Ali Thangal and Muneer

Carrying out a digitisation project in between the pandemic waves entails many challenges that only a fabulous and resourceful project team can successfully tackle. Luckily, a pilot project (EAP1228), undertaken between November 2019 and January 2020, organised and trained such a team just before the pandemic started. The pilot project delivered a survey of handwritten manuscripts at the family archive of Sayed Ali Ba Alawi (Ali Thangal) and organised a team of three digitisation and cataloguing trainees, Sajeev, Fasil, and Muneer. We were also fortunate to have the best digitisation expert in Kerala, Shiju Alex (see here), who trained Sajeev and Fasil in capturing images and working with the hardware and software in the most professional way. Shiju continues to support the current project with advice and guidance, as Sajeev and Fasil manage the digitisation process efficiently and to the highest standards. Sajeev has just completed his MPhil in Malayalam and Cultural Heritage Studies at the Shree Shankaracharya University of Sanskrit (regional branch in Thirur). Fasil, a BCom graduate, is a talented photographer, who had produced charming videos of mawlid chanting for the pilot project in 2019. Muneer is a madrasa student in Kodiyathur with proficient knowledge of Arabic and Malayalam. He works on the catalogue and is supported remotely by the PI in inserting diacritic marks and metadata on a spread sheet, not a trivial task at all when one’s pronunciation of the Arabic language is coloured by Dravidian phonology.

Sajeev (left) and Fasil (right)

Ali Thangal and Muneer work closely on the catalogue of the manuscripts’ image folders, while Sajeev and Fasil work on capturing the books. Ali Thangal’s archive is dynamic; it keeps on changing like a river flowing along a curvy path, at times thickening, at times splitting into rivulets. Ali Thangal takes great efforts in finding the names of authors and scribes when they are not specified in the manuscript. He opens reference books and crosschecks names and titles to complement missing information wherever possible. Muneer on his part skillfully checks for details online to harvest metadata whenever the need arises. And so, the information on each and every text is represented in the most coherent manner possible. The project PI guides Muneer in typing the metadata, translating titles into English, and typing diacritic marks according to academic standards. This is done remotely. We rely on broadband internet connection for meeting on Zoom to work together on the catalogue.

Of the archive’s contents, especially challenging are the majmuʿas, or anthologies with several manuscripts bundled in one volume. From the perspective of researchers, we would like to keep these majmuʿas intact, as they represent performative, living traditions. But the perspective of the archive owner, Ali Thangal, is somewhat different. He would like to represent his collection in the most accurate way, as it is going to be displayed on the website of a prestigious, world-famous library. This brings about some changes in the behaviour of Ali Thangal’s dynamic archive. And so, the first majmuʿa to have been digitised was dismantled into three parts, each with its own complete manuscript with a brand-new binding. The second majmuʿa, however, remained intact upon the PI’s request. This Majmuʿa al-Mawlid is a collection of seventeen smaller manuscripts, all are devotional poems of praise to Muḥammad, of course, but also to his family members Ḥamza and Fāṭimah, to other saints such a Muḥyi al-Dīn (Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jilānī) and other saints and spiritual figures, including Jesus (Mawlūd al-Qudus). Of particular interest is the mawlid dedicated to the legendary Hindu king Cēramāṉ Perumāḷ, who is believed to have converted to Islam and met the Prophet before dividing his kingdom into twelve districts, each with its own mosque. This tradition was passed down in Arabic texts and Malayalam palm leaf manuscripts, and possibly orally as well. However, this mawlid of Sharamā Farmāḷ (or, in Arabic: Mawlūd Tāj al-Dīn al-Hindī) is a new source that has not been studied so far. It is a significant discovery, because the mawlid genre is evidence for oral transmission and performative background. Such discoveries make this project especially exciting and motivating to continue unearthing the textual heritage guarded so lovingly and meticulously by Ali Thangal.

Ashir (left) and Safvana (right)

Two more team members, Ashir and Safvana, are in charge of coordinating the project in Mattool and organising home stay and homemade food for Sajeev, Fasil, and Muneer. But there is more to it than merely organisation and hosting; Ashir and Safvana have collected historical objects and stored them in their house. We therefore use this time in Mattool to survey the objects in their home for planning a future digitisation project to include also these valuable historical artefacts. Once the bulk of the surveyed manuscripts has been completed and stored online, we have started to survey the objects in Ashir and Safvana’s home. We have decided to start with their impressive coin collection, with some coins going back as far as the sixteenth century. The reason is that for the survey we need to know the size and weight of the objects, so we can plan what equipment is required for capturing tridimensional, asymmetric objects, some of which are quite bulky. The coins are relatively simple as they are small. And so, we purchased a caliper and a kitchen scale so that Ashir with the support of Sajeev and Fasil can start working on the coin survey.

