Historical amnesia: a study into the causes of the disconnection between communities and their rock art sites at Chongoni Rock Art World Heritage Site

Abstract

This study examines the history by which the local communities became separated from \ntheir ancestral heritage at Chongoni World Heritage Site in Malawi and then uses this \nknowledge to improve the management and conservation of rock art sites in the area. It \ndemonstrates how various forces of the distant and immediate past came into play and \nsystematically disconnected the Chewa communities around Chongoni area from their \nancestral rock shelters once used by scores of generations for many important functions \nsuch as rock painting, rainmaking ceremonies and boys and girls initiation rituals. It \nshows that the separation of these communities from their heritage happened gradually in \nvarious episodes spread over the past 150 years. The key factors that directly or indirectly \nled to the separation included the early conquest of the Chewa communities by the Ngoni \nand other groups; conflicts with early Christian missionaries; heavy handed policies of \nthe British colonial government; social and political failures of the post-independent \nstate; the rise of multiparty politics, governance and human freedoms and others. Using \nlocal evidence, I build a case for each of the mentioned factors and shows how this \ncommunity is still in danger of not only being completely separated from their ancestral \nheritage but also losing the remaining strands of their unique traditions. The study \nconcludes by making recommendations for instituting participatory approaches in the \nmanagement and conservation of Chongoni World Heritage Site.

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