04 November 2015
Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo, World War II and the Romanisation of Hausa
This is our second guest blog celebrating West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song, the current exhibition at the British Library. This time we are delighted to have a piece written by Professor John Philips whose project digitised the early years of the Hausa language newspaper Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo
Hausa is the largest indigenous language spoken in West Africa. It is used by tens of millions of people as a first language from Ghana to Sudan, especially in Nigeria and Niger, and by tens of millions more from Cote d’Ivoire to the central Sahara to central Africa. As the language of the mainly Muslim Hausa people, it has not only spread with them as a first language but it has also spread in markets as an important language of trade and become a lingua franca throughout a wide area of west central Africa. As a major language in Islamic Africa, it has been written for centuries in a modified form of the Arabic script, with some special characters for Hausa sounds not found in Arabic itself. Hausa was chosen by the early colonial government of Northern Nigeria as the official language of administration because it was generally understood among the people of the area, especially the non-Hausa minority groups from whom the Nigerian colonial administration disproportionately recruited its army. This was done not so much to promote the Hausa language in particular or African culture in general as it was to prevent Africans from learning English, through which medium it was feared they would be exposed to nationalist and anti-colonial sentiments.
EAP485/1/1/30: Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo, Issue 31, 1 Apr 1941
EAP 485 was a project to preserve the very first issues of Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo, the first entirely Hausa newspaper, begun in Nigeria by the colonial government in the months leading up to World War II. The newspaper became an important source of information about the war and its progress throughout Northern Nigeria. As a reliable, informative and excitingly-written periodical the newspaper kept people in Northern Nigeria, Muslim or not, up-to-date about events in the outside world, especially related to the war. Thus it proved a popular venture that helped change the course of African, especially Nigerian, history forever. It also changed the predominant orthography and literary style of Hausa itself. Gaskiya’s contributing first editor, Alhaji Abubakar Imam, became not only one of the earliest authors of books in Latin script Hausa, but he also became one of the most influential authors in Hausa literature.
EAP485/1/1/404: Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo, Issue 874, 7 Nov 1958
The popularity of Gaskiya not only led to increasing popularity of Latin alphabet literacy in Hausa areas, but it also increased the attention that speakers of Hausa, both first and second language speakers, paid to the outside world. By so increasing the attention Africans in the interior of the continent paid to events beyond their localities, it became an important factor in the emergence and spread of modern nationalism in Africa, especially among Muslims, although also among Christians. It is indispensable source material for historians of Africa interested in the nationalist movement in particular, and modernisation in general. It is also the earliest known example of what later became the much imitated style of modern literature called “Gaskiyanci” (Gaskiya dialect), named after the newspaper and created by its editor, Alhaji Abubakar Imam.
EAP485/1/1/410: Gaskiya ta fi Kwabo, Issue 880, 19 Dec 1958
Professor John Philips
Hirosaki University
15 July 2015
New images online - July 2015
This month three projects have gone online, EAP080, EAP660 and EAP769.
The first of these projects, EAP080, microfilmed Serbian musical collections from the Craftsmen choral society in Zemun. Choral societies were a prominent part of Serbian musical culture in the 19th century. Between 1834 and 1914 over 150 Serbian choral societies were founded. Some of them had extremely rich musical libraries, with thousands of scores and choral parts. Unfortunately, only a few of them preserved their full musical collections, which often included original manuscripts. Numerous collections were lost, divided or even destroyed.
The musical collection of the Craftsmen choral society from Zemun contains 27 large boxes of material: manuscripts, handwritten and printed scores, mostly choral music, stage music as well as some documents on the history of the society. The compositions are written by Serbian, Russian, Czech, German, Austrian and Italian composers.
This collection is an excellent example of the typical musical taste of a growing citizen class. Judging by stamps and signatures, it seems as if other choirs' libraries were added and came from the Serbian Orthodox Choral Society and the Academic Choir, both from Zemun, and the Cathedral Choir from Novi Sad.
