Introduction to cultural heritage management

CULTURE ANDCULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

Definition of Culture

Culture is a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of society or social group. It encompasses, in addition to art and literature, learned experiences, knowledge systems, traditions and beliefs. Peterson (1979) outlines that Culture mainly includes four aspects;Norms, Values, Beliefs and Expressive symbols.

Norms

The way people behave in a given society

Values

What they hold dear,

Beliefs

How the people think about how the universe operates

Expressive symbols

These are representations of social norms, values and beliefs. For example, an object or cultural heritage site can represent shared significance embodied in material form. This object or site may tell a story about a people’s way of life, their history, values, beliefs and norms.

Whilst social groups co-exist with other groups (sharing the same environments and experiences), the most dominant of the identity markers are preserved whilst some minor ones are changed or abandoned altogether. As such, Cultural heritage can never be stagnant but changes both in time and space. What one or a succession of generations of the same community may have regarded and maintained, may be dropped or dishonored by its own successive generations but however, the most important factors about a culture are however always preserved such as language, legends etc. The vocation of managing this heritage is known as Cultural heritage management and is a branch of Cultural Resource Management

KEY TERMS

Culture a set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterize an organization or group/community’ and existing at all levels of a society.

Cultural Heritage the inheritance of physical artifacts and intangible attributes which a social group obtains from previous generations, maintains them in the present and bestows for the benefit of future generations.

Heritage this refers to all the attributes that generation adopt from preceding generations which provide evidence past human activity. What you get

Cultural Significance this refers to the ascribed values/perceptions that different groups have on material culture. These could be aesthetic, historic, scientific, social/spiritual value of past, present and future generations.

Cultural Landscape this refers to those natural environments that have been fashioned by man as a member of a cultural group. Examples are Ziwa cultural landscape, Matopo Cultural Landscape etc.

Artifact any tool fashioned and used by man which gives information about the culture that shaped it, its creator and its users.

Ecofacts refers to natural materials that have been used by humans as part of their culture, for example; animal bones, seeds, fruits shells, pollen etc.

Manuports these are natural objects which have been removed from their original context by human agency but otherwise remain unmodified. Example; rounded stone or shells moved from coastal or riverine areas

Archaeology is the study of past human societies through systematic recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data which they left behind. This would include artifacts, architecture, Ecofacts, cultural landscapes

Ethnography a research strategy employed for getting empirical information on human societies/cultures and often collected through participant observation, interviews and questionnaires.

Ethno archaeology is the archaeological study of living people in order to improve analogs which can be used to interpret archaeological findings.

Site a place in which evidence of past societal activity is preserved and represents part of the archaeological record

Monument refers to a physical site that has evidence of human habitation of use for its socio-economic or political benefit. It is not necessarily a built site but retains evidence through artifacts

Preservation maintaining a structure in its existing state and preventing further deterioration

Restoration refers to the returning of a structure to a known earlier state by repair of existing fabric without the introduction of new materials.

Reconstruction refers to the returning of a structure to a known earlier state by introduction on new material into any remaining fabric.

Taboos Sacred rules (dos and don’ts) that control social behavior of members of the community in their interaction with important aspects of their culture. They are always followed by a predefined punishment from the gods if one breaks them.

Myths imaginary stories reinforced through acts such as stories, songs, and poems etc which are supposed to work hand in hand with taboos to control behavior of community members.

Relics deposit, object or material evidence of human past.

Antique any movable object (not including a monument or relic) of aesthetic, historical, archaeological or scientific value or interest, the whole or part or valuable portion of it which has been in Southern Africa for more than a century.

National Monument any natural or human modified area or land having a distinct or beautiful scenery or geological formation with rare or distinct flora and fauna or containing objects of archaeological, historic, sacred, aesthetic, religious or scientific value or interest eg buildings, avenue of trees, waterfall, grotto etc.

Relationship between Culture and Heritage

Cultural heritage cannot be conserved or managed without recognizing how human cultures have influenced and in some cases shaped existence of such sites. Cleere (1989) says an awareness of the past is a characteristic attribute of human beings. Myth and history intermingle to create a tradition i.e. a living reality which is vital in creating social awareness and cohesion. The past is a living component of present day life and this identity of past and present is often associated with specific locations and structures

Sanoja and Vargas (1989) say cultural resources are concerned with materials resulting from human activity in the past and present. The creation of cultural heritage is the phenomena essential for all people. Child (1981) notes that a natural environment may or may not have been modified by human activity but whatever the case, it is used and conceived according to the values of the culture for which it forms a material base. In other words culture heritage stands as evidence of human activity which was influenced by the culture-values, beliefs of a social group. The survival of all or part of natural and cultural environments acts as a guide to the preservation of tangible cultural heritage. This is because these contribute towards the identity of nations, people and local communities.

