By Arc. Kamndu Ibrahim Bitrus and Mr Felix Sofah, Institute of Archaeology and Museum Studies, Jos.
Introduction
This year’s theme for celebration of international Day for Monuments and sites entitled “Complex Past: Diverse Future” emphasizes the need to recognize the multiple significance and complex character of our cultural heritage in order to be a beacon for a complex, diverse and promising future based on the timeless values of the past.
It is our belief that the difficulties of today can as a whole be faced with more power and confidence, through the knowledge of the past and the heritage of human kind.
The changing fortunes and popularity of historical sites indicates that no specific place is inherently valuable as heritage. There therefore no heritage Parsee and all heritages is ultimately intangible. What makes sites valuable are the contemporary cultural interpretations.
History is complex and can be viewed from many perspectives. It is high time that institutionalized cultural heritage practice seeks approaches to include multiple perspectives into heritage narratives which are all too often single sided. This includes critical reflections on hegemonic history, distorted myths and glorification and their forms of representation in material and immaterial heritage.
Concept of Heritage
Culture represent a collection of attitudes, values, beliefs and behavioral scripts that are generally agreed upon a group of individuals, it can include everything from language, marriage practice and governmental configurations, to defining family, greeting behaviors, housing structures and death rituals, to name a few. A primary role of a culture is to provide a consistent and stable environment or framework whose goal is to ensure or at the very least, enhance the survival of the group. At broadest level, Culture represent mainstream tendencies, but can be ‘‘Culture within a culture.’’
The 1972 world Heritage convention which was adopted at the general conference of UNESCO is primarily the UNESCO convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and Natural Heritage. The convention provides legal framework for enabling signatory countries (State Parties) to collaborate in selection and protection of Natural or cultural properties.
This convention is the focal document of the world Heritage sites and world heritage list kept by the World Heritage Centre in Paris through this convention. Nations of the World who are signatories to the convention have agreed to take inventory, recognize and protect unique and irreplaceable monuments, group of buildings, sites and natural properties of outstanding universal value within their region.
The UNESCO convention addresses Heritage as both Cultural and Natural Heritage that are priceless and irreplaceable possession not only of each Nation but also a mankind as a whole and Heritage of the people of the world.
It further enumerated that Heritage must have exceptional qualities considered to be of outstanding Universal Value and a such worthy of special protection against danger and threats. From this point of view of world Heritage, Heritage is therefore regarded as ‘‘A gift from the past to the future, our legacy from the past, what we live with today and what we pass on the future generation.’’
Cultural Heritage is therefore regarded as collective endowment of human creative or unique activities over span of time and within a cultural area which bear exceptional testimonies to their culture, tradition, religion and beliefs. These properties form the basis of their living and existence which are transferred directly or indirectly from generation to generation thereby constituting their cultural identity. Cultural heritage will therefore be an embodiment of aggregates of Historical buildings, monuments, archaeological sites technological/Sculptural works, paintings, inscriptions, cave, groves, Shrines, Temples, Palaces, Landscapes Designs to mention a few.
Conversely Natural Heritage refers to both animate and inanimate properties that have manifested through the activities or interaction of man in his environment. It is shortly described as man and Environment. Some of these properties are physical and biological formation such as Mountains, Lakes, Rivers, Forests, and Habitats of species of plants and Animals like Zoological Gardens, Parks, resources, wetlands, sanctuaries and others.
Apart from the broad division of Heritage into cultural and Natural, it can further be divided into Tangible and intangible forms, movable and immovable aspects. Tangible Heritage is the physical forms of features that are physically available or seen within the cultural area or landscape. They are either immovable or restricted within the area or movable and kept in custody in our museums, palaces or other public or private areas with adequate security and protection. They are informs of materials of Archaeology, arts, architecture, landscape or other material culture.
Intangible heritage are functions or activities that are performed within the context of cultural heritage. They comprise of language, songs, music, dances, theatrical attitudes, festivals worships and spiritualism, motifs and decorations, gestures, practice, customs beliefs and religion or other form of mediation. They also include our cultural expression, life cycles celebrations, original knowledge systems and creativity.
Heritage is often assumed to be, as stated by scholars, as’ the uncontested residue of static traditions’, but it can be easily noticed that the term ‘heritage’ is commonly used by people to name their ancestors’ remains that link them to their past, and offer them supporting memories and meanings that, normally, provide them with a source of pride and belonging; as throughout history, not only had people always been eager to learn from their ancestors’ experiences for achieving, but they also treasured material remains of the past for constructing their own identities.