EAP080/1/8/3/4: Image 12 - Unknown author, Ukoricene crvene, plave i zelene sveske [Music note books with red, blue and green covers]
The second project this month, EAP660, digitised copies of Nur-i-Afshan, a periodical published by the Presbyterian Mission in the Punjab. Sometimes published weekly, and other times bi-monthly. Nur-i-Afshan, was a multifaceted news magazine and carried local and international news summaries, government postings, commodity prices, and advertisements, but also opinion articles, essays, proverbs, and poems.
This periodical is one of the very few primary sources originating locally in pre-partition India, which shows Christian missionary work in the Punjab. In addition to being a religious publication, Nur-i-Afshan also forms part of a large and growing corpus of Urdu periodicals published in the nineteenth century and gives the researcher invaluable insight into the thinking, concerns, and ideas of nineteenth century Indians and enables a better understanding of the social, political and religious forces at play during this period. Furthermore, the study of such periodicals is of interest to scholars engaged in linguistics and language development. As the nineteenth century was a key age in the development of the Urdu language, the styles of prose, grammar, and diction used in this publication are important research materials. The role of a missionary society in taking up a local vernacular for discourse at that time makes the importance of Nur-i-Afshan even greater and its study more significant.
EAP660/1/26/60: Image 1 - Nur-i-Afshan December [1900 volume 28 no.52] [1900]
The final project this month is EAP769, a pilot project which looked at archives and records from the Caribbean island of Montserrat, a country that has suffered from harsh environmental conditions and natural disasters. Inappropriate storage and handling has resulted in material being lost or rapidly deteriorating, creating an urgent need for proper preventive conservation care. Recent volcanic activity destroyed many of the previous storage facilities.
This project identified archival material held throughout Montserrat, assessed its condition and prepared a long term plan for its safe storage, digitisation and increased public access and awareness of this endangered resource.
The pilot project worked on the collections of original material held by the Montserrat National Trust (MNT). This comprises of 18th and 19th century estate plans and deeds; 20th century letters, newspapers, land deeds, wills, receipts; and collections of slide photographs from the 1980s, including a 1986 historic buildings survey which show many buildings no longer standing after the 1995 and 1997 volcanic eruptions.
EAP769/3/3/1: Image 1 – Historic Building Survey 1986
In addition, the project worked on some of the 18th century records held at the Central Library, a collection in private ownership, and material held by the Government Registry Office.
Sample digitisation of selected material was undertaken and is now available to view online.
EAP769/3/1/12: Image 6 - Sale of Champion Jones Properties [1910]
Check back next month to see what else has been added!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
11 February 2015
New online collections – February 2015 – Part 1
This month we have had seven new projects go online with over five hundred thousand images. These are EAP164, EAP171, EAP387, EAP505, EAP566, EAP638 and EAP684 and include rural records from the Ukrainian Steppe, parish records from Brazil, endangered Urdu periodicals and the archives from a publishing company in Argentina. This blog will focus on four projects EAP171, EAP387, EAP505 and EAP638. Another blog will feature the final three projects in a couple of weeks.
EAP638 follows on from the work of EAP375, digitising material from the Haynes publishing company archive in Argentina. The company was created by Albert M. Haynes, a British citizen who went to Argentina originally to work for the Buenos Aires Western Railway. After his retirement he founded the Haynes Publishing Company in 1904, it remained active until its closure in 1968.
The project digitised the most significant articles on specific subjects published by Haynes and other newspapers. As they offer an extended coverage of events from all the main newspapers of the region they present a fantastic resource for researchers. The material contains marvels such as photographs, painted illustrations, memoirs, statistical data, personal letters, and even film. The image below is a photograph of the acclaimed Argentine lyrical soprano Isabel Marengo.
EAP638/1/1/198: Isabel Marengo – Image 3
EAP387 digitised 93 manuscripts of Fulfude jihad poetry. The bulk consists of 43 poems by Usman dan Fodio and 26 poems by his daughter Nana Asma'u.
