Curating the nation: Collections, ethnographic representations and heritage production at Museum of Malawi

Abstract

This article specifically concerns itself with Museum of Malawi as an institution of public culture. Particularly it explores how Museum of Malawi collected, exhibited and interpreted its heritage in its displays. Drawn on a combination of historical modes of inquiry that include qualitative interviews, documentary sources and exhibition analysis the article argues that it is largely through ethnographic collections that the Museum of Malawi constructed and continues to construct the identity of the nation or community more than anything else. Its ethnographic collections have become a medium to visualize the nation. However, these ethnographic displays are trapped in coloniality despite being in a post-colonial moment. The article provides a critical analysis of history of Museum of Malawi and its representations as an original contribution to the fields of museums and heritage. Moreover, the article is appropriately situated within the context of post-colonial critiques and decolonial debates of the role of museums and museum collections in post-colonial societies.

Keywords:

• Museum
• Museum of Malawi
• collections
• representation
• colonialism
• decolonisation
• heritage
• ethnographic museum
• nation

1. Introduction

This article specifically concerns itself with Museum of Malawi as an institution of public culture. Particularly it explores how Museum of Malawi collected, exhibited and interpreted its heritage in its displays. The article argues that it is largely through ethnographic collections that the Museum of Malawi constructed and continues to construct the identity of the nation or community more than anything else. The ethnographic collections have become a medium to visualize the nation. However, these ethnographic displays are trapped in coloniality despite being in a post-colonial moment. Two important observations with regard to the exhibition practice at Museum of Malawi are made. At the dawn of independence, the old colonial ethnographic system of representing ethnic categories remained the same. Thus colonial ethnographic displays were not changed or recontextualised and the practice of ethnographic collection and exhibition without recontextualisation continued. And although on a political and ideological level the country was excited with the attainment of independence and embarked on the mission of decolonization of colonial institutions, the interpretative mode, exhibition techniques and scientific mode in its museum remained largely colonial ethnographic one. By colonial ethnographic I am referring to representations of material culture of groups designated as “tribes” in a manner that freezes them in distant past and restricted to that period. As Patricia Davison notes, the affix “ethno” denoted both racial and cultural difference. It was used to distinguish native or uncivilized races from civilized races (Davison, 1990). From a Eurocentric perception it constituted a boundary between the Europeans and the colonised. The Europeans were depicted as having a history that included cultural history whereas the colonised had timeless tradition that was stuck in the past without progress. The figure 1 in this article shows the front side of Museum of Malawi.

Figure 1. The front side of Museum of Malawi. Photo by author.

This article therefore invokes the debates around ethnographic collections and ethnographic practice. It foregrounds the questions about the future of ethnographic museums in post-colonial Malawi by situating the ethnographic practices in the current debates of ethnographic museums in Europe and post-colonial Africa.

Figure 2 shows the main entrance to the gallery of Museum of Malawi. The museum landscape in Malawi is not expansive even though recently new museums are being established. The well-established museums include Museum of Malawi which was established in 1957 when the colonial legislative council passed the Museum Ordinance No. 201 in Zomba. The Museum of Malawi is a flagship national museum comprising five museums located in different parts of the country two of which are regional museums. These satellite museums are Chichiri Museum in Blantyre, opened in 1966. Chichiri Museum presents itself as a national museum of Malawi because of its size and wider range of collections. Lake Malawi Museum in Mangochi was opened in 1972 and focuses on heritage of the lake shore region. Mzuzu Museum in the northern Malawi was opened in 1986 and is designated as a regional museum because of its presentation of culture and history of peoples in northern Malawi. Mtengatenga Postal Hut Museum at Namaka in Chiradzulo conserves the history of postal services in Malawi and was opened in 1991. While Museum of Malawi is a government museum there are also privately owned museums that conserve and present Malawi’s heritage. Examples under private museums include Chamare Museum under Catholic Mission at Mua in Dedza, Stone Museum under Livingstonia Mission at Kondowe in Rumphi, Transport Museum owned by the Society of Malawi in Limbe, William Murray Museum at Nkhoma in Lilongwe administered by Nkhoma Synod. There is also another museum which is under public-private partnership between Malawi government and the community of Karonga, this is Culture and Museum Center Karonga popularly known as Karonga Museum and was opened in 2004 as a site museum. As I write there are projects by some institutions to establish their own museums. Malawi Institute of Education will soon open the Museum of Education at Domasi in Zomba, the Malawi Defense Force is also in the process of research for the establishment of Military Museum at Colby Barracks in Zomba. This is the scope and nature of the museum landscape in Malawi.

Figure 2. The entrance to Museum of Malawi. Photo by author.

This article considers a critical discussion of heritage production through exhibition practices and politics of representation at the Museum of Malawi, also referred to as Chichiri Museum because of its location at Chichiri Hill in Blantyre.

An exploration of scholarly work on Museum of Malawi reveals that there is a dearth of literature on the politics and poetics of collecting, representation and presentation of objects in the displays. Much of what has been written focuses on topics such as institutional history of Museum of Malawi, tourist surveys at various branches of Museum of Malawi, outreach and education programmes, and repatriation of objects to Museum of Malawi. Other scholars have focused on institutional policies at Museum of Malawi (Hayes, 1967; Juwayeyi, 2011; Maluwa, 2006; Mtotha, 2016; Newlands, 1984; Ngwira & Bello, 2018). There is scarcity of scholarly critique of the history of Museum of Malawi that interrogates the institutional and political settings which dictated and determined the politics of display and representation. Therefore, this article provides a critical analysis of history of Museum of Malawi and its modes of exhibiting and interpretation as an original contribution to the fields of museums and heritage. Moreover, the article is appropriately situated within the context of post-colonial critiques and decolonial debates of the function of museums and museum collections in post-colonial societies.

