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| Painted by Carola van Ham, 1610 |
After the fifties of the nineteenth century Volendam was more and more influenced by the ‘common’ clothing in The Netherlands. People in Volendam started to wear less and less traditional clothing. More women replaced their traditional upper-body clothing for a ‘normal’ blue or black sweater. This was, mockingly, called ‘half fish, half human’ by the older people in Volendam (considering Volendam is a fishing village). However, this marked the run-up to the end of the wearing of traditional clothing of Volendam. The traditional clothing is nowadays a popular tourist attraction in Volendam.
History and heritage transmit different thing to different audiences (Lowenthal, 1998). The traditional clothing seen from historical perspective was transmitted from the elders to their offspring, because it was their culture and a use. The traditional clothing seen from a heritage perspective is the clothing tourists can try on when they visit Volendam and often go on pictures with. The traditional clothing in Volendam was not only worn by the Volendammers, but by most people in the area. The first annotation of traditional clothing in writings is from the eighteenth century, before that they also wore the traditional clothing, but everyone did, so it was not remarkable enough to write about.
The clothing, especially the women’s clothing became popular abroad, because of the many painters which stayed in Volendam around 1900. Their paintings spread around the world and together with advertisement of travel agencies, the traditional clothing became a symbol of The Netherlands. The image of a woman with traditional clothing on in front of a windmill and a tulip field became the standard. (see picture)
“Het zou even zoo dwaas zijn die oude kleedij met geweld te willen verbieden, als ze, daar waar ze uit zich zelf verdwenen is, weer te willen doen herleven. En dit geldt voor alles wat ons het voorgeslacht liet. Slechts datgene waarin de algemeene waarheid leeft, blijf, en krijgt op zijn tijd zijn nieuwe kleed, kan zich, op zijn tijd opnieuwe verjongen en zich dan weer doen onderscheiden.” (Molkenboek, 1917)
“It would be even so foolish to forbid that old clothing by force, if they, where it disappeared itself, wanted to revive it. And this applies to everything our ancestry left us. Only that in which the general truth lives, stays, and gets new clothing when it’s time, can rejuvenate and distinguish itself again when it’s time” (Molkenbroek, 1917)
The quote above is from a dutch writer, T.H. Molenbroek, who wrote a book about the national traditional clothing of The Netherlands. He organized a national celebration for traditional clothing in 1912. In his book is is very certain that the traditional clothing belongs to the monuments our ancestors left us and should stay part of our joint past. He was already engaged in the disappearing of the traditional clothing back in the early 1900’s. However, he realizes it may come back some day and be a part of the lives of people again. You could say the traditional clothing is still part of the lives of people in Volendam. People are making money of it, by cultivating it. Tourists can hire a suit and take traditional pictures with it for money.
The dutch traditional clothing is something that has stayed in our lieux de mémoires (Nora, 1989), even if people don’t wear it in their daily lives anymore. The wearing of traditional clothing may be history, the memory of it is not, and made the traditional clothing part of people’s heritage by cultivating it. This is. of course, one of the many, many examples there are where history meets heritage and the other way around. Can you think of an example where a historic costume became a cultivated heritage?
Written by,
SL, MB & SB
References
Harvey, D. C. (2001). Heritage pasts and heritage presents: temporality, meaning and the scope of heritage studies. International journal of heritage studies, 7(4), 319-338.
Lowenthal, D. (1998). The heritage crusade and the spoils of history. Cambridge University Press.
Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire. Representations, 7-24.
Molkenboer, T. (1917). De Nederlandsche nationale kleederdrachten (Vol. 71). JM Meulenhoff.
SL, MB & SB
References
Harvey, D. C. (2001). Heritage pasts and heritage presents: temporality, meaning and the scope of heritage studies. International journal of heritage studies, 7(4), 319-338.
Lowenthal, D. (1998). The heritage crusade and the spoils of history. Cambridge University Press.
Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire. Representations, 7-24.
