Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520312630

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THEMES IN THE CHRISTIAN HISTORY OF CENTRAL AFRICA

Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa edited by T. O. R A N G E R

««¿JOHN WELLER

U N I V E R S I T Y OF C A L I F O R N I A PRESS BERKELEY

AND LOS ANGELES

1975

U N I V E R S I T Y OF C A L I F O R N I A P R E S S Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

ISBN: 0-520-02536-9 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-83051

© T. O. Ranger and John Weiler 1975

Printed in Great Britain

Contents List of illustrations

vii

List of maps

PART

ONE:

viii

Acknowledgements

ix

Preface: John Weiler, Vicar of St Anne's, West Heath, Birmingham; formerly Warden of St John's Seminary, Lusaka, Zambia

xi

CHRISTIANITY

AND

CENTRAL

AFRICAN

RELIGIONS

Introduction Terence Ranger, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles

I

3

The Interaction of the M'Bona Cult and Christianity, 1859-1963

PART

TWO:

Matthew Schoffeleers, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Malawi

14

Chewa Initiation Rites and Nyau Societies: the Use of Religious Institutions in Local Politics at Mua Ian Linden, Lecturer in History, Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria; formerly Lecturer, University of Malawi

30

The Mwana Lesa Movement of 1925 Terence Ranger

45

Heathen Practices in the Urban and Rural Parts of Marandellas Area and their Effects upon Christianity Salathiel K. Madziyire, Anglican Priest, Stava, Rhodesia

76

CHRISTIANITY

AND

COLONIAL

SOCIETY

83

Introduction Terence Ranger

85

The Influence of Livingstonia Mission upon the Formation of Welfare Associations in Zambia, 1912-31 David J. Cook,formerly Senior Lecturer in History, University of Zambia

98

CONTENTS

The Contribution of the Epworth Mission Settlement to African Development Roger Peaden, Methodist Minister, Wolverhampton ; formerly Superintendent, Epworth Mission, Nr Salisbury 135

PART

THREE:

'With Hope Unconquered and U n c o n q u e r a b l e . . . ' : Arthur Shearly Cripps, 1869-1952 Murray Steele, Research Fellow in History, University of Rhodesia

152

John Lester Membe Adrian Hastings, Research Officer, School of Oriental and African Studies, London

175

The Influence on National Affairs of Alston May, Bishop of Northern Rhodesia, 1914-40 John Weller

195

CHRISTIANITY

AND

CONTEMPORARY

SOCIETY

213

Introduction Terence Ranger

215

An Aspect of the Development of the Religious Life in Rhodesia Sister Mary Aquina Weinrich, O.P., Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Rhodesia

218

Inter-Church Co-operation in Rhodesia's Towns, 1962-72 Norman E. Thomas, Methodist Minister, Mindola Ecumenical Foundation, Kitwe

238

Through Prayer to Action: the Rukwadzano Women of Rhodesia Farai David Muzorewa, Methodist Minister, Rhodesia

256

Index

269

Thematic Index

279

List of Illustrations 1

A fully dressed Nyau dancer in the village of Khate, Chikwawa district.

2

A Nyau mask from the chiefdom of Chapananga in southern Malawi.

3

Tomo Nyirenda.

4 Nyirenda after his arrest and the amputation of his arms. 5

A group of contrasting religious officers in Marandellas district. From left to right: Father Salathiel Madziyire; a member of the Mothers' Union; the medium of the spirit Mbuya Chigutiro; and seated, her son, Stephen, shown in his role of mbira player for the spirit.

6

The Broken Hill Welfare Association in 1935. Mr Tom Manda is in the centre of the middle row. Mr Abel Kashell is on the extreme right of the front row.

7

Epworth Mission in 1908.

8 Arthur Shearly Cripps outside his mission buildings near Enkeldoorn, 1912. 9 A. S. Cripps with E. Ranga, an evangelist, 1941. 10 John Lester Membe in Cape Town, 1934. 11

John Lester Membe in Kitwe, 1970.

12

African contemplatives: the Poor Clares, Lilongwe.

13

African sisters celebrate: the Poor Clares, Lilongwe.

14

Women of the Rukwadzano association of the United Methodist Church of Rhodesia protesting against the banning of the bishop, Abel Muzorewa, from entry to the Tribal Trust Lands in which most rural Africans live (5 September 1970, in Umtali).

vii

List of Maps Page 15 M ' B O N A S H R I N E S AND C H R I S T I A N

MISSIONS

Page 31 MUA M I S S I O N : V I L L A G E S A N D S H R I N E S

Page 46 THE AREA OF T O M O N Y I R E N D A ' S A C T I V I T I E S IN

1925

Page 137 SPage A L I S146 BURY

DISTRICT IN I 8 9 2 S A L I S B U R Y D I S T R I C T S H O W I N G W E S L E Y A N S T A T I O N S C. 1 9 2 9

Page 154 MARONDA MASHANU I 9 2 9

Page 176

M A P T O I L L U S T R A T E T H E CAREER OF JOHN LESTER MEMBE

Page 219 M A P OF THE C A T H O L I C D I O C E S E S OF R H O D E S I A

viii

Acknowledgements The editors gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the Theological Education Fund, which made the grant for the costs of the Chilema conference at which most of these papers were given. The Ford Foundation grant for the development of African religious history has provided funds for the sub-editorial expenses of this book. Finally, we should like to thank Cynthia Brantley who has acted as sub-editor with unruffled courtesy and competence. The editors are also grateful to the following for permission to use illustrations as follows: Illustrations i, 2, and 3, from the collection of Dr J . M. Schoffeleers; illustration 4, first appeared in The Rhodesia Herald, 22 January 1926 (Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Co.); illustration 5, first appeared in Parade, September 1956 (Parade Publications Pvt Ltd); illustration 7, photograph kindly lent to John Cook by Mr Kashell; illustration 8, The Foreign Field, Vol. 5,1908-9, p. 314; illustrations 9 and 10, by courtesy of L. Mamvura and the National Archives of Rhodesia.