In Northern Nigeria the tradition of reciting religiously inspired poetry is supported by the existence of written copies of these poems. These manuscripts are sometimes hundreds of years old and they have been handed down as precious treasures from generation to generation. The poems in this particular collection are all written in Fulfulde, and in Ajami, the Arabic alphabet adapted for African languages. Below is a page from the poem Shi'irut Tawbati about forgiveness and repentance.
EAP387/1/4/4: Shi'irut tawbati [19th Century ] – Image 1
EAP505 digitised parish records from Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. These include baptism, marriage and death registers from the parishes of Nossa Senhora de Apresentacao, Angicos, Canguaretama, Goianinha and Santana do Matos. These records can help to build a demographic history of those regions. The Catholic Church Records are incredibly useful as a large amount of the Brazilian population was a member of the church. There was no civil registration until after 1850 so baptismal records became the longest and most uniform serial data available for understanding the history of the population in Brazil. Once baptised the person and their descendants became eligible for the sacraments of marriage and Christian burial, thus generating additional records of their lives.
EAP505/4/1/2: Baptism Register. No. 2. Goianinha [1860-1864] – Image 7
The last project, EAP171 was a pilot project which surveyed 18th - 20th Century documents from Nepal. The project digitised a small selection of the material; this is available to view now.
EAP171/1/3: Record of sale of tax exempt land – Image 1
Check back next month to see what else has been added!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
07 September 2014
New online collections – September 2014 – three million images online!
Last month eight collections went up online EAP010, EAP040, EAP105, EAP219, EAP254, EAP341, EAP443 and EAP644.
It was only two months ago that we reached two million images online and this month we are happy to report that we have now broken the three million barrier! This is largely thanks to EAP341 a project which contains around 750,000 images.
EAP341 is a project that preserved printed books and periodicals held in public institutions in Eastern India. Many of the public libraries in that area are now suffering from a financial crisis that makes most of the documents vulnerable to loss or degradation. The project digitised materials from eight public libraries in the districts of Howrah, Hooghly, 24 Parganas North and 24 Parganas South, all located in semi-urban and rural areas within the proximity of Calcutta. This project helped to preserve these materials digitally and make them available to researchers.
EAP644 digitised part of the Fouad Debbas collection. This consists of over 3000 photographs which were produced by the Maison Bonfils from 1867-1910.
Established in 1867, the Bonfils house set out the first photographic studio in Beirut. Mr Bonfils and his wife Lydie, apparently the first woman photographer of the area, along with their children succeeded in capturing some fascinating images. These include pictures of a region of immense physical beauty, landscape photos of Beirut and Baalbeck and portraits of different ethnic groups. They also provide a record of rapid socio-economic change during a crucial moment of the region’s history. The Bonfils Debbas collection is an invaluable document registering the history of a region at a crucial crossroads in the wake of great historical upheaval. For more information about the collection have a look at our previous blog ‘The Good Woman named Bonfils’.
EAP040 digitised medieval and early modern archival material of the Brasov/Kronstadt and Burzenland region in central Romania.
The material from 14th to 17th centuries from this archive is one of the main sources for Transylvanian history in today’s central Romania. Documents that were digitised included
; ecclesiastical material with focus on the 16th to 17th centuries, the collection of Joseph Trausch (manuscript copies covering the whole period), documents on educational matters focusing on the 16th to 17th centuries, cultural matters (music, liturgy, buildings, local traditions and legends) and correspondence (warfare, defence, political relations).
EAP254 digitised the library of the church Romanat Qeddus Mikael Dabre Mehret, Enderta in Ethiopia. The library possesses around 70 codices and includes several valuable manuscripts of high quality, some of them with illuminations and valuable marginalia. The library of Romanat Qeddus Mikael was built up over more than 300 years. The collection builds an indigenous and integral local record in a region important for the history of Ethiopia. The library remains practically unknown and is endangered due to the poor preservation conditions.
EAP010 preserved rare periodical publications from Mongolia. Mongolia underwent significant political and economic change during the collapse of Communism. The euphoria of revolution led to neglect or even intentional eradicating of documents, publications and other materials from socialist times. Political and economic dependence upon the Soviet Union for seven decades and the resulting sudden release from political ties meant that everything related to the Soviet Union and the period of its dominance was subject to denial. In addition, the deep economic crisis in the 1990s meant that cultural issues including the maintenance and development of libraries, publication of books and actions to safeguard the documentary heritage of Mongolia were not the priority for the government or public for a while.
