Kenya Jamhuri Day, 12 December 2014

The Riyadha Mosque in Lamu, Kenya, is home to a collection of Islamic manuscripts that documents and preserves the teaching traditions of the Lamu archipelago from c.1850 to 1950. In the EAP online collection, under the unassuming name of EAP466/1/18, can be found a 241-page compilation of prayers, litanies and invocations. It is prefaced by an inscription, framed by an ochre and black geometrical pattern, which reads, somewhat ominously: “This book, what is in it, is in it. Whomsoever does not know what is in it, may the dog pee in his mouth.”

EAP466/1/18

When they were copied some time in the mid-19th century, these texts had been handed down through generations, and were well known in the wider Swahili world - indeed in the Islamic world as a whole. In the volume, we find for example the Mawlid Barzanji, authored in the 18th century, and widely recited in East Africa to this day. It narrates the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, including the “heavenly handmaidens” who according to popular tradition attended his mother Amina. Knowledge of this type of text constituted what it meant to be a member of coastal Muslim community in 19th-century Lamu, through a “core curriculum” that regulated individual and collective practice of Islam. In short, knowing these texts made you part of mainstream culture. Failure to acquire this knowledge could mean social exclusion – or, more often, non-inclusion if you were an outsider to Lamu society. The consequences, as indicated by the inscription, could be dire.

A first assumption here is to interpret this threat as an eccentric liberty taken by the copyist, perhaps a poke at a madrasa (Islamic school) teacher who may have used these exact words during class. However, unusual though it may be, a similar worded warning can be found in at least one other manuscript from the Swahili coast, again cautioning against unwanted attention from dogs. The message is clear: Know you culture, your religion – and your identity – or else face exclusion.

As the volume stands today in the Riyadha library, it is owned by the mosque but forms part of the heritage of Lamu Muslim society, and that of the wider Swahili world. It is also part of the national heritage of Kenya. As Kenya celebrates its 50th Jamhuri (Republic) Day, it is sadly not in an atmosphere of tranquillity. The Westgate attacks in Nairobi in 2013 brought the world’s attention to Jihadist-style terrorism within Kenya’s border, but also to the looting by the security personnel in the wake of the killings. However, the mistrust between the coastal population and the authorities has simmered for years, and caused rifts between sections of the costal Swahilis. Religious leaders have been assassinated, attempts at cultural and religious dialogue have stalled under the threat of violence. Couple this with large-scale foreign and domestic investment, land-grabbing, corruption, the continuing turmoil in Somalia and the expansion of al-Shabbab on the coast, Kenya is facing challenges that threatens its stability and – ultimately – even its unity.

As has been shown in recent studies, access to, and use of heritage (including scientific research), is often unequally distributed and represented in the national narratives when new nations are formed. Jamhuri day is a nationwide day of celebration of Kenya’s freedom, but also of its diversity, its multiple and parallel pasts. As coastal Kenya struggles to express its perceived marginalisation, it can look to its own rich past, and to the various ways in which it incorporated new populations into Swahili society. From this vantage point, the coast may find new ways to represent itself in the national narrative of Kenya in the coming 50 years. The message from a 19th-century copyist can still be relevant. 

Click on the link if you would like to read more about the manuscript collection at Riyadha Mosque 

Dr. Anne K. Bang, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Norway

Grant holder EAP466

 

 

For the final month of 2014 we have had four collections go up online: EAP160, EAP220, EAP449 and EAP571. These collections come from Bolivia, Ukraine, Mali and Nicaragua.

EAP160 digitised records relating to the indigenous population of Bolivia during the 19th century. The records they preserved are called padrones; these documents are testimonies of an old tributary system associated with land tenure. Bolivia has the largest indigenous population in Latin America. Most of the indigenous population has lived since the Colonial period in the high plateau, known as the Altiplano boliviano, at 4,000 meters above sea level.

After Bolivia's independence and throughout the 19th century, only a small amount of Bolivians lived in the urban area. The bulk of the population was concentrated in the department of La Paz, specifically the rural area.