ix

JOHN W E L L E R

Preface In the century and more since they arrived in Central Africa, the Christian churches have inevitably come into contact with a wide variety of other institutions. These range from socio-religious ones, such as the Nyau societies and M'Bona cult of Malawi, to political ones, such as the Colonial Administration of the former Northern Rhodesia, and the settler régime in Salisbury. In each case, the churches have had to work out their attitudes, and to a greater or lesser extent have influenced the other institutions, and been influenced by them. These interactions are important for historians, and, indeed, for all who wish to understand society and the churches as they exist today. As the list of its contents shows, this book consists of a number of case histories, describing the encounters mentioned, and others besides. A glance across to the list of the authors themselves shows that the churches are now in contact with yet another group of institutions. Half our contributors are employed by the churches, half by the universities, and there is an editor in each category. Publication is the climax of a project which included a Workshop held at Chilema Lay Training Centre, Malawi, in August 1971, giving ample opportunity for dialogue between the two groups. The universities are among the most recent institutions to be set up in Central Africa, but it already seems clear that the churches' contacts with them will prove no less important, at least for local Christianity, than the earlier encounters which are described in this book. It is possible to suggest some of the ways in which it seems likely that this influence will operate. Firstly, the universities are likely to make the churches look very much more carefully at the way in which they write their own history, and teach it. It may be useful to set out the ways in which previous methods seem to require improvement; each is a challenge to seek a more adequate balance. 1. Geographical Balance A Seminary teacher who has received his own training in the West, as most have done, is tempted to pass on what he has learnt, taking his students through events which occurred at Nicaea, Chalcedon, Wittenburg, Geneva, and Trent, and then adding a short appendix at the end about the evangelizing of Central Africa. Even if he feels the necessity to give greater prominence to local Church History, the lack of adequate textbooks is likely to discourage him. A recent survey of the teaching of Church History in the seminaries of Central Africa 1 showed that scarcely any have yet begun to devote a really significant part of their course to events which occurred in their own areas. The colleges which xi

PREFACE

give most attention to local events are those which are required to do so because they are preparing their students for the Central Africa Diploma in Theology. Even this syllabus, however, only devotes the last of its nine terms to Central Africa, though it adds a further three terms for an optional, unexamined Research Project. 2 In East Africa, the situation is entirely different. Most seminaries have for some time followed a syllabus laid down by Makerere University, 3 and this devotes one of its two Church History papers entirely to African Church History, requiring a full year of study. The syllabus even includes a statement justifying the presence of non-African Church History as the subject of the other paper. So the universities will certainly challenge the churches to give a very much greater prominence to Africa in the teaching of Church History. 2. A Balance of Periods Not surprisingly, the churches have devoted a large proportion of their attention to the period when the first missionaries were bringing the Gospel to the people of the area. Their heroism made stirring reading in books produced primarily for the attraction of funds and recruits for the Missionary Societies, and provided much of the material when the first serious historical studies began to appear. Easily the most widely used book on African Church History in local seminaries is Groves's four-volume work with the significant title The Planting of Christianity in Africa * Yet much has happened since Christianity was planted, and much happened before it was planted; as my fellow-editor has pointed out, 5 it is not difficult to find examples of distortion arising from an inadequate timescale. j. A Denominational Balance The time is mercifully drawing to a close during which the different denominations have been maintaining separate seminaries, and studying and writing Church History in isolation from one another. Not every church body has gone as far as the one which in 1945 produced a book entirely devoted to its own denominational history, and entitled it The Church in Southern Rhodesia,6 yet many of the earlier books confined themselves to a single Mission. The present-day historian has the task of combining these sources in order to present a balanced and coherent picture, and his task is by no means easy; some denominations have written more about their history than others have done about theirs, and it is not always easy to fill gaps from primary sources, which may be inaccessible, or in a language not at the command of the historian, or both. 4. A Balance of Viewpoints The early missionaries were articulate people who wrote letters, magazine articles, and Annual Reports, kept diaries, and thus produced much material of great value. Few of their converts did any of these things. The consequence is that the historian is tempted to base his work on the sources that are most readily available, with the result that the missionary, not the convert, is the key xii

PREFACE

figure. Yet it is what the convert heard, rather than what the missionary thought he had said, which really determined subsequent events. A good deal of oral research needs to be done before the impact of Christianity can be described with real accuracy. 5. Sacred and Secular The missions have constantly affected, and been affected by, the societies in which they have operated, so that Church History cannot be compartmentalized; it is interwoven with political history, economic history, educational history, in such a way that it cannot satisfactorily be studied in isolation from them. This fact has been well understood in East Africa. The syllabus for the Makerere Diploma in Theology includes the statement: 'Church History is not the history of Christian institutions, denominations, ideas, and doctrines. It is world history on which the Gospel through the Church is making its impact.' This syllabus goes on to spell out what this means in practice by listing thirteen themes which are likely to interest the examiners, and the first five are all concerned with the Church's impact on the world, not its domestic affairs. They are: 'Encounters between the Church and different cultures', 'Church-State relations', 'The Church and Social Problems', 'The Church and the Economic Order', and 'The Church and Nationalist Movements'. This 'outward-looking' emphasis is a feature of much Christian thinking today, with many people questioning the relevance and importance of interminable discussions of liturgical and ecumenical affairs; so the seminaries which adopt the Makerere syllabus will find a salutary pressure from a secular university towards reflecting this trend in their presentation of Church History. Once the churches have accepted the challenge to seek an improved balance of historical writing and study along the lines described, a good deal of light can be shed on problems that have previously seemed baffling. Anybody who has been brought up on the type of literature that stresses the missionaries' heroic sanctity will be somewhat puzzled when he comes to read passages like the following extract from an article in the Times of Zambia by Dr Daniel Kunene, based on a lecture that he had given a few days previously at the University of Zambia: T h e missionary's primary purpose was to tell the African that the God of Europe was superior to the Gods of Africa, that most African customs and ways went contrary to their [the missionaries'] religion and that, to be saved, the African had to abandon them all . . . Many Africans rejected the Christian religion with contempt. Others tried it and found it wanting . . . 7 This charge of cultural and religious arrogance, delivered with greater or lesser degrees of bitterness, is one that is very commonly made. It is tempting to dismiss it, pointing out that Jesus warned the Apostles that they could expect to offend those who, for one reason or another, refused to accept the Christian message. Yet the fact that the charge is so widely made, and often repeated by those who have accepted the Christian faith, should warn us that the criticism needs to be taken seriously. The professional historian can help us to reach a verdict. He may describe xiii