The periodicals digitised cover the transition period of 1990-1995. They document the political changes in Mongolia after the fall of Communism. The project resulted in scanning 39,029 pages from 6,189 issues.
EAP219 is a project that catalogued and digitally preserved the endangered Nôm archive at the Institute of Social Science Information (ISSI) in Hanoi, Vietnam. Nôm was the national script used in Vietnam for over 1,000 years since the country's independence from China in 939.
The project completed a thorough inventory of the archive and digitised the volumes from the most vulnerable section of the archive. These include village and district records of families, land ownership, real estate and property exchanges, contacts with the royal courts, decrees by various emperors as well as some maps. Since Nôm was the national script used in Vietnam for over 1,000 years, the archives have an inestimable historical value providing, together with Han-Viet records, the main written record of the history and culture of Vietnam for 10 centuries.
EAP105 digitised the manuscript collections of Drametse Monastery and Ogyen Choling in Bhutan.
Drametse Monastery, founded in 1511 by Ani Choten Zangmo, the grand-daughter of the famous Bhutanese saint Padma Lingpa (1450-1521), is one of the major monasteries in eastern Bhutan.
Drametse's manuscript collection includes the 46-volume rNying ma rGyud 'bum, sixteen volumes of Prajnaparamitasutras and about a hundred and fifty volumes of miscellaneous titles including religious hagiographies, histories, liturgies, meditation manuals and philosophical treatises. Many of the books are written in dbu med script, indicating that the books were most likely brought from Tibet in the distant past.
Ogyen Choling, located in central Bhutan, is a seat of two famous Nyingmapa saints, Longchenpa (1308-1363) and Dorje Lingpa (1346-1405). Although historically a religious establishment, it is now a manor house of the family which claims direct descent from Dorje Lingpa. Its library, housed in three of the five temple rooms in the manor complex, contains several hundred titles of manuscripts ranging from pilgrimage guides to philosophical treatises, including a beautifully executed 21-volume set of Dorje Lingpa's writings. Professor Samten Karmay has recently catalogued the collection highlighting some of the rare works of Zhang Lama Drowai Gonpo (1123-93), Lhodrak Drubchen Namkha Gyaltshan (1326-1401), Wensa Lobzang Dondrub (1504-1566) and Jangchub Tsondru (1817-57). In addition to the manuscripts, Ogyen Choling also owns a large body of books printed from xylographic blocks.
EAP443 carries on the work of pilot project EAP284, which surveyed records related to the slave trade held at the Sierra Leone Public Archives.
The materials being targeted here include valuable documents of immense importance for research on the transatlantic slave trade and its repercussions. The original Registers of Liberated Africans who were taken off slave ships by the Royal Navy from 1808 to the 1840s document more than 85,000 individuals. In addition, there are Letter books which provide information on the treatment and ‘disposal’ of tens of thousands of “receptive” Africans, court records, treaties with local chiefs, and other documents that are essential materials for any research on Sierra Leone. Moreover, there is important genealogical information for many people in Sierra Leone, including birth and death registers from the 1850s. Additional materials include registers of “foreign” children resident in Freetown, dating from the 1860s onwards, and registers of slaves who had escaped from the interior to Freetown, as well as letter books in Arabic that relate to political and commercial relations with the interior of West Africa in the second half of the 19th century.
More than 170 volumes held in the Public Archives of Sierra Leone were digitised, with over 32,000 images. Collectively, these volumes provide information on the identities, origins and experiences of enslaved Africans forcibly relocated to the British Crown Colony in the nineteenth century. Other volumes relate to the inward migration of people from the colony’s hinterland, including registers of slaves who had escaped from the interior to Freetown. The volumes include series of registers of births and deaths, which are in a particularly fragile and endangered condition.
