**2. Social value**

As individuals or as members of communities, people are all the time engaged with the landscapes where they live or work. According to Byrne et al. ([31], 3) part of this engagement includes "people giving meaning to places through the events in their lives which have taken place" in landscapes. Generations pass knowledge of these events down to each other. Often the events have left no mark on the places or on the landscapes, but people remember what has happened; they keep memories. It is as if people carry around in their heads a map of the landscape which has all these places and their meanings detailed on it. When people walk through particular landscapes, the sight of a place will often trigger the memories and the feelings – good or bad, happy or sad – which go with them. This is the other side of the conversation: it is the landscape talking back. The key thing is that a heritage practitioner, who is a stranger or outsider in these local landscapes, can never discover this world of meaning just by observing a place. They can only know about it by talking to "people giving meaning to places through the events in their lives which have taken place' in landscapes'' ([31], 3). An object/place becomes significant because it is meaningful or it has meaning to a group of individuals or a community. Social value therefore is the distinct meanings that a community, rather than individuals, ascribe to places [32]. In other words, social values are all those values expressed by the community and which fall outside the professional framework [32]. Accordingly, the Australian State of Queensland (2017, 18) has developed the following definition of social significance/social value:

*The social significance of a place is derived from a perceived meaning or symbolic, spiritual or moral value in the place that is important to a particular community or cultural group and which generates a strong sense of attachment*

The Declaration of Oaxaca, prepared by the Mexican Committee of ICOMOS, tries to show how a community's role in the creation, maintenance and giving meaning to places can be respected. According to the Declaration, the people who create heritage, and for whom it is part of their daily lives, are best placed in conserving this heritage through the continuity of traditional practices [33]. There is a danger of destroying this heritage when the role of defining and conserving this heritage is given to the "experts" as this alienates the traditional keepers from their heritage. In other words, the people who live in a certain place or attached to an object, do not only continue maintaining that place/object, but also that the place/ object exists because of the continuous interaction that the people have with it and it is from this interaction that the place/object gets its meaning [32]. Therefore,

**7**

*Significance in African Heritage*

*our heads.*

([35], 249; [36]).

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90821*

landscape may have different meanings to different people:

*... even though we gather together and look in the same direction at the same instant, we will not - cannot see -the same landscape. We may certainly agree that we will see many of the same elements -houses, roads, trees, hills -... but such facts take on meaning only through association ... any landscape is composed not only of what lies before our eyes but what lies within*

these are the ideal people to define the significance of the place. The local people are the ideal ones to define significance because as Meinig [34] argues, the same

A good example of this assertion by Meinig – how a landscape can have different meanings to different people is seen in Chinua Achebe's [35] short story, "Dead Man's Path." This is a story of Michael Obi, a young man who has been appointed as head teacher of a mission school, the Ndume Central School, that is situated in what is considered by the missionaries as a "pagan" area. Obi wants his school to be the perfect, beautiful, and successful school in the mission system. With the help of his wife, he transforms the school compound into an English garden, complete with flowers and hedges around the school buildings. Passing through the school however, and without Obi's knowledge, is a little-used path that connects the village shrine with the local cemetery. When he learns of this path, Obi constructs a fence to block villagers from using the path through the school. Obi informs the village priest about the erection of the fence, and the priest protests the fencing of the path telling Obi that "the whole life of the village depends on it. Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it" ([35], 249). The priest also warns that if Obi obstructs the path, then he will cut "the path of children coming in to be born"

The stance between Obi and the priest is an instance where two people, though from the same community, have different understanding of the significance of the landscape. To the priest and the other villagers, the path through the school, though seldom used, is not only to go to the burial place, where people, who soon will be the ancestors of the living are buried, but it is the path that the living and the dead, the present and the future interact with one another and thus ensure the sustainability of the community; the living (present) use it to bury the dead, the dead who are now ancestors(past) use it to visit the living (present) and the children to be born (future) use it to be born. This is the significance of the landscape that Michael Obi did not understand or he refused to understand because of his conversion to Christianity. This example not only shows how different people recognise the social value of a place/object, but also calls for creation of a methodology of valuing heritage that recognises that the social value (significance/insignificance) of heritage is not only about the past but is about the present and future, because the past is found in the present, and that this awareness is significant for a "future meaningful existence" ([37], 3; [38]). This brings to mind the experience I and my team encountered when in 2013 we were excavating inside Mudzi Mwiru, one of the sacred Mijikenda Kayas of the Kenya coast. Mijikenda kayas, listed in the World Heritage List in 2008, are considered by the Mijikenda people as sacred because they are the abode of their ancestors and a source of the Mijikenda identity [39]. As a result of their sacredness, only initiated elders are allowed to enter the kayas [40]. Therefore, before being allowed to carry out excavations inside the kaya, the Kaya elders had to carry out special ceremonies in order to appease the spirits of the ancestors and also