The article draws on a combination of historical modes of inquiry. Qualitative interviews were conducted with key persons involved with work of the Museum of Malawi to provide both the history of the museum and its current scope of operations. The documentary sources of this institution in the form of reports on its various activities, particularly exhibition projects, were also analyzed. Both the interviews and documentary analysis provided nuanced understanding of the politics and exhibition approaches at this institution. A distinct approach that many scholars on Museum of Malawi have not engaged much was an in-depth and critical analysis of its exhibitions and displays. Analysis of exhibitions reviewed the mode of representation and presentation of the objects and the meanings derived from them.

1.1. The origins of Museum of Malawi

The Museum of Malawi, like other museums in the former colonies in Africa, is the product of colonial enterprise (Newlands, 1984). In other words, the Museum of Malawi has all along been the concept of the British colonialists who began to collect ethnographic objects from their Malawian subjects. British settlers who were in the colonial public service, the plantations, and the missionaries became fascinated with the material culture and natural environment of the colony and preoccupied themselves with collecting the colony’s objects and specimens. Even though the early collections that were made were for amusement, for example, ethnographic objects of various kinds, they also served the purpose of classification and governmentality of the colonised Malawians. In his study John Mackenzie has shown how a range of museums were related to the political dynamics of the empire through their personalities, collections and display strategies. Mackenzie’s work provides important and innovative insights into what he calls the visual encyclopedias of knowledge about the empire (MacKenzie, 2009). Sarah Longair and John McAleer have echoed MacKenzie’s rendition when they argued that “museums as they developed in Britain and throughout its burgeoning empire were inextricably bound up with the nature and practices of imperialism” (Longair & McAleer, 2012, p. 3). It is therefore an established knowledge that “the founding of the first museums, in the late 18th century, is connected to the building of identity of European nations, with an underlying idea of the Western superiority which legitimised colonial power”(Roque, 2020, p. 54).

In Malawi it was The Society of Malawi (formerly Nyasaland Society) which became the agent of the empire. The Nyasaland Society was formed in 1946 through the initiative of Geoffrey Nye who was, at that time, Director of Agriculture. Its aims were “to promote interest in literacy, historical and scientific matters among individuals of all races in the protectorate and to discuss and place in record facts and information about its peoples” (Kalinga, 1998, p. 530). In terms of its membership, the Nyasaland Society was predominantly an organization of the white settlers. Their occupations ranged from settler farmers, planters, commercial and industrial firm magnets to colonial civil servants. Some middle-class Africans also joined the Society. The Society portrayed itself as not racist to the colonized subjects (Kalinga, 1998).

In January 1948 the Society launched a journal called the Nyasaland Journal which featured a wide variety of topics such as zoology, ecology, entomology, taxonomy, history, politics, economics and anthropology (Kalinga, 1998). Articles were sourced from both experts and amateurs. The Society had the objective to promote the establishment of a Nyasaland Museum. It is interesting to note how the disciplines of the natural and cultural history of the journal were to influence the disciplines of the museum. Perhaps this was as result of the caliber of members of the Society who might have been attached to research institutes as the migration of these disciplines to museums was also a common practice. Hayes wrote that the objective to establish the museum was “pursued unfalteringly” first by Geoffrey Nye and then by other members of the Society, many of whom had been active in raising funds and collecting material for the exhibition (Hayes, 1967). ca. 1950s the Society started pressurizing the colonial government to establish a museum. The Society’s demands would not materialize until May 1957 when the government took an active interest in the establishment of a national museum by passing Museum Ordinance No. 201 at the legislative council in Zomba (Clarke, 1968).The Society played an active role in planning for the establishment of the museum. The Act provided for the establishment of the Board of Trustees to administer the museum. Consequently, a Board of Trustees, under the chairmanship of the governor, Sir Robert Armitage, was appointed. The first meeting of the Board was held in the conference room of the Forestry Department at Limbe on Monday, 27 December 1957. According to Hayes (1967), the most important items on the agenda were accommodation for the museum and finance. It was suggested that the house in Blantyre, built by John Buchanan in the 1880s and used as a Vice Consulate for some years, might be used as a temporary museum until funds could be raised for the building of a permanent one. It was stated that government had undertaken to provide a sum up to a maximum of four thousand pounds a year to finance the museum and that the Nyasaland Society was prepared to hand over one thousand two hundred pounds which it had collected. Other items discussed at the first meeting of the Board of Trustees included the raising of funds with which to build a permanent museum, a site for such a building, employment of architects, the employment of a curator and the production of a set of rules to regulate the proceedings of the Board. In recognition of the part taken by the Nyasaland Society in the promotion of the museum project, it was agreed that a special library room would always be made available to the Society in the museum.

In his analysis of the agents that immensely contributed to the production of history in Malawi in the 1960s, Owen Kalinga highlighted the important work of Nyasaland Society through its journal publications and influence in the formation of Nyasaland Museum which later became Museum of Malawi (Kalinga, 1998). David Newlands has also discussed about the pivotal role of Nyasaland Society in the formation of Museum of Malawi (Newlands, 1984). However, as Kalinga noted, the Europeans who were authoritative in the Society promoted racial segregation. The Society held weekly meetings in Blantyre where among other things a talk would be delivered by a speaker on any topic pertinent to the colony. Kalinga further observed that matters critical of the colonial governance were not discussed during the meetings as the colonial governor was the patron of the Society.

The first home of the museum was Mandala House, one of the original houses built by the Moir brothers of the African Lakes Company, the first major European commercial concern to operate in the region. Initially the building had served as bachelor quarters for company employees and it had been known for many years as “The Mandala Mess” (Hayes, 1967, p. 51). Today, this building is used as the head office of the Museum of Malawi. During the opening of the Nyasaland Museum on 2 June 1960 the governor of Nyasaland, Sir Robert Armitage paid special tribute to Sir Malcolm Barrow, President of the Nyasaland Society and to the late W. H. J. Rangeley for their untiring efforts towards the achievement of organization’s aim. Sir Malcolm had, besides serving for several years as a member of the Board of Trustees, initiated the first appeal for funds which had raised the sum of one thousand two hundred pounds

At this point, it is important to reflect on the collection methods of the Nyasaland Museum. It was mostly the members of the Nyasaland Society consisting of missionaries, colonial civil servants and planters who collected and donated the objects to the Society. Although they could collect some natural specimens the collections that they donated were mostly ethnographic in nature and few historical objects (Nyirenda, 2018).

