SAMA Conference Paper, Cape Town, June 2004
Redressing the past: integrating the
Social History Collections at Iziko
Patricia Davison
Iziko Museums of Cape Town
Introduction
Transformation in the heritage sector in South Africa is as much
about interrogating past practices, as it is about envisioning and
shaping more equitable institutions of public culture. Under-
standing the history of museum collections and the ideas that
gave rise to them is an essential foundation for building new
collections, as well as for developing practices that re-interpret
old collections to make them meaningful in the present. This is
particularly so in the case of museums that were founded in the
nineteenth century as colonial institutions and have their intel-
lectual roots in the Enlightenment.1 The South African Museum
(SAM), founded in the nineteenth century, followed the pattern
established in the previous century by the British Museum in
aspiring to cover all branches of knowledge in a systematic
manner. The original mandate of the SAM was to build collec-
tions that covered the natural history and indigenous cultures of
South Africa, but almost from the start the museum also in-
cluded colonial and exotic collections. As the oldest and largest
museum in the country, the SAM had national status long before
the nationalist government came to power in 1948 but, like other
state-funded museums, it grew as a national institution when
South Africa was under white minority rule. These national mu-
seums were widely perceived as serving predominantly white
interests, even if this was not the overt intention, and they are
now challenged with changing perceptions and becoming rele-
vant to a constituency comprising all South Africans. If museum
collections are archives of memory, this memory is always se-
lective and, by default, the gaps in collections also call attention
to forgotten histories. Understanding the history of collections
and the ways they have been shaped and classified is the first
step in elucidating the role that museums have played in privi-
leging and giving substance to prevailing views and ideologies
over time.
The ways that museum collections are classified and displayed,
conceptually and physically, provide insight into the ideas and
relations of power that underpin them and give them meaning.
While artefacts always have significance in relation to their origi-
nal contexts of manufacture and use, once they are acces-
sioned into a museum collection they become part of another
system of knowledge and assume new meanings.
These meanings, however, do not exclude additional layers of
meaning accruing through time in relation to changing contexts
of interpretation.
The following assumptions inform this paper:
• All museum collections have social histories.
• Objects become meaningful through social interaction.
• Meaning is constructed by people in relation to changing
contexts.
• The meaning and value of objects change through time.
• Objects may evoke multiple meanings.
• Museum representations are not neutral - they always
present a point of view; visitors in turn respond from their
own points of view. Meaning arises from the interaction
between the two.
SAMAB Bulletin
Both collections and systems of classification are composite
artefacts of museum practice. As such, they are open to scrutiny
and re-evaluation. By questioning the groupings and categories
that tend to be taken for granted, we may open up new fields of
discourse and interpretation.
The focus of this paper is on the classificatory history of the
collections that now form the Social HistoTy Collections of Iziko
Museums of Cape Town. By charting the shifting classificatory
status of these collections, my aim is to trace the conceptual
contours of the collections over time. The formation of the Social
History Collections Division of Iziko is, I argue, a structural
transformation that has made it possible to embark on a process
of redressing the former ideological separation of African and
European collections. I am not suggesting that re-grouping or
re-naming collections is an end in itself, but I do argue that the
integration of the Social History collections has created an ena-
bling framework for putting transformation into practice.
Iziko Social History Collections
Iziko Social History collections are among the earliest heritage
collections in South Africa with accession records dating back to
the mid-nineteenth century. The collections embrace the fields
of pre-colonial and historical archaeology, anthropology, colonial
and post-colonial history, and contemporary cultural studies.
Excluding archaeological and physical anthropology assem-
blages, these collections number well over 200 000 objects. The
common denominator is that they were all made and used by
people, past and present, in the context of social life. The term
'Social History' was chosen rather than 'Cultural History' to em-
phasize that museum objects are not ends in themselves. Even
though they may have intrinsic value, they are tangible manifes-
tations of relationships between people and things. The scope
of social history is broad enough to encompass the relationship
of people to the natural environment, as is the case in the Na-
tional Museum of Australia, which defines itself as a social his-
tory museum focusing on the integrated themes of land, nation
and people.
