Heritage material is also vexedly amorphous. Historical accounts revert to heritage as hindsight reveals the partisan motives that shaped them. Heritage may distressingly leak into current life. Where the famed pumpkin papers were found, by now a parking lot, was the chosen locale. But it soon fell into desuetude and oblivion, as has the plumbers' Watergate scene.
Heritage can be all too real.
Oakland's museum was on the brink of getting the state gas chamber from Sacramento, when California resumed the death penalty. Imagine the outrage if it had to be clawed back from the museum to death row. The all-embracing and contentious nature of heritage makes recording it a daunting task. Each island had its own colonial and linguistic annals, state documents, local presses, church records, its own quirks of storage and access. So too with heritage.