Although the members of the society could collect haphazardly and donate the items to the Society it seems there was also a systemic and institutionalized collection policy by the colonial government itself. Thus the colonial government used the District Commissioners who were collecting objects from the local people and donated to the Society. Yusuf Juwayeyi noted that “the collection of oral traditions was often government sponsored and was carried out by District Commissioners in each of the country’s administrative districts.” He further noted that “collection of oral traditions was done concurrently with the collection of various ethnographic materials, most of which were still in use in the rural settings of the various Malawian tribes; apparently European collectors found them fascinating. In the absence of a law prohibiting the exportation of such items, most of them were shipped outside the country. Some, however, were given to a local museum in Blantyre” (Juwayeyi, 2011, p. 785). Figure 3 above shows the first building for Museum of Malawi.

Figure 3. The Mandala Mess or Mandala house in Blantyre was the first building for Museum of Malawi. Photo by author.

In fact, the use of district commissioners or administrative officers to collect ethnographic objects was common practice in the British Empire. For example, Derek Petersen has shown how the ethnological section of the Uganda Museum came into being following the order in 1908 of the British governor to all administrative officers to collect various material cultural objects from the natives. In other parts of Africa for example Ugandan collections entered the museums after the colonial punitive expeditions and ransacking of the African kingdoms (Petersen, 2015, p. 5). It is not yet established if in Malawi some collections entered the museum through this way. In fact it might be doubtful because the colonial museum in Malawi as have been indicated above was opened in 1960 many years after the colonial conquests and suppression of rebellious kingdoms were done away with in the first two decades of 1900 (McCracken, 2012). However, inequitable conditions of collection during the British colonial rule in Malawi did exist.

Hayes noted that the first curator of the newly opened Museum of Malawi was Peter Hanney. According to Hayes, Hanney excellently managed the curation of the first exhibition of the museum. The exhibition was made up of ethno-history, archaeology, and natural history, a picture room and an aquarium. Later, plans were underway by the Board of Museum Trustees to construct a purposefully built museum. An application was therefore made to the Beit Trust for a grant to help in this project. In June 1962 the Board of Museum Trustees was informed that the Beit Trust had agreed to make a grant of fifteen thousand pounds. Land earmarked for this museum building was identified at Chichiri hill, a hill that gave the name to Chichiri Museum and was designated to be a city civic center (Nyirenda, 2018). This is where the current civic center buildings stand. It must be noted that during this time the chairman of the Board was the mayor of the city.

Perhaps it might be helpful to reflect on the choice of the civic center as a museum site. Tony Bennet has discussed the cultural function of the museums for the city councils in Western Europe. Thus, museums were part of the civic center complexes for civic education, regulating, civilizing and governance. This placed the museum at the modern relations of culture and government (Bennett, 1995, p. 21). The choice for the site of the purposefully built museum in Malawi to be next to the civic center finds synergy with the approach and function as Bennett alluded to in the western world with the notion of an exhibition complex.

A contract to build the museum was awarded to The Nyasaland Company at a cost of about twenty-one thousand pounds. The deficit for the project expenses was covered by the government. The new museum building was officially opened on 29 June 1966 by Kamuzu Banda who was the Prime Minister. Thus the museum which was conceived in colonial times came to fruition in independence times. At its opening, conceptually the museum was colonial. This is interesting in considering how the post-colonial nation would deal with the new museum in thinking about continuities or discontinuities of the colonial museum practices.

While the project started with one museum, today it has expanded to five museum facilities under the Museum of Malawi as mentioned earlier. This historical background of the Museum of Malawi reveals that it had begun as part of the colonial project. It also shows that the “haphazard” collection methods and practices were driven by the curiosity and amusement of the white settlers towards the material culture of the people that they had come to rule. Again, the systematic and institutionalized collection policies by the colonial government through the District Commissioners was a deliberate move in order to understand, control and govern the colonial subjects through the museums.

The brief history also shows that Nyasaland Society was paramount in the formation of the Museum of Malawi and the inextricable connection between the two was that the Society was the museum and the museum was the Society. Thus, Museum of Malawi share a common history with other African museums, in terms of their development, in that they were by-products of colonialism and are twentieth century creations. Their formation came because of European imperialism. They were created in specific socio-political contexts that sought to denigrate the local populace, diminish self-confidence and to reduce pride in their past achievements (Konare, 2015, p. 119). As Njabulo Chipangura and Pauline Chiripanhura have argued such museums were meant to undermine African culture (Chipangura & Chiripanhura, 2017).

1.2. Collections in the storage room at Museum of Malawi

Since a museum is mostly defined by its collections and exhibitions, I would like first to provide an analysis of the collections at Museum of Malawi or Chichiri Museum from a historical perspective. As already pointed earlier the collection of artifacts categorized as ethnographic, archaeological, and historical and natural had begun with the colonial government mostly facilitated by the Society of Malawi. There are 1892 ethnographic objects and 399 historical objects in the cultural history section of the storage room of the Museum of Malawi at Top Mandala. The collector of these objects has been Museum of Malawi as an institution. The items entered the museums through field collection, donation and purchase. The documentation system shows the “sequence of collection commenced in 1960” during the colonial period. The Museum of Malawi has two main storage rooms. The cultural history storage room which houses the cultural objects of ethnographic and historic in nature. And the natural history storage room which keeps the natural history specimens. From 1964 to 1970 the objects entered the cultural history storage mainly through fieldwork collection. It was only from 1971 to mid-1970s that donations of ethnographic objects saw an increase and a few historical objects associated with Europeans, for example, chinaware and other metallic kitchen sets were acquired. I assume these were donations made by the European settlers as they were starting to leave the country after it had gained independence in 1964. The ethnographic objects in the cultural history storage are defined according to the cultural context, type and their use, for example, ceremonial and domestic uses. And they are labelled according to “tribe” such as Chewa, Ngoni, Lomwe and Sena which they represent. Some of the historical objects include King’s African Rifles (KAR) uniforms, KAR regimental drums, weapons and firearms and flags, a chair that the Queen Mother sat when she came to Malawi to open the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in 1986 and other objects associated with Kamuzu Banda the first president of Malawi (Mtotha, 2016).

