Chapter Published in Decolonisation of Materialities or Materialisation of (Re-) Colonisation? Symbolism, Languages, Ecocritism and (Non) Representalisation in 21 st Century Africa, edited by Artwell Nhemachena, Jairos Kangira and Nelson Mlambo, Langaa RPCIG: Cameroon, 2017. Reconfiguring the Jindwi traditional drums in a post- colonial Mutare Museum setting Njabulo Chipangura & Pauline Chiripanhura Introduction In this chapter, we will examine Mutare Museum’s long history of collecting ethnographic objects rooted within colonial classifications and argue for the inclusion of communities in museum activities in a post-colonial milieu. We will begin by carefully examining how the placing and displaying of traditional drums (ngoma) in one of the museum’s galleries was influenced by colonial assumptions that source community interactions with their dislocated objects should go no further than visual observation. Thus, these drums only served the purpose of scientific inquiries and ethnographic investigations. Within this discourse, the museum was used as a platform to propagate the ethnographic gaze contrary to the socio-cultural histories of the objects which hinged on certain community values and beliefs. Using the example of ritual drums appropriated from the Jindwi community in Zimunya, Mutare in the late 1960’s we argue that the ritual uses of the drums were overshadowed as result the museumising process. Furthermore, we present the Authorised Museum Discourse (AMD) as the phenomenon through which museum professionals wielded excessive power and authority in the production of knowledge from the documentation, conservation and exhibition protocols which were assigned as the sole functions of the objects. This discourse therefore prioritised object materiality at the expense of intangible ritual uses of the same which communities’ regard as having been precursors to physical form. Thus, as far as the contemporary Jindwi community is concerned the ritual idea behind the making of the drums is more important than their placement and misrepresentation in museum dioramas. However, we also acknowledge in this chapter that