The indigenous population that lived in the communities and in the haciendas (large private estates) continued paying, as in the Colonial period, a state tax known as the indigenal contribution, amounting to as much as 40% of the state total income. For tax purposes, the government registered all the indigenous population in the communities and haciendas, the information was collected in the registers called padrones.

These registers are still an important legal source for present day land tenure consolidation. Many indigenous communities and individuals use these records as proof of their community membership and land tenure.

This project successfully created 92,000 digital images from 441 books containing the padrones.

EAP160/1/1/2/2 Image 2 - Matricula General Que Manifiesta El Total De Familias Indigenas Contribuyentes En El Año 1848 [1848]

EAP220 was a pilot project that searched for and catalogued all archival material from the archaeological studies carried out at the ancient Russ hillfort Rajki in Ukraine. These surveys took place between 1929-1935 during the archaeological expeditions led by T.N. Movchanovskiy. The project surveyed records held in the archive repository of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, where these materials were stored in various collections. The project also searched for documents in Rajki village, as well as in a range of other archival institutions in Kiev, Berdychiv, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Odessa and Zhytomyr. A survey was produced which lists all the discovered archival documents and states the repositories where they are held. Digital samples of the collections were created.

EAP220/1/7 Image 1 - Photographic Negatives on Glass [1929-1935]

EAP449 digitised the archives of two professional photographers from Mali, Abdourahmane Sakaly and Mamadou Cissé. They were among the earliest professional African photographers in Mali. The collections contain rare historical documentation of traditional Mali life (rural, ethnic-based customs, ceremonies, and artefacts) and show the processes of urban development. Dating from the 1940s-1960s the photographs show an era of great change in Mali’s history. Employed by colonial and national governments, as well as operating private studio enterprises, each collection houses unique archives including personal and family portraits, military activities, visits of foreign dignitaries and images of the coup d’état that toppled the regime of the nation’s first president Modibo Keïta.

These images are significant for the social history and cultural heritage of Mali, as well as the artistic legacy of these locally, and internationally, celebrated photographers. They are important for scholarship on colonial and post-colonial histories in western Africa, and studies of local art and culture.

EAP449/1/10 – Image 16 - Mamadou Cissé's Photographs numbers 901-1,000

The final project that went online this month is EAP571. It digitised newspapers from Nicaragua dating from the first half of the 20th century.

This collection of newspapers represents a primary resource for research and analysis of this turbulent period for national and regional history in Nicaragua. They contain details of the conflicts and political debates of the period, as well as cultural and economic transformations, coffee production and the nation state building process. These newspapers are unique sources to study the US military intervention and the dispute with Great Britain over the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast. This collection stands as a unique source for studying the first half of the twentieth century in Nicaragua.

The project successfully digitised 5,874 newspaper issues, totalling 31,505 TIFF images.

EAP571/5/1 Pt1- Image 5 - El Liberal

I hope you have a Happy Christmas and will come back next month to see what else has been added to our collections.

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

This blog covers the remaining four new projects which are now available to view online, these are EAP285, EAP618, EAP110 and EAP211.  

EAP285 is a major project that carried on the work which the EAP067 pilot project had begun. The pilot project had surveyed collections of materials which relate to the Gypsy/Roma communities in Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria, many different materials dating from the beginning of the twentieth century can be found which reflect the life of nomadic and settled communities of Gypsies in the pre-industrial period in their first attempts for empowerment and their struggle for equality.

The project completed the collection and digitisation of material located in Bulgaria by the pilot project.

Photographs were collected from the 1940s through to the 1980s reflecting the life of Roma in Sofia Roma quarters. The Members of Roma students organisation collected from different places photographs and documents, most interesting among them is a certificate of gratitude to a Roma, who died as a soldier in the (Bulkan Wars) 1912-1913. The members of the Roma students organisation also introduced the project team to an old lady from the Gypsy quarter of Montana, who donated her family’s unique collection of oral histories, which included a description of the creation and history of the Roma quarter in the town of Montana, everyday life, customs and holidays of Roma living there as well as some short folklore genres (proverbs and humorous narratives). Nikola Ivanov, a Roma from a group of nomadic Gypsies, donated to the project his collection of old Romani fairy-tales and ballads.