VALUE OF CULTURE

• It defines actions, events and seasons on which traditional rituals are done at heritage sites so as to maintain the sanctity of spiritual sites

• It furnishes us with the language, taboos, customs, myths and legends crucial in protection of heritage sites.

• It helps us make sound interpretation and presentation of heritage sites through ethnographic research.

• It stands as evidence of the intangible beliefs conferred on material objects, monuments, structures, places and landscapes.

• Culture and heritage are products of individual or collective memories of a social group hence we can understand these groups through maintenance of culture.

Background to Heritage Management in Africa and Zimbabwe

National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) bear the national mandate to protect and present cultural heritage in Zimbabwe. That is not to say other countries do not have similar institutions. In countries that include Kenya, Zambia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, where there was a large European settler population, heritage management developed as a specialized discipline for a selected few and as a result it was viewed as a highly academic subject never meant for popular consumption. The colonization of countries in Southern Africa by Britain resulted in local communities being uniformly alienated from their cultural heritage. The resultant legislations and administrative structures that encompassed some aspects of culture and heritage within their mandates systematically prohibited local communities from accessing this heritage. As such, the conduction of invaluable exercises such as cultural rituals was banned from taking place at such identified places. In some cases, entire communities were relocated from their ancestral landsas a means to establish barriers between the people and their cultural heritage.

Cleere (1989) refers to this as a period of cultural discontinuity. He argues that few, if any countries can claim to have had an unbroken cultural continuity of any kind. Herrmann (1989) observes that during the advent of bourgeoisie-capitalist society in Europe, monuments were destroyed wherever they stood in the way of the capitalist economy or where profit was to be gained. The destruction of monuments later became a world problem.

In their colonies, the colonial powers often put a stop to the traditional utilisation and maintenance of the material cultural heritage thereby suppressing the indigenous people’s sense of identity.

Pwiti and Ndoro (1999) noted that from 1890, when Zimbabwe was colonized, the colonial system tried all possible ways to tread upon the identity of indigenous people. The intolerance of colonialists to African virtues resulted in an end in some communities to traditional practices and values. The Zimbabwean population was displaced as a result of land policies like the Land apportionment Act of 1930 and the Land Tenure Act of 1969. Shrines located in areas occupied by the settlers were thus left unattended since the settlers instigated property rights could not allow entry into areas now under private ownership. Ndoro (2008) further argues that the pioneering legislation was not founded on an objective approach to preserve the diverse African cultural landscape but rather on protecting a few sites which served the interest of white settlers eg Great Zimbabwe. The period 1890-1930 saw the propagation of the Great Zimbabawe Mystery, a situation whereby the settlers used this site to support their occupation of Zimbabwe. Although the issue was brought to rest after the work of Getrude Caton-Thompson, African values and virtues were hardly considered as important thereon.

Post-colonial period has hardly changed the system of management of cultural heritage in Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole. In Zimbabwe, the bulk of the heritage still concerns archaeological sites rather than intangible heritage. Whilst efforts to include the local communities in the managementof this diverse cultural heritage, the weak points to the noble gesture has been the heritage management legislations. Whilst other countries have made commendable strides, eg the Royal Palaces of Abomey in Benin which are managed by the local communities with minimum intervention from the government. Even the heritage ensemble on national and World Heritage List still reflects an imbalance representation of heritage sites.

How is culture displayed?

Tangible heritage

Thisrefers to those materials that one can touch and see. This is because they are enshrined in some physical form which everybody could voluntarily confirm on. Such materials would include buildings, architectural designs, historic places, monuments,ecofacts, artifacts, forests

Intangible heritage

This refers to those aspects of a culture which cannot be touched or stored within a museum environment but can only be observed and protected through reinterpretation by the people who observe them such as sacred values, myths and taboos. These exist in the mindset of the community that recognizes them as well as of heritage managers who try to maintain these cultures markers.Whilst physical attributes of a culture can be easily managed (despite differences encountered here and there) the management of intangible heritage is most difficult. How would you manage what you cannot see or explain? Although intangible heritage is deemed more challenging to manage, it still remains crucial to the identity of social groups hence has to be managed.