The formation in 1999 of the Southern Flagship Institution (SFI),
later re-named Iziko Museums of Cape Town, amalgamated the
national museum collections of Cape Town into a single institu-
tional structure, and paved the way for re-integrating the anthro-
pology collections of the SAM and the cultural history collections
of the SACHM. The separation of these collections in the 1960s
had resulted in neither museum being able to address the com-
plex relationships that characterize South African social history.
Both museums were constrained by the imposed institutional
division. In bringing together within a single institutional frame-
work, the formerly separate Social History, Art and Natural His-
tory collections, Iziko also encouraged interdisciplinary co-
operation and helped to bridge the boundaries between en-
trenched and polarized categories of knowledge and power.
Classifying 'objects of human manufacture'
The early collections that are now part of the Social History col-
lections of Iziko have a long history of shifting classificatory
categories, dating back to the nineteenth century when the sci-
Page 101
entific disciplines of natural history and anthropology were still
emerging as specific fields of knowledge, and collections of
artefacts that would later be classified as 'ethnological' consti-
tuted an unruly array of 'artificial curiosities'.
The SAM, founded in 1825, was a general museum housing
natural history collections, as well as 'articles of human manu-
facture' of both local and exotic origin. Before a system of clas-
sification based on Linnaean principles was introduced to the
natural history collections, both natural and manufactured ob-
jects were exhibited in 'a fantastic jumble' (Summers'!975:33).
In 1856 the displays included: a cast of a famous Victorian nude
statue, known as Bayley's Eve, geological collections, shells, a
model of a railroad, a Stapelia from Namaqualand, which the
director had to admit was decaying, an assortment of birds
eggs, Egyptian and Greek relics, casts of celebrated men and
an embroidered jacket said to have been worn by Lord Byron.
This patent absence of classificatory order prevailed at the time
despite the fact that the stated aim of the Museum was 'the for-
mation of a complete series of the natural and artificial produc-
tions of South Africa'.
The annual reports allow one to trace the shifting categories in
which the artificial productions or 'human manufactures' were
placed at different times.2 At first all artefacts, including weap-
ons, implements, coins, books and all other cultural objects both
classical and modern, were listed and grouped as a general
Miscellaneous Collection. 'AS noted above, the artefacts were
initially placed on public display together with the natural history
collections but by the 1880s some degree of taxonomic order
had been introduced to the natural history displays (Summers
1975:40). Although the grouping of artefacts remained relatively
unsystematic, the reports reflect generalized principles of pro-
gressive evolution. As early as 1861, the 'native' manufactures
within the Miscellaneous Collection were listed as 'ethnographic'
artifacts but in 1870 they reverted to 'objects of curiosity', and in
1874 they were classed as articles of 'Barbarous Races'. Often
they were referred to simply as 'native implements'. However, a
proposed new gallery, reported on in 1877, was to be devoted
to the exhibition of 'weapons and other implements of savage
and half-civilized tribes, together with miscellaneous articles of
human manufacture ...' This focus on evolutionary develop-
ment of specific types of artefact was unsurprising considering
that this approach was widely advocated by scientists of the
day.3 In museum displays artefacts made by cultural others
served a number of purposes - they provided object lessons in
cultural stereotyping and difference, they stood for the people
who made them and could be arranged in various ways to illus-
trate current conceptual positions, in particular theories of evolu-
tion and diffusion.
From 1882 the Miscellaneous Collection was divided into three
sub-sections - 'native implements', 'work of civilized
races' (mainly coins, Roman pottery, guns, etc.), and books. In
1891 the former category 'native implements' was listed as
'work of native races', and in 1892 as 'work of uncivilized races'.
The perception of 'native' as synonymous with 'uncivilised' was
thus explicit. This flawed view proved tenacious both locally
and abroad where it was reinforced and disseminated in the
many international colonial exhibitions held during the second
half of the nineteenth century (Lindfors 1999). Well into the
twentieth century the assumption that some races were superior
to others went largely unquestioned. There was a general ac-
ceptance that race, or physical type, and culture were directly
related, and that cultural difference was determined by race.