One of the achievements of the project was the digitisation of Dimitar Golemanov’s collection, which included letters, written songs and fairy tales. Dimiter Golemanov was a famous Roma activist and intellectual during the time of the communist regime and these materials reflected his poetical and musical work as well as his international contacts with Roma intellectuals and activists. Documents were also found on the pioneering linguistic work of one of the most important Bulgarian Roma Romani studies scholars, Donald Kenrick. Very interesting material was collected from old nomadic Gypsies from the Kardarasha group, who remembered the time of active nomadism.

EAP285/2/21 – Image 1

EAP618 digitised 5,564 photographs and negatives of ethnographic and historical objects, reflecting pre-industrial Bulgarian history and culture. The scholarly archive of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum is the oldest collection of Bulgarian pre-industrial and early modern traditional culture. This rich and unique ethnographic archive consists of several collections of written documents as well as some fascinating photograph collections which illustrate elements of traditional spiritual culture: ritual masks, agricultural and horticultural activities, calendar customs, folk costumes and traditional architecture.

EAP618/3/2 Pt2– Image 306

EAP110 is a continuation of the EAP005 pilot project, which looked at the records held at the National Archives of Tuvalu. Tuvalu consists of nine islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean and achieved independence from Great Britain in 1978. Vital documentation of the cultural and political heritage of Tuvalu is held in an intermittently air-conditioned room. The archives are endangered through the risk of being washed away in a cyclone-prone area. There is a regular danger of archives being saturated and damaged by tidal surges, especially during the cyclone season. Some material such as Births, Deaths and Marriage registers, Lands records, records of its local colonial administration and newspapers are in particularly poor condition through heavy usage.

The pilot project surveyed the Tuvalu National Archives holdings, assessing the extent of work required to prepare important series for preservation. In addition it also discovered the existence of manuscripts, genealogies, photographs and other records of Tuvaluan society in private hands.

EAP110 carried out the digitisation of this material, producing over 70,000 images comprising of over 1,276 documents. These are now available to view online.

EAP110/1/16/1 Pt 2 - Image 206

EAP211 digitised Cirebon manuscripts. Cirebon was one of the important Islamic Sultanates in Java, together with Demak and Banten, and had been a centre for Islamic learning and the dissemination of Islamic teachings in West Java. Cirebon was also considered to be one of the cultural centres in the Indonesian archipelago, which can be seen in its manuscripts.

These Cirebon manuscripts contribute towards the understanding of Islamic intellectual and cultural heritages, and will help to reconstruct how Islam spread in West Java in the period of the 15th century to the first half of the 20th century. According to the latest survey, Cirebon manuscripts are mostly damaged because of inappropriate treatment and natural causes. Others were neglected due to a lack of knowledge about the storage and handling of manuscripts.

Up to now, these manuscripts have not been explored and studied by either local or foreign scholars and there is no published catalogue of them. They include Qur'an and religious manuscripts, the story of puppet shadow (wayang), genealogy of Cirebon sultans, traditional healings, literatures, Cirebon traditional chronicles, Javanese Islamic mysticism written as poetry (Suluk), divining manuals, and manuscripts of talismans. The majority of them are in a fragile condition. This project covered the whole area of the former Cirebon Sultanate (including Kasepuhan, Kanoman, Kacirebonan, and Kaprabon), Pengguron and Sanggar,

The project succeeded in digitising 176 manuscripts creating 17,361 images. These are now available to view online.

 

EAP211/1/1/38 – Image 50

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.

This month we have had eight new collections go up online, with over five hundred thousand new images now available to view on our website. This blog will focus on four of the new projects, EAP148, EAP128, EAP180 and EAP183. Part 2 will be published next week and will cover the remaining four projects EAP285, EAP618, EAP110 and EAP211. 

The first collection is EAP148, this project carried out an inventory of archival holdings in Jamaica. This targeted libraries and archives which contain valuable historical collections that focus on the lives of enslaved Africans and free blacks in Jamaica during the period 1655-1800. The documents are important to scholars studying the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, and supplement the extensive records that are held in Britain on the forced migration of Africans to Jamaica.