PREFACE

events which involved arrogant missionaries, but he will also give examples of Christian workers who treated Africans and their customs with genuine respect. For example, Mabel Shaw of Mbereshi, Zambia, movingly describes how she learnt from David Livingstone: 'Already Africa is God's. God did not wait for me to bring him here. I found H i m here in every village . . .'. 8 T h e task, however, is a very much more complex one than the mere addition of examples to each side of the scales, in order to make possible a judgement about the past. Searching questions have to be considered about the extent to which Christianity in the present day can, and should, accommodate itself to local customs. T h i s requires a comprehensive knowledge of Theology as well as of relevant History and Social Anthropology, and seems to cry out for an interdisciplinary approach. For example, the question whether polygamists should be required to send away all but one of their wives before baptism has often been the subject of debate. It can hardly be settled until the anthropologist has given his account of the likely social and economic effects of such a regulation, the historian has described comparable occasions when the issue has arisen in the past, and the theologian has given his account of the attitude to polygamy which he finds in the Old Testament, the N e w Testament, and the history of the church. T h e papers which form Part I of this book all adopt the historical, descriptive approach. T w o of the writers, Ranger and Schoffeleers, give examples of the failure of U . M . C . A . missionaries to accommodate themselves sufficiently to what they encountered, 9 but the complexity of the issues soon emerges. A s Ranger rightly points out, the story of T o m o Nyirenda shows that it was possible to be 'too vulnerable to the pressures of Lala society', and that to be so can be even more disastrous in its consequences than not being vulnerable enough. 1 0 T h e Christian churches are constantly having to decide upon the attitude to adopt to the customs and religions of the societies they encounter; the descriptions of past confrontations, and discussions about them, which make up this part of the book, are offered as a contribution towards ensuring that such decisions are well-informed ones. T h e article by D r Kunene, mentioned above, goes on to make a second major charge against Christian missionaries: ' T h e involvement of most missionaries with the military conquest and political subjugation of the African is well attested'. 1 1 This, too, is a criticism which is frequently made, and throughout Central Africa the Christian churches are widely held to have been badly compromised by their encouragement of the setting up of colonial regimes, and their failure to support moves to dismantle them. ( T h e one exception is found among the white community in Rhodesia, where the diametrically opposite belief is held with equal conviction.) Significantly, this subject, of the political effects of Christianity, forms the second major theme of this book. All the contributions in Part I I , and indirectly those in Part I I I , are case histories which add to our knowledge of the ways in which Christian influences have operated. While they make no pretence of giving a complete picture, they give a strong indication that, as the colonial period recedes (north of the Zambesi) and more dispassionate judgements become possible, the popular image of a church blind to injustice and tamely accepting the status quo will need to be revised. xiv

PREFACE

O f more immediate importance than the rather sterile task of 'saving face' about the churches' past, is that of giving to Christian leaders the information they need in order to make their contribution to the present-day affairs of their nations. Amongst those who have recognized the need for such a contribution is President Kaunda, and it is interesting to note how he includes the universities alongside the churches in what he writes: W e need the uncommitted intellectual whose mind is able to range widely and to occupy himself with ideas which, though not immediately germane to the business of nation-building, stimulate free thought and dialogue on every matter of human concern. I would expect such cross-fertilization of ideas to come from two directions, our institutions of higher learning and the Churches. In particular, the ministry of the Churches comprises the largest single group of uncommitted intellectuals, charged by the Gospel they proclaim to deal with ultimate questions, and by definition required to see society in the widest possible context - against the unchanging Laws of God. L e t me be frank and state that I am disappointed in the failure of the clergy, with certain exceptions, to discharge this prophetic function. 1 2 A s the studies included in Part II of this book indicate, there are a number of ways in which this function can be discharged. It is possible to emulate the Old Testament prophets directly, by making withering denunciations of the political establishment. A n alternative is to take the advice contained in one of Aesop's fables, and use the same policy of gentle persuasion as the Sun, who managed to make the Traveller undress. He achieved this, it will be remembered, with his 'genial rays' after the North Wind had only succeeded in causing the object of his fury to wrap his cloak more tightly around him. A third method, less direct and requiring much patience, is to educate a generation in ideals which will cause them eventually to secure political change. A l l of these methods have been used in Central Africa, and there seems to be a good deal of value in the comparisons which are made possible by the juxtaposition of descriptions of their use and effects in Part II. In considering the means by which the churches carry out their prophetic function, we are dealing with problems confronting church leaders; in considering the content of the message, we are giving attention to the problems which concern political leaders. It is to issues of this second type that President Kaunda very reasonably wants the churches and the universities to apply their brains, and the study of national problems could well be a main item on the agenda for the next project which scholars from the two institutions carry out together. For Part I I I of this book, we move on to what seem to be even more exclusively domestic affairs. Y e t closer examination shows that here, too, 'sacred' and 'secular' are closely interwoven. Inter-church co-operation in the towns has had a political dimension from the start. T h e Rukwadzano is well on the way to becoming 'a formidable religious force . . . upon national life'. 1 3 Most strikingly of all, spiritual renewal among members of Religious Orders is said to be likely to 'make the sisters more sensitive to the social, economic, and political needs of their neighbours'. 1 4 Church and Society are interacting through these organizations, and academic studies throw light upon the processes.

xv

PREFACE

Such, then, are the themes which attracted the attention of the writers from churches and universities as they collaborated in this venture. T h e value of such co-operation has long been recognized by the directors of the Theological Education Fund, and it was money kindly granted from this source which made the project possible. We are grateful, too, to all the twenty-one people who produced papers. T h e twelve contributions which were not selected for this publication all stimulated valuable discussions at the Workshop, and many were recommended for circulation in other forms. The remainder, together with three others previously unpublished, but known to the editors, constitute this book. While we cannot claim that they all satisfy the stringent conditions for historiography set out above, we have every hope that they will prove of value to those interested in the study of Christian influence in Central Africa. NOTES 1