There is a greater vision behind this ongoing project in Mattool. The team members hope to further develop this initiative into a heritage preservation project. Ali Thangal, Ashir, and Safvana had established a cultural association, the Mattool Hazrami Foundation, long before the project PI first approached them. Ashir was fostering a dream to establish a local museum for the objects in his collection so they will be better preserved and attract visitors from the vicinity, perhaps even tourists from afar. The objects and documents in Ashir’s collection are historically significant, as Ashir is a descendant of the Kuñjāli Marakkārs, those famous valiant seafarers who served the Zamorins of Calicut as their naval forces in times of war. It is the same legendary Cēramāṉ Perumāḷ commemorated in the Arabic mawlid, who bestowed Calicut upon the Zamorins, along with a sword to fight, defeat, and claim territory from all rival petty kings settled in the divided kingdom of Malabar. Ali Thangal’s living, restless archive cannot be captured in images alone; its textual heritage underlies con-textual associations on both local and trans-local levels. We all hope that the vision to establish a cultural heritage centre to digitise, preserve, and display Mattool’s hidden treasures will become a reality despite the challenges to realising dreams in times of turbulence and uncertainty.

Written by EAP1390 project lead, Dr Ophira Gamliel, University of Glasgow

This month's round-up of newly available collections features archives from India, Romania, Moldova, and Indonesia.

• Digitisation of the Kováts Napfényműterem photographic archive (Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania) (EAP1130)
• Preserving the History of Indian Cinema through Digitising Early Urdu Film Magazines (EAP1262)
• Safeguarding of the intangible Romani heritage in the Republic of Moldova threatened by the volatilisation of the individual unexplored collections (EAP699)
• Personal Manuscripts on the Periphery of Javanese Literature: A Survey and Digitisation of Private Collections from the Javanese North Coast, its Sundanese Hinterlands and the Fringes of Court (EAP1268)

EAP1130 - Digitisation of the Kováts Napfényműterem photographic archive (Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania)

This project digitised photographs from the Kovats Photographic Museum and Studio in Romania. The vast majority of the photos represent the work of several generations of photographers from the Kovats family. A small part of the photographic archive consists of images created by collaborators of the Kovats studio, and of donations of photographic materials from the local population of Odorheiul Secuiesc.

The first photographic studio in Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc) was founded by Ferenczy Lukács (1850-1926) in 1876. In 1903 Kováts István Sr.(1881-1942) bought the studio from Lukács and in 1906 reopened it under his own name – Kováts Napfényműterem (Kováts Sunlight Studio). It still operates today at the same address. Ferenczy Lukács and Kováts István Sr. were not only photographers, but also amateur historians and ethnographers. They documented with passion and attention for detail the life of the small rural communities, mainly of Hungarian and Székely ethnicity, around Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc).

Kováts István Sr. was also a photographer in the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the First World War, and he was dispatched throughout Europe on the Romanian, Galician and Italian battlefields. He brought back around 400 negatives with images from the trenches, portraits of fellow soldiers, and daily life of his company – a personal view of a war that re-shaped Europe and changed the life of millions of its inhabitants, a view that offers to any military historian precious documents. Living for most of his life in Székelyudvarhely, Kováts István Sr. documented everything – social life, architecture, traditions, and his studio was a central point in the life of the city.

Over 5000 photographs can be viewed here.

EAP1262 - Preserving the History of Indian Cinema through Digitising Early Urdu Film Magazines

This project aimed to preserve the rich record of cinema history in India through digitising Urdu film magazines and periodicals from the early twentieth century. Shedding new light on South Asian film journalism and readership, this material highlights aspects of local engagement with film that have remained unexamined so far and are under threat of being lost forever. Given the scarcity of Urdu material that survives today, the digitisation of rare film magazines makes a significant contribution to future scholarship on the subject. This material constitutes an invaluable resource for early Indian film history and Urdu writing on cinema.

