Dundo Museum

Dundo Museum
Museu do Dundo
Former names	Dundo Ethnographic Museum
Established	1936
Location	Dundo, Lunda Norte Province, Angola
Coordinates	7°22′43.8″S20°50′05.2″E / 7.378833°S 20.834778°E
Type	Ethnographic, natural history
Founder	Diamang

Last updated June 28, 2024

The Dundo Museum (Portuguese : Museu do Dondo), officially the Dundo Regional Museum and formerly called the Dungo Ethnographic Museum,^[1] is a national ethnographic and natural history museum in Dundo, Lunda Norte Province, Angola. It was founded in 1936 by the Diamang company, making it the country's first museum. It is considered one of the country's most important museums and one of the most important cultural museums in Africa.^[2]^[1] It focuses primarily on preserving artifacts related to the heritage and culture of eastern Angolan groups, particularly the Chokwe people, and also has natural history and archaeological collections. Several objects were looted during the Angolan Civil War and repatriation efforts are ongoing. On 18 April 2016, it was named a regional cultural reference monument.^[3]

Exhibits

Most of the museum's collection focuses on the culture and history of East Angolans, particularly the Chokwe people.^[4]As of 2021^[update], the Dundo Museum hosts approximately 10,200 ethnographic objects and 30,000 natural history specimens, including a herbarium.^[1]

The museum's entrance is fronted by two lion sculptures, which in Chokwe culture are symbols of protection; and a map of Angola is in the center.^[1] The main gallery in the museum contains a reconstructed Chokwe village.^[2] The museum is divided into different sections on daily life and political and social structure.^[4] Other exhibits inside the museum include a portrait gallery of Angolan chiefs; an "Indigenous Room" containing objects of cultural heritage; and an "Africa Room" containing objects repatriated from Europe beginning in the 1940s.^[5] The library houses about 25,000 books.^[1]

History

Establishment and early years

The Diamang company established the headquarters for its diamond mining operations at Dundo in 1917. The town, consisting mostly of workers and their families, quickly grew, and most of the town's infrastructure was built and operated by Diamang. Soon, Diamang identified a need to document the local communities within their mining territory and formally established this in their mission.^[6] The Dundo Museum was established in 1936, initially to host the private collection of José Redinha, who had collected cultural objects from eastern Angola, as well as painted portraits of the local people in their traditional costume.^[5] In 1942, Redinha became first curator of the museum,^[7] which was then known as the Dundo Ethnographic Museum. His collection was initially placed in a room at Diamang's headquarters before a dedicated building was built, with construction beginning in 1942 and completing in 1947. A new village was soon established around the museum, with its own chief, who would welcome guests and provide tours.^[1]

In 1936, the Dundo Museum had 436 objects; by the end of 1937, the collection had increased to 2,296. The following year, Redinha collected an additional 700 objects from the Sombo area. By the 1950s, the Dundo Museum had collected over 7,000 objects. Some of these—particularly artwork and photographs—were exhibited overseas in Brazil and Europe.^[5] Besides cultural objects, the museum also curated archaeological artifacts and specimens of local plants.^[8] When the museum's natural history collection began in 1945, the name was shortened to the Dundo Museum.^[1] The museum also organized public festivals and dance competitions, at which native Angolans were asked to perform their traditional music, dances, and other ceremonies. The museum would record the ceremonies and folklore, supply traditional clothing, and provide winners of the competitions with prizes.^[9]

The Dundo Museum quickly became one of the most prominent research institutions in sub-Saharan Africa and supported studies in ethnography, biology, archaeology, geology, and related studies.^[6] It also funded missions in Angola to record folklore and traditions, with a focus on villages which had very little contact with Europeans.^[10] By 1957, more than 260 researchers from around the world were working in collaboration with the Dundo Museum;^[2] some of the most prominent, included Jean Janmart, head of Diamang's Prospecting Brigade; Henri Breuil; John Desmond Clark; and Louis Leakey. The museum also established the Publicações Culturais, a publication which documented research results from academics associated with Diamang and the museum.^[6] These and other documents were stored in the museum's library, which in 1955 counted 900 volumes of assorted material.^[8]

