Wednesday, November 25, 2009

#Tropenmuseum donates 35K media files to Commons

Today we had a meeting at the Tropenmuseum where Multichil and me were given some 35,000 images to be uploaded to Commons. These images are from Indonesia and, there are more images to come. Richard, has been really busy cleaning up this collection in order to make sure that these images conform to the high standards of the Tropenmuseum.

This collection comes with annotations in Dutch and I am really happy that the Indonesian chapter is willing to organise translation into Indonesian. In this way this part of the Indonesian cultural heritage becomes truly available to the Indonesian people. It would be good if we are able to find people willing to translate all this in English as well; this makes it truly opens up as part of our global cultural heritage.



A good example is this picture of people from the village of Bawemataloeo on the island of Nias. While it is a great picture, it can only be understood with its annotations.

Het verslepen van de steen 'Darodaro' voor de gestorven Saoenigeho van Bawamataloea, Nias. De steen wordt uit de rivierbedding gehaald en over een afstand van ca. 3 km versleept waarvoor een speciale sleepconstructie wordt gemaakt.

Grote stenen (megalieten), al dan niet fraai bewerkt, waren een onderdeel van de cultuur van het eiland Nias. Er waren grote stenen beelden, stenen zetels voor de hoofden en stenen tafels waaraan recht werd gesproken. Er waren ook grote stenen nodig voor de nagedachtenis van belangrijke overledenen. Bij het oprichten van een dergelijke steen moest een ritueel feest gegeven worden. Dit alles om een edelman in staat te stellen zich bij zijn vergoddelijkte voorouders in het hiernamaals te voegen. Op de foto wordt zo'n steen naar boven gesleept. De overlevering wil dat het 525 mensen drie dagen gekost heeft om deze steen op zijn plaats in het dorpje Bawemataloeo te krijgen. (P. Boomgaard, 2001)
The dragging of the stone “Darodaro” for the deceased Saoenigeho of Bawamataloea, Nias. The stone came out of the river bed and was dragged over a distance of 3 km made possible by a special dragging construction.

Big stones (megaliths), some nicely decorated, were a part of the culture of the island of Nias. There were big stone statues, stone seats for the chieftains and stone tables were justice was done. There were also big stones needed to commemorate of important deceased people. When such a stone was errected, a ritual feast was to be given. All this to enable a nobleman to join his godly ancestors in the afterlife. On the photo such a stone is hauled upwards. The story has it that it took 525 people three days to erect this stone in the vilage of Bawemataloeo. (P. Boomgaard, 2001)

The upload of material from Suriname proved to be a great preparation; as the data is provided to us in the same format, Multichil was able to start with the upload the same evening.. :)
Thanks,
GerardM

5 comments:

Circeus said...

Looks like the place is the one now known as Bawomataluo. Some intervention would be good since the name is spelled in to different ways in the annotation...

GerardM said...

As the annotations will be translated into Indonesian, issues like names of places are exactly what we hope people will find important to remedy.

The translations is likely to enable a lot of new information and this will improve the quality for everyone involved.
Thanks,
GerardM

Naoko Komura said...

Congratulations to Gerard and Multichill! This is a great news and great addition to Wikimedia Commons.

Anonymous said...

Great job! I really thank you for the effort. We'll try to make the best out of it by putting each photos into context. Well, slowly :)

benny said...

Terima kasih! Thanks Gerard and the others