While Indian film journalism has not been widely studied, this is all the more concerning for Urdu materials that are less accessible and less widely read than those in other languages, especially English. The production triangle of Hindu-Urdu cinema that spanned Bombay, Calcutta, and Lahore changed irrevocably with partition, and many publications and films from Lahore are believed to be lost forever. The periodicals surveyed and digitised under EAP1262 were largely published in Calcutta, with the exception of one very rare publication from Lahore, and represent a valuable record of an undivided Hindi-Urdu film culture. While Bombay became the major centre for Hindi-Urdu film production, and a more important site for Urdu publishing than Calcutta, these publications offer an invaluable off-centre vantage point of colonial-era Hindi-Urdu film culture and journalism.

The archives can be viewed here.

EAP699 - Safeguarding of the intangible Romani heritage in the Republic of Moldova threatened by the volatilisation of the individual unexplored collections

This project digitised the personal archives of several Roma families in Moldova. The archives mostly consist of individual photographs and photo albums. The albums are notable for their use of illustrations and collage alongside the photographs of loved ones.

During the project the team were able to discover and digitise material from the families of some well-known Roma personalities from the past, as well as material from ordinary Roma families. The digitised material is now publicly available in the Moldovan National Archive as well as the British Library, and is an important source of information for Romani studies.

The project digitised 2557 images from 36 individual collections dating from between 1925-2013. They can be viewed here.

EAP1268 - Personal Manuscripts on the Periphery of Javanese Literature: A Survey and Digitisation of Private Collections from the Javanese North Coast, its Sundanese Hinterlands and the Fringes of Court

The project highlights the periphery of Javanese and Sundanese literature. It covers tales written by scribes residing near shrines, notebooks scribbled by commoners, and works produced by courtiers on their own behalf without apparent patronage from nobles or sovereigns. The grant holder came across these sources while doing fieldwork in places like Gresik, Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Tasikmalaya. Their vernacular provenance increases their obscurity and simultaneously limits their preservation due to a lack of patrons. Thus, it also allows for an interesting survey on the more personal sides of Javanese and Sundanese writing.

Other than surveying and digitising these sources, the project team also used them for Natural Language Processing (NLP). The diversity of the writing styles and vernacular languages found within these manuscripts is expected to contribute to the development of a comprehensive Javanese handwritten text and entity recognition model called Gado2.

399 digitised records can be viewed here.

Among the many fascinating sources from the Endangered Archives Programme’s EAP099 project, which conserved and digitised records of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, is a set of Swahili-language essays, written in 1913 by young men at a German-led teacher training school.

The essays, written by 32 different authors on the subjects of their childhood and conversion to Christianity, are valuable examples of African life-writing during the era of European colonialism. Some of the authors went on to become leading church ministers and teachers. Others are unknown beyond the information left behind in these essays, which provide insights into early experiences of German colonial rule, reasons for conversion, and the impact of missionary activities on indigenous communities.

I came across the texts while conducting research for a three-month PhD Placement, in which I have been exploring the British Library’s collections for new perspectives on German colonial history. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania evolved from the Leipzig Mission, one of several German missions active in the region after it became the colony of German East Africa in 1885. The British Library has digital copies of Leipzig Mission sources, mostly produced between 1895 and the 1930s, which are held in the archive of the Northern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Moshi, Tanzania.

The role of Christian missions in European colonial projects is the subject of continuing debate. Missionaries’ goals sometimes conflicted with those of settlers and colonial administrations, and they occasionally helped to expose colonial atrocities. However, almost all missionaries supported European colonialism in principle, and missions were involved in various labour and educational initiatives to ‘elevate’ supposedly backward indigenous populations.

Students entering the school for teachers in Marangu, ca. 1927-1938. Photograph by Wilhelm Guth, provided courtesy of the Leipzig Mission

Around 95 percent of schools in German colonies were run by missions. As the school system in German East Africa expanded, it became necessary to train local people to become teachers, and to this end the Leipzig Mission opened the Marangu training school for teaching assistants in 1912. Among the first entrants were the young men who, in December 1913, were given the task of writing two essays: one about their early life, and another about their process of conversion.

The texts do not reflect local experiences of colonialism in all their variety. Most subaltern works of life-writing from the colonial era were produced in missionary contexts, and memoir material from those who refused to convert to Christianity is much more seldom. Furthermore, the students at Marangu came from various linguistically diverse parts of Tanzania, and had learned Swahili only upon joining mission schools. We do not know how far the challenge of writing in a second language affected the authors’ ability to tell their stories in the way they would have liked.