J . C. Weller Adapting the Study of Church History: A Survey of Progress in the Seminaries of Central Africa Paper contributed to the Workshop in Religious Research, Chilema, Malawi, 1971 (not published). 2 The syllabus for this Diploma may be obtained from the Registrar, Central Africa Diploma in Theology, PO Box 3566, Salisbury, Rhodesia. 3 The syllabus for this Diploma may be obtained from the Registrar, Makerere Diploma in Theology, Dept of Religious Studies, Makerere University, PO Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda. 4 C. P. Groves The Planting of Christianity in Africa 4 vols (London 1954-58). 5 T . O. Ranger Christianity in Central Africa An unpublished paper presented to the Workshop on the teaching of Central and East African History, held in Lusaka, August 1970. This paper contains a most valuable summary and critique of the state of the historiography of Central African Christianity: much use has been made of it in writing this part of the Preface. 8 H. St John T . Evans The Church in Southern Rhodesia (London 1945). 7 D. Kunene, 'Missionary Education and our Writers' Times of Zambia (24 April 1969). 8 Mabel Shaw God's Candlelights (London 1932). 9 Below, pp. 65ffand i8f. 10 Below, p. 67. 11 Times ofZambia (24 April 1969). 12 K . D. Kaunda A Humanist in Africa (London 1966) p. 100. 13 Below, p. 268. 14 Below, p. 235.

xvi

TERENCE

RANGER

Introduction THE NEED FOR ' i N W A R D - L O O K I N G ' HISTORY

This book begins in paradox. In its Preface John Weller recommends that historians of the Central African church should turn away from narrowly 'religious' themes. They should no longer concentrate on dogma and liturgy. Instead they should turn outwards and study the involvement of the church with politics and the State, with the economic order, and with protest. Such outward-looking themes are abundantly reflected in the papers that make up this first section. Thus, in his account of the M'Bona cult in southern Malawi Matthew SchofFeleers shows how the history of the cult has been inseparably linked with the development of Mang'anja chiefdoms and with the economic and social pressures experienced by the Mang'anja people. Ian Linden emphasizes that the Chewa initiation rites which he describes in his paper must be seen as economic, political, educational, and cultural institutions as well as religious ones. I myself discuss the connection between the millenarianism and fear of witchcraft of the Lala people of Zambia in the 1920s and the development of migrant labour and of rural impoverishment. All three of us discuss African religion also in terms of protest. But at the same time these papers make an implicit argument for the importance of continuing to turn inward, for continued examination of the religious or ideational aspects of Central African history. The M'Bona cult of the Mang'anja, the Nyau societies of the Chewa, the Mwana Lesa movement among the Lala - these things are important to the political history of their societies not only as factions or foci of political power in themselves but as sources of ideas and symbols. It is the developing dogma and liturgy of these movements which makes certain protest responses - or certain adaptive responses - possible. For this reason all three papers discuss the interaction of the ideas and symbols of Christianity and African religion. Schoffeleers explores the significance of the similarities in myth and ritual which make possible the exchange of ideas between the M'Bona cult and Christianity. Linden describes the starkness of the confrontation between Nyau and Catholic ideas about the fate of men after death. I myself make the interaction of Lala and Christian millenarianism the core of my analysis of the Mwana Lesa movement, which I see as a movement of ideas first and foremost and as a political movement only secondarily. In short, these papers by implication state a proposition which it seems useful to make explicit here - that we must review and explore afresh the 'inwardlooking' Christian history of Central Africa at the same time as we explore outward-looking themes. We cannot safely assume that we know all that there is to be known about the dogmatic and liturgical history of Central Africa; that it is 3

C H R I S T I A N I T Y AND CENTRAL AFRICAN

RELIGIONS

stale stuff no longer requiring study. On the contrary, there is great need to sharpen our understanding of ideas and symbols. This need is plain even if we restrict our attention to the inward-looking history of Central African Christianity itself and before we go on to study the interactions of Christianity and African religion. Of course, we possess many accounts of missionary theology and of missionary liturgical experiments. We are beginning to have very valuable accounts of the theology and ritual practice of African independent churches in Central Africa. Yet we still have only the most shadowy outlines of the inward history of the Central African church as a whole and remain largely ignorant of many very important themes. We know too little of the existential theology and ritual which was produced by the actual practice of missionaries and especially of African catechists. We have no adequate treatment of the dogmatic and symbolic content of the Revival movements inside missionary Protestantism. Little is available about the ideas and ceremonies of the various American and South African fundamentalist missions. Above all, perhaps, the whole topic of Pentecostalism in its widest sense has hardly been treated. How important for the implantation of Christianity in Central Africa has been what one missionary called 'a new Pentecost', accompanied by healings and exorcisms ? What is the significance of the dominance of the idea of the Holy Spirit in so many African independent churches ? Faced with questions like these we realize that our grasp of the inward history of the Central African church - the very topic which should be at the core of the curricula of seminaries and theological colleges - has been limited to a very generalized sense of the most obvious changes which have taken place in the 'classical' missionary societies. The need for sharper understanding is equally plain from the point of view of the secular historian, whose interest in Christian history in Central Africa is in its interaction with social and intellectual change. Anthropologists who have worked in Central and Eastern Africa have shown that social change is accompanied, articulated, and perhaps even made possible, by symbolic change in the realm of myth and ritual. It would be peculiar if this interest in 'liturgy' on the part of anthropologists were to be accompanied by a general abandonment by historians of the subject of the church! But above all, the need to review the inward-looking 'religious' history of Central Africa arises in the context of the sort of issues to which the papers in this section are devoted. In general there has been an extraordinary imbalance in the treatment of inward-looking history. The process of interaction between Christianity and African societies was for a long time thought of as 'religious' on one side only. Accounts of the faith and practice of the missionaries were indeed given and were held to explain missionary motivation. But the response to missionaries by African societies and individuals was rarely treated inwardly. Early missionaries often denied that Central Africans had a religion. Much missionary history tended to explain African reactions exclusively in terms of political or economic motivations, or else in terms of a conspiracy of functionaries - witch-doctors, diviners, etc. - to protect their vested interests. The result was a history which was badly distorted on both sides. As John Weller points out, its treatment of the missionaries and of Christianity was too narrowly 'religious'; its treatment of African response was not 'religious' enough.

