The museum of Malawi is considered as one of Malawi`s historical site that has different categories of history ranging from nature, culture as well as machinery. The museum of Malawi was opened on 29 June 1966 by Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda who was by then the Prime Minister of Malawi.
The museum has three sections namely natural history section, cultural history section and open-air exhibition.
On natural history section, it is where they showcase different things that has to do with nature. Walking through this section one automatically gets connected to nature as you are taken through Lengwe National Park found in Chikwawa as well as Liwonde National Park found in Liwonde. Here you will find animals like warthog (wild pig) found in Lengwe National Park, waterbugs, impala found in Liwonde National Park. Skulls of zebra, lion, monkey, leopard are also showcased on the natural section.
While still on the natural section, there is also a huge stone that fell in Machinga on 2 January 1981 and it is called Machinga meteorite. Meteorites are space rocks that fall to Earth’s surface and are not dangerous to humans but when they fell an earthquake sound occurs. The Machinga meteorite weighs 93kgs.
The museum also has an exhibit that is named “Malawi becomes a Republic”, where pictures of the first Malawian President Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda are displayed when he was being sworn in as president. The pen and bible that he used are also found there including the oath book and a copy of the form he signed during the swearing-in ceremony that was held at Kamuzu Stadium.
The museum made sure that culture is not lost by having different showcasing sections on cultural history. The sections have different items that were used back in the years of which some are still used up to date.
For example, on cultural sections there is money in Malawi, domestic appliances, traditional dances, clothing, musical instruments just to mention a few.
And lastly there is an open-air exhibition, where machinery equipment’s are found. For example, steam engine, fire truck, Nyasaland transport as well as Zomba mini hydroelectric skim.
The fire truck is popularly known for putting out a fierce fire that happened at Soche Teachers Training College in the early 1960`s.
Before the coming in of modern houses we used to have traditional houses which were known as “Ndiwula” and were common in the 1990`s. As one way of not forgetting our culture Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda built the Ndiwula so that culture should be preserved.