Angolan independence and 21st century

The museum did not halt acquisitions after the outbreak of the Angolan War of Independence in 1961.^[5] At the outbreak of the Angolan Civil War in 1975, the museum temporarily closed but reopened again on 11 November 1976.^[1] Several artifacts were looted, especially from the ethnography collection.^[2] Just before the civil war, the museum estimated about 20,000 objects in its collection.^[4] Documents detailing the museum's history were also lost.^[5] Artifacts continue to be found and returned to the museum. In 2015, the Sindika Dokolo Foundation announced its plan to recover more than 100 artworks that had gone missing during the civil war.^[11]

Between 1980 and 1994, the Dundo Museum was Angola's most visited museum, averaging about 25,000 people per year.^[1] In 2005, the museum closed for extensive renovations as part of a push by the Angolan government to revitalize the country's cultural heritage centers. During its closure, the building itself was renovated and refurnished and a multimedia room was added.^[4] The museum reopened to the public on August 12, 2012.^[1] The museum was named a regional cultural reference monument on 18 April 2016.^[3]

By the early 2020s, the museum had about 200–300 visitors per day. Protective measures were instated during the COVID-19 pandemic that restricted the number of visitors at any given time to 10.^[1] The Minister of Culture, Tourism and Environment, Jomo Fortunato, announced in August 2021 that a virtual museum would be created to allow online exploration of its collections.^[12]

Relationship with native Angolans

Collaboration with locals was the main source by which the museum acquired artifacts. Over the years, other Diamang employees donated their own collections. The majority of objects were fielded from locals in collection campaigns, including from local chiefs of villages who supplied workers, with whom Diamang attempted to foster close relationships. The participation of the chiefs in this exchange may have been tied to cultural expectations of reciprocity and the securing of alliances with Diamang as a monopolistic colonial power.^[6]^[5] A 1955 report claimed the local people saw the Dundo Museum as their "tribal mansion".^[8]

Historically, the relationship between the museum and the local people was often strained. A 1946 report from the Tchiboco Ethnographic Campaign documented tensions between the expedition and locals. Disagreements arose about the type of objects the museum desired, the method in which they would be used or displayed, and generally about the acquisition of important objects. Additionally, Diamang would often require, coerce, or threaten new workers—some of whom had important ceremonial roles in their home villages—to donate cultural objects they had brought with them to Dundo. A chief's portrait could be removed from the gallery if Diamang was unsatisfied with the amount of workers his village supplied.^[5]

The museum stated its intent to preserve cultural heritage at risk of going extinct. During the 1940s, the Dundo Museum established an art gallery for portraits of local chiefs who visited the museum. In the late 1950s and 1960s, and especially after neighbouring Belgian Congo gained independence and competing interests from other museums emerged, Diamang enacted even more ambitious collections projects. Around this time, the museum established an "Africa Room", which fielded collections from Europe that had originated in Africa with the purpose of returning them to the continent. In 1960, 871 objects were counted in this room.^[5]

Related Research Articles

The culture of Angola is influenced by the Portuguese. Portugal occupied the coastal enclave Luanda, and later also Benguela, since the 16th/17th centuries, and expanded into the territory of what is now Angola in the 19th/20th centuries, ruling it until 1975. Both countries share prevailing cultural aspects: the Portuguese language and Roman Catholicism. However, present-day Angolan culture is mostly native Bantu, which was mixed with Portuguese culture. The diverse ethnic communities with their own cultural traits, traditions and native languages or dialects include the Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Chokwe, Avambo and other peoples.

Penn Museum, formerly known as The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania. It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, at the intersection of 33rd and South Streets. It also is close enough for Drexel University students to walk or take SEPTA transportation services. Housing over 1.3 million artifacts, the museum features one of the most comprehensive collections of Middle and Near-Eastern art in the world.