The essays nonetheless provide remarkable insights into life in Tanzania during the colonial era. We learn, for example, of the brutalities of German rule. Elia Tarimo’s essay on his childhood recalls the German army’s defeat of Chief Meli, the leader of the town of Moshi, in 1892, and the catastrophic consequences for Moshi civilians. ‘When the Europeans had defeated the Moshi people, they chopped down our banana trees, burned our houses and stayed on our land’, he writes.

An essay by Nderangusho Kimaro shows the effects of the ‘hut tax’, introduced by the German colonial authorities in 1898. Designed in part to make local people work on European plantations to raise the necessary money, the tax was enforced ruthlessly: failure to pay often resulted in askari (East African soldiers in the German colonial army) confiscating cattle. The local chief was sometimes held hostage until those in his village paid the tax.

EAP099/1/2/5/2 Nderangusho Kimaro’s essay ‘The beginning of turning to God’, in which he writes about the hut tax and its consequences for his family

When Kimaro’s mother could not afford to pay, her chief sold her livestock in order to gather the funds. Kimaro was then sent to work as a child labourer on a German plantation, and writes that he was beaten whenever he did not go to work there.

We also find out more about the authors’ reasons for converting to Christianity. Initial motivations for visiting the missionaries included the desire to learn to read and access to material benefits. An acquaintance with Christian teaching usually followed only later. Furthermore, the essays describe the strains on the authors’ relations with their family, friends and community in greater detail than most of the ‘conversion’ accounts by Africans which were published in Europe.

For many of the essay-writers, becoming a Christian meant ceasing to venerate one’s ancestors. This led to conflicts with friends and relatives. Elia Tarimo describes vividly the sense of fear as his family warned him that the spirit of his father, who was killed by the German forces in 1892, would in turn kill Tarimo if he embraced European culture. His teacher, however, told him that he would be condemned to hell if he did not convert before he died.

While some authors write of estrangement, others were eventually welcomed back by their families once they had been baptised. In some instances, the authors were not the only converts within their household. Filipo Njau’s decision to embrace Christianity was made easier by the fact that other family members had already done so. The essays thus hint at a variety of responses within communities to the changing circumstances caused by the European colonial presence.

Njau’s candid essay provides details on the early life of a long-serving representative of East African Christians. From 1926 until 1954, Njau worked as a teacher at the Marangu school at which he had been trained, and stood up for the dignity of Africans within the Church. He opposed, for example, the attempts by some white missionaries to uphold racist clothing distinctions by prohibiting black parishioners from wearing shoes.

Filipo Njau, during his time as a teacher at the Marangu school. Photograph by Wilhelm Guth, provided courtesy of the Leipzig Mission

My analysis of Njau’s text, and those of the other authors, relies upon German translations published in three volumes by Klaus-Peter Kiesel, who adds rich contextual information. Swahili speakers, however, will be able to read the digitised copies for themselves, and I hope that the essays will find wider audiences. Together with the church registers, parish council minutes, diaries and other source material digitised as part of the EAP099 project, they offer great potential for further research into the colonial, religious and social history of East Africa.

My thanks go to Professor Adam Jones for giving me permission to use the photos from the Leipzig Mission’s archive, and for providing further information about the historical context and the Endangered Archives Project EAP099.

 

Rory Hanna, PhD Placement Student, German Collections

References and further reading:

Klaus-Peter Kiesel (ed.), Kindheit und Bekehrung in Nord-Tanzania. Aufsätze von Afrikanern aus dem ehemaligen Deutsch-Ostafrika vom Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols (2005-2013) [https://ul.qucosa.de/landing-page/?tx_dlf[id]=https%3A%2F%2Ful.qucosa.de%2Fapi%2Fqucosa%253A32377%2Fmets]

Sebastian Conrad, German Colonialism: A Short History (Cambridge, 2012), YC.2011.a.17036

John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge, 1979), X.800/27820

Gabriel Ogunniyi Ekemode, ‘German Rule in North-East Tanzania, 1885-1914’. PhD thesis (1973) [https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.817253]

Klaus Fiedler, Christianity and African Culture: Conservative German Protestant Missionaries in Tanzania, 1900-1940 (Leiden, 1996), YA.1996.b.5134