Customary Laws and Practices

Most African countries have traditional customary mechanisms and practices which operated before the advent of colonialism and have continued to operate with varying degrees of effectiveness. These include taboos, avoidances and practices put in place by the local communities for the protection of sacred heritage places such as grooves, graves, streams, forests, rivers, shrines, temples, palaces, etc. These customary mechanisms can be regarded as unwritten constitutions or laws that operate on the basis of support and respect they command from community members.

Oaths

An oath can be defined as a solemn pact with the supernatural powers used to protect cultural property such as crops, trees, wells, etc. In such cases, the powerful spirits, both evil and good, are enjoined to protect the site and certain objects are put in place to signify this. So great is the fear of the consequences of breaking the spell, thus obedience to orders.

Taboos

In Africa all nature is seen in religious terms. There are food and behaviour taboos directly linked with plants and animals. Food taboos are closely linked to totemism whereby one is not allowed to eat the object or animal they totemise. This idea is that the totemised plant or animal is not disturbed by a certain ethnic group in the natural environment. Behaviour taboos are based on avoiding certain behaviour or practices e.g killing pythons which might result in drought or lions which are mhondoro mediums. The same goes to the cutting of certain fruit trees such as muzhanje which provided wild fruits in the case of a drought.

Myths and Legends

In Africa how the universe, natural systems and societies is mainly passed on by word of mouth. Myths and legends were one of the first ways that people related to their natural surroundings. An African mythology grew up based on parables common metaphors which related to the various rules and kinds of access to natural heritage resources.

Development of Cultural Heritage

Whilst what we can argue that cultural heritage was not created as such in the beginning, different communities have related differently towards it. Regardless of location of the globe, descendant communities have at one time or another placed value of the memories of their forefathers and in the process, devised ways and means to protect this memory and pass it to future generations. Whilst European civilizationsmostly placed aesthetic and historical values on Greek and Roman heritage (because these civilizations at one time or another occupied the breadth and depth of this continent), the African groups placed theirs not only on physical artifacts, but also on associated intangible materials.

Though not recognized as the onset of development of the discipline, the experiences and decisions made then all set the stage for cultural resource management as we know it today. The only difference between then and now is that in modern times, responsible authorities have standardized and institutionalized the protection of the heritage whilst in past eras; the protection of cultural property was more individualized and not standardized in terms of approach. Some of the ground breaking achievements include;

1462 Pope Pius ii passed a law that protected all Papal buildings. Back in the history of the Roman Empire, the church (Catholic) held a firm grip on the politics of the empire and as such, protecting these buildings was a way of instilling the factor of a status quo.

1471 Pope Sixtusiv forbids the exportation of stone work from the roman empire as the Papacy rebuilt the ruined Rome. The Roman Empire and Rome itself had been destroyed as a result of an economic decline which had also seen the relocation of the church to Avignon. With its return in 1420, the Papacy then under Pope Martin v, it had the aim of rebuilding the once international centre of commerce.Pope Sixtus iv’s achievements included the establishment of the Sistine Chapel (the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican where great artists such as Michelangelo and Botticelli worked on) and the Vatican Archives (containing works of influential people from across the globe)

1666 The Swedish Royal family announces a proclamation to protect all monuments and objects of antiquity which are and automatically declared as state property. In addition, the Absala University is established as a research centre into the Swedish past.

1734 The Society of Dilettanti (amateurs) of London is formed. It was also known as the Society of Gentlemen, composed of men whose common interest were objects of antiquity and associated Greek and Roman art. They had all met once in Rome on their individuals quests in 1732 and the club’s nominal qualification was ‘...having been to Italy…’. The society thus began studying and documenting European history, later on the Egyptian history and the Middle East civilizations.

1798 The plundering of the Egyptian Pyramids by Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies. They pilfered materials were all destined for European museums until Napoleon proclaimed himself as the Monuments Conservator of all Egypt. This was a lesson for all as this led to misuse of cultural property for personal gain. He acquired cultural materials for French museums at the expense of the Egyptians themselves.

1800s The rise of nationalism in Europe in the 1800s for example Greece getting independence from Turkey in 1827. The newly independent states used cultural property to set their identities. Athens was just a village then but it had the Parthenon and the associations with the glories of Greek’spast including legends such as King Zeus, Hercules etc hence it was chosen as the site for the capital of the new Greece.