#### *Significance in African Heritage DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90821*

*Heritage*

this value.

**2. Social value**

as contributing to the sustainability of these communities. Consequently, heritage was ascribed various values that include economic, political, social, religious, educational and others. Whereas the potential contribution of the other values to sustainability could be seen and have thus, been given prominence in heritage discussions, the potential of the social value on the other hand, has not, especially in Africa, been appreciated and has accordingly, not been given much prominence, and yet it is this value, which much more than all the other values, that ensures the sustainability of African communities. The next part of this paper will consider

As individuals or as members of communities, people are all the time engaged with the landscapes where they live or work. According to Byrne et al. ([31], 3) part of this engagement includes "people giving meaning to places through the events in their lives which have taken place" in landscapes. Generations pass knowledge of these events down to each other. Often the events have left no mark on the places or on the landscapes, but people remember what has happened; they keep memories. It is as if people carry around in their heads a map of the landscape which has all these places and their meanings detailed on it. When people walk through particular landscapes, the sight of a place will often trigger the memories and the feelings – good or bad, happy or sad – which go with them. This is the other side of the conversation: it is the landscape talking back. The key thing is that a heritage practitioner, who is a stranger or outsider in these local landscapes, can never discover this world of meaning just by observing a place. They can only know about it by talking to "people giving meaning to places through the events in their lives which have taken place' in landscapes'' ([31], 3). An object/place becomes significant because it is meaningful or it has meaning to a group of individuals or a community. Social value therefore is the distinct meanings that a community, rather than individuals, ascribe to places [32]. In other words, social values are all those values expressed by the community and which fall outside the professional framework [32]. Accordingly, the Australian State of Queensland (2017,

18) has developed the following definition of social significance/social value:

The Declaration of Oaxaca, prepared by the Mexican Committee of ICOMOS, tries to show how a community's role in the creation, maintenance and giving meaning to places can be respected. According to the Declaration, the people who create heritage, and for whom it is part of their daily lives, are best placed in conserving this heritage through the continuity of traditional practices [33]. There is a danger of destroying this heritage when the role of defining and conserving this heritage is given to the "experts" as this alienates the traditional keepers from their heritage. In other words, the people who live in a certain place or attached to an object, do not only continue maintaining that place/object, but also that the place/ object exists because of the continuous interaction that the people have with it and it is from this interaction that the place/object gets its meaning [32]. Therefore,

*The social significance of a place is derived from a perceived meaning or symbolic, spiritual or moral value in the place that is important to a particular community or cultural group and which generates a strong*

*sense of attachment*

**6**

these are the ideal people to define the significance of the place. The local people are the ideal ones to define significance because as Meinig [34] argues, the same landscape may have different meanings to different people:

*... even though we gather together and look in the same direction at the same instant, we will not - cannot see -the same landscape. We may certainly agree that we will see many of the same elements -houses, roads, trees, hills -... but such facts take on meaning only through association ... any landscape is composed not only of what lies before our eyes but what lies within our heads.*

A good example of this assertion by Meinig – how a landscape can have different meanings to different people is seen in Chinua Achebe's [35] short story, "Dead Man's Path." This is a story of Michael Obi, a young man who has been appointed as head teacher of a mission school, the Ndume Central School, that is situated in what is considered by the missionaries as a "pagan" area. Obi wants his school to be the perfect, beautiful, and successful school in the mission system. With the help of his wife, he transforms the school compound into an English garden, complete with flowers and hedges around the school buildings. Passing through the school however, and without Obi's knowledge, is a little-used path that connects the village shrine with the local cemetery. When he learns of this path, Obi constructs a fence to block villagers from using the path through the school. Obi informs the village priest about the erection of the fence, and the priest protests the fencing of the path telling Obi that "the whole life of the village depends on it. Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it" ([35], 249). The priest also warns that if Obi obstructs the path, then he will cut "the path of children coming in to be born" ([35], 249; [36]).

