Celebrating 18 years of preserving African heritage

This year, the African Heritage Museum, located in Barima Avenue, will celebrate its 18th anniversary of preserving and promoting the cultures of Africa. An exhibition celebrating its anniversary and Emancipation Day would begin on August 3 and would be open to the public until August month end.
The Museum of Arts and Ethnology was founded in 1985, with the purchase of collections of African art from anthropologist Hubert Nicholson and Desiree Malik. It was officially declared open July 31, 1994, by former president, Janet Jagan, and serves under the management of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.

Its collections were annotated and accessioned through UNESCO by Dr William Seligman, curator of African and Oceanic Art, Brooklyn Museum.
Since then, other donations have been made from persons within the local community such as pieces from the Burrowes School of Art and art and craft done by local artists within Guyana.
In 2001, the museum of African Art and Ethnology changed its name to the Museum of African Heritage. This was done to attract a wider audience and address African influence in Guyana. This allows the museum to explore research and solicit donations from the community so that they can be able to share their knowledge and provide programs that will educate visitors on African heritage and origins of their lifestyles in Guyana.
At the museum, the collection consists of African art (West Africa) from wooden masks to the carved door of secret societies. These help us to understand the meaning and reasons behind African art and tradition. There are also collections of brass weights, drums, musical instruments, games and clothing.
Some recent donations include a wooden replica of the 1763 monument. Visitors will also see the ‘Bust of a Fulani Woman’ which is an artistic representation of a Fulani woman. The Fulani are pastoralists who migrate with their cattle all across the savannah regions of West Africa. The women are famous for their beauty. They wear distinctive hairstyles and jewellery. This figure is a modern carving made for the commercial trade. It is made from a very hard, dense, red, Mahogany-type wood. It does not grow in the area where the Fulani live, but closer to the coast. The carvers are likely to be from an ethnic group other than the Fulani since they rarely carve.
There is also the nut bowl from the Yoruba tribe, Nigeria. Bowls like this were used to hold Kola nuts which were cast on the ground as part of a divination ritual. One of the figures is a female worshiper holding her breasts which is a sign of respect. The other is a male figure holding a double-bladed axe carried by priests and worshipers of Shango, the ruler of thunder and lightning and is much feared in West Africa. The central figure is a kneeling woman with a child on her back. Carved above them is a figure of Shango horse’s back. In front of the central female figure is a man lying on his stomach with his arms and knees on the ground, his feet in the air. On his back stands the body of a chicken whose head, neck, back and tail are detached. Two heads on the bowl probably represent the Orisha or God Eshu/Elegba.
Some interesting artefacts include the African hut door from the Senufo Tribe, Mali (Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso). In Senufo, country doors to houses are frequently carved from a buttress root of a large tree. Normal houses doors are usually plain or decorated only with geometric designs. More elaborate designs are usually reserved for the doors of the houses used as meeting places for the secret societies. Such societies have a variety of purposes. Some exist as anti-witchcraft associations. Others exist to train young men and women separately in their respective roles in the community. The symbols on this door include lizards, crocodiles and hornbill birds which are all thought of as among the first animals created before man came into existence. The horse, seen on the door, does not breed south of the Sahara Desert and thus must be imported at great costs. A horse rider, therefore, represents a man of great wealth and power. The masks on the door are Kpelige masks associated with the Poro society.
The museum continues to collect, preserve, exhibit and research arts and artifacts relating to Africa and the African experience in Guyana. It is also mandated with disseminating this knowledge through its outreach programmes.