Check back next month to see what else has been added!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
09 June 2014
New online collections - June 2014
Happy International Archives Day! Welcome to our monthly blog updating you about recent online collections. This month four collections have gone online EAP027, EAP061, EAP144 and EAP372. One of these collections hails from Liberia, two are from Indonesia and one is from India.
The first collection is EAP027 which preserved the papers of William V.S. Tubman, Liberia’s longest running president (1944-1971). These materials were being stored in a library in an unoccupied mansion in Liberia. Many had been damaged by mould and insects. Some had been left on the floor after the room had been searched by rebels, who thought the papers may contain hidden money and valuables, during Liberia’s civil war in 2003.
The collection contains papers which relate to Tubman’s personal and political life from his presidency in 1944 to his death in 1971. The majority of the collections focuses on the beginning (1944-1950) and the end (1961-1971) of his presidency. The papers are divided into three main groups, Liberian government papers, W.V.S Tubman papers and records relating to Tubmans work with non-governmental organisations. Given Tubman’s status as an African head of state during the de-colonization era, these papers will be of particular value for the study of the Organization of African Unity’s early years, as well as for the study of West African diplomacy.
A previous project, EAP139, which is already online, preserved the photographic collections of William V.S. Tubman.
EAP027/1/1/5/22 – Image 3
EAP061 is the first of the collections from Indonesia; it digitised Islamic manuscripts belonging to Pondok Pesantren. Pondok Pesantren are traditional Islamic schools which have become centres for Islamic learning and the dissemination of Islamic knowledge in Indonesia. The manuscripts reveal their role as centres for learning and sharing of Islamic teaching.
The project digitised three collections: Pondok Pesantren Langitan in Tuban, established 1852 by KH. Muhammad Nur; Pondok Pesantren Tarbiyyah al-Thalabah in Keranji, established in 1898 by KH Musthofa; and Pondok Pesantren Tegalsari, Jetis Ponorogo, established in the 18th century by Kyai Mohammed Besari.
These manuscripts include 'Yellow Books' (Kitab Kuning, a term referring to Islamic works printed on yellowish paper), such as Jawhar al-Tawhid, Hidayat al-Sibyan, Kitab Taqrib, Kitab Sittin Mas'ala etc. However their marginal notes make them unique from the original books. These notes are an important resource to study the efforts of Indonesia Ulama to translate Islam into the local context. The manuscripts provide evidence for how Islam interacted with local and Indonesian culture.
EAP061/1/17 Image 74
EAP144 is the second project from Indonesia. It digitised over 250 manuscripts from five Suruas (Prayer Houses) in West Sumatra. These manuscripts contain various texts such as Al-Qur'an, Al-Qur'an Translation (Tafsir), Tasawuf, Fiqh, Agiography (The Stories of the Saints), Arabic Grammar, Minangkabau Laws, Kaba, Hikayat, Nazam, Azimat, Letters and Medicine which hold important information for Minangkabau culture and Islamic history. They will contribute greatly to the study of Islam, Tasawuf, Traditional Laws, Language, Literature, Culture, and Medicine in Indonesia.
EAP144/1/13 – Image 2
EAP372 is the final project, this digitised early periodicals and newspapers of Tamilnadu and Pondichery in India.
Tamilnadu and Pondicherry occupy a prominent place on the map of print history in South Asia. Printing during the modern period proliferated to the rest of India from Tranquebar, a small coastal town south of Pondicherry in Tamilnadu. There was a big boom in printing in the 19th and the 20th century in the Tamil region. Evidence to this is the number of books, periodicals and newspapers that were published. While importance was given to the creation of publications, preservation took a back seat. A number of periodicals and newspapers primarily in Tamil and English remained locked and in deteriorated condition in several collections in Tamilnadu and Pondicherry.
The project was undertaken by a team from the Roja Muthiah Research Library. They identified materials in libraries and private archives which were then digitised. A total of 140,609 images were digitised. 10,770 issues from 56 titles of periodicals were identified, many of which were rare periodicals.
EAP372/1/1/1/1 – Image 9
Check back next month to see what else has been added!
You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.
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