F. Statement of Importance

This section highlights the historic, artistic, and cultural values of the forms of traditional expression.

Most of the cultural traditions we will document are unknown outside of their communities. The lack of recognition by people outside of the community, including political leaders, diplomats, and scholars, marginalizes a people at the state, national and international levels. This is a major setback for anyone that belongs to a community at home or abroad. A Yorùbá person living abroad who misses home can watch thousands of videos of deep Yorùbá culture. Friends and acquaintances can look up Yorùbá culture and learn a lot about it. For a Berom, a Mwaghavul, or a Tal person, that is not possible yet, but will be at the completion of the proposed project.

The performing arts may be the clearest instance of ICH and they are frequently inscribed on UNESCO’s list. However, there are many related activities including instrument-making and activities supported by music-making, such as cooking, farming, and sports. In 2022, we recorded gya kəs (wrestling) accompanied by polyphonic wind music in Kwalla, Plateau State (Link: https://youtu.be/djLlqcPcQrs). Through an interactive visualization, the “ICH Constellation” on UNESCO’s website shows us that music and seemingly unrelated ICH like handiworks form a network (https://ich.unesco.org/dive/constellation/).

Music and music-adjacent concepts like “Oral Tradition” and “Dance” are closer together in the constellation, but concepts like “Apprenticeship” link a wide variety of concepts together. Music and food are related by many Nigerian cultures through harvest festivals in which food and music are the centerpieces. Like music, artisanal and visual arts traditions are not necessarily durable goods, such as basketry and hair-braiding or the Ìgbò practice of mbari, in which 30 to 40 individuals create an elaborate mud sculpture for a festival and then leave it to melt in the rain (Cole 1969). The practice is now extinct. Artisanal practices that take years to learn, such as instrument-making, are generally harder to maintain than communal dancing or singing, which is very interactive and inclusive of different skill levels.

Our key personnel completed two preliminary field recording trips in the Middle Belt in 2021 and 2022. Each trip included approximately five communities and we documented a variety of practices in each community. We found that the Middle Belt region has a plethora of ICH virtually unknown to the rest of the world. Many of these traditions have never been the subject of videography, though analog audio recordings were made by Stanley Diamond in 1965 and Benoit Quersin in 1972.

The aim is to produce digital documentation of interest and utility to host communities, the Nigerian and American public, and international scholars in a variety of fields. The potential of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) documentation to provide value to stakeholders is exemplified by the recent inscription of the Tiv’s Kwagh-Hir theatre and puppetry tradition on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2019.^[1] The UNESCO inscription places Tiv culture in high prestige in Nigeria and is the first culture to be so honored in the Middle Belt. The only other ethnic groups with inscriptions are the Yorùbá (Ifa divination inscribed in 2008) and the Ìgbò (Ijele masquerade inscribed in 2009). The Tiv are a large ethnicity, dominant within the region, and are the majority population in two populous cities, including Makurdi, the capital of Benue state. Their language is not threatened but thriving, with 5 million speakers.

How remarkable would it be for the Mwaghavul with ~175,000 speakers or Idoma with ~600,000 speakers to have an inscription? Unfortunately, small minorities (with around 100,000 speakers or less) simply do not have the organizational clout to get government support. Fortunately, UNESCO also recognizes musical traditions which cross ethnic boundaries. An example of a “cluster” tradition is the gong music of the Viet Nam Highlands.^[2]

The fact that local stakeholders (including performing artists, filmmakers, and state government officials) were able to galvanize a successful application to UNESCO shows tremendous potential for minority ethnic groups as custodians of their own culture. However, while the Tiv are a minority within Nigeria, they are dominant within Benue state. Every governor of Benue state has identified with the Tiv ethnic group since the state’s formation. Minorities in southern Benue, including the Idoma, have never submitted a governor’s seat. It is groups such as the Tiv that have the clout and wherewithal to implement processes of cultural preservation such as inscription by UNESCO. The inscription application for 2019 was supported by both the Benue State government under Governor Samuel Ortom (a Tiv man and former PDP-affiliated Minister under Johnathan who switched to the APC party in 2015 after Buhari was elected) and the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture under the controversial leadership Lai Mohammed (who denied the events at the Lekki tollgate in 2020). Based on the Nigerian system as it stands, one can surmise that Tiv governance was essential to garner State-level financial support and APC-affiliation was helpful for approval of the application at the Federal level.

While large and influential minorities like the Tiv do have the potential of making an application on their own, other groups do not have the same level of influence at the state or federal level. Thus, we have made the goal of supporting applications for the inscription of five ICH traditions, including both single ethnicity and cluster applications. One solution is organizations that represent multiple minorities such as CONAECDA, our partner Nigerian NGO in this project. There is more potential for minorities to have support from state government in states like Plateau where there is not a single dominant ethnic group. Through this project, we hope to help all participating minority communities to develop cultural heritage preservation programs to the point where they could successfully prepare a complete UNESCO application and for representatives of government to support it. We have already identified a strong candidate of a tradition practiced by an ethnic cluster. Polyphonic wind music usually accompanied with a ring dance is common to all groups on the Plateau and surrounding area. Specific details of each practice vary (language of the lyrics, making and tuning of the instruments, dance movements), but the tradition of each community reveals shared history and interaction between autochthonous communities.