The mode of acquiring the ethnographic objects hugely changed from 1980. It was less through donation and more through purchasing. During this period the local Malawians realized the economic value of their objects and would never let go of their cultural possessions freely. We can also speculate that inequitable conditions of collection had changed unlike during the colonial times. As a former ethnographer of Museum of Malawi, I witnessed this situation where people were reluctant to donate and more willing to sell their objects to the museums. In terms of its natural history collections, the museum has more natural specimens than the ethnographic and history objects combined and yet its exhibitions in all its branches are predominantly ethnographic. There are 2742 specimens in the natural history section. From 1970 to 1987 it seems collecting of natural specimens ceased. This was because during this period the white professionals in the natural history section had left and created a gap in expertise in this field. As pointed earlier, it was only when the institution had trained some Malawians outside the country in different disciplines of natural history section that specimen collection and fieldwork begun in earnest from 1988.

1.3. Decolonial attempts at Museum of Malawi

After independence most institutions in Malawi underwent drastic changes and adaptations to the new political dispensation. What would the institutional approach to museum practice by the Museum of Malawi be like in the new post-colony? There is a very clear historical line between colonial collections and ethnographic displays and the difficulties postcolonial museums face in finding new ways of representing and constructing the past. Indeed the question that troubles most African museums that are products and accomplices of the colonial project is how they can be re-invented in the post-colonial era to make themselves relevant to the communities they claim to serve. It is well documented that the practices and philosophies of colonial museums were in alignment with the advancement of imperialism (Longair & McAleer, 2012; MacKenzie, 2009). As such, their knowledge production supported the colonial agendas while subjecting and excluding the indigenous knowledge systems of colonised societies (Chipangura and Mataga, 2021). Rodney Harrison and Lotte Hughes writing about the role of museums in postcolonial societies argue that “post colonies are connected in terms of their heritage by the need to forge new national identities in the wake of decolonization” (Harrison & Hughes, 2010, p. 250). Identity has emerged as one of the most important issues for postcolonial nations and as such museums play an important role in helping people to identify both who they are as individuals and the collectives to which they belong. Within a postcolonial museum setting, one would anticipate that the ways in which colonialism structured collection policies and ideologies associated with the displaying of ethnographic objects should be changed. This is because ethnographic objects were simply collected from local communities without a proper understanding of their socio-cultural uses and various associations with their makers. Various approaches and attempts at decolonizing the museums in Africa have been written about, for example, Njabulo Chipangula in Zimbabwe and Patricia Davison in South Africa (Chipangura, 2021; Davison, 1990). Even in Europe the museums have begun a process of self-reflection and examination of their displays to resonate with the post-colonial politics (Helena, 2020). I would like to contend that after independence in 1964, even though substantial changes occurred to the Museum of Malawi, it still remained colonial. The changes or “transformations” were merely administrative and institutional but the ethnographic practices still remained informed by the colonial approaches described earlier in the article in the postcolonial era.

The first obvious change was the renaming of Nyasaland Museum as Museum of Malawi since all government institutions had to reflect the name of the new nation of Malawi (Nyirenda, 2018). A second substantial change was in the administrative structures of the museum. This had to do with the africanising the institution by replacing the European museum officers with trained Malawians to fill the gap left by the trained European officers. As of 1968 the museum had no trained Malawian museum officers Until 1980s (Clarke, 1968). Desmond Clarke advised the Malawi government that “this state of affairs needs to be remedied if the museum is to maintain its place as an adequate institution for the conservation and study of the objects deposited there” (Clarke, 1968, p. 8). In 1981 the Museum dissolution bill was passed in parliament to dissolve the Museum Board of Trustees and the central government took over the administration of the Museum of Malawi. The Museum of Malawi was then put under the control of the Ministry of Local Government effective 1April 1981. In the same year, the Museum of Malawi together with the Department of Antiquities, National Archives and Culture were brought under one umbrella to form the Department of Culture in the Ministry of Education and Culture. Since that time the Department of Culture has been moved to different ministries and currently is under the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife.

A significant development occurred in the growth of the Museum of Malawi during this period. There was an expansion of the Museum of Malawi into branches. The first was the establishment of Lake Malawi Museum and the second was the establishment of another branch in Mzuzu, the Mzuzu Museum.

As regards the changes in exhibitions that the Museum of Malawi went through its Chief Curator, Yohanne Nyirenda, was quick to point out that there have not been substantial changes since independence especially in its exhibitions and mode of representation. And that the exhibitions have largely remained ethnographic (Nyirenda, 2018). The minor changes that have been made to the exhibition at the museum include the addition of the Hiroshima Stone in 2001. This was a stone given to Museum of Malawi by the Japanese ambassador as a symbol of commemorating peace and justice following the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Again in 2000 new bank notes were added to the Money Showcase due to the upgrading of the bigger notes, mainly President Bakili Muluzi’s K200 banknotes. There has also been some reshuffling in the foyer since 1980. A human skeleton and a python display was removed and replaced with the current stuffed animals from the Liwonde National Park and Majete Game Reserves. In the Open-air section the Electricity Supply Commission of Malawi (ESCOM) hydropower plant exhibit was added in 2009. On the ethnographic side I participated in 2010 in providing a new face to the exhibition display on adornments of women. The upgrading of the adornment showcase only involved the introduction of what we thought were newer or modern beads and earrings by putting them in juxtaposition with the so-called traditional adornments. However, as I look back today by juxtaposing, we enhanced the difference and othering. And we did not rescue the exhibition from its embedded colonial ethnographic approach. We rather strengthened it as there was no attempt to recontextualise or remediate the colonial mode of ethnographic exhibition. However, its permanent exhibitions still largely remain unchanged both in terms of the objects exhibited and approach to the design of the exhibition as Yohanne Nyirenda the chief curator would testify:

At first, if we look at the first museum if my memory serves me right it was largely focusing on something to do with ethnography and a bit of agriculture but using these rudimentary farming tools which might have been classified as ethnography or something like that. But after the construction of the purposeful built museum where the Chichiri Museum is currently housed, now you had a bigger gallery here, the collection was moved from Top Mandala to this place. The additions could have been the natural history section here that we call the Foyer. But there has not been much change regarding the ethnographic exhibition. We haven’t changed much there (Nyirenda, 2018).

