51

of Morocco's top Malams, Hamid

44:54

Al-Qasri, helped make ganawa a

44:56

contemporary force. Soon

44:59

he picked up the pace. The

45:06

Arabic lyrics date from the Middle Ages,

45:10

and this crowd knew every word.

45:19

The music built to a

45:21

crescendo. It

45:24

was a pyramid of sound. Driven

45:30

by the pulsating beat of the

45:32

crackers, metal castanets that are played

45:35

at astonishing speed. This

45:39

is the musical legacy of enslaved

45:41

black Africans brought to Morocco in

45:43

medieval times. But

45:49

the story doesn't end here. It's

45:53

music that traveled out into the Atlantic from the slave ports

45:56

of Africa and helped give rise

45:58

to the American blues. This

46:01

was a point of departure. It was

46:03

a place where dramatically black Americans

46:06

have a tie to that we don't really know about. Robert

46:09

Wisdom is an actor and a

46:11

ganala superfan. You may know

46:13

him from The Wire or the hit

46:15

show Barry, but today he was just

46:18

Bob. We met on

46:20

Esseware's Ramparts, built stone by stone

46:22

by enslaved Africans in the 1700s.

46:26

You can trace the blues to here? You

46:28

can trace the blues to the

46:31

black cultures from Senegal, Gambia,

46:34

Mali, who then

46:36

traveled north into Morocco,

46:38

the black races. When you come

46:40

here and hear the ganala, you

46:42

feel the same thing that we

46:44

feel with the old time blues.

46:46

You feel the blues. You feel the blues,

46:49

and that's what ganala does. It's

46:53

music that seems to rise from the

46:55

very stones of this ancient walled city.

46:59

Once a lucrative trading post, slave markets

47:02

were closed as recently as 1912. Today,

47:04

fishing boats

47:08

and tourists crowd the old harbor,

47:10

a postcard of carefree leisure. But

47:13

for actor Bob Wisdom, it's the

47:16

music of ganala, embedded in a

47:18

painful past that is the town's

47:20

true spirit. When

47:22

I come here, there's a

47:24

livingness about this music. It is

47:26

alive as well as ancient. And

47:30

so all of this music is

47:33

passed on orally, so it's changing all the time.

47:36

And it's the same with our blues. You

47:38

have called it a portal to the

47:40

past. What do you mean

47:42

by that? It gives us a reminder of identity,

47:45

who we are in the

47:48

largest sense, you know, the Africanness in

47:50

our blood. 500,000

48:02

fans, including Western musicians who want

48:04

to run at the Moroccan Blues.

48:12

The opening day parade was a

48:14

freewheeling Mardi Gras as more than

48:16

200 Genoa musicians wound

48:19

their way through the maze of streets. Wisdom greeted

48:21

old friends as we watched flying footwork

48:26

and acrobatics that could rival a

48:29

circus. On

48:31

stage, you could feel the shared

48:34

mojo between Moroccan and American blues.

48:37

We saw stylized line steps

48:40

that reminded us of Motown.

48:42

Deep knee drops that James

48:44

Brown would end in. American

48:46

percussionist Suleiman Hakeem

48:50

told us the similarities didn't end

48:52

there. He told us the gospel-like

48:54

call and response

48:58

so key to Genoa was the

49:00

same as he'd grown up with

49:02

in Los Angeles. In blues or funk

49:08

there is a call and

49:10

response. So automatically the first

49:12

time I heard Genoa was, I said,

49:15

wow, this sounds like music

49:18

from back home. And the

49:20

way that they start turning their heads,

49:22

it's just like the dances that was

49:24

done back in the 30s and 40s

49:26

when you see Duke Ellington Count Basie

49:28

and everybody was dancing, our parents and

49:30

grandparents were dancing. It's the

49:32

same thing. A musical

49:35

globetrotter, Suleiman Hakeem started his

49:37

career with legendary jazz

49:40

drummer and composer Max Roach,

49:42

but he told us the Genoa Malums could go

49:44

toe to toe with anyone.

49:47

What set the music apart was

49:49

the Castanets. You

49:51

only hear this in Morocco. They

49:54

have what we call a six-week feeling. As a

49:56

musician, you are too much to be a musician.