4

INTRODUCTION

Of course, things have changed very greatly. So, far from saying that Central Africans had no religions we now commonly say that Africans are peculiarly religious. Books like J. V. Taylor's The Primal Vision have set out to explore, with an intense sympathy, the insights which African religion can contribute to a Central African Christianity. But from the point of view of a sound history of the Central African church this sort of work has merely discredited the earlier interpretations without being able to replace them with a satisfactory account of the dynamics of the interaction between Christianity and African religions. 1 For this failure there have been two main reasons. First, these missiological studies have characteristically been very generalized. They have sought to discover the quintessential common themes of African religious experience and to provide guidance which will be valid throughout Central Africa; they have sought to promulgate, in fact, a single Bantu Philosophy. At the same time they have rarely had room to make many fine distinctions between the different types of Christianity which have interacted with Central African societies. The resulting simplification - an essential African religion confronting an essential Christianity - is in many ways attractive, especially to teachers and students in seminaries and theological colleges where generalization of some sort is essential. Nevertheless, this sort of generalization is dangerously misleading. A valid 'inward' history of the Central African church in its encounter with African religions will have to be much more particularist. There was no essential Central African religion. There were the widest variations between societies and within societies in the extent to which men took ritual seriously; there were the widest variations in the extent to which a developed body of myth was available; there were widely different concepts of God and of Sin; in some Central African societies there were markedly millenarian ideas and in others not; in some places there was a strong prophetic tradition but not in others. And if we add to this the markedly different character of the ideas and symbols presented to Africans by different forms of missionary Christianity it is obvious that we are dealing with a very complex situation. This does not mean to say that no generalizations are or will be possible. What it does mean is that they will be generalizations of a different sort, based on comparison and contrast of situations rather than on a notion of quintessential identity. These more valid generalizations can only be arrived at through detailed case studies, such as the handful presented in this book. If the first weakness of missiological studies has been over-generalization, the second weakness has been a lack of interest in time, in process, in short a lack of interest in history. Of course, all missiological writing is very well aware of the historical character of Christianity. Such writing emphasizes the Christian focus on a specific event in time; it emphasizes the Christian idea of salvation history and the Christian tradition of prophecy; it emphasizes the Christian vision of the future millennium. It recognizes the connection between these ideas and the rapid pace of change in Europe. All these senses in which Christianity is a historic religion combine to make most people think that it is the historic religion. At any rate, most missiological writing in Africa presents us with a dynamic, historic Christianity on one side, and with a 'timeless' and unchanging African religion on the other. This is often done very sympathetically. Writers point out the strengths of

5

C H R I S T I A N I T Y AND CENTRAL AFRICAN

RELIGIONS

continuity and of organic relationship with nature which the 'timeless' character of African religion is supposed to ensure.2 But however sympathetically made the contrast remains a distortion. Certainly, there is a real contrast to be made. The type and rate of change to which Christianity adapted, and in some cases stimulated, in Europe was very different from the type and rate of religious change in Africa. But the contrast has been greatly overdrawn. CENTRAL AFRICAN RELIGIONS AND N I N E T E E N T H - C E N T U R Y

CHANGE

African religions have their histories - though we do not know enough about them yet to be able to tell whether, and in what ways, a Christian theologian would find them to have had salvation histories. Some African religions refer back in their founding myths to events which are fully historic - as in the case of the martyrdom of the M'Bona priest by Lundu. Some African religions have a developed prophetic tradition - as once again with the M'Bona cult and with the Shona spirit mediums who are described in this book by Father Madziyire. Sometimes there are strongly future-oriented ideas of a millennium, as I describe for the Lala in my paper in this section. In short, the ideas and roles of African religions can adapt to, and sometimes precipitate, change. The study of the changes in African religion is a growing one.3 We need to know very much more, but we already know quite enough to show that there was little that was unchanged about Central African religions - little that was 'timeless' - when the missionaries entered the area in the nineteenth century. It is plain that change had been going on for centuries, but the evidence for the nineteenth century is especially good. We can be quite certain that the modern missionary movement entered Central Africa at a time when African religious institutions were undergoing sharp stresses and strains almost everywhere, and experiencing rapid redefinition in many places. Many Europeans thought that African religions were on the point of collapse because their inflexible and timeless nature could not cope with change. But in fact they were changing, often painfully and with tension. Some of these changes had been precipitated by developments within Central African societies themselves. The incursion of the Matabele, the Gaza, the Ngoni, brought about important religious changes. These groups often challenged pre-existing rituals and concepts, as the Ngoni challenged Chewa initiation rites and secret societies. In the interest of creating a new society they attacked religious institutions which helped to maintain older identities. At the same time, the Ngoni diaspora groups were themselves extraordinarily permeable by religious ideas and techniques. They were made up largely of captives picked up along the line of march and these captives introduced a wide variety of new ideas, rites, and techniques, so that the religion of each Ngoni group was a new composition. Moreover, the subject and raided communities were often able to take religious initiatives against the Ngoni. The Ngoni feared the witchcraft powers of the indigenous peoples and respected their prophetic figures. T h e Matabele came to be profoundly influenced by the Mwari cult of the western Shona. The raided Shona in their turn developed, in response to the Matabele threat, some aspects of their own religious institutions and not others. In short, a whole variety of religious changes took place out of tension between the

6

INTRODUCTION

Ngoni diaspora and the other peoples of Central Africa. Sometimes the missionaries came right into the middle of such a situation of tension and in these circumstances the history of missionary Christianity cannot possibly be understood in isolation from this wider context of conceptual confrontation. Schoffeleers's paper, with its emphasis upon the Mang'anja defence of their culture against the Kololo and other intruders, and Linden's paper, with its emphasis upon Ngoni pressure on Chewa ritual, provide admirable case studies of this sort of situation. Many other internally generated changes were also taking place. Many people of Central Africa came to live in much more concentrated and larger settlements during the later nineteenth century, and this gave rise to new fears and tensions and to ritual innovations designed to deal with them. T h e development of the slave trade and particularly of internal slavery produced many changes in religious concepts. Slaves assimilated into African societies sometimes brought religious ideas with them which were assimilated also. T h e process of supplying slaves sometimes gave rise to serious distortions of the chief's role in protecting his people against witchcraft, and a 'proven' accusation of witchcraft could lead to the enslavement of whole family groups. The desire that people had for protection against witchcraft was increasingly accompanied by a feeling that the price paid for control of witchcraft had become too heavy. Movements arose with the intention of eradicating witchcraft, once and for all. Missionaries sometimes entered a Central African society just at the point of such a moment of cleansing and their message was interpreted in the light of the general desire for purification. In such a situation the novel rites and symbols of missionary Christianity did not in themselves present any difficulty. Indigenous movements of witchcraft eradication derived much of their power from ritual and symbolic innovation. More generally it seems that nineteenth-century Central African societies were becoming increasingly aware of what some historians have called 'enlargement of scale'. People had to deal with a wide variety of aliens - as raiders, or caravan porters, or trading partners. A first step to dealing with them seems often to have been the creation of a dramatic stereotype, expressing what were held to be the essential qualities of the alien group, and acted out through rituals of spirit possession. People also had to deal with a growing realization that they did not command the processes of change but that they were caught up in a much wider movement of transformation. It seemed important to retain a sense of comprehension of what was going on; even so far as was possible a sense of control of it. For this reason, among others, the latter part of the nineteenth century in Central Africa was a high period of prophecy. Spokesmen from within the cults of Central Africa commented upon the new peoples and the new events, advising their own people how to respond and explaining how these changes fitted in with the dispensations of God. Often missionaries came directly into this sort of situation and in such a case their message was seen as part of the fulfilment of the prophecy, whether for good or ill.4 Of course, many of these religious changes were precipitated by the outward, external pressures of political, military, and economic development. But, essentially, most of these changes were inward-looking efforts to understand what was happening and through understanding to generate clusters of myth, 7