Referring to literatures concerning ‘cultural heritage’ it is realized that there are generally two different concepts of ‘heritage’, which might have produced two different approaches for dealing with heritage. The first concept, currently the most consumed as a heritage definition, understands heritage as the remains from the past, which usually celebrate the past glories; including different aspects of power and dominance of particular civilizations among, or compared to, their peers.
On the other hand, starting from the last two decades of the twentieth century, and remarkably noticed since the beginning of the twenty first century, there has been growing efforts spent on spreading the second concept of heritage; as a practice of meaning and an identity-making tool that uses memories from the past, and provides routes for new generations to discover fresh ideas about their inherited traditions and values through interacting with physical remains from the past. This concept defines ‘heritage’ as activities, or understanding, that is discursively constructed in the present, which might be different from the remains themselves, but very connected and linked to them at the same time. This notion of heritage is demonstrated by defining heritage as “a process in the present allows for a more dynamic understanding of cultural production,” but it should be also mentioned that the continuous process of ‘heritage’ construction is itself a product of the cultural process that the heritage practices seek to develop and maintain.
In fact, most of the physical remains that exist today are ‘antiquities’, which are categorized and valued according to their archaeological values; these antiquities have usually been preserved and protected ‘from people’ either partially, by keeping them in open and/or closed museums, or by completely banning them away from public; either ways, no interaction is allowed between people and historic remains, which, by time, created a gap between societies and their history, and thus their heritage practices. The problem of heritage, as being practices and activities, is that a link should be discovered and fostered between the physical remains and the understanding of their meanings, which requires the engagement of people in such process of understanding, as well as requiring the existence of proper landscapes that facilitates such process.
Although both the physical ‘things’ and the non-material values of human beings are so connected in a very complex and interactive way, it can be assumed that due to the two heritage concepts mentioned above, and because of current heritage conservation practices as well, a conflict has been brought to attention; that of cultural heritage being separated, and thus dealt with accordingly, into ‘tangible’ remains, of which clear conservation, protection, and safeguarding regulations have been set up; and ‘intangible’ meanings, values, memories, feelings, and activities that exist whether accompanying historic monuments or not. This separation has been so obvious to the extent that scholars believes that there is a decided tendency, within the international classification of heritage, to define heritage, and then intangible heritage, as two separate and different things. This new understanding of heritage indicates that historic buildings are heritage only when they are well understood by people, in a way that makes their meanings a part of their societies’ life, otherwise, historic buildings are just antiquities that are maintained and preserved as pieces of arts, which might make the place more beautiful, but not consequently meaningful.
The debate over heritage ownership was also highlighted as part of a conflict; as some tangible heritage, which might seem belonging to an area, go back to thousands years ago, which sure have belonged to different people from non-existing civilizations that happened to occupy the same lands of now-a-day’s area. So, this raises a question whether it is enough to own them? On the other hand, the problem of intangible heritage ownership seems much easier than that of the tangibles; this might simply have been the case because intangible heritage is transferred by people, individuals and groups through time and from one generation to another, and thus own by them, not by countries, and thus lacks the political influences that guide, to a great extent, the tangible heritage practices.
A belief that cultural heritage is the ‘achievements’ of human civilizations that need to be documented and safeguarded over time , has been dominating the ‘Euro-centric guard’ of heritage conservation practice throughout the twentieth-century. This lead to greater emphasize on evacuating many historic contexts from their cultural heritage content; for the sake of their physical preservation. Such approach put more challenges in front of heritage sites’ managers, as well as architects, urban designers, and landscape architects who work on developing heritage sites; as this requires a thorough understanding of how heritage functions, as well as deep understanding of how people experience their heritage. As community members usually share history, habits, language, traditions, knowledge, customs, ceremonies, cultural expressions, and other social and cultural practices, they also transfer their cultural characteristics from place to place, and mix it with others, to produce different/new cultures.
Conservation of Monuments
Plateau State is endowed with a lot of historical and Archaeological Sites. The Scenery of the State is beautiful, coupled with the climatic weather makes it a heaven for tourist. Nigeria has many monuments and historical sites, but out of the sixty seven National Monuments including world Heritage sites, Plateau State has three namely, Stone Causeway Butura, Stone Causeway Tadin and Stone Causeway Forof all in Bokkos Local Government of the State.
