Africa-Press – Angola. The building where the Huíla Regional Museum operates is more valued and will attract more tourists to the province with its elevation to National Historical and Cultural Heritage, considered the provincial director of the Culture, Tourism, Youth and Sports Office, Osvaldo Lunda.
This is Executive Decree Number 51/23, of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, of April 28, which classifies the residence as a national historical and cultural heritage, as it is an old building, with history and an architecture framed in the area.
The residential building belonged to the doctor Arnaldo Correia who, having moved to Luanda, donated it to the City Council of then Sá da Bandeira (today Lubango), for scientific and cultural purposes.
Subsequently, the researcher in the area of Social Sciences and professor Machado da Cruz asked authorization from the then Governor of the district, Commander Peixoto Correia, for the creation and opening of a museum.
In 1957, Peixoto Correia founded the Museum of Huíla, with the aim of collecting, housing, studying and disseminating materials from the paleontological, archaeological and ethnographic domain, with Machado da Cruz acting as the institution’s first curator.
The director of Culture said that with the title, the infrastructure is no longer a simple residence and becomes cultural heritage that must be protected by all and then by its historical factor, it will attract more tourists and with that obtain financial benefits.
Osvaldo Lunda said that there are movements of tourists in the world with the aim of visiting historical and cultural heritage sites and the more they have in the province, the greater number of excursionists will come to Huíla.
“Our museum also has its history. We have been working to erect another building for its operation, as the current one no longer responds to the demand for the existing collection. We need one with a larger dimension to better accommodate the pieces”, he stressed.
The distinction, according to the source, is a continuation of the work they have already done, within the scope of the activities of monuments and sites, which have committed themselves to raising the maximum amount of existing and already inventoried heritage.
He reported that there are other buildings that are on the waiting list for their elevation, such as the Capelinha da Nossa Senhora do Monte, Colégio Paula Frassinetti, Roteiro dos Bóeres, among others, which are in the process of improving the existing information.
He made it known that with these buildings and the village of Cassinga, in Jamba, which was recently elevated to Historic War Heritage, the monuments and sites classified in the province rise to 14, where there are another 200 inventoried, opening here the intention to raise the heritage immaterial the Samakaka fabric, whose studies are being carried out.
The museum was created with several sections, of which two soon became active, the first section, of Portuguese Ethnography, had an exclusively educational function, intended to show and make known to the children of the settlers, born in Angola, the Portuguese culture.
The second, dealing with African Anthropology in its most diverse domains, was created with purely scientific and research purposes, the aim of which was to deepen knowledge about the Region, from its primitive settlement, having operated in this way until National Independence, in 1975 after which came to be known as the Regional Museum of Huíla.
It is the only existing museum in the south of Angola and houses collections from not only Huíla, but also from the provinces of Namibe, Cunene and Cuando Cubango, the result of years of collection and scientific research throughout the southern region.
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