These views, coupled with notions of unilinear evolution and
social Darwinism, led to the misconception that race was the
key to understanding the history of modern civilisation.
In 1896 the status of the Miscellaneous Collection changed
when the director William Sclater formed the Department of
Anthropology and Antiquities. Subsequent accessions were
listed in a single register but, as years passed, the dividing-line
Page 102
between Anthropology and Antiquities was drawn more firmly.
In the reports from 1906 to 1924 by director Louis Peringuey
much emphasis is given to physical anthropology and archae-
ology, reflecting his particular interest in these branches of
knowledge. During this time the 'Bushman' casting project was
initiated (Davison 2001), there was active collecting of human
remains (Legassick and Rassool 2000), and the general archae-
ology collections also grew. A large collection of rock engrav-
ings and paintings was acquired at this time, including the re-
markable painted panels from the farm Linton in the Maclear
District of the eastern Cape that are now among the treasures of
Iziko. As interest in physical anthropology waned in the 1920s,
this branch of the collection declined in prominence and the
name of the department changed to Ethnology and Archaeology
reflecting the shift in interest. Ethnology, however, received little
professional attention until 1933 when Margaret Shaw, a gradu-
ate of the University of Cape Town, was appointed as the first
full-time ethnologist. One of her earliest tasks was to complete a
separate register for the ethnographic collections and to devise
a system of classifying and cataloguing ethnographic material.
Her aim was to bring scientific standards of documentation to
the ethnographic collections. To this end she sought advice
from the Government Ethnologist N. J. van Warmelo on devel-
oping a system of classification for ethnographic objects.
Classifying 'Other Cultures'
Prior to Van Warmelo's Preliminary Survey of the Bantu Tribes
of South Africa (1935) there was no standard orthography or
consistent ethnographic classification. Wilhelm Bleek had pro-
vided an initial linguistic classification in the 1860s, and mission-
aries had produced dictionaries and grammars for a number of
southern African languages but dialects were variable and cul-
tural groupings were fluid. As vernacular dialects were given
standard written form by missionaries or others for the purposes
of administration and control, a multiplicity of language forms
was eventually reduced to one authorised version, which was
fed back into local communities through church, schools and
administrative channels (Fabian 1986; Harries 1988). The sub-
sequent use of standardized linguistic classification as a basis
for cultural grouping glossed over both diversity and complexity.
In adopting linguistic classification as the basis for ethnological
classification of artifacts in the museum, there was a conflation
of ethnicity, language and culture.
However, systematic classification according to tribe and type
brought order to the previously unmanaged ethnological collec-
tions. Objects were identified, classified, catalogued and docu-
mented according to a set format and this process gave them
the enhanced status of reference specimens, amenable to sys-
tematic research and publication. However, we now recognize
that when collections from one culture are classified according
to criteria developed by another, there is an inevitable shift in
connotation and meaning.
Paradoxically, although it could be argued that the process of
becoming a museum acquisition reduces the meaning of an
object by removing it from social circulation, the process simul-
taneously enhances meaning by elevating the object to the
status of a museum piece. As in the case of reducing spoken
dialects to standardized written forms, once placed in a classifi-
cation system, artefacts are annotated in ways that may limit the
ways they are perceived. In a circular process of inference, the
classified object gives substance to the classificatory category
and vice verse. The fact that classifications are themselves
conceptual constructs often tends to go unquestioned.
The history of 'Cultural History' at Iziko
The classificatory division between cultural history and ethnog-
raphy at the SAM can be traced to the nineteenth-century divi-
sion between antiquities ('work of civilized races') and ethnology
('work of uncivilized races'). Significantly, by classifying the
ethnographic collections differently from the 'historical' collec-
tions, it was possible to regard the subjects of ethnographic
May 2005 Vol. 31
study as 'people without history' - echoing the well-worn polarity
between 'us' and 'them', the west and the rest. We have
'history' while they have 'tradition', which was usually described
in museum labels in the convention of the ethnographic present.
