Archives institution: The guardian of memory |27 August 2005

Note that archives that get lost are impossible to replace; any loss is final, and in most cases any attempt to reconstruct them is impossible.

Archives from the past are handed down to us by our ancestors and it is and must be our duty and our privilege to keep them for our children and their children.  Archives allow us to establish communications and understanding between past and future generations.  We, who are the archivists, are in this process the guardians of the continuity with previous and future generations of our Seychellois nation.

Some of the records in our custody have come to us in an orderly manner, well cared for by the agency/registry where they were created; other records are refugees of the turmoil of history.  Too many have been victims of arson, flooding, neglect or other kind of man-made or natural disasters, and are partially saved or lost for ever.

Wherever they come from or whatever their past, the rich archival heritage in our custody is nevertheless at risk, being threatened by both internal and external factors such as the quality of the make-up of the materials, the non-conducive tropical temperature for archives preservation, rodents, mould, acidity in the ink and paper, etc...  Regrettably we have to add external factors of another kind, such as physical ones of fire, water, dust and use.

Archives are considered by many, whether consciously or not, to form the skeleton of the memory of Humanity because they contain not only factual information but also informational context in which other elements of life, for example paintings, war, discovery, occupation, colonisation, and religion can be placed and better understood.

Our archives form the memory of our small nation.  It keeps track of what happened and is happening on our shorelines since the first sight of our islands was recorded.  In that sense, the archival institution becomes easily the most important documentation and research centre of any country.  Archivists become guardians of our memory.  Without memory a country has 'Alzheimer' and it is quite difficult to get a good footing to move forward.

It is, therefore, the duty and noble task not only of the government but of all individual Seychellois, in the name of transparency and accountability, to ensure that our archives are well preserved and shared beyond today's generation.

Peter Lalande
Director
National Archives

Facts about Seychelles National Archives

1. Officially establish on 7th November 1964 by the enactment of the 1964
 Archives Act.

2. A. W. T. WEBB was Seychelles' first official archivist.

3. Mr Henry MacGaw was first official Seychellois archivist.

4. Oldest original archives:
   (a)  1771 - Civil Status record
   (b)  1787 - T. Bataille Notary Act
5. Very limited archives from our French colonial period exist because most of them  were transferred to Reunion and France when the British replaced them in the  early period of the 19th Century.