The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, commonly shortened MPEG, is a Brazilian research institution and museum located in the city of Belém, state of Pará, Brazil. It was founded in 1866 by Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna as the Pará Museum of Natural History and Ethnography, and was later named in honor of Swiss naturalist Émil August Goeldi, who reorganized the institution and was its director from 1894 to 1905. It is now the "main research center on natural systems and sociocultural processes of the Brazilian Amazon." The museum and zoological park are listed as protected sites by both the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage, and the Department of Historic, Artistic and Cultural Heritage of the state of Pará.

The National Museum of Brazil is the oldest scientific institution of Brazil. It is located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, where it is installed in the Paço de São Cristóvão, which is inside the Quinta da Boa Vista. The main building was originally the residence of the House of Braganza in colonial Brazil, as the Portuguese royal family between 1808 and 1821 and then as the Brazilian imperial family between 1822 and 1889. After the monarchy was deposed, it hosted the Republican Constituent Assembly from 1889 to 1891 before being assigned to the use of the museum in 1892. The building was listed as Brazilian National Heritage in 1938 and was largely destroyed by a fire in 2018.

The Chokwe people, known by many other names, are a Bantu ethnic group of Central and Southern Africa. They are found primarily in Angola, southwestern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and northwestern parts of Zambia.

Dundo, or Dundo-Chitato, is a former mining town, with a population of 177,604 (2014), now a city and the provincial capital of Lunda Norte in Angola. Established in the early part of the 20th century as a planned diamond mining community, Dundo has continued to grow, has its own airport and is now being superseded by a new city, New Dundo.

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, with particular focus on the ethnography and archaeology of the Americas. The museum is caretaker to over 1.2 million objects, some 900 feet (270 m) of documents, 2,000 maps and site plans, and about 500,000 photographs. The museum is located at Divinity Avenue on the Harvard University campus. The museum is one of the four Harvard Museums of Science and Culture open to the public.

The William R. and Clarice V. Spurlock Museum, better known as the Spurlock Museum, is an ethnographic museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Spurlock Museum's permanent collection includes portions of collections from other museums and units on the Urbana-Champaign campus such as cultural artifacts from the Museum of Natural History and Department of Anthropology as well as historic clothing from the Bevier Collection of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. The museum also holds objects donated by other institutions and private individuals. With approximately 51,000 objects in its artifact collection, the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign collects, preserves, documents, exhibits, and studies objects of cultural heritage. The museum's main galleries, highlighting the ancient Mediterranean, modern Africa, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, East Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas, celebrate the diversity of cultures through time and across the globe.

Ethnography and History Museum of Póvoa de Varzim is a museum with a maritime and ethnic theme located in the Portuguese city of Póvoa de Varzim. The museum is located in Solar dos Carneiros, former home of the Viscount of Azevedo.

The National Museum of Indonesia is an archeological, historical, ethnological, and geographical museum located in Jalan Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta, right on the west side of Merdeka Square. Popularly known as the Elephant Museum after the elephant statue in its forecourt, its broad collections cover all of Indonesia's territory and almost all of its history. The museum has endeavoured to preserve Indonesia's heritage for two centuries.

The National Museum of Archaeology is the largest archaeological museum in Portugal and one of the most important museums devoted to ancient art found in the Iberian Peninsula. Located in Lisbon, the museum was founded in 1893 by the archaeologist José Leite de Vasconcelos. The museum is located in the western wing of the Jeronimos Monastery where the monks had their dormitory. The museum is built in the Neo-Manueline style and was officially opened in 1906.

The National Museum of Vanuatu is located in the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VCC) in Port Vila, Vanuatu. It specializes in exhibits relating to the culture and history of this group of islands in the South Pacific. It is unique amongst Pacific national cultural institutions for rejecting many aspects of European museology, and creating new ways of working which value kastom practices.

Reginald Frederick Lawrence FRSSAf was a South African arachnologist and myriapodologist at the South African Museum in Cape Town from 1922 until 1935, director of the Natal Museum in Pietermaritzburg from 1935 until 1948 and a researcher and staff member of the same museum until 1986.

Tarsus Museum is an archaeology and ethnography museum in Tarsus, Mersin Province, in southern Turkey.

The Museu Nacional de Antropologia is an anthropological museum in the Ingombota District of the city of Luanda, Angola. Founded on 13 November 1976, it is a cultural and scientific institution, dedicated to the collection, research, conservation, presentation and dissemination of the Angolan cultural heritage.