50:00

I'm just truly wiped away by this pulsate

50:02

and it just grabbed me like this. Well

50:04

you can see I'm a nervous wreck

50:06

about it. It's

50:09

just unbelievable and then it still does that

50:12

to you. It still does it and when

50:14

the temple starts to pick up. Take it

50:16

off. We'll take it off. The

50:21

Castanets or crackers are the heartbeat

50:23

of Gennell. Their

50:25

origin story passed down through generations

50:27

says that the crackers were forged

50:30

from the shackles of slaves. It's

50:34

impossible to know but many including

50:36

Hakim told us they were in

50:38

awe of the Gennawa for using

50:41

music to diffuse a painful past.

50:44

Crackers or the instruments like that but actually it was

50:47

this. Was used to

50:49

keep them under control. You've seen

50:51

those horrible pictures of people. Yeah

50:53

if you look at them there

50:55

are two pieces like this that

50:57

you click together and if you

51:00

take one of them and

51:02

put it here and here it's a

51:04

neck piece and they converted

51:07

them unbelievably

51:10

into an instrument. They turned

51:12

something horrible into something beautiful. Doesn't

51:16

that remind you of something? Hakim

51:22

told us the early American blues like

51:24

this recording from the 1930s is cut

51:26

from the

51:28

same cloth and the full-throated lyrics

51:31

of Gennawa songs searching for freedom

51:33

and hope would have resonated as

51:35

much in 11th century Morocco as

51:37

they did on the plantations of

51:39

the deep south. There's always been

51:42

a way to pass

51:44

a message and to be

51:46

able to express itself of

51:50

all the pain and

51:52

agony and glory that has happened in

51:54

the continental United States and the Gennawa

51:56

joined the same way. Today,

52:01

Gunawa has inspired Moroccan bands

52:03

who enjoy rock star status

52:05

that would have astounded their

52:07

musical ancestors. Gunawa

52:14

has become the top entertainment in

52:16

Morocco. At Sowera's annual

52:18

festival, it's locusts. Morocco

52:23

has long seduced Western musicians.

52:26

Jazz legend Randy Weston fell under Gunawa's

52:28

spell in the 1960s. This

52:35

rock and roll giant Robert Platt

52:37

was another convert. So

52:43

too was Carlos Santana. Cat

52:47

Stevens. Paul Simon. Frank

52:50

Zappa. All of whom made the trek

52:52

to Morocco. Even

52:55

Madonna paid tribute on her latest album.

53:03

But no musician is as celebrated in

53:05

Morocco as Jimi Hendrix. He

53:08

rocked up in Sowera in 1969, where the story goes. He

53:13

jammed with the Gunawa, fell in love

53:15

with a local beauty, and wrote the

53:17

hit, Castles Made of Sand. Decades

53:20

later, actor Bob Wisdom told us

53:23

the Hendrix legend lives on. In

53:51

fact, Hendrix didn't even have a guitar when he

53:53

showed up. And

53:55

Castles Made of Sand, sorry romance

53:58

fans, was recorded two days after

54:00

the tour. years earlier. But why spoil

54:02

the story? In the Medina's

54:04

winding alleys, it didn't take much to

54:07

find the spirit of Jimmy. Look

54:10

at that. Jimmy Hendrix. I

54:13

love you, darling. And

54:16

if you close your eyes, he's

54:18

here at his namesake cafe, blaring

54:20

out from fuzzy speakers that sound

54:22

like they too survived the 60s.

54:28

All tales from a short stay that

54:30

Gennawa will do that to. When

54:37

we come back, going into trance,

54:39

the mystical side of Gennawa. The

54:54

idea that music could be

54:56

a potent healing force is

54:58

now attracting serious scientific study

55:00

centuries after Morocco's Gennawa masters

55:02

turned to music as medicine.

55:05

Gennawa is the music of enslaved

55:07

black Africans who were marched across

55:09

the Sahara to Morocco centuries ago.

55:12

Often dubbed the Moroccan Blues,

55:14

the original music was sacred,

55:16

praising saints and spirits. Today,

55:18

Gennawa is enjoying a secular

55:21

boom. The Gennawa festival, held

55:23

every June in Essawira, now

55:25

attracts hundreds of thousands of fans.