What are the reasons for the Museum of Malawi to be so preoccupied with exhibition of its objects largely in ethnographic terms? I find two possible reasons that are different but also related. These are ideological reasons and administrative reasons. I will begin first with the administrative ones. As suggested by the Chief Curator of the museum, this might be attributed to a small number of personnel that were there at the onset of the museum itself. The museum had only five people with one qualified person. “And you know museum work involves a lot of expertise and it was difficult for it to expand”, he explained. He further suggested that this also had to do with the administrative structure of the Department of Culture which includes the divisions of Antiquities, Arts and Crafts, Archives and the Censorship Board. He pointed that before 1981 these were independent sections and Museum of Malawi was under the Board of Trustees. The merging of these divisions did not harmonize the specific roles as each division maintained its structures. Thus Museum of Malawi maintained all its research sections of ethnography, ornithology, mammalogy, entomology and herpetology. Antiquities also maintained its sections of archaeology, history and monuments. What this meant was that Museum of Malawi as a division in the Department of Culture could not do research in history as this was judged to be the jurisdiction of the division of Antiquities in the same Department. This administrative arrangement means that officers at Museum of Malawi cannot conduct research in history discipline but only in ethnography, anthropology and other museum disciplines. But it is important to look beyond administrative arrangements and consider the colonial tradition of museum practice which gave birth to this museum institution as its major factor behind the continued production of ethnographic heritage and practice. Thus the question that must be asked is what influenced the administrative structure to prioritise museum exhibitions in Malawi to be largely on ethnographic terms? As have already been discussed the birth of Museum of Malawi was largely ethnographic and influenced by colonialism. Therefore there has been a sustained tradition of understanding that exhibitions at Museum of Malawi are to large extent about ethnicity and not history (here I qualify history in the sense of cultural, political and liberation history which describe the social, economic and political development or progress of the people). In fact colonial museums never considered Africans to people with history but only customs and traditions. This has persisted to the extent that collection expeditions in the cultural history section of the Museum of Malawi are centered on ethnographic collections and not history. For instance, the researchers are supposed to assess the storage room in order to find out which ethnic group has its material culture not collected by the museum. This also extends to the exhibition gallery, where the question always is which ethnic group is not represented in the museum gallery? Fieldwork is then conducted to collect the ethnographic collections that are in shortage and subsequently stored in the storage room or exhibited. Ever since I joined the Museum of Malawi in 2010 as its ethnographer in the cultural history section, any suggestions that I made for the museum to consider the collection of objects in an historical framework have always been met with administrative directions that the museum does not have history section and historian because this post is at Antiquities Division. This mentality stagnates the Museum of Malawi by continually producing its cultural heritage largely in ethnographic terms.

On the ideological level, it is important to note the irony of the decolonization process in African states soon after independence whereby the new states relied on ethnic and tribal categories reinforced by the colonialists to construct their “new” national identities. Thus ethnographic collections were used for nationalism in the museums. This was also the case with the post-colonial Museum of Malawi. However, it is important to explain that during Kamuzu Banda’s era there was much emphasis on collection and exhibition of material culture from his ethnic group Chewa. As Clive Gabby theorised the cultural politics of Kamuzu Banda here we see how radical anti-colonial cultural conservatism and the reactionary post-colonial cultural conservatism dictated early museum work during Kamuzu Banda’s time (Gaby, 2017) .Thus collections in ethnographic objects and their exhibitions were perpetuated to reinforce the political agenda of Kamuzu Banda of imagining the nation of Malawi through the Chewa in the ethnographic displays. I asked Nyirenda if this meant that the party in power during Kamuzu Banda’s time had the authority on determining what ought to be collected in the museum. It seems there was no direct policy from the government, but the museum professionals were just in fear considering the political climate at that time. This is evident in Nyirenda’s comment:

It might not be in black and white but just as employees under that particular government you would be very cautious to collect something that would be deemed to be associated with somebody who is not in good terms or books with the party that was in power at that time. We were under the one party, obviously, in terms of collection, you couldn’t collect the objects that are associated with the people that they used to call as rebels. And of course, with that, we lost a lot. A lot in terms of historical objects associated with these personalities (Nyirenda, 2018)

After the political change from the autocratic rule of Kamuzu Banda to a more democratic dispensation the tendency has been to collect more ethnographic objects of other groups that were not covered and fully represented during Kamuzu Banda’s dictatorship. Here we see Museum of Malawi sustaining its ethnographic practice and collection reinforced by the idea of democracy and multiculturalism in the Museum. Following the inception of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO the collection of ethnographic objects and their exhibition has intensified in the Museum of Malawi. In this regard I have argued elsewhere that “in the context for UNESCO and local initiatives in Malawi in safeguarding intangible heritage, there is a more restrictive definition that identifies cultural practices which are more closely associated with communities identified as ethnic. Thus there is a propensity for the local implementers of the Convention to identify, define and specify communities in ethnic categories perceived to be traditional and anchored in the distant past. For instance, the whole ensemble of enlisted elements under the Convention in Malawi belongs to specific categories of people identified as tribes or ethnic groups.”(Lusaka, 2009, p. 109).