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RELIGIONS

and ritual, and prophecy which might affect what was happening. In this way, the missionaries entered Central Africa at a time of intense mythical and symbolic - or dogmatic and liturgical - development. It is only in this context that missionary interaction with Central African societies can be fully understood. At the moment this understanding can only be built up through specific and historic case studies. A handful of such case studies is presented here. They are hardly enough to get us very far, even taken in conjunction with other studies presented elsewhere. But they do allow for some initial and tentative generalizations. SOME I N I T I A L

GENERALIZATIONS

One place to begin is with an old stereotype of missionary historiography - the stereotype of confrontation. In its crudest - and probably still its most influential form - the notion of confrontation can still be found on the bookstalls of Central Africa in little pamphlets like Uncle Al's Missionary Adventures, which show the heroic missionary locked in mortal combat with the 'witch-doctor' for the minds and souls of the people. The assumption, which in a more subtle form is easy enough to make, is that there was only one response possible for an African religious official to make to the missionaries - the response of total opposition. Now, the papers in this section do in fact provide us with some Uncle Alstyle confrontations. Schoffeleers describes how the missionaries of the Universities Mission to Central Africa were driven off Thyolo mountain by worshippers of the M'Bona cult; Linden describes the persistent defiance of missionaries by Chewa Nyau societies; Madziyire describes how a young shave spirit medium denounced him and his church on the bus to Marandellas. At the same time though, the papers offer us other instances in which the leaders and followers of Central African religions appear much more sympathetic to Christianity. Schoffeleers shows how very differently Joseph Booth was received by the priests of M'Bona and the dialogue that was established between them; Madziyire describes the great medium of the 'tribal' spirit, Kasosa, who offered his protection and hospitality to the missionaries; my own paper argues that the Lala people were eagerly ready to make use of certain Christian ideas and that they made demands both on the missionaries and on Tomo Nyirenda, demands that really produced the Mwana Lesa movement. And one could add to this from other recent work in Central Africa and elsewhere a stream of instances in which African prophets advised a sympathetic hearing for the missionaries or, in some instances, sent their sons to learn in missionary schools; and in which chiefs expressed their confidence that Christianity might help to cleanse society. What, then, was going on ? Clearly the old picture of relentless confrontation owes its force more to the missionaries' uncompromising hostility to African religion than to the facts of African response. But with what are we to replace this picture ? There will be some suspicion, I suppose, that in my use of the idea of African sympathy to Christianity I am seeking to capture the Central African past for Christianity; that I am seeking to suggest that the moral force and beauty of the Christian message was irresistible to religiously minded men; that I am 8

INTRODUCTION

seeking to undermine the reality of African resistance to an alien culture by stressing sympathy. And, in fact, there has been something of this in the changed emphasis of African religious studies, so that Christian writers now stress the deep religious nature of pre-colonial African society as a defence against secularism, and in order that Christianity may appear the logical continuation of the African past. None of this is my intention. What I am concerned to argue is that the Central African response to the missionaries was variable, sometimes hostile, sometimes sympathetic, as a result of several factors operating in late nineteenth-century Central African societies. Of these factors four are the most important - or at least the most important in terms of conceptual encounter. I do not at all dispute the significance of purely political and economic factors which were often, indeed, crucially important in determining the immediate response to the missionaries. But, in addition, there were 'inward' factors. There was, first, the general openness to new myths and rites, and symbols, and techniques. It is easy to overstate this and to imagine that all and every aspect of Central African religions coexisted in ideal harmony. In fact there were many instances of rivalry and sometimes of enmity between different African cultic forms within a single Central African society - the rivalry or at any rate distinctness of the M'Bona cult and the Nyau societies is a case in point. African religions were not just coexistent with the total society, as is sometimes slackly said. But there was, nevertheless, a readiness to import new ideas or to pay respect to an outsider who claimed spiritual power. More than that, there had been for a long time a notion of what Dr Shorter calls 'mystical geography'; a notion which ascribed special power to areas outside one's own and which often emphasized the mediating or cleansing role of the uncommitted outsider. In Central Africa in the late nineteenth century there had been a great deal of such movement of ideas and of men. The missionaries were often viewed in the same sort of way. Of course, gradually a distinction was perceived, and people associated the missionaries with white colonial power or with the total, exclusive claims of the missionary church. Then people began to realize that it was not as easy as they had thought - though in practice still possible - to take merely what one wanted and to leave the rest. But there are enough examples of early missionaries who have become assimilated into myth as outsider prophetic figures to show that the mere fact that missionaries were white was not enough in itself to prevent this sort of response. In short, then, the missionaries expected hostility because they had an exclusive view of the encounter - it had to be one religion or the other. Very few African religious spokesmen had the same attitude in the early period. This leads on to the second point. Responses to missionaries varied because what was needed from them in terms of myth and ritual and symbol and technique varied also. (Of course, missionary ability to appear at all likely to provide what was wanted also varied very greatly.) In some cases the conceptualizers of African religion were in the process of defining broader ideas, appropriate to the enlargement of scale, and were ready to advise people to learn from the missionaries' concrete discussion of an active, personal God. In other cases, there was a passionate desire for cleansing, for the eradication of witchcraft, at the point of the missionary arrival, and the rite of Christian baptism was taken as a 9