The project compiled inventories of original documentation published before 1800, which are in the possession of four institutions, the Jamaica Archives, Roman Catholic Chancery’s Archive, University of the West Indies (UWI) and the Mona and the National Library of Jamaica (NLJ). At the Jamaica Archives, the Manumission of Slaves, volumes 5 through 12 were digitised, which cover the period 1747-1778. At UWI the team compiled an inventory of approximately 150 items and 10 primary sources were digitised, these documents cover the historical period 1493-1800. At the Chancery, Several burial, baptismal and marriage records were digitised. At the NLJ, the team compiled an inventory of approximately 90 items and 12 primary sources were digitised. 

EAP148/1/10 – Image 40

EAP128 digitised publications related to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities in Thailand. Bangkok is home to some of Asia's earliest and largest GLBT communities.

Since the 1970s, Thailand's GLBT communities have produced large quantities of Thai language publications including multi-issue periodicals and magazines and community organisation newsletters. This large volume of material, totalling several thousand items, documents the history of one of the world's most important non-Western homosexual/transgender cultures and is a largely untouched research resource. These materials are in danger of being destroyed and disappearing completely. Since no Thai or western library or archive has collected these materials, the only remaining copies are in the hands of private collectors.

A total of 648 issues of Thai gay, lesbian and transgender community organisations and commercial magazines from 32 different series were collected and digitised. These are now available to view online.

EAP128/1/14/1 – Image 1

EAP180 digitised one of the largest collections of early printed books and periodicals in the Republic of Armenia, located in the Fundamental Scientific Library (FSL).

After the establishment of the communist regime in Armenia in 1920 and the ideological cleansings of 1937, substantial numbers of manuscripts and books were destroyed and the remaining material was confined to the archives. A huge number of Armenian periodicals published during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were placed in closed archives, as they represented views which the Soviet regime did not want circulated. The FSL was selected by the authorities to house this material and a very limited number of researchers had access to these materials. Since 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet regime and the emergence of Armenia as an independent republic, all spheres of Armenian society have experienced a tremendous and fundamental change. This category of material previously closed is now open to all users. Periodical literature is a vital and unique source of information for the study of the history of the Armenian diaspora, literature, culture, institutions, church life and politics. The condition of the material is in danger because of its storage conditions and the quality of the paper they were printed on. The fluctuation of temperatures and level of humidity in the stacks during the autumn and spring seasons remains uncontrolled. This has caused the physical condition of the materials to deteriorate and many of the rare books have been lost already. 

This project digitised over 4200 volumes and has ensured that the information contained in these volumes will be preserved for research.

If you would like to know more about this project and gain insight into the digitisation procedures of an EAP project you can read an article by the project leaders Alan Hopkinson and Tigran Zargaryan, “Peculiarities of digitising materials from the collections of the National Academy of Sciences, Armenia”.

EAP180/1/1/116 Image 149

EAP183 preserved early print literature on the history of Tamilnadu. The aim of the project was to preserve and provide access to a very important segment of cultural material that reflects the history of Tamilnadu. The project preserved over 150,000 images on microfilm reels and then digitised them for better access. The materials were identified through library surveys and were borrowed and shipped to the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) for microfilming and digitisation. The subject material is important for scholars to reconstruct the history of Tamilnadu, covering areas such as the Self-Respect Movement, Dravidian movement, Bhakti movement and other social and cultural histories of the 19th and early 20th century Tamilnadu.

EAP183/1/1/261 – Image 11

Check back next week to see what else has been added!

You can also keep up to date with any new collections by joining our Facebook group.

 

Historical Christian missionaries have long drawn the spotlight in modern Mizoram, a hill state in the borderlands of India’s northeast.  Stone memorials of missionaries’ late-nineteenth-century visits rise up along roadsides, their hair clippings are preserved behind glass, and their names christen Mizo schoolchildren’s sports teams and populate history books.

