The Rhodesian and Central AfricanAnnual 1954

LIFE AND LETTERS OF LIVINGSTONE

Northern Rhodesia's National Museum was founded by the then Governor of , Sir Hubert Young in 1936, and it was planned to make it a memorial to the two men who did most for Central Africa and whom we commemorate in the name of the museum. Two years before that the Government had included £200 in the estimates for the purchase of native arts and crafts, mainly it is thought, to ensure that some good pieces remained in the country when so much had already been taken out of it. Collecting started only just in time and although we have been collecting assiduously ever since, some of our best material was obtained in the early years. This early specialisation in the collecting of human handicrafts together with our other aim, that of collecting relics and documents connected with Livingstone and Rhodes, set the pattern for the Museum's future development and when it was incorporated with the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, also founded by Sir Hubert Young, to undertake social research in the British Central African territories, the immediate development policy was set. This was simply to specialise in the collection of material relating to the origins and development of Man in Northern Rhodesia and thus to reveal as much as we are able of the history and culture of the various peoples who have inhabited the country from the first beginnings, approximately half a million years ago, to the present day. In the early years of the Museum's existence it suffered from the usual growing pains – insufficient funds and staff and old and not very suitable buildings. By 1946, however, the collection had increased considerably and with the plans for expanding the Institute's research programme the Museum was again made a separate institution. A new building was the first essential and this was completed in 1950 with funds subscribed by the British Company, de Beers, the Copper Companies, the Northern Rhodesia Government and other subscribers. Designed by the late Major W. J. Roberts, who left his mark in so many of the public buildings in Southern Rhodesia, it incorporates all the features necessary for a a museum in a pleasing Spanish colonial style which blends very well with the orange sands and large evergreen trees on and among which the town of Livingstone is built. The foundation stone was laid by Colonel Sir Ellis Robins in February, 1950, and the Museum was officially opened by him on 5th May, 1951. The tower serves a dual purpose for besides containing some of the study collections, the top floor is designed as a lookout room from the windows of which a magnificent view is obtained of the and the Zambesi River set in its wide, shallow valley flanked by the wooded, gently sloping Kalahari sands-old desert sands which first covered most of the western half of the Rhodesias about half a million years ago. The tower also contains the four-face striking clock presented by the pioneer brothers, Harry and Elie Susman. The primary aim behind the display of the collections has been to exhibit them in as comfortable and as pleasing surroundings as possible and above all not to overcrowd the galleries. Thus the first floor that the visitor enters is a Rest Room which is furnished with easy chairs and settes and has laid out on a centre table various periodicals and other literature which the visitor may read. Here also is a counter for the display and sale of publications and a counter for cloaks. Visitors are counted by means of an invisible ray, which although perhaps not as acurate as a turnstile is in many other ways preferably particularly in its unobtrusiveness. The building has been designed in the form of a hollow square, the centre being occupied by a courtyard. It has been possible, therefore, to display the collections in a logical progression starting with the earliest material and working through to the latest, thus unfolding little by little the story we have to tell of the history of man in this country. The galleries and the exhibition cases are decorated in pale pastle colours, walls and cases being the same colour in each gallery but varying from gallery to gallery. This besides being pleasing to the eye, helps to focus the visitors' attention upon the exibits in the cases and not on the cases themselves. The walls are decorated with murals painted by the South African artist Barbara Tyrell, depicting scenes from the history and life of the indegenous African population. The first gallery is devoted to the prehistory of Northern Rhodesia and to introductory exhibits to the Bantu collections. In the display of prehistoric material we have attempted to avoid bemusing the visitors with rows of “flints.” The stone implements are there but the emphasis is on the story they tell and not on the specimens themselves. Thus the visitor may learn how to recognise a humanly shaped stone from one that has been shaped by natural agencies and may have his knowledge tested by trying to pick out implements from a pile of typical Zambezi gravel. Other exhibits explain how the past is dated and show the different ways in which stone was shaped by early man. The various prehistoric cultures are dealt with on a general basis for Africa and European and in greater detail for Northern Rhodesia. Various more speciaised exibits deal with the discovery and significance of Broken Hill man, the origin of Victoria Falls, with the mediaeval period in the territory, or with prehistoric rock art. In Africa nearly all the culture of its prehistoric peoples has been destroyed by time and all that remains is the imperishable stone equipment. From these few remains the research worker has to build up a picture of the life of these prehistoric peoples. A special display showing something of the culture of peoples in other parts of the world – Australia, America, the Pacific and so on – who are still, or until qite recently were, living in a Stone Age helps to show something of what may once have existed also in the Stone Age in Rhodesia. The galleries set aside for the display of the arts and crafts of the Northern Rhodesian Bantu tribes combine some interesting features. After introductory exhibits dealing with the country, the life cycle, the division of labour between the sexes, etc.; the visitor passes to a study of village crafts, weaving, basketry, ironworking, pottery and so on, and then to more detailed exhibits showing the different tribes, and pastimes such as hunting, fishing, witchcraft and magic, music and dancing and so on. Dress and technical materials are exhibited with the aid of flat cut-out figures which have proved a great success. We have attempted also to set off exhibits themselves against stippled backgrounds in various colours chosen where possible to be in keeping with the exhibit – for example, a strawcoloured background to the Ila tribal exhibit to give the idea of the grass of the Kafue Flats, green for a woodland tribe, and so on. Clay heads are sometimes used to display different methods of facial adornment or head dresses while such subjects as hunting or fishing methods are shown by means of models. The whole of the end of the long Bantu gallery is devoted to a display of makishi dancing costumes and masks representing ancestral figures, animals or birds, caricatures of humans or weird monsters, which are used at the initiation ceremonies by the Mwiko tribes of the north- west. A collection of musical instruments is never inspiring exhibit so we play some of these in the courtyard every day so that visitors may hear what they sound like. These are played by the Museum African staff who are chosen for their ability to play an instrument. The courtyard contains a fountain and shrubs and the walls are decorated with three murals by the African artist Ranford Sililo. Also in the courtyard are ten dioramas which he made for the Museum's exhibit at the Rhodes Centenary exhibition. These depict ten scenes from the history of Northern Rhodesia starting with the Broken Hill man and ending with the meeting to arrange the Coryndon Concession in 1898. The Museum owns the best collection of relics, and letters of anywhere in Africa and many of these are on display. The most interesting, perhaps, is his Sketch Book showing the first stetch that was ever made of the Victoria Falls, done in 1860 on the occasion of his second visit. Collections relating to early missionaries and pioneers, the British South Africa Company's administration, Cecil Rhodes and others bring the visitor to modern times the final exhibits being devoted to modern industrial and agricultural development, mining, tobacco growing, or timber milling. Situated as it is at the southern end of the territory the Museum attemps to reach other centres also with this purpose in view a Scholls Service has been running for a number of years. This circulates loan cases and film strips and gives regular showings of educational films to European, asian and African children. A mobile cinema van also enables film shows to be given in schools away from Livingstone. Planned fot the future are travelling exhibitions which are to be sent round the main towns in the territory. Our early specialisation in the humanities has stood the Museum in good stead and we now have collections in these subjects worthy of a national museum. It is felt, however, that the time has now come when the Museum should begin to built up natural history collections which can be exhibited in some other centre in the territory. Plans have therefore been made to bring this about and we hope that before many more years are out we shall see a Rhodes-Livingstone Museum of Natural History on the Copperbelt or in the capital – .