Ethnomuseology is the study of museums and museum curation in the context of the culture and cultural traditions of its collections. It is an interdisciplinary field combining museum studies, anthropology, ethnography, and often various fine arts.

The Immigration Museum is a public museum located in the city of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, in the countryside of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It was founded on January 30, 1988, from the collection of the Fraternity of American Descendants, a civil society organization responsible for managing the Cemetery of the Americans. It is subordinated to the Municipal Secretariat of Culture and Tourism.

The Museum of Archeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo(MAE-USP) is a department of the University of São Paulo. Focused on research, teaching, and cultural and scientific diffusion. It was created in 1989, from the dismemberment of the archeology and ethnology sectors of the Museu Paulista, to which the collections of the Institute of Prehistory of USP and the Plínio Ayrosa Collection were merged. It is located in Cidade Universitária (campus), in the West Zone of São Paulo.

Archaeological explorations in Angola have been carried out since the late 19th century. Much of the early research was funded and led by Portuguese colonial interests in Angola, fueled by the Scramble for Africa. The 1890 British Ultimatum on the expansion of the Portuguese Empire led to the latter's further emphasis on colonial development in central Africa, including Angola, and the exploration of its cultural resources to strengthen its colonial system. In the 20th century, archaeology in Angola focused largely on the Stone Age, driven by colonial interests in evolutionary anthropology, until Angolan independence in 1975. During that time, several research institutions and museums were opened, and fieldwork was largely tied to mission trips into the country to document the cultures of native Angolans. In recent decades, partnerships have formed between Angolan archaeologists and those from France and Portugal to continue research. Calls to repatriate artifacts back to Angola from overseas collections have also gained momentum in recent decades.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 dos Santos, Domingos (18 May 2021). "O passado e o presente do Museu Regional do Dundo" [The past and present of the Dundo Regional Museum]. Jornal de Angola (in Portuguese). Retrieved 27 June 2024.
1 2 3 4 "Come with us on a tour to discover the first museum built in Angola". Africanews . 22 April 2021. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
1 2 "Angola: Dundo Museum Deemed Cultural Reference of Region" . AllAfrica . ANGOP. 20 April 2016. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
1 2 3 4 Sapalo, Armando (23 August 2012). "Museu do Dundo reabre ao público" [Dundo Museum reopens to the public]. Jornal de Angola (in Portuguese). Retrieved 27 June 2024– via PressReader.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Ribeiro da Silva Bevilacqua, Juliana (28 March 2018). "Notes on the making of the Dundo Museum collection". Art Africa. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
1 2 3 4 de Matos et al. 2021, p. 323.
↑ Porto 1999, p. 769.
1 2 3 de Vilhena 1955, p. 41.
↑ de Vilhena 1955, pp. 41–42.
↑ de Vilhena 1955, p. 42.
↑ Hickley, Catherine (7 June 2018). "Angola recovers six artefacts looted from museum during civil war". The Art Newspaper . Retrieved 26 June 2024.
↑ "Culture Ministry creates virtual museum in Dundo". ANGOP . 27 August 2021. Retrieved 26 June 2024.

Bibliography

de Matos, Daniela; Martins, Ana Cristina; Senna-Martinez, João Carlos; Pinto, Inês; Godinho Coelho, Ana; Santos Ferreira, Soraia; Oosterbeek, Luiz (2021). "Review of Archaeological Research in Angola". African Archaeological Review . 38: 319–344. doi:10.1007/s10437-020-09420-8 . Retrieved 27 June 2024– via SpringerLink.
de Vilhena, Julio (January 1955). "A Note on the Dundo Museum of the Companhia de Diamantes de Angola". Journal of the International Folk Music Council . 7: 41–43. doi:10.2307/834536 . Retrieved 26 June 2024– via Cambridge University Press.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
Porto, Nuno (1999). "Manageable Past: Time and Native Culture at the Dundo Museum in Colonial Angola". Cahiers d'Études Africaines . 155–156: 767–787. Retrieved 27 June 2024– via Persée.