In late 2011, our EAP454 digitisation team arrived in Mizoram no less star-struck.  We trained our cameras on the earliest missionary documents and photographs in hopes of preserving digitally the exceptionally rapid transition of a Mizo hill people fundamentally transformed, from an oral society following localised religious practices to an overwhelmingly Christian and literate society.  In many ways, the plan was both sound and successful. 

But while snapping away at what we thought was the main historical vista, we started hearing other voices from the past whispering on our panorama’s fringes, beckoning us out to an overgrown, more vernacular trail.  With the help of various custodians of historical material, we started bushwhacking.

The trail took us away from the familiar paths and historical narratives, reversing their direction from a Victorian Aberystwyth and London inwards to a Mizo Aijal and Lungleh outwards.  Among many colourful characters, it led us to Khamliana Sailo, a Mizo lal, or ‘chief’. 

 
[Fig. 1, Khamliana seated second from right, n.d., http://eap.bl.uk/database/large_image.a4d?digrec=2113522;catid=183611;r=27529]

Khamliana grew up around fire and sword.  By age twelve he had witnessed atrocities by both British and Mizo forces, including the utter destruction of his chiefly grandfather’s village and livelihood.[1] 

The next time the heir Khamliana came face-to-face with invading British forces, he and his father joined up as guides and interpreters, assisting a British captain who was known in the vernacular ominously as Lalmantua—the capturer of Mizo chiefs.  Khamliana was helping the very forces that had burnt his familial village.  Why?

At first blush, many of the EAP454 documents paint Khamliana as a full-blooded British ally.  A wealthy Khamliana makes various donations to the British Raj, principal among these a massive gift to the Imperial Indian Relief Fund in 1915.  Here, Khamliana’s largesse earns him nation-wide press in the journal The Feudatory and the Zemindari,as well as recognition from the Chief Commissioner of Assam and the regional Superintendent. 

 
[Fig. 2,  Khamliana poses outside his colonial-style bungalow at Lungleng village, n.d.,             http://eap.bl.uk/database/large_image.a4d?digrec=2113837;catid=183484;r=11478]

This idyllic ally Khamliana is also evident in the vernacular letter he wrote in 1897 to Kumpinu [‘Company Mother’ or Queen Victoria], a letter heralded as the first ever written by a Mizo. In it, Khamliana proudly informs the Empress of his intent to light patriotic bonfires all around his village on her birthday.  His tone is petitioning and deferential: ‘We will live on your kindness and take heed of your orders,’ he writes, ‘as for us we are less significant and smaller than even the ants to you.’[2] 

 
 [Fig. 3, Letter from Khamliana to Queen Victoria, 16 June 1897,                                        http://eap.bl.uk/database/large_image.a4d?digrec=2113528;catid=183611;r=29358]          

But pliable to the colonial authorities as he might have appeared, Khamliana was still playing a much older chiefly game.  Colonialism might have made some new rules, but he still strove to carve out and maintain familial status and honour.

Quick to learn and to exploit the potentials of the writing technology introduced more widely in the 1890s, Khamliana requests and keeps written character references from colonial officials, using these to secure positions for his sons. He fights for land rights. He invokes his father’s assistance to the Raj for special permission to keep guns.  He pens his own bonds of allegiance with Mizos, conscious of the potential for permanency inherent in the new technology (‘This agreement is a real one,’ records his pact with one Ralduha, and ‘must be kept as record for ever’).  He also maintains scrupulous (and apparently carefully concealed) financial records of vast wealth; in popular historical memory today, Khamliana drops off his first bank deposit via wheelbarrow, colonial officials’ mouths agape.

 
[Fig. 4, Khamliana’s bungalow preserved in Lungleng, Mizoram; photographed by author in 2008, CC-BY.]

Indeed, Khamliana inherited his chieftainship from his father in a time when waves of chaos, war, and political upheaval were crashing over the hills.  In his attempt to stay afloat amidst such a turbulent political sea-change, he grasped the new technology of writing, deftly managed wealth, chose his own allegiances, wrung material benefits out of colonial authorities, and dispatched calculated messages of diplomacy even to the highest British Chieftainess. 