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RELIGIONS

new and powerful ritual of eradication. In some cases people flocked to surrender to the missionaries the charms and medicine horns which would no longer be necessary in the new moral order. In yet other cases, as with the Lala instance in this section, the arrival of missionary Christianity coincided with a passionate millennial expectation, and themes from Christian eschatology could be drawn upon to make that expectation more concrete. Of course, in cases where an adaptation of African religion had itself enjoyed great success, where an African idea of the active High God had been clearly defined, or where a great prophetic cleansing movement had recently swept through, then the Christian alternative could be seen as at best needless and at worst threatening. This helps to explain the wide range and variety of the prophetic utterances recorded in the oral tradition of Central Africa, some calling for a repudiation of white ideas, others calling for a selective use of them, yet others almost going so far as to seize from the missionaries the role of founder of a Christianized morality. We must add to all this the third point, namely that within many Central African areas the missionaries did not encounter a single society, with a single set of symbolic and ritual needs. Most often the missionaries entered areas in which there was already a conflict of religious ideas between rulers and ruled, or between intruders and indigenes. In these situations one of the African parties to the conceptual strife might seek to take advantage of the missionaries, as the Ngoni chiefs sought to use the missionaries as allies in their attack on Chewa culture. And finally there is a very important fourth point, which I need not state fully here because it comes out very clearly from SchofFeleers's and Linden's papers. This point is that there were functional and structural differences between different types of Central African religion which were bound to produce different sorts of response to missionary Christianity. The example given in the papers is the difference between what Schoffeleers calls the 'territorial cults' of Central Africa, of which the M'Bona cult is a representative, and the Nyau societies based on a village or lineage segment, whose interests are more fundamentally incompatible with missionary teaching on personal relations. All this adds up to a very complex pattern of response at the inward level of religious ideas as well as at the outward level of political and economic interest. This pattern obviously affected and changed Central African religions. But the point is that it also profoundly affected and changed Central African Christianity. On the surface it might seem that Central African religions showed themselves too hospitable, too adaptable, in much the same way that Central African societies as a whole opened themselves to overthrow by the whites; and that missionary Christianity, preserving its armour of intolerance, triumphed over more ecumenical religions. And yet the use made by people of Christian ideas; the attempts made to use bits of Christianity to add to African religious ideas and techniques - all this coloured and defined what Christianity came to mean when it was finally established in that area. Even when Christianity came to assume the clear character of the all-demanding exclusive authoritarian church, the real nature of Central African Christianity was shaped as much by the 'converts' from below as by the missionaries from above. The 'similarity' which allowed territorial cults to draw on Christian themes 10

INTRODUCTION

for their own ends meant also that Christian converts would see Christian myth in terms of the myth of the territorial cults. If the followers of M'Bona came to think of their prophetic founding hero as a Black Christ, so too did Mang'anja Christians come to think of Christ in terms of the attributes of M'Bona. If the Lala 'needed' Christianity, so too they were able to impress the stamp of their own ideas upon the Christian movement of Tomo Nyirenda. In short, the religious history of Central Africa over the past 100 years is largely the history of a dialectic between Christianity and African religions. About this dialectic there is one last point that needs to be made. The religious history of Central Africa has been shaped by the usability of many Christian themes and symbols; it has also been shaped by what turned out to be the limitations on their usability. It has been shaped by Christian success but also by Christian failure. Let us return for a moment to the question of the initial response to Christianity by a spokesman of Central African religions. Such a man might become aware of what I have called the similarities, and be interested to explore them. In addition, he might be much more aware than most people, since it was precisely his job to handle or to act out ideas, of the need to develop new religious ideas to meet changing circumstances. He might be aware that men increasingly needed some way of working out moral responsibilities in relation to strangers in the larger society, and that they increasingly needed help to understand a world which seemed to have escaped their control. For all these reasons he might find some Christian ideas suggestive and useful. But we should be careful to keep two things in mind. The first is that borrowing from Christianity was not the only way in which African religions could develop to meet new situations. Robin Horton has argued that coincident with the arrival of missionary Christianity African religions were developing concepts of the High God and seeking from within their own resources to meet enlarged scale. We should be careful to keep this possibility of simultaneous but distinct innovation in mind. The second point is that it is important not to assume that missionary Christianity itself was capable of giving satisfactory solutions to the problems which worried men in Central Africa. The issue of witchcraft provides one crucial example. If the religious leader I have postulated above was aware of the need to develop new religious concepts to deal with the new world he was certainly aware also of the need to develop or to strengthen ways of dealing with evil in this new world, of dealing with fear of witchcraft and the dislocation caused by detection of witches. I have already suggested that in some circumstances Christianity might be seized upon as a new and more effective movement of cleansing and of witchcraft eradication. And this did undoubtedly happen in some places as missionaries came in - in Ufipa where charms were piled for destruction at the feet of Catholic missionaries; in Newala in southern Tanzania where the chief hailed the coming of Christian teaching as marking the doom of witchcraft; in northern Nyasaland where movements of revival in the Scottish missions were marked by hopes of witchcraft eradication; and among the Lala, who nursed expectations of a cleansing millennium. But as time passed it became plain that the mission churches were not prepared to give an answer to fear of witchcraft in terms of the exercise of spiritual II

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RELIGIONS

power. There were broad variations in the approach of different missions towards witchcraft - variations now under study. 5 But, in general, it is true that the problem was tackled by stressing Christian confidence and by seeking to transform the understanding of causation. The mission churches no longer inhabited the world of spiritual cause and effect; for most the age of miracles and even of exorcism was dead. Thus, Central African religions were compelled to continue to work out, if they could, their own solutions to the problem of witchcraft, their own rites of cleansing. Some of this working out borrowed Christian themes, as in the Mchape movement of the 1930s. Some of it has taken place within African independent churches. But a good deal of it has taken place by means of continued innovation by Central African religions; through ever wider and more comprehensive movement of witchcraft eradication; through new forms of spirit possession cult. Here, too, we need to understand the inward history of these movements, their dogma and liturgy, much better than we have done. So the overall picture which begins to emerge from the case studies available is not one of a dynamic Christianity thrusting aside passive Central African religions and effectively bringing to an end the non-Christian religious history of Central Africa. Nor is it one of manifest Christian success in answering the inward and religious problems of Central African societies so that African religions become merely the refuge of die-hard traditionalists. The dialectic between Christianity and Central African religions is continuous, not merely marking the first period of encounter.