There are also one hundred proposed monument on the tentative list, plateau State host four viz -Sha Abundant Settlement/Iron smelting site in Bokkos Local Government Area, Olingdan Oron smelting site, Bassa Local Government Area, Langalanga food Bridge Jos University in Jos North Local Government Area and Mai Idontoro Ache ulian site in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area.
Bokkos being the headquarters of Bokkos Local Government are of Plateau State is about 45 km from the state capital Jos. The three aforementioned declared National Monument and one proposed monuments are all in Bokkos Local Government Area. This goes to say Bokkos and its people have a lot to offer to the world in term of tourism it properly harnessed. Let’s look at the three monuments closely.
Butura Stone Causeway (Tash) The Stone causeway was declared as National Monuments on February 16th, 1956 with an area of land including the stream within a radius of 91.4m form the centre of the cause way. The origin of monument is not known or obscure but evidence suggests that it was built before the arrival of Ron tribe in Butura, a date considered to be between 200 to 250 years ago. Its original dimension is 10m long, 1.2m wide and 1.2m high over the Butura River. The present inhabitants have a tradition that these structures were in existence when their ancestors came in to the country.
Apart from the three bridges there are other thirty. The remains of some of the thirty bridges or causeways could be still seen in 1956 including one example of high level bridge. Butura stone causeway is in dear need of restoration because it collapsed some years age.
Stone causeway in Tadin is also one of the three declared monuments in Plateau State, it was declared a National Monument same day with Butura and Foruf stone causeways. The differences between Butura stone causeways and that of Tadin isthe dimensions and the shape or the design of the bridge. Stone causeway Tadi (Tahs ) is a stone built causeway measuring 12m long, 1.5 m wide and 1.8m height at its middle. It has an ‘S’ shaped serpentine sign and its spans the stream. The Tash is in fair condition of conservation.
Stone causeway in Forof was also declared on 16th February, 1956 together with land and stream within a radius of 91.4 m form the center of the cause way. Visit to the site shows that the cause way was either washed away by flood or carted away by the farmers. It probable mansions are 15m in length,21m wide and 2.5m high. The river beds are used for irrigation farming. There is dear need for total reconstruction of the monument.
Sha Abundant settlement/Iron smelting site as stated above in one of the proposed monuments and it goes to say much about the people of Bokkos in terms of Iron technology. If finally declared as national monument, it will increase tourist destinations in Bokkos, making it the only Local Government in Plateau State that has four monuments.
Conservation implies keeping in safety or preserving the existing state of a Heritage (resources) form destruction or change, i.e. the action taken to prevent delay and to prolong life of the object or monuments. General concept of conservation implies various types of treatments aimed at safeguarding buildings, sites, or historic towns etc. These include restoration, repair, consolidation, reinforcement etc. the primary of conservation is to preserve the authenticity (Originate) and integrity of the cultural heritage.
From the foregoing it is very important to note that conservation include both of tangible and intangible Heritage. It is very important for interest group to collaborate with the museums in achieving community participation in the conservation of irreplaceable Heritage.
Towards diverse future
Values associated with heritage are multiple at any given moment. There have been debate over values based agenda, questioning the principle of universal values, and the potentiality for conflicting perspectives are well known.
Meanwhile the language to describe society has moved from multiculturalism towards integration. This calls for the fact that: The presence of multiple values and its complexity in post-modern society is indisputable; responding to values as they shift in four dimensions is a major challenge; As all heritage is someone’s heritage, it potentially excludes someone else’s, leading to contested values; There is a risk of disinheritance from heritage creation and given its relationship to belonging and identity (and associated as perceived links to social cohesion) addressing this remains a priority; Government advocates the transformative qualities of culture, heritage, and the arts, particularly in addressing inequalities (especially social and health related.
The concept of heritage as ‘the remains of the past’ is still dominating the public ‘common sense’, a growing understanding of the role of heritage in present life has started to rise on the academic level that considers ‘cultural heritage’, in particular, as the cultural activities taking place in the present time, affected by, and learning from, inherited values that are represented in both tangible and intangible forms. This perception encourages new approaches of heritage conservation and heritage sites’ management processes to search for more innovative approaches, providing techniques of heritage investigation and analysis that allow the maintenance of both tangible and intangible heritage as two faces of ‘one’ coin that should not be dealt with separately.
No comments:
Post a Comment