Initial separation from Swedenof Norway in 1814 set it on a quest of creating an individual identityseparate from its former colonizer’s. It centered on cultural property as a point of departures. This yearning also even concerned the use of a new currency by Norway. For example, two young Norwegians published folk stories they had picked up in the countryside as they moved around and this created a consciousness in Oslo. The stories revealed a character of Norwegians of originality, fantasy and beauty hence identifying the Norwegians as a proud nation.

The National Archaeological Museum in Greece was established in 1844 and concepts of cultural heritage management were central. It set out to establish systematic archaeological research into Greek history as well as history of the area.

19^th Century End of this century saw John Ruskin (1819-1900), an English art critic and social thinker, develops the philosophy of heritage stewardship/custodianship. Such a philosophy advocated for heritage as assets for future generations. He argued that in that respect, there was supposed to be no intervention at respective sites. As such, he was arguing that the best form to pass on heritage into the future was in its most original form. He argued that ‘…Age of a building was its greatest glory…’

His views concerning the two practices; Conservation and Restoration of historic buildings are summarized in his the article; THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE where he writes;

‘Neither by the public, nor by those who have the care of public monuments, is the true meaning of the word restoration understood. It means the most total destruction which a building can suffer; a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered, destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed. Do not let ourselves be deceived in this important matter; it is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture.’

This detestation to restoration is in marked contrast to Viollet –le-Duc, who wrote that restoration is a ‘means to reestablish (a building) to a finished state, which may in fact never have actually existed at any given time’

Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879), a French architect, was famous for his restoration of buildings such as the Notre Dame de Paris.His architectural theory was largely based on finding the ideal forms for specific materials and using these to create buildings. He argued that these materials should be used ‘honestly’. The term ‘honestly’ can be taken to mean the use the most suitable materials where they are needed. The prominent building material of his time was stone hence he advocated that where stone was the ideal material to obtain the realistic shape, then metal could not be used then in that instance.

Though Viollet le-Duc appreciated art, he differed from John Ruskin in the fact that, in his ‘restorations’ he also combined historical fact (such as using the original buildings material) with ‘creative modifications such as use of contemporary building materials such as cast iron where fit’ hence, his final products had distortions of originality. In response to le-Duc’ theory and practice on historic preservation, Ruskin retorted that ‘it is a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered; a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed’.

The debate between the perspectives of the two theorists is still being debated today. With Ruskin, he argued forfaithfulness in pursuing a status quo (originality). The argument now is, the past can never be faithfully recreated and leaving a building to deteriorate so that we are faithful (as advocated by Ruskin) is not fair to the history itself. In removing layers of history from a building, information and age value are also removed which can never be recovered but on the other hand, adding layers of history (as advocated for by Viollet le-Duc) allows current viewers to share a greater experience of the history of the building.

1926 The League of Nations sets up the International Museums Office to deal with cultural property

1931 A congress in Athens is held which focused on restoration of cultural property. The resolutions were based on the Charter of Athens although the congress mostly composed of specialists

United Nations comes into existence replacing the League of Nations and subsequently, UNESCO was launched to spearhead the protection of cultural property on the global scale and for member countries.

Catastrophe of the World Wars 1 and 2 also changed the perspectives of heritage value. A lot of cultural property was targeted and destroyed during these wars resulting in UN establishing theBlue Flag concept to protect cultural property in cases of armed conflict.

The center of focus concerning Zimbabwean archaeology was mostly on the Great Zimbabwe and Rock art and more specifically on the Rock Art of the Matopos. This has resulted in a lot of publications concerning the subjects though at the expense of minority cultural groups. Even the institutions such as museums have shown thediscrepancy and colonial bias towards the Shona culture and little on the other groups such as the Ndebele, the BaTonga amongst others.

1960s-70 UNESCO and Cultural Heritage Management

1980s Until this time, archaeologists in South Africa had been keener on the long history of modern human development and pre-colonial periods.

BASIS OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

The bulk of the cultural heritage in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa relates to Archaeological materials. Archaeological research in this part of Africa has contributed to the location of the forms of cultural heritage that NMMZ manages. As a result, an understanding of the Archaeological timeframes applicable to this part of the continent can help give value to the heritage that we have come to be associated with the most.