As Khamliana’s case shows, the EAP454 collection provides an opportunity to see the people of this upland region of India as complex, three-dimensional participants in their own histories rather than as the flat, supporting characters to colonial missionaries and officials.  There is a whole host ready to ride into the scene.  And at least one of them is pushing a cash-stuffed wheelbarrow.

 

Written by Kyle Jackson co-director of the 2011 EAP pilot project ‘Locating and surveying early religious and related records in Mizoram, India’.  He is a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick’s Centre for the History of Medicine where he is exploring histories of health, religion, and Christianization in colonial northeast India.

---

 

[1]      Lalhmingliani, ‘Khamliana’, Historical Journal Mizoram 12 (2011): 1-11.

[2]              Translated in P. Thirumal and C. Lalrozami, ‘On the discursive and material context of the first handwritten Lushai newspaper “Mizo Chanchin Laishuih”, 1898’,  Indian Economic & Social History Review 47.3 (2010), 377-403 (pp. 399). 

 

 

This month four collections have gone up online, these are EAP127, EAP266, EAP550 and EAP607.

EAP127 is a project that digitised Bengali 'popular books', street literature targeted at a wide population geared to the non-elites.

The material covers such varied subjects as religion, folk culture, local history, popular literature, pornography and erotica, fashion and cookery, instruction on traditional rural pursuits such as agriculture and animal farming, citizen's rights, public hygiene and social reform.

The books are of unique sociological interest, illustrating the changing society, culture and economy of Bengal. They illustrate sectors of Bengali printing history and book trade and developments of the Bengali language. They were usually printed cheaply on poor paper that discoloured quickly. Digitising these collections has ensured that they will be preserved as a resource for future researchers.

A large amount of this collection unfortunately is not able to be viewed online because of copyright reasons, however over 13,000 images are available and the remainder can be viewed in the British Library reading rooms.

EAP127/9/104 - Image 1

EAP266 is a pilot project which aimed to reorganise the Bolama collection in Guinea-Bissau. Bolama was the first capital of Portuguese Guinea, these records relate to the city and island dated from 1870’s to the 1960’s. They are currently held by the National Historical Archives of Guinea-Bissau after being transferred from the Mayoral Office of Bolama in 1988. It includes all the documents of the public administration which could be found in Bolama in 1988.

The Bolama collection is of great historical value. It reflects the fundamental change in Portuguese colonial rule from outside administration (directed from the Cape Verde Islands) to significant Portuguese presence and the political and economic penetration of the Guinean mainland.
In January 2009 some additional research was undertaken in Bolama and other public documents from the colonial period on the island were found. Relevant documents of the Bolama Court were stored in the archives of the Ministry of Justice in Bissau; these records were in a vulnerable state as the archive was stored in the loft of the old Palace of Justice which has a roof in a bad state of repair.

As part of the project these additional records were transported to the National Historical Archives of Guinea-Bissau. The documents of the entire collection were painstakingly restored to their original order and rearranged and re-packaged in 279 boxes. A digital sample of the records was taken and this is now available to view via our website.

EAP266/1/1 - Image 5

EAP550 surveyed and digitised Yao manuscripts from Yunnan province in Southern China. Yao manuscripts are very unique writings which are significant for understanding Yao people, their religion and culture in general. They are mainly used in religious activities including funerals, annual festivals and special rituals for telling fortunes and expelling evils. Yao manuscripts record texts on various subjects but in a relatively standard poetic format. Since the texts cover the local knowledge on history, literature, astrology, geography, agriculture and many other subjects, they are regarded as the encyclopaedia of Yao people. The texts are read or sang normally by the indigenous priests, known as shigong in Chinese, sometimes they are accompanied by a couple of female singers. It seems that being a shigong shaman is a family profession succeeding in the patrilineal lineage, therefore Yao manuscripts are preserved in individual families and traditionally it is prohibited to show manuscripts to strangers. Yao manuscripts can be accessed in numbers only when the social changes drive shigong shaman to a marginal status and manuscripts are no longer as cherished.