55:28

And as Gennawa's popularity grows, so

55:30

too does the appetite for a

55:32

taste of the mystic. Away

55:39

from the mosh pit of the

55:41

main stage, in a quiet courtyard,

55:43

we'd come to hear one of

55:46

Morocco's best known Gennawa masters, or

55:48

malums, Moctar Gania. Tracing

55:52

its ancestors to Senegal, the Gania family

55:55

are as close to Essawira royalty as

55:57

you can get. With

56:03

his rich baritone voice, often compared

56:06

to B.B. King, we

56:08

watched as the malum strummed his way

56:10

through the ganala liturgy. As

56:15

always, the castanets drove the beat,

56:17

the repeated rhythms designed to send

56:20

people into a trance, a sort

56:22

of ecstasy, as a way of

56:24

communicating with the spirit. We

56:28

watched as one after another

56:30

the music moved the unlikeliest

56:32

of dancers. One swooped

56:35

like a bird, another

56:37

headbanged wildly. One

56:39

musician told us it was like a

56:41

passport to another dimension. This

56:44

was just a glimpse of the sacred. Traditional

56:47

ganala trance ceremonies are

56:49

usually private, elaborate, dusk-to-dawn

56:52

rituals. They're called leelas.

56:55

The malum acts as a musical

56:57

medium, calling on the spirits to

56:59

help cure various ills. It's

57:02

like church. It's a very spiritual

57:04

music where everyone's really part of

57:07

the experience. Saxophonist Jaleel Shaw

57:09

told us he'd never heard of

57:11

ganala music before he was invited

57:13

to the festival. But when

57:15

he saw people go into trance, it

57:17

reminded him of worshippers speaking in

57:20

tongues at the Pentecostal church he'd

57:22

grown up with in Philadelphia. You

57:24

see a connection? Absolutely. My

57:26

grandpa Pentecostal church is shouting, or what

57:28

they call catching the holy ghost. So

57:31

when I went to church, services

57:33

would go on and on and on as

57:36

someone called the holy ghost or someone called the spirit.

57:39

Actor Bob Wisdom told us he'd gone

57:41

into trance once and he'll never forget

57:43

it. The trance is a little scary,

57:46

you know, because you want to hold on. You don't

57:48

want to let go into it. It's the unknown. It's

57:51

enough that I don't understand the language, but to go

57:53

into another dimension of

57:55

possession is powerful, is very

57:58

powerful. Wisdom told us the

58:00

healing rituals of the Leelas were

58:02

like medicine, driven by the hypnotic

58:04

rhythms of the Castanets. Any

58:08

American-trained musician will say, oh my

58:10

God, because the time

58:13

is so irregular

58:15

to how we hear, but

58:17

it builds to hold this

58:20

spiritual force that they're generating in

58:22

the Leela to call the

58:24

spirits. That's when you get that little

58:27

shiver in the ceremony. I

58:29

guess there's a long way to say, I just like being

58:31

on the edge of time. That's

58:34

what this feels like to you. Yeah, it's like being

58:36

on the edge of time. So

58:42

while we were stuck in this dimension,

58:44

we decided to find out more about

58:46

the gimbri and the powerful medicine it

58:48

seems to unleash in the hands of

58:51

the right malam. We went

58:53

to see Moctar Ghania. Even

58:59

without his red and gold finally,

59:02

the malam welcomed us into his

59:04

house with a traditional prayer. Sukhad.

59:06

Pickle sukhad. This

59:09

is the gimbri. He told us this

59:11

is one of the oldest gimbri he

59:13

made, hand carved from

59:15

ebony and the skin from a camel's

59:17

neck. Turns

59:21

out the gimbri can also be a

59:23

drum, the malam's thumb, their

59:27

secret weapon. Ghania

59:30

told us it takes a

59:32

lifetime of study to become a malam. But

59:34

as ghanawa has evolved, so

59:36

too have its ancient instruments. The

59:43

malam electrified this gimbri, added

59:45

frets and decoration. There

59:54

it is. There it is, the blues. And

1:00:01

Ganiya's newest creation, a rhinestone-crusted

1:00:03

gimbal that belongs to the

1:00:05

21st century. This

1:00:08

one looks like a rock star's on it. Malam

1:00:21

Ganiya told us he can ring

1:00:24

more notes from this gimbal, but

1:00:26

the songs stay the same. How

1:00:30

do you feel about the

1:00:32

song? Some

1:00:43

of the songs you sing are centuries old. Why

1:00:48

do they still connect with young people today?