Robert B. Munson, The Nature of Christianity in Northern Tanzania: Environmental and Social Change, 1890-1916 (Lanham, MD: 2013), YC.2014.a.2048

Majida Hamilton, Mission im kolonialen Umfeld. Deutsche protestantische Missionsgesellschaften in Deutsch-Ostafrika (Göttingen, 2010), [https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/32525/610325.pdf;jsessionid=C76FC24EAFEA6E388577C3D60DB600FC?sequence=1]

Thomas Spear (ed.), Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionsblatt. Extracts on Arusha and Meru, 1897-1914 (Madison, WI: 1995), YA.1996.b.4628

Thomas Spear and Isaria N. Kimamba (eds), East African Expressions of Christianity (Oxford, 1999), YC.1998.a.4866

Simon Gikandi, ‘African Literature and the Colonial Factor’, in Francis Irele and Simon Gikandi (eds), The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 379-397, YC.2005.a.268

Gareth Griffiths, African Literatures in English: East and West (New York, 2000), m00/27805

EAP has revised and expanded its recommended equipment list, which now includes DLSRs and mirrorless cameras. The information is split between two documents, both available on the EAP website. The first part compares these two types of camera so that you can judge which kind is best suited for your digitisation project. It also provides a comprehensive list of full-frame and APS-C cameras, suitable lenses, tripods, copy stands and lighting etc. Part two focusses on appropriate mirrorless cameras for an EAP project.

We hope this updated information will be of help, not only to applicants to EAP, but also anyone carrying out a digitisation project of their own.

EAP755/1/1/35/5 Frog on Camera

We are allowing a little extra time to submit applications to this round. The new deadline is 12:00 (midday GMT) on Thursday 18^th November. Meanwhile if you have any questions relating to your applications, do get in touch as soon as possible.

All applications must be made online via our portal: https://webportalapp.com/sp/login/eap-grants

First register as the Principal Applicant (as an individual not an organisation) and then complete the application (if you need to share a version of the form with colleagues or you could use the Word form https://eap.bl.uk/applicants#forms%20and%20templates to practise offline and drop the text in).

The Online Application Portal is now open!

You can access it at this link: https://webportalapp.com/sp/eap-grants

Please make sure you have read through our Guidance for Applicants, the Grant Agreement Template and the Guide to Digitisation before applying. If you want to practise your application off-line, you can find a Word version of the form here.

The submission deadline is 15^th November 2021 at midday GMT.

If you have any questions, do get in touch at [email protected].

If you would like a transcript of the Webinars for Applicants held in October, get in touch.

Clock - from the collection of NEM; town of Sofia; 1948-1952; taken by N. Nikolov; Black-and-white negative with good quality, dirty; 24x36 mm; Inventory in Bulgarian language

Following the call for applications, we are happy to announce the dates of our Webinars for Applicants. These will help applicants create a successful Preliminary Application.

We will hold two webinars:

1. Monday, 18^th October 2021 at 3pm GMT
2. Tuesday, 19^th October 2021 at 10am GMT

During the webinars, we will discuss the EAP Round 17 application process and we will answer your questions. Please, send any questions you might have in advance to [email protected].

Please register to your webinar of choice at the following links. The two webinars will be identical in content.

Monday 3pm: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kNIf1I_TS7WyUMi0c8a17w

Tuesday 10am: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eMLVEfhQSMOhzs5fQD-9GA

We look forward to seeing you!

Do you know of any collections that are currently at risk and need preserving?

The Endangered Archives Programme is now accepting preliminary applications for the next annual funding round – the deadline for submission of preliminary applications is Monday 15^th November 2021 at 12 noon GMT. Full details of the application procedures and documentation are available on the EAP website.

The Programme has funded over 430 projects in 90 countries and has helped preserve manuscripts, rare printed books, newspapers and periodicals, audio and audio-visual materials, photographs and temple murals. The programme aims to digitise archives at risk of loss or decay and, where possible, to relocate the material to a safe local archival home. The digital copies are deposited with the local archival partners, and are all available for researchers to access freely through the British Library website.

This year, we are accepting applications through our online portal between 1^st and 15^th November. However, in the meantime, we are providing Word and PDF documents for applicants to perfect their preliminary applications before the online submission.

If you know of an archive in a region of the world were resources are limited, we really hope you will apply. If you have any questions regarding the conditions of award or the application process, consult our website or contact us at [email protected]