Christina Kreps explained that “since the convention was adopted in 2003, there has been great deal of discussion within the museum international community on the role of museums in safeguarding ICH” (Kreps, 2009, p. 201). Thus, the museum is the frontline institution in implementing the Convention through not only research but also collection and exhibition of the intangible materials of various ethnic groups. It has been involved in documentation and inventorying of intangible elements of various ethnic groups. It has also been pivotal in preparation of nomination files for some intangible elements to be enlisted on the UNESCO’s representative list under the 2003 convention on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. What this means is that the retention of the large old ethnographic exhibitions at the museums, in all its branches, finds justification in the Convention of the Intangible Heritage. While I find no problems in collection and exhibition of ethnographic objects in the museum I problematize the exhibition approaches which freeze the objects in time. As I will discuss later, the problem is not the objects but the way they are contextualized. Again there has not been any attempt to include a historical narrative and the social biography of the objects.

1.4. Exhibitions and narratives at Museum of Malawi

With its main theme of “Man and the Land” Museum of Malawi presents itself as the National Museum. Its exhibitions are classified into natural history and cultural history and as I have indicated most of its exhibitions have remained static over the years. Its outside premises present an open-air exhibition depicting the transport history that includes the locomotive engines (The Merry Weather fire engine, the steam engines, steam traction engine, and old bus that was only for Europeans). The open-air exhibition has also technological objects for example, a mini hydro-electric scheme engine and machine for extracting oil from groundnuts. Other objects in the open-air exhibition include an iron smelting furnace, fishponds and a Chewa traditional housing unit, Ndiwula. The state of conservation of most of these objects in the open-air exhibition is deplorable. Most of them are rusted with exfoliating paint, the wooden materials are continuously rotting. The fishponds which in the early days contained various fish species of Malawi are now dry and desolate. According to its curator, the museum is not responsible for the conservation of locomotives in the open-air exhibition. It seems there was an agreement that the companies that donated the locomotives would also be responsible for the conservation. The curator explained that the railways company at least provides maintenance for the steam engines, unlike the bus company which is uncooperative. The original bus company, Stagecoach, was liquidated and the new owners, Muli Brothers, do not seem interested. In one of the local newspapers, the editor picked the deteriorating condition of the bus as one indication of poor conservation at the museum (Daily Times, 2009). With the limited funding that the museum gets from the government the poor conservation of the open air exhibition is indicative of the sorry crisis that most African Museums are going through.

Figure 4 shows the open air exhibition. Most of the objects in the galleries inside are ethnographic. There are also less elaborate historical objects and some pockets of natural objects in the displays. At the entrance into the museum, there is a bronze plate engraved with words that explain that the museum was opened on 29 June 1966 by Kamuzu Banda. And that “the building was erected for the benefit of Malawi with the assistance of the generous grant from the Beit Trust”.

Figure 4. Open air exhibition of an old bus at Museum of Malawi. Photo by author.

At the foyer, a visitor is introduced to the Natural history section which has six glass showcases. The main objects in this section include mammals at Liwonde National park and Majete Game Reserves for example, antelopes and impala. A diorama, set at the background, is used to depict the natural habitat of these animals. The texts in this showcase provide the history of the Liwonde National Park and Majete Game Reserve and the common animals found in these sanctuaries. A large painting of a life-size map of Malawi shows the location of all National Parks and Game Reserves in Malawi. Other showcases contain the skulls of various wild animals, for example, duicker, kudu, baboon, leopard, lion and zebra depicting their eating habits as herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. In essence, the natural history section depicts Malawi as a place of wildlife.

Still in the natural history section, at the corner in front of the main door to the exhibition hall, stands on an open showcase a meteorite called the “Machinga Meteorite” that had fallen down from space onto one of the villages in Machinga district in January 1981. Since this was at the time of civil war in Mozambique the villagers thought it was one of the missiles from Mozambique until the geologist had taken it for examination and confirmed it was a meteorite. The accompanying text for the meteorite contextualizes it in the discussion of astronomy and how space operates. There is nothing about civil war in Mozambique and what the villagers thought. It is therefore “naturalized” and not “culturalised.” It is important to note that recently there have been claims by the communities from where the meteorite was taken to repatriate it. The communities claim they want to establish their own community museum.

At the top of the entrance into the exhibition gallery, there is the main theme “Man in Malawi” which essentially creates an anticipation of the works of man in shaping Malawian society. All the objects in this main gallery are displayed in large glass showcases. The paint inside these showcases varies from a faintly yellow, to a light blue, dark green to deep blue and pink. The labels and texts, on paper that is white, blue or khaki, imbue ethnographic and curatorial authority. In terms of lighting, the museum uses natural light with a touch of fluorescent bulbs attached to the showcases. Each glass showcase represents a theme under which the objects are represented.

The first showcase, a small one, is a history display, provides a history of banknotes in Malawi. It narrates the changes in the use of currency from colonial to democratic era. The main objects include banknotes of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Kamuzu Bank notes and Bakili Muluzi banknotes. The next showcase is about the Stone Age displaying implements such as granite stones. After this, there is a showcase of human evolution. A small mural presenting images of Australopithecus Africanus as early ancestors and how they lived by gathering fruits and making fire are shown. The next showcase is about the Iron Age. It explains the movement of the Bantu-speaking people from the north to the present territory of Malawi and how they introduced iron instruments through smelting. Objects in this section include arrowheads, bangles, harpoon heads, axes, spearheads and knives.

The next showcases are all about ethnography. In fact, the ethnography section dominates the museum with its thirteen showcases. The exhibition technique is that of old and colonial ethnographic exhibition whereby the texts show the “tribe” from which the object was collected and explains its usage and the objects categorized by the tribal unit. Moreover the type of scenography does not do justice to the social biography of the collection, which cannot be well understood in terms of a single unchanging identity but rather by tracing the succession of meanings attached to the objects as they move through space and time. However, it is important to stress that for the current Malawian curators the idea is not to show how “primitive” or “retrogressive” the Malawian “tribes” are but to demonstrate that the museum can collect the nation, display the nation and allow people to see their nation through the ethnographic objects. While this is so, it does little to rescue the ethnographic objects from the colonial logic of freezing the objects, removing their life, decontextualizing them and giving them no history.