By the late 1960s, when the South African Cultural History Mu-
seum (SACHM) became an autonomous institution, the term
'ethnology' in South Africa, unlike in America and Europe, had
become negatively associated with ethnic and racial classifica-
tion. The classificatory divisions used in ethnographic displays
in museums were the same as those used to underpin the
apartheid policy of separate development. Even if not con-
sciously intended, these displays implicitly reinforced the ideol-
ogy that gave rise to the so-called 'homelands' and the denial of
citizenship to the majority of South Africans. Ethnographic clas-
sification in museums could not avoid being politicized in the
context of apartheid.
Until 1963 the collections that were classified as 'historical' were
part of the SAM but they had come to be regarded as somewhat
anomalous considering the emphasis in the SAM on natural
history and anthropology. In 1913 Koopmans-De Wet House
had been purchased for the nation and it was furnished with
historical collections that were later among the founding collec-
tions of the SACHM. As early as 1921 there was talk of estab-
lishing a separate Historical Museum at the Castle, and from
1936-the Old Supreme Court was considered for this purpose
(Summers 1975). In the 1950s the possibility of an Africana
museum in Cape Town became a topic of public interest,
heightened by the fact that the Old Supreme Court building was
under threat of demolition. In 1958 the Governor-General an-
nounced it would be preserved and that it would be made avail-
able to the SAM 'for cultural and historical purposes' (Cape
Times 6 Nov. 1958).
In 1963-4 the antiquities and history collections of the SAM were
moved to the building of the Old Supreme Court, which was also
the site of the former Slave Lodge of the Dutch East India Com-
pany. Although the history collections had always been treated
separately from the ethnographic collections, while they were
still part of one institution it was possible, at least in principle, for
cross-cultural research or exhibition projects to be undertaken.
For many years Margaret Shaw had been responsible for both
collections but arbitrary lines were drawn between them. Cur-
rency, for example, was divided into the numismatics collection
(coins, banknotes) and the ethnographic collection (items or
tokens of exchange deemed to be primitive forms of money). In
practice ethnography and history were regarded as separate
disciplines, and the proposed cultural history museum was pri-
marily intended to show historical material from settler commu-
nities who had contributed to South African culture. It was also
intended to accommodate the classical and exotic collections.
This was made clear by Jan van der Meulen, who came from
Germany to take up the appointment as Director of the new
museum in 1964. He was quoted in the press as saying:
The museum would not be filled simply with so
called Africana. The field would be much wider
and embrace not only the culture of the European
countries which had contributed to South African
culture - Holland, Germany, England and France
- but also classical antiquity and Eastern cultures.
(Cape Argus 12 Nov. 1963).
An article in the Afrikaans newspaper, Die Burger, two days
later significantly headlined the new museum as being devoted
to the study of 'ons materiele kultuur', and commented on the
relative neglect of colonial-settler cultural studies, noting that
more research had been carried out on 'Bantukultuur' than on
' Boerekultuuf.
In 1969 the South African Cultural History Museum became an
autonomous institution. Thereafter, the South African Museum
SAMAB Bulletin
(housing natural history and anthropology collections) was in-
creasingly, if incorrectly, referred to as the 'Natural History Mu-
seum'. This remains a widely held de facto perception of the
SAM, now part of Iziko.
Although the separation of the European and exotic cultural
history collections from the African collections could be inter-
preted simply as a segregationist political move, there was no
consistent state policy to separate ethnology from cultural his-
tory in museums. At the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria the line
between natural history and cultural history was drawn differ-
ently to include anthropology with cultural history. Similarly, at
the Africana Museum in Johannesburg, founded in the 1930s,
ethnographic collections were treated as part of the historical
collections.
In the case of the SAM, aligning anthropology and archaeology
with natural history was not considered anomalous as the same
approach was taken in many other parts of the world, most no-
tably the influential Smithsonian Institution. As a discipline, an-
thropology had long been regarded as the natural history of
humankind, but pragmatic considerations also played a part in
the decision to keep anthropology at the SAM - the ethno-
graphic displays were by far the most popular exhibitions and
they attracted large numbers of visitors. The SAM had built its
reputation on the uniqueness of the life-like plaster casts of
'Bushmen', and the diorama, completed in 1959, which showed
the casts in a 'natural setting', was a major draw-card for visi-
tors. In the 1960s there was never any suggestion that the
Bushman diorama should be re-located to the SACHM. This
suggestion only came to the fore decades later.4 The implica-
tions of having African material culture (and casts of indigenous
people) with natural history (and casts of animals), while the
cultural history museum excluded African culture, were deeply
problematic, if not explicitly racist.