Molkenboer, T. (1917). De Nederlandsche nationale kleederdrachten (Vol. 71). JM Meulenhoff.
Nice post! I do, however, have some reservations about your assumptions that 'African' countries (in itself a broad and unfocused term, since not all African countries were colonized, or colonized to the same extend) were unable to create history or cultural heritage under colonialism because there "is not consensus". I disagree. In my understanding of history or culture, it is always there, but very individualized. The latter meaning that every individual has their own idea of culture, which can, of course, overlap with others, but not necessarily so, and definitely not limited to political borders. Yet, to give my answer to the question listed at the end, I would say change is inevitable and always occuring. A stable culture is a dead culture, in my opinion. As long as people remember and give meaning to cultural heritage it is dynamic since retellings, memories, and reconstructions are never 100% similar. This could be 'bad', if you wish to sustain a certain exact version of events in everyone's consciousness, because I think that is very hard, if not impossible, to accomplish accurately. But I think change is 'good' if you want to keep cultural heritage contemporary and 'needed', in a way, in its present context. Harvey uses the example of the Irish Newgrange as changing in meaning and purpose to fit its context, and I think this is exactly why change is not a bad thing. Cultural heritage is always constructed by people, and humans are dynamic creatures.
ReplyDelete(T.F.M. B.)
Thank you! I also agree with the previous comment on point that CH cannot be forgotten. Yes, it might have changed during the colonization period but not forgotten. I would even say that if you the CH of your nation you may not be called a represantative of it.
ReplyDeleteAs for the changes I also agree with the previous saying that a stable culture is dead. Cultures always interact and learn one from another, therefore even events which are considered as negative now might be declared as positive by our grandchildren. As for the examples I would provide some of the conquests such as Doric conquest of Greece or Roman one of "barbaric" tribes. Although the former destroyed quite a developed civilization, the further development created Classical Greece. The same is true for the latter with slightly changes. The adoption of Christianity in Kyivian Rus' also led to rethinking of its pagan past (which was not forgotten) and created typically Ukrainian or Eastern Slavonic traditions which are now treated as an indefeasible part of the CH. On the contrary, execution of kobzars (traditional Ukrainian musicians) by Soviet authorities in 1934 led to the fact that their art is almost lost and is restored literally from tiny pieses.
M. D.
Good post.
ReplyDeleteHowever, speaking of African cultures prior to colonisation as "simple" is somewhat patronising.
I don't believe the continent of Africa gained much from colonisers, if anything, colonisation set the course for modern day racial oppression and added to the unevenly distributed wealth between first and third world countries. "Change in cultural heritage" is a very light term to describe what was done to the continent of Africa during those times.
Change in culture can be good, however, when it does not come from a position of power. Exemplary of this is the revival of Irish Gaelic during the 18th century Ireland, where the language was rebirthed and gained its spot not only as the language of the common folk, but as a language of the academia and litarature.
Sandra
ReplyDeleteInteresting to look at change in cultural heritage over time! However, I do not agree with everything you write. As previous commenters highlighted, the atrocities caused by colonisation are surely not to be described as a change in cultural heritage, but I understand that in one short blog post you have to set a focus. The idea, however, that colonised societies had to "start all over again" is I think a bit too extreme. I believe that these communities still had a cultural heritage, even while they were colonised and thus there was not as much space for their cultural heritage to be public. It was transferred amongst generations nonetheless, yet I do see the point that after decolonisation perhaps more attention was paid to cultural heritage in the sense that it could undergo changes in order to represent the community in the right way for that moment.
I think in general change in cultural heritage is inevitable, since intangible cultural heritage is difficult to maintain in one specific way. Therefore, I think there is not really a way to attribute positive or negative connotations to it. I do think that the change in Dutch school curricula is an example of a good change. Some time ago, students in the Netherlands would learn how great the country has been, that they brought many good things to for example Indonesia, thereby concealing the negative sides. At this moment, a more balanced view is given on matters like this, which I think is very important.