The main themes in the ethnographic displays include: Fishing and Hunting’, “Farming Tools”, “Domestic Appliances”, “Jewelry”, ’Ceremonial Objects’, “Gule Wankulu”, “ Traditional Medicine,” “Traditional Musical Instruments (strings)”, “Traditional Musical Instruments (percussion),” “Ingoma dancing apparel” and “Weapons.” Here the categories are by type. But the objects in the type are identified ethnically. Thus the objects are meant to depict the perceived traditional life and material culture of different groups of people classified ethnically or tribes. These objects include, fishing and hunting materials (bird traps, mouse traps, spears, harpoons, fish nets), farming tools and implements (hoes, axes sickle), domestic appliances (salt container, salt bag, broom, calabash, mortar, grinding stone, wooden pillow, bark cloth Ngoti which is object for balancing a pot by women), jewelry and ornaments (Bone beads, copper necklace, beads for on waist for women, ivory nose plugs, brass bungles, wooden earrings, ivory amulets), ceremonial and ritual objects(chiefs’ scepter, axes, spears, Gule Wankulu masks), traditional musical instruments (Xylophone, Banjo, Malimba,Mkangala,Chisekeseand Ulimba as stringed objects. Gunda, Mpanje, Chitsukulumene, Phenenga as percussion or drums) traditional medicine and witchcraft (Nsupa) which is a gourde containing a concoction of herbs believed to be medicine that are apotropaic: with powers to protect people from being bewitched; expose the witch, enable someone to be rich; kill people; bring luck to people; turn into a wild animal such as lion and snake), Ingoma dancing costumes (Shields, chibizo, mural showing warriors in their dancing costumes), weapons for fighting (spears, clubs, bow and arrows). The mural above the showcase of Ingoma dancing depicts what is imagined as a typical rural Malawian village scene. It shows chickens moving by, young women pounding maize into flour using mortar and pestles, men going about their daily work and some playing bawo games under the tree. The village is composed of round and thatched huts. However, looking at the designs of the huts, and arrangements of the facilities, the village scene fits that of Chewa. The Ngoni, Yao, Lomwe, Tonga, Sena and other designated ethnic groups have distinct indigenous architecture from the one presented on the mural. In 1966 during the opening of the New Museum building President Kamuzu Banda had instructed the Museum to construct a hut, Ndiwula modelled after Chewa rural homestead. According to Nyirenda, the president recommended the builders from his home district of Kasungu to construct what he thought would be the representative of ‘pure village house in Malawi (Nyirenda, 2018).Today the Ndiwula, a round thatched house, stands as a part of the open-air exhibition. The Museum also used to publish its annual letter which was called Ndiwula and had the image of the Ndiwula hut as its iconic symbol. As discussed in chapter one I argue that this Chewa Village Mural was an attempt that was made to make what is Chewa as presenting the national. This mural is also part of the exhibition under ethnography. Figure 5 and 6 shows ethnographic display on domestic appliances.

Figure 5. Ethnographic display showing domestic utensils. Photo by author.

Figure 6. Ethnographic display showing regalia for perfoming Gule wankule dance by Chewa people. Photo by author.

What is common in these ethnographic displays is that the labels do not assign dates when the objects were produced. Neither do they provide names of the artists or carvers other than the ethnic group to which the objects belong. This approach makes objects timeless and ethnographic. In an exhibition analysis that the author conducted with Ruth Mckew, a design and exhibition consultant working with Society of Malawi, in 2010, in preparation for a conference paper, we argued that “considering the history of its establishment by the colonialists much of the materials though Malawian in nature are in such a way of presenting Malawi society as primitive, archaic, and retrogressive in comparison with the advanced world of the British” (Mckew & Lusaka, 2012).

Once again, together with Ruth Mckew, we noted that the story told through the national museum’s historical and cultural collection ended in the mid-twentieth century with few contemporary acquisitions, which produced a selective history that fails to reflect postcolonial Malawi. We also argued that besides the design itself the objects that are on the exhibition had been there for the past forty-two years and it is important that the exhibition should undergo an overhaul in order to accommodate other emerging issues for example, gender issues and human rights. This situation was observed by one visitor when he commented in the visitors’ book that “please add more items, this is my third time but we keep finding the same thing” (Museums of Malawi, 2018).

The next showcases are about the biography of David Livingstone and his expeditionary journey to Central Africa and Malawi. The objects include a map showing his three journeys, bibles, medical box, photographs of his house and village in Blantyre and objects associated with the slave trade. Then follows a showcase about the coming of other Scottish missionaries and the missions they opened and also the coming of Scottish planters and industrialists. The next showcase has a Hiroshima stone that commemorates peace and justice. Following this is a showcase that shows how the blind people in Malawi are able to weave cotton into various fabrics. The last showcase in the gallery is about the Second World War titled “King’s African Rifles” depicting Malawian soldiers in the British regiment. The main objects here are world war medals and medals that were taken from captured German soldiers. An old Lewis machine gun is the main gun in this display. While the Museum of Malawi tries to incorporate other aspects in its exhibitions, for example, those of natural history, archaeology, Livingstone and the Great War, the ever presence of ethnographic philosophy, design and exhibition is still easy to detect.