The SAM was widely regarded as a natural history museum and
including only indigenous people in the ethnographic displays
made the SAM a target for a range of accusations - from per-
petuating outdated evolutionism and paternalism to overt racism
and misrepresentation of history. In 1975 Kenneth Hudson
(1975:157) suggested that there was no essential difference
between the presentation of butterflies and Bushmen at the
SAM - both, he asserted, 'are the white man's specimens, sym-
bols of his power and freedom to collect what he pleases.' Over
the next twenty-five years the diorama remained a focus of con-
troversy and debate.
The lines of cleavage between the SAM and SACHM were
deepened by the 1983 Constitution Act and the implementation
the following year of the Tricameral Parliament, which created
separate houses for whites, coloureds and Indians while still
excluding the black majority. Under this dispensation certain
museums were classified as being of general interest ('general
affairs') and others of special interest to a particular population
group ('own affairs'). The SAM, classified as a 'general affairs'
museum, fell under the Department of National Education, while
the SACHM and its satellites, including the BoKaap museum
that focused on Islam at the Cape, were grouped as 'White Own
Affairs' and fell under the Department of Education and Culture
of the House of Assembly, as did the William Fehr Collection at
the Castle. This political imposition on cultural institutions was
heavily criticized by South African Museums Association and by
members of civil society but it remained in place for over a dec-
ade. It provides a very clear example of the manipulation of mu-
seums to suit political ideology, and underlines the powerful role
that museums can play in the shaping of national identity and
memory. In this case it was not a unified national identity that
was being promoted but a segregated, racially based, set of
different identities relating to 'way of life, culture, traditions and
customs'. The classification of what fell into 'own affairs' and
'general affairs' made no rational sense, with botanical research
being grouped as a 'white own affair' while the Afrikaans lan-
Pane 103
guage monument fell under 'general affairs.'
The early emphasis of the displays in the SACHM was on cul-
tural diffusion and connoisseurship. The artificial division be-
tween ethnography and cultural history meant that indigenous
artifacts were housed separately from those introduced by colo-
nial settlers, traders and missionaries. There was little possibility
of presenting an integrated interpretation of social or cultural
history. Although the SACHM claimed to be South African, it
excluded the material culture of the majority of the population;
although it occupied the site of the former VOC slave lodge,
until the late 1990s it chose to overlook the history and legacy of
slavery. However, as the politics of South Africa changed, the
politics and poetics of museum practice followed suit.5
In the mid-1990s the staff of the SACHM initiated a plan to
make its sites and exhibitions more inclusive and representative
of the history of all South Africans. This was part of a wider re-
thinking of the institution as whole.6 In 1998 the SACHM was
renamed the Slave Lodge signaling an ideological shift in the
management of the Museum and a response to the national
imperative to transform heritage institutions. However, more
than a name change was needed to reposition the SACHM in
practice and in public perceptions. Becoming part of the amal-
gamated SFI, now Iziko, placed the transformation of the
SACHM and its satellites on a firmer structural footing but the
process is still being negotiated in practice. A commitment has
been made to redevelop the Slave Lodge as a museum that
focuses on slavery in South Africa and the legacy of slavery.
The project will explore the historical roots of the multicultural
society that we know today; new voices will be heard and for-
merly overlooked histories will be presented for the public. This
vision will also be fulfilled through exhibition projects and other
public programmes at the diverse social history sites of Iziko.7
In doing so, both the ethnographic and the historical collections
will be interpreted within integrated historical frameworks.
Conclusion
As noted at the start of this paper, the formation of Iziko has
established the structural framework for integrating the formerly
separate collections of the SAM and SACHM within the Social
History Collections Division. This is not an end in itself but it
opens a new conceptual space and enables innovative projects
to be undertaken in practice.