The stance between Obi and the priest is an instance where two people, though from the same community, have different understanding of the significance of the landscape. To the priest and the other villagers, the path through the school, though seldom used, is not only to go to the burial place, where people, who soon will be the ancestors of the living are buried, but it is the path that the living and the dead, the present and the future interact with one another and thus ensure the sustainability of the community; the living (present) use it to bury the dead, the dead who are now ancestors(past) use it to visit the living (present) and the children to be born (future) use it to be born. This is the significance of the landscape that Michael Obi did not understand or he refused to understand because of his conversion to Christianity. This example not only shows how different people recognise the social value of a place/object, but also calls for creation of a methodology of valuing heritage that recognises that the social value (significance/insignificance) of heritage is not only about the past but is about the present and future, because the past is found in the present, and that this awareness is significant for a "future meaningful existence" ([37], 3; [38]). This brings to mind the experience I and my team encountered when in 2013 we were excavating inside Mudzi Mwiru, one of the sacred Mijikenda Kayas of the Kenya coast. Mijikenda kayas, listed in the World Heritage List in 2008, are considered by the Mijikenda people as sacred because they are the abode of their ancestors and a source of the Mijikenda identity [39]. As a result of their sacredness, only initiated elders are allowed to enter the kayas [40]. Therefore, before being allowed to carry out excavations inside the kaya, the Kaya elders had to carry out special ceremonies in order to appease the spirits of the ancestors and also

ask their permission for us to carry out the excavations. Without the ceremonies, it is believed, we could have been harmed by the ancestral spirits. In order to ensure that no harm befell us during the excavations, one of the senior elders stayed with us most of the time of the excavation. In between the excavations however, this elder had to go and join the other elders for a ceremony in another Kaya. The next morning as we started the excavations without the elder, we noticed a green mamba snake coming slowly and perching itself on top of a tree near where we were excavating and stayed there till the end of the day and as we prepared to leave the site, it also left. The snake did this for the 3 days that the elder was absent but disappeared the day the elder rejoined us. When we told the elder about the incident, he said that that was the guardian he had sent to stay with us in order to avoid the wrath of the ancestors. The appearance of the snake may appear insignificant, but to the elders of the Mijikenda, it is an affirmation of the sacredness and therefore significance of the kayas to the ancestors and the local community [39]. Peter Schmidt [41] reports the same visitation of an ancestral spirit in the form of a snake when he was excavating one of the royal palaces of the Rugomora Mahe kingdom in Tanzania. The experience makes Schmidt to conclude that "we must be sensitive to and familiar with the roles that ancestors take in guiding, limiting, and insisting on the manner in which behavior and its materialization take shape" ([41], 61).

The examples above show that, in Africa at least, there is need to be cognizance of the important role that ancestors or spirits play in the construction of the significance or (in)significance of heritage places/ objects; that heritage places/objects are not significant or in(significant) "because of their material value, but for the meaning and sometime also for the spiritual life present in them" [42].

Further, these examples are a challenge "not only of the conventional wisdom surrounding what constitutes value, significance and meaning in places of heritage, but also the decision-making processes that determine what is celebrated or over-looked, and therefore also what is preserved or let go" ([43], 114). In order to know, the value and significance of such places, it needs one "to be "tuned in" to the local cycles and rhythms of nature, while also being aware of the processes of management, inhabitation and place-making they embody and reflect" ([44], 5 quoted in [43], 117).

Social value therefore, is the value that the community would attribute to a place. As shown above, different communities and even groups within the same community, will have different values for the same place depending on the experiences that each community/group has had with that place/object. Further, social value exemplifies how the community assesses meaning at the present time and, thus such meaning is likely to be continually redefined, reviewed and restated. This means that social value of a place/object may change from time to time and that future generations may have a different social value for a place/object from that held by the present generation. For instance, it is now widely accepted that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a retrogressive practice and most governments in the world have passed legislation banning it and imposing severe penalties amongst those found practising it; the Kenyan government is one of those governments that have enacted legislation outlawing FGM. Despite the existence of the ban however, some members within the Somali and Abagusii ethnic groups of Kenya, still continue the practice, though in secret. More intriguing is that amongst the Abagusii for instance, it has been found out that the people at the forefront of perpetuating the practice are medical practitioners; they are the ones who are hired by parents of girls who are to be initiated to go and carry out the initiation. The continuation of the practise amongst these groups is because it is deemed to have social value within these communities; FGM, in the opinion of these communities, enables young girls to move from youth to adulthood, and more importantly instils in the