The Yao manuscripts are endangered in many aspects. Firstly, the quality of the original material and their preservation conditions. Secondly, the modernisation process in China after the 1980s brought dramatic changes to the Yao societies. Shigong shamans were marginalised and the indigenous religious activities mostly abandoned. Yao manuscripts were viewed as insignificant and destroyed at an astonishing speed. Thirdly, smuggling and illegal trading brought further threats to the records.

The project was successful in digitising over 200 volumes of Yao manuscripts and creating the first database on the records surviving in China.

EAP550/1/13 – Image 10

EAP607 digitised Native Administration records which were generated between 1891 and 1964 by the Native Authorities (traditional chiefs) in Malawi, formerly Nyasaland.

Prior to British colonialism, Malawi was a predominantly oral society where everything was transacted and captured orally. The establishment of Native Authorities marked a historic transition as traditional leaders were required to conduct and capture official business on paper. The Native Administration records are therefore immensely unique and historical as they portray the interaction between the literate Western culture and oral African culture and the subsequent triumph of literacy over illiteracy in Malawi. The records are a lasting legacy of the impact of colonialism on the people of Malawi.

From July to September 2011, the National Archives of Malawi carried out an earlier pilot project (EAP427) which inspected 32 traditional authorities in the northern region of Malawi to confirm whether traditional chiefs were still keeping the records and to assess the condition of them. The results of the survey established that there were significant volumes of vital records relating to the native administration between 1891 and 1964. The Native Administration records are regarded as personal property inherited by successive chiefs over the past century. EAP607 carried on this work and further identified and assessed the nature and volume of Native Administration records in Malawi. The project digitised the most endangered records. Approximately 20,000 records were digitised and are now available to view online

  EAP607/4/9 - 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.

This month's blog is written by Robert Miles who is part of the EAP team and is currently cataloguing our very early projects. Obviously EAP001 caught his interest and it is easy to see why.

 

The very first EAP project, and one that has recently been made available to view online, consists of a fascinating collection of images taken in late 19th-early 20th century Iran. This pilot project identified important photographic material collections in 13 urban centres in Iran and investigated the feasibility of digitising these collections in the future whilst producing samples of the images. These images chart the development of photography in Iran, from early glass plate negatives to modern-style studio portrait photography, as well as providing visual evidence of the rapid social and cultural changes and modernisation of the country.

EAP001/1/2 - Photo of Mass'oud Mirza Zell al-Sultan [1890s]

Photography was introduced into Iran in the mid-19th century Qajar era shortly after the birth of popular practical photography with the daguerreotype in Europe. During the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, King of Persia 1848-1896, photography was accepted and encouraged as a vital means for the court to document important events and ceremonies and to capture portraits of themselves and their families. Naser al-Din Shah Qajar’s eldest son, Mass'oud Mirza Zell al-Sultan (1848-1917), a powerful prince of the Qajar dynasty and ruler of Isfahan, followed his father’s interest in photography and employed photographers within his court. His portrait can be seen in the image above.

Throughout much of history, portraiture was used as a status symbol and the introduction of portrait photography continued this. From the late 19th century through to the late 1940s portrait photography remained available in Iran only to those who were relatively wealthy and/or with positions of power. Many of the photographs in this collection clearly show the elevated social class of the subjects, or perhaps just an image of an idealised representation they wanted to portray. The displays of wealth, evident in the type of clothes the subjects wore or the possessions and objects they chose to be photographed with helped to display this wealth and social standing, as well as the individual’s skills or profession.

EAP001/6/1 – Constitutional Revolution Hero, Sattar Khan.

