Keeping African artifacts in Africa

A University of Calgary researcher has established the first museum of its kind in Mozambique as a way to help stop the excavation and permanent removal of artifacts from history-rich communities in Africa while engaging the local population in Western and African academic research—two initiatives that should have started long ago, according to U of C archaeologist Julio Mercader and Arianna Fogelman, a Boston University PhD student.

Mercader was inspired to construct the museum, only the second museum in the country’s province of Niassa, after finding a cave located up a steep cliff overlooking Lake Niassa, which contained 1,000-year-old ritual bowls. The bowls were used as ancestral offerings when boys were taken to the cave for circumcision rituals.

“When we saw the wealth of offerings in the cave I thought it was important to create one heritage centre that preserves and promotes local heritage in this part of Mozambique,” said Mercader, an archaeologist at the U of C who has been excavating artifacts in Mozambique since 2003.

“The museum is more than just a repository of ancient artifacts. It’s an interactive centre that makes learning about ancient and modern cultural heritage a part of everyday life,” said Mercader, who chose to house the museum—named Museu Local, meaning “local museum” in Portuguese—in a restored historical building; the first schoolhouse in the district of Lago, a place that has historic meaning for the local population.

More local content for the museum was produced in the summer of 2007 when Mercader’s team travelled to 25 villages near the museum and digitally recorded the oral traditions—personal histories, migration narratives, folktales, songs, etc.—of more than 200 people. The resultant 66 hours of sound and video files are archived and accessible to researchers and visitors.

“My greatest accomplishment has been collecting oral histories from a 150-kilometre stretch of the lake coast,” said Fogelman, who is working towards a PhD in socio-cultural anthropology. “Seeing the looks on people's faces when their stories and songs were played back and being able to share the recordings of one population with another, was extremely gratifying.”

archaeologist Julio Mercader and Mozambican student Mussa Raja

Apart from contributing to the communities cultural heritage, Mercader has made an impact at a socioeconomic level. For more than five years, Mercader has provided Mozambicans with field opportunities as well as laboratory training and formal education in his projects. One example of this is the on-going laboratory training of Mozambican student Mussa Raja, who has been training at a school in Mozambique and at the U of C. Raja plans to pursue a Maste'rs degree in archaeology at the U of C.

“Considering the lack of expert personnel in Mozambique in the field of Stone Age archaeology, this project contributes to fill this gap,” said Raja, who has contributed to the project as an archaeological field assistant and through development work with local communities. “The type of training I’m receiving is essential for the future practice of African archaeology by African scientists.”

Other socio-economic contributions aimed to alleviate some of the extreme poverty that exists in the communities in which Mercader and his team operate include employing local personnel (the security guard and museum manager both live in Niassa) and helping to build local schools and water pumps.

Mercader collaborated with the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and Universidade Pedagógica, in Mozambique, for this project. The U.S. government has given $35,000 to support this project through the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation, operated out of the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC and separate funding at the U.S. Embassy in Mozambique.

Other supporters and funders include the Mozambique Ministry of Education and Culture; the Smithsonian Institution; the Canada Research Chairs Program; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Committee; Canada Foundation for Innovation; Eduardo Mondlane University; Archaelogy and Anthropology Department; Projecto Lipilichi Wilderness; government and authorities of Niassa; and Direccao Nacional do Patrimonio Cultural e Monumentos.

Contact: Meghan Sired mssired@ucalgary.ca 403-220-4756 University of Calgary