**9**

*Significance in African Heritage*

insignificant to the other.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90821*

extended to the destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas1

**3. Significance in African cultural heritage**

Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were idols.

girls proper morals and prepares them to be dependable wives and mothers; to these members, FGM or circumcision as they call it, plays a significant role in identifying the "true" daughters of these communities. The groups believe that anybody who has not undergone the rite is still a child and deserves no respect in the community. These FGM adherents have, to paraphrase Dickerson [24], not only recognised the existence of their communities- the Somali and Abagusii, but have also constructed or aim to construct what can be called a "pure" community – one that wants to protect the "integrity" and "traditions" of their ancestors; these members see themselves as having the ethico-political responsibilities towards their communities and therefore have responsibility of making significance judgments over the rest of the people. This making of significant judgments is an exercise of power and authority; the members still practising FGM see themselves as custodians of age-old traditions and therefore have moral authority of ancestors to continue the practise as this is the only way of preserving their communities. This same argument can be

who justified the destruction by the argument that erecting of statues was against the tenets of Islam and it was their duty to preserve the purity of Islam by destroying the statues [45]. These are groups who, driven by nostalgia, want to use the supposed significance of a rite, such as FGM or destruction of heritage places "to restore an earlier state of society" ([46], 2). The importance of this value however, is only for the present generation because as time goes by, the coming generations may abandon such traditions; in other words, social value, as all other values, is transitory [32]. These examples show that "Communities, are diverse, fragmented and complex; some are progressive, some are not" ([47], 3) and therefore there can be no universal significance; what is significant to one set of the community will be

The attribution of values to heritage, whether done by experts, an individual who has experience in that heritage or a community, shows that heritage can be used to create and influence a whole range of important relations within a given society such as the establishment of power relations and dominance ([48], 41). Thus, as Smith [49] argues "what makes these things valuable and meaningful - what makes them "heritage", or what makes the collection of rocks in a field "Stonehenge" - are the present-day cultural processes and activities that are undertaken at and around them, and of which they become a part." Consequently, and as we shall shortly see below, a place is significant or (in)significant because somebody has decided to bestow or not to bestow certain values on that place. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder; so is significance and (in)significance.

Africa is rich in cultural heritage, and this ranges from the tangible heritage to the intangible heritage. The various elements of heritage provide communities with the opportunity to establish an active relationship between the present and the past. According to Munjeri [50], the interpretation of the tangible can only be done through the intangible. Thus, as Tosh [51] argues, oral history (intangible heritage) is "an effective instrument for re-creating the past" by virtue of being "the

<sup>1</sup> The Buddhas of Bamyan were two 6th-century monumental statues of Gautama Buddha carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, at an elevation of 2500 metres (8200 ft). They were built between 507 CE (smaller) and 554 CE (larger). They were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed

in Afghanistan by the Taliban,

#### *Significance in African Heritage DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90821*

*Heritage*

ask their permission for us to carry out the excavations. Without the ceremonies, it is believed, we could have been harmed by the ancestral spirits. In order to ensure that no harm befell us during the excavations, one of the senior elders stayed with us most of the time of the excavation. In between the excavations however, this elder had to go and join the other elders for a ceremony in another Kaya. The next morning as we started the excavations without the elder, we noticed a green mamba snake coming slowly and perching itself on top of a tree near where we were excavating and stayed there till the end of the day and as we prepared to leave the site, it also left. The snake did this for the 3 days that the elder was absent but disappeared the day the elder rejoined us. When we told the elder about the incident, he said that that was the guardian he had sent to stay with us in order to avoid the wrath of the ancestors. The appearance of the snake may appear insignificant, but to the elders of the Mijikenda, it is an affirmation of the sacredness and therefore significance of the kayas to the ancestors and the local community [39]. Peter Schmidt [41] reports the same visitation of an ancestral spirit in the form of a snake when he was excavating one of the royal palaces of the Rugomora Mahe kingdom in Tanzania. The experience makes Schmidt to conclude that "we must be sensitive to and familiar with the roles that ancestors take in guiding, limiting, and insisting on the manner

in which behavior and its materialization take shape" ([41], 61).

meaning and sometime also for the spiritual life present in them" [42].