It is interesting to see the continuities of ethnographic displays in Malawi long after independence. In reflecting upon these ethnographic exhibitions in the galleries of all the museums under Museum of Malawi, it is important to relate to the analytical approach developed by Karp and Kratz to examining the politics of ethnographic representations in museums (Karp & Kratz, 2000). In their analysis they classify ethnographic displays as emerging out of complex histories and ideological contexts that include at least four elements. These four elements cover aspects of enlightenment, imperial and colonial expansion history, the actual history of representation itself, and, finally, the history of exhibiting exotic cultures. Similarly, the displaying of ethnographic objects in the Museum of Malawi fits within the premise of exhibiting exotic cultures which is the colonial logic that is being reproduced in a post-colonial Museum of Malawi. However, the claimed logic by the Museum of Malawi is that ethnographic displays are a means of representing regional and national identities that enable seeing the nation or regional communities defined in ethnic terms. While I have no issues with ethnic representations in the museum the concern I present is how they are curated and presented.

1.5. Towards a decolonised and post-ethnographic Museum of Malawi

Presently in the museum world there is a raging debate for the museums that were inherited from colonialism to reconfigure themselves in order to reflect the needs of a post-colonial society. This debate is mostly framed under the rubric of decolonization. Decolonizing the museum primarily concerns itself with “interrogation, deconstruction and replacement of hierarchies of power that replicate colonial structures” (Giblin et al., 2019, p. 472). This encompasses a wide range of interventions to unsettle the established conventions of old museum practices. Some of the decolonial approaches that have been adopted by museums in order to re-invent themselves include inclusion of excluded voices and their representation, repatriation, community engagement in curation, recontexualisation and re-interpretation of the exhibits among others.

In Europe a number of museums that were instruments of advancing imperialism and colonialism have begun to rework on their collections particularly ethnographic collections by recontextualising and reinterpreting them and sometimes using these collections to critically reflect on the histories of unethical collecting under colonialism (Aldrich, 2009; Eyssette, 2022). Elsewhere in Southern Africa Museums have begun to rethink curatorial approaches in their displays too. For example at Iziko Museum in South Africa the Life-casts in the ethnography galleries that depicted the Khoi-San people with colonial stereotypes were dismantled and the new exhibitions which sought to present and represent the natives as people with history and agency were mounted (Davison, 1990; Cedras, 2016). In New Zealand the approach to decolonization of museum practice has largely taken the form of co-curatorship whereby the indigenous communities become the co-producers of museum epistemologies through sharing knowledge about their material culture in the curatorial process (Schorch et al., 2019). The Museum of Malawi needs to rethink the best approaches that it can engage with its ethnographic displays in order to move away from the colonial logic in which these exhibits are entrapped. I contend that by innovatively recontexualising its ethnographic displays and inviting the communities connected with the objects to share their knowledge in the curatorial process the Museum of Malawi will be tilting towards a post-ethnographic museum with new museological practices that challenge traditional colonial logic of curation. Indeed, like elsewhere in the world decolonization in the museums is a process. Museums around the world are persistently searching for alternative curatorial models and approaches to recontextualise their old ethnographic displays. It remains to be seen what alternative curatorial approaches the Museum of Malawi will deploy to decolonize its ethnographic collections. But as it is at present there is still a very colonial museology with no decolonial methodology at Museum of Malawi.

1.6. Conclusion

The article has explored important themes that range from Museum discourse which relates to museum policy, collecting discourse that explains the collection methods and ethics, and presentation discourse that engages exhibition methodologies and approaches. All these discourses narrow down to the ways how Museum of Malawi has produced and continues to produce its heritage. In doing so the article has discussed the history of Museum of Malawi and explained the reasons for its continued production of an ethnographic heritage long after independence. I have shown that the continuities of ethnographic practice at Museum of Malawi are embedded in its administrative structures and prevailing political ideologies that informed its curatorial practices. It has been argued that it is largely through ethnographic collections that the Museum of Malawi construct the identity of the nation or community more than anything else. And the ethnographic collections are a medium to visualize the nation. In other words, what is ethnographic collection in Malawi has the utilitarian function of constructing and performing what is the national. As Derek Petersen argued for curators in newly independent states, the museum was an arena from where cultural forms that hitherto had represented the authority of colonial-era kingdoms and tribes could be revalued as objects representing the culture of the nation. At the end Museum of Malawi, continues to become a fundamental site of ethnic formation in discursive terms. In the process, this entrenches and reinforces the notion that only through the ethnographic museum is a nation or community defined in Malawi. Consequently, this poses a challenge of undoing the ethnographic museum in Malawi. As Ciraj Rassool (2018) suggests it is important to revisit the museum as epistemology to which tribe is made and unmade.

There is a raging debate in museum circles between those who argue for the deconstruction of ethnographic collections and those who espouse the notions of remediation, recontexualisation and re-thinking of the ethnographic museums and its objects. In situating myself in this larger debate of post-ethnographic museums in relation to Malawi my position is that there is no need to deconstruct the ethnographic objects. Rather there is need to recontexualise these objects. I am not of the view that the curation of ethnographic objects at Museum of Malawi deliberately or purposefully, like colonial museums, seeks to freeze or “primitivise” its communities many decades after independence. Rather the problem is lack of creative methodological and curatorial approaches to un-do the colonial ethnographic logic and gaze that has trapped the displays. The curatorial logic of ethnographic displays in Malawi is that of using the objects as materials to embody the heritage of the nation. But while doing this, the curatorial practice is caught up in the colonial mode of freezing and giving no life to the objects.

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was part of doctoral research when I was student in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa from 2016 to 2019. I am grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Doctoral Fellowship grant at UWC’s Center for Humanities Research which made this research possible. I am deeply indebted to Professor Leslie Witz who supervised my thesis. I am particularly grateful to members of staff in all branches of Museum of Malawi for granting me interviews and access to important documents which shaped and framed this article.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Funding

The author received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Mwayi Lusaka

Mwayi Lusaka obtained his PhD in History, focusing on heritage issues, from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He is a former Andrew Mellon Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Humanities Research (CHR) of the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town South Africa. He once worked as a Principal Researcher in the Department of Museums and Monuments of Malawi. Currently he is a Lecturer of History and Heritage Studies at Mzuzu University. His research interests are in history, politics, museums, heritage, culture, cultural heritage tourism and the nexus between culture and international relations.