 
EAP001/1/2 - Group portrait of clerics at the house of Mirza Malek al-Tojar, Esfahan. c.1900-1920

The collection includes photographs from many key figures in the history of Iranian photography including Ernst Hoeltzer, who states his reasons for documenting the rapid social and cultural changes and modernisation of the country,

“the culture of Persia and Isfahan is about to change drastically and already in the last few years many foreign and European styles and luxuries have been introduced. The old buildings and customs (even the clothing) are gradually disappearing with the result that all those things that have been described by Chardin and Tavernier will simply no longer exist. In fact people will begin to doubt and reject what they have described. Furthermore, I have had time and opportunity to photograph several of the most interesting landscapes, buildings and squares during the last years of my stay – which pleased me all the more since many of the buildings which I had photographed were destroyed shortly after.”[1]

 
EAP001/7/2 - Mass demonstration by workers in Esfahan [1940s-1950s]

Many of these changes can be observed in the photographs within this collection.  They are most obvious in the portrait photographs taken after the transition from the Qajar dynasty to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Pahlavi dynasty came into power in 1925 with ambitious plans to modernise the country, including embarking on major infrastructure projects, developing new industries, and establishing a national education system. The modernisation plans also included a ban on the wearing of traditional Islamic clothing. Men were forced to abandon their traditional clothing and wear modern European style suits, and women were forbidden to wear Islamic coverings and veils when leaving their homes. Portraits from this period are clearly distinguishable due to these changes in clothing.

EAP001/1/2 - Group portrait photograph of three women, taken after the first Pahlavi dynasty placed a ban on Islamic coverings and veils. c.1925

 
EAP001/7/1 - Polish refugees in Iran c.1942-1944

The project also digitised a small selection of Abolghasem Jala’s portraits of Polish refugees in Iran. After the invasion of Poland during the Second World War by both the Germans and the Russians in 1939, many Poles were sent to prison camps within the Soviet Union where they remained until after Operation Barbarossa in 1941. The surprise German attack on the Soviet Union and the need for new Soviet allies, led to a reversal in the treatment of Soviet held Polish prisoners of war. The Soviets freed tens of thousands of Poles, granting many of them ‘amnesty’ to form a Polish army which would help fight the Nazis. This ‘army’ (known as the Anders’ Army) were then sent along with many thousands of Polish refugees to Iran, Iraq, and Palestine.  It is thought that between 114,000 and 300,000 Poles were sent to Iran during this period.

These portraits taken by Abolghasem Jala, between 1942-1944, show some of the Polish refugees that migrated to Iran. During this period Abolghasem took thousands of photographs of these refugees at his Sharq photographic studio in Isfahan.

EAP001/7/1 – Polish refugees in Iran c.1942-1944

If you can find a copy it is well worth checking out Parisa Damandan’s book, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan: Faces in Transition, 1920-1950. Parisa was a co-applicant for EAP001, and her book features a number of photographs from this collection as well as many more fantastic portraits and also includes an essay documenting the history of photography in Iran and the Isfahan region. Parisa also has another book worth finding which focuses on Polish refugee children in Isfahan, The Children of Esfahan: Polish Refugees in Iran: Portrait Photographs of Abolqasem Jala, 1942-1945.

Finally, I’ve selected a few photos below that have caught my eye and thought were worth sharing. EAP001 is full of great images however so please click on the link below and have a look for yourself

 
EAP001/16/2 - Commemorating the Day of Ashura at the Imam Reza Shrine, Mashhad [1901], alongside a 2005 image of the Shrine.

Image 2: IA Source at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons

 
EAP001/1/1 - Portrait photograph of a young girl. 1953

 
EAP001/6/1 – no details

 
EAP001/7/2 - Traditional sportsman and companions [1940s]

For further information about EAP001/7/2 please look at the following article on Encyclopaedia Iranica

References:

Damandan, Parisa, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan: Faces in Transition, 1920-1950, London: Saqi Books (2004)

Scarce, Jennifer, Isfahan in Camera. 19th Century Persia through the Photographs of Ernst Hoeltzer, London: Aarp (1976)

 

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[1] Scarce, Jennifer, Isfahan in Camera. 19th Century Persia through the Photographs of Ernst Hoeltzer, London: Aarp (1976)

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.

EAP341/5/587 Image 5

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’.

EAP644/1/27 Image 11

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).

EAP040/1/110 Image 2

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.

EAP254/1/50 – Image 5

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.

EAP010/1/1/21 Image 1

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.

EAP219/1/14/5 Image 2

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.

EAP105/2/7/4/15 – Image 2

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.

EAP443/1/17/12 – Image 11

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.