Democracy X - marking the present; representing the past at
the Castle was the first major Iziko Social History exhibition that
brought together diverse collections — archaeological, ethno-
graphic, historical, art, sound and video - to present a narrative
journey through history. In consciously tacking between the
present and the past, the curators acknowledged that history is
not simply a set of facts about the past but an interpretation of
these facts through a lens of the present. Similarly, tangible
objects from the past were given new meaning by being pre-
sented and interpreted in a contemporary context.
The setting of the Castle added a powerful dimension to the
exhibition - simply by showing the banner of Democracy X in
the symbolic seat of colonial power, the past was being re-
dressed, both literally and figuratively. Dr Rayda Becker, one of
the lead curators of the exhibition, will discuss the exhibition in
greater detail but the point I wish to emphasize here is that the
exhibition transcends the former ideological separation of Iziko
cultural history and ethnography collections - it does so con-
ceptually, physically and aesthetically.
The classificatory boundaries have been bridged to open a
space for contemplation and communication, where collections
remain centrally important but are animated by the exhibition
context and the imaginative responses of viewers. In this proc-
ess of engagement museum collections, often regarded as pas-
sive objects, become active mediators of social life and learning,
and material objects are enlivened by the intangible meanings
they evoke.
Pane 1ftd
Footnotes
1. The eighteenth century is generally associated with the
Enlightenment, a period when knowledge of the world
was advanced through science and reason, and the
quest for enlightenment and universal truths was linked
with ideals of progress and freedom. The foundation of
the British Museum in 1753 is regarded as 'one of the
most potent acts of the Enlightenment' (Sloan 2003:13).
2. See Davison (1990).
3. The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford exemplifies the typo-
logical approach to collection and exhibition. Edgar
Layard, director of the SAM, was fully aware of museum
trends in England at the time.
4. In 2000 the South African Press Association reported the
Minister of Arts and Culture as saying that he supported
the suggestion that the controversial diorama should
move to the SACHM. In 2001 the diorama was closed to
the public and has remained closed pending the re-
planning of the SAM.
5. See Coombes (2003) for an overview, from an out-
sider's perspective, of the tensions, challenges and ex-
pressions of post-apartheid transformation in public cul-
ture and the heritage sector.
6. An unpublished SACHM report titled 'Museums for Cape
Town' (1996) outlines this process.
7. The Social History Division of Iziko is responsible for the
Slave Lodge; the William Fehr Collection at the Castle
and Rust en Vreugd; Groot Constantia; the BoKaap mu-
seum; Koopmans de Wet House; Bertram House; the
Maritime Museum and the humanities section of the
SAM.
References
COOMBES, A. 2003. History after apartheid. Visual culture
and public memory in a democratic South Africa. Dur-
ham & London: Duke University Press.
DAVISON, P. 1990. Rethinking the practice of ethnography and
cultural history in South African museums. African Stud-
ies 49(1): 149-167.
DAVISON, P. 2001. Typecast. Representations of the Bush-
men at the South African Museum. Public Archaeology
2(1): 3-20.
FABIAN, J. 1986. Language and Colonial Power. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
HARRIES, P. 1988. The roots of ethnicity: discourse and the
politics of language construction in south-east Africa.
African Affairs 346: 25-52.
HUDSON, K. 1975. A Social History of Museums. London:
Macmillan.
LEGASSICK, M and RASSOOL, C. 2000. Skeletons in the
Cupboard. South African Museums and the trade in
human remains 1907-1917. Cape Town & Kimberley:
South African Museum and MacGregor Museum.
LINDFORS, B. ed. 1999. Africans on Stage. Studies in Ethno-
logical Show Business. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
SLOAN, K. 2003. 'Aimed at universality and belonging to the
nation': the Enlightenment and the British Museum. In:
Sloan. K. ed. Enlightenment. Discovering the World in
the Eighteenth Century: 12 -25. London: The British Mu-
seum Press.
SUMMERS, R. 1975. A History of the South African Museum.
Cape Town: AABalkema
May2005 Vol.31