Lesson 20: Indigenous knowledge and Development
1. Video Lesson
2. Competencies
After successful completion of this lesson, you will able to:
- realize the positive values of heritages for social stability and order
- assess the need for documenting knowledge systems and preserving heritages
- outline the parameters used by UNESCO to register heritages
- symphonize cultural and religious ceremonies without discrimination
- appreciate the value of indigenous knowledge for unity and stability of the society
3. Brainstorming Questions
- Which areas of Ethiopia are registered by UNESCO as world tangible immovable heritage sites?
- Which heritages of Ethiopia are registered by UNESCO as the world’s intangible heritages?
4. Key Terminology and Concepts
- Tangible heritage
- Intangible heritage
- Heritage
Tangible heritage refers to physical objects and artifacts that are of historical, cultural, or artistic significance. This includes a wide range of items such as buildings, monuments, statues, tools, artworks, manuscripts, and everyday objects from past societies. These items are considered important because they provide insights into the history, culture, and achievements of different peoples and civilizations. Preserving tangible heritage is crucial for maintaining a connection to the past and for educating future generations about historical contexts and cultural practices.
Intangible heritage refers to the non-physical aspects of cultural heritage that are passed down through generations and are integral to a community’s identity and cultural practices. This includes:
- Oral Traditions and Expressions: Stories, legends, and traditional knowledge communicated through spoken word.
- Performing Arts: Traditional music, dance, theater, and rituals.
- Festivals and Rituals: Celebrations, ceremonies, and customs unique to a culture or community.
- Traditional Craftsmanship: Skills and techniques involved in creating traditional crafts, such as weaving, pottery, or metalwork.
- Social Practices and Traditions: Customs and ways of life, including traditional ways of cooking, dressing, and communal activities.
Heritage can be defined as the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present, and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. In its broader sense, heritage includes everything that people want to save. Hence, heritage refers to both the material and non-material culture of man as well as elements of nature that man
lives with.
5. Lesson Presentation
A. Values of Heritages
- To promote interpretation of the past
- Serves as a symbol of nationalism
B. Types of Heritage
- Cultural Heritage: Cultural heritage is any tangible or intangible object that is the product of the creativity and labor of man in pre-literary history and historical times. Cultural heritage is classified into tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
I. Cultural heritage is classified into tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Tangible cultural heritage is that which can be seen and felt. They are further divided into movable and immovable historical and human-created cultural heritage. As the name suggests, movable cultural heritage is the one type of cultural heritage that is not attached to the foundation and that can be moved from place to place easily, and which has been handed down from generation to generation. Example: Parchment, manuscripts, stone paintings and implements, sculptures made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, stone, inscriptions of skin, ivory, horn, and archaeological remains. Intangible cultural heritage is that which cannot be touched and felt by the hands but can be seen or heard. Intangible cultural heritages constitute different kinds of performances and shows, religious, wedding
and mourning ceremonies, music, drama, literature and similar other cultural values, traditions and customs of nation, nationalities and peoples.
- Natural Heritage: natural reserves, museums, fauna, flora, geology, habitats, and water. Landscape, for its part, refers to national parks, gardens, coasts, cultural and archaeological landscapes, mountain chains, and natural areas. These heritage places may be significant for scientific, aesthetic, architectural, historical, or any other special cultural value.
- Historical Heritage: The other components of heritage, which encompass buildings, monuments, archaeological remains, and sculpture, are the other components of heritage. In addition, national battle fields, historic markers, and mythical sites are part of our heritage. Artifacts such as museum artifacts, family albums, art works and activities like clubs and societies, legislation, language, religion, performing arts, sports, diet and drink, calendars, customs, crafts are all parts of heritage. Heritage also comprises other elements such as atrocity sites, plagues, saint’s relics, heroes, victims, and graveyards.
C. Heritages of Ethiopia
- Literature (Geez)
- The Al Nejashi Mosque
- Jimma Abba Jifar’s Palace
- Kumsa Moreda’s Palace
- Sheikh Hojele’s Residence in Addis Ababa
- Halala Kella, of Dawuro
- Archaeological Sites
- Music
- Art
- Festivals: Includes Shadey/Ashenda/Solel, Timket (Ethiopian Epiphany), Meskel (The Founding of the True Cross),The Gifaataa Festival, Irrecha,Fiche Chambalala, etc.
E. UNESCO Registered Heritages of Ethiopia
- Tiya Stone Erections
- Jegol Ginb of Harar(2006)
- The Simen National Park
- The Bale Mountains National Park
- Danakil Depression
- Aksum (1980)
- Fasil Ghebbi, Gondar Region (1979)
- Konso Cultural Landscape (2011)
- Lower Valley of the Awash (1980)
- Lower Valley of the Omo (1980)
- Melka Kunture and Balchit: Archaeological and Palaeontological Sites in the Highland Area of Ethiopia (2024)