1:00:52

That's easy, he told us. The

1:00:55

song may be ancient, but it comes straight from

1:00:57

the heart. They are

1:00:59

very spiritual. Music is not

1:01:01

just written for the ear. In

1:01:04

Ganiya music, we start with the spirits. So

1:01:07

when you hear American artists like Louis

1:01:10

Armstrong or James Brown,

1:01:14

do you hear Ganiya in their

1:01:16

music? What? You must have heard of Ganiya.

1:01:19

James Brown is Ganiya, he told us,

1:01:21

and Ganiya is James Brown. We

1:01:26

headed back to the main stage. We

1:01:28

watched a young boy hone his dance

1:01:30

steps in a cloud of incense while

1:01:32

his Gnauan brothers looked on. Musician

1:01:35

Jalil Shah told us it was

1:01:37

like watching history sing and dance

1:01:39

across that stage. He

1:01:42

said he felt like an ambassador for

1:01:44

American music, and the debt owed to

1:01:46

the enslaved black Africans who first expressed

1:01:48

themselves in that music. Does

1:01:51

that history come into play when

1:01:53

you're listening to this music? Absolutely.

1:01:55

That history comes into play every

1:01:57

time I pick up my instrument.

1:02:00

Blues comes from the safe songs, the safe

1:02:02

songs come from... Comes from this? From this.

1:02:05

That's why I play. Do you make that

1:02:07

connection intellectually? Intellectually, spiritually,

1:02:09

I feel it, I'm

1:02:12

a descendant. That

1:02:14

night, as the sun sank into

1:02:16

the Atlantic, a different spirit surged

1:02:18

into the streets as the old

1:02:21

healing music evolved again. Ladies

1:02:28

Amazon Dafriq, a trio

1:02:30

of divas from Mali,

1:02:33

joined Asma Hamzoui, one of the

1:02:35

few female Malams in Morocco. Morocco

1:02:44

practices a moderate Islam, and it's

1:02:46

a sign of Gunala's resilience that

1:02:49

women are now being welcomed into

1:02:51

the master ranks. Without

1:02:58

music, there's no life. Music

1:03:02

is the heartbeat of existence.

1:03:05

You cannot point to me one society on

1:03:07

this planet that exists

1:03:09

without music. Musician

1:03:12

Suleiman Hakim told us every time

1:03:14

he played this festival, he discovered

1:03:16

something new in the Gunala playbook,

1:03:19

and he predicted it would influence

1:03:21

a new generation of musicians. It's

1:03:24

going to open up a whole other world, and

1:03:26

then you will see that in the next 10

1:03:29

years from now, 20 years, we'll

1:03:32

be here, Bill, don't worry about it. We'll

1:03:34

still be here. We'll still be here. Here it

1:03:36

is. It's

1:03:38

going to be outrageous. And

1:03:41

Gunala is stepping in. And

1:03:44

Gunala is there to stay.

1:03:50

The truth of those words was right in front

1:03:53

of us. Hobahobah Spirit, Morocco's

1:03:55

answer to the Rolling Stones,

1:03:58

they arrived on stage well to

1:04:00

midnight to a frenzy cloud pole-going

1:04:02

with a bandit. This

1:04:11

was music from the streets. The

1:04:13

songs often angry and disaffected. There

1:04:16

are some in the eye of

1:04:18

authority and young Moroccans loved them.

1:04:23

The band's leader, Reda Al Ali,

1:04:25

told us Gna'awah was their inspiration.

1:04:27

The castanets, a nod to

1:04:30

the past. Call

1:04:37

it African folk, he wrote. Call

1:04:39

it Gna'awah blues. It's

1:04:43

just rock and roll, sung

1:04:46

by a Moroccan soul. I'm

1:05:01

Cecilia Vega. We'll be back next week

1:05:03

with another edition of 60 Minutes.