The examples above show that, in Africa at least, there is need to be cognizance of the important role that ancestors or spirits play in the construction of the significance or (in)significance of heritage places/ objects; that heritage places/objects are not significant or in(significant) "because of their material value, but for the

Further, these examples are a challenge "not only of the conventional wisdom surrounding what constitutes value, significance and meaning in places of heritage, but also the decision-making processes that determine what is celebrated or over-looked, and therefore also what is preserved or let go" ([43], 114). In order to know, the value and significance of such places, it needs one "to be "tuned in" to the local cycles and rhythms of nature, while also being aware of the processes of management, inhabitation and place-making they embody and reflect" ([44],

Social value therefore, is the value that the community would attribute to a place. As shown above, different communities and even groups within the same community, will have different values for the same place depending on the experiences that each community/group has had with that place/object. Further, social value exemplifies how the community assesses meaning at the present time and, thus such meaning is likely to be continually redefined, reviewed and restated. This means that social value of a place/object may change from time to time and that future generations may have a different social value for a place/object from that held by the present generation. For instance, it is now widely accepted that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a retrogressive practice and most governments in the world have passed legislation banning it and imposing severe penalties amongst those found practising it; the Kenyan government is one of those governments that have enacted legislation outlawing FGM. Despite the existence of the ban however, some members within the Somali and Abagusii ethnic groups of Kenya, still continue the practice, though in secret. More intriguing is that amongst the Abagusii for instance, it has been found out that the people at the forefront of perpetuating the practice are medical practitioners; they are the ones who are hired by parents of girls who are to be initiated to go and carry out the initiation. The continuation of the practise amongst these groups is because it is deemed to have social value within these communities; FGM, in the opinion of these communities, enables young girls to move from youth to adulthood, and more importantly instils in the

**8**

5 quoted in [43], 117).

girls proper morals and prepares them to be dependable wives and mothers; to these members, FGM or circumcision as they call it, plays a significant role in identifying the "true" daughters of these communities. The groups believe that anybody who has not undergone the rite is still a child and deserves no respect in the community. These FGM adherents have, to paraphrase Dickerson [24], not only recognised the existence of their communities- the Somali and Abagusii, but have also constructed or aim to construct what can be called a "pure" community – one that wants to protect the "integrity" and "traditions" of their ancestors; these members see themselves as having the ethico-political responsibilities towards their communities and therefore have responsibility of making significance judgments over the rest of the people. This making of significant judgments is an exercise of power and authority; the members still practising FGM see themselves as custodians of age-old traditions and therefore have moral authority of ancestors to continue the practise as this is the only way of preserving their communities. This same argument can be extended to the destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas1 in Afghanistan by the Taliban, who justified the destruction by the argument that erecting of statues was against the tenets of Islam and it was their duty to preserve the purity of Islam by destroying the statues [45]. These are groups who, driven by nostalgia, want to use the supposed significance of a rite, such as FGM or destruction of heritage places "to restore an earlier state of society" ([46], 2). The importance of this value however, is only for the present generation because as time goes by, the coming generations may abandon such traditions; in other words, social value, as all other values, is transitory [32]. These examples show that "Communities, are diverse, fragmented and complex; some are progressive, some are not" ([47], 3) and therefore there can be no universal significance; what is significant to one set of the community will be insignificant to the other.

The attribution of values to heritage, whether done by experts, an individual who has experience in that heritage or a community, shows that heritage can be used to create and influence a whole range of important relations within a given society such as the establishment of power relations and dominance ([48], 41). Thus, as Smith [49] argues "what makes these things valuable and meaningful - what makes them "heritage", or what makes the collection of rocks in a field "Stonehenge" - are the present-day cultural processes and activities that are undertaken at and around them, and of which they become a part." Consequently, and as we shall shortly see below, a place is significant or (in)significant because somebody has decided to bestow or not to bestow certain values on that place. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder; so is significance and (in)significance.