THE

ENCOUNTER

AFRICAN

BETWEEN

RELIGION

AND

CHRISTIANITY

TODAY

It is because it brings out so clearly the continuing dialectic that I believe Salathiel Madziyire's paper in this section to be so important. He is writing about his own immediate experience in the Southern Rhodesia of today, while the rest of us are reconstructing the experience of others. Madziyire's paper has an immediacy to it which makes the whole process much more vivid than any academic reconstruction. It also, of course, has a different point of view. It is easy for the historian to balance the successes of Christianity with those of African religions and to insist upon the dynamism and symbolic power of the latter. It is not so easy for an African Christian priest experiencing a positive renaissance of traditional religion to remain so detached. Madziyire is in combat on a decades-old battle-front and he uses the terminology of his warrior predecessors - he confronts 'paganism' and 'heathenism'. At first sight his paper reads like a survival from the first days of the nineteenth-century encounter. But not at a second look. Madziyire writes as a priest but also as the child of Shona society. The great spirit medium of the Kasosa spirit, whose achievements Madziyire relates, was, in fact, his own father, so that Madziyire has in his own person made the classical transition from one form of spiritual power to another. In another paper 6 he has spoken of this as his pilgrimage - a pilgrimage from being the favourite son and assistant of the great spirit medium to being one of the guardians of the Christian shrine of the Mashonaland martyr, Bernard Mizeki. And there are continuities all along the line of pilgrimage. 12

INTRODUCTION

A n y reader can detect the sympathy with which Madziyire discusses the great spirit mediums of the present day and can see in his evidence a continuing process of interaction between them and the ideas of Christianity, strikingly similar to the process described by Schoffeleers for the M ' B o n a cult. A t the end of his pilgrimage, at the shrine of Bernard Mizeki, which he has described elsewhere, the manifestations of Bernard's sanctity and power are still seen in terms of the symbols of Shona prophetism. In fact Madziyire's war is really with one particular form of Shona religion - the spirit possession cults which he shows as openly hostile to the Christian churches. And we see here, also, evidence of the continuing dynamism of Central African religion. Other, more academic, observers have fully confirmed Madziyire's view that spirit possession has developed strikingly in recent years. In short, his paper is a vivid documentation of many of the themes of this Introduction. And it brings out, finally, one of the main themes and purposes of the original conference at Chilema. It was John Weller's hope that the meeting would encourage priests and ministers in the field to do research; it was my own emphasis that 'research' is not something very elaborate or very complicated, but merely the process of finding out. Father Madziyire's original paper stimulated the conference; the conference stimulated Father Madziyire. T h e paper printed here includes a good deal of material which he gathered by interviews with spirit mediums after his return home from Chilema. It was the hope of Chilema that the full-dress formal academic exercises, like my own paper on Mwana Lesa, could be outnumbered by reports from the field; by bulletins from the field of war, preferably from the commanders on both sides; by reports on the oral research of seminarians and theological students. I very much hope that readers will not be deterred from undertaking the process of finding out for themselves. NOTES 1

J. V. Taylor The Primal Vision, Christian Presence amid African Religion (London

1963)John Mbiti African Religions and Philosophy (London 1969). 3 A survey of developments in the field of African religious history, which includes some Central African case studies, is T . O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo (eds) The Historical Study of African Religion (London 1972). A conference on the history of Central African religion was held in Lusaka in September 1972. Two books are emerging from this conference, one on the history of Central African territorial cults, edited by Matthew Schoffeleers; the other on The Problem of Evil in Eastern Africa, i8jo-igjo, which is being edited by Terence Ranger and Sholto Cross. 4 For some of these ideas see Robin Horton, 'African Conversion' Africa X L I , 2 (April 1971). 5 This topic will be dealt with in a section of The Problem of Evil (op. cit.) in which there will be papers by Richard Stuart on the Universities' Mission to Central Africa and the problem of witchcraft in Malawi, by Catherine Robins on the approach adopted by the Revival movement, and Martinus Daneel on the Shona spirit churches and the problem of witchcraft. 6 Father Madziyire gave a paper at the Lusaka conference in September 1972 which described his pilgrimage in search of Bernard Mizeki. Copies of this paper are available from the Institute of African Studies of the University of Zambia. 2

13

MATTHEW

SCHOFFELEERS

The Interaction of the M'Bona Cult and Christianity, 1859-1963 INTRODUCTION

The M'Bona cult has been associated for many centuries with the Mang'anja people, who once occupied the greater part of southern Malawi and adjacent areas of Mozambique but are now largely confined to the Lower Shire Valley. The two chief shrine centres of the cult, Thyolo on the north-eastern edge of the Valley and Khulubvi some three miles south of present-day Nsanje, once formed part of a very wide network of shrines dedicated to the High God. In this early period it was believed that the spirit of the High God visited these shrines in the wind and manifested itself there in the form of a great snake; a human girl-wife was provided for the spirit. This 'wife' was known as the M'Bona and she acted as an intermediary for God, articulating His commands. At the time of the rise of the Phiri chieftancies, and especially at the time of the rise of the Lundu dynasty in the sixteenth century, a combined political and theological revolution took place in the Lower Shire Valley. The Lundus gained control of the shrines and in the process the myth and structure of the cult changed. A new myth was created, which is the dominant theology of the cult today. In this story - which may well have reflected a historical clash between Lundu and the guardians of the older cult - we are told of a great male prophet, directly inspired by God, who was slain on the orders of the Lundu Paramount. It is the prophet, rather than the spirit-wife, who is called M'Bona in this myth. After his martyrdom, so it is told, M'Bona's spirit was appeased by the Lundus. The Lundu chiefs provided a succession of wives for the M'Bona spirit and allowed the construction of a shrine near to the sacred pool in which the body of the prophet disappeared. At the shrine resided a medium who was believed to be possessed on occasion by the spirit of M'Bona, a spirit-wife, and a priestly hierarchy which controlled the cult on behalf of Lundu and his subchiefs. The Lundus proceeded to carve out a large empire, and in its new form the M'Bona cult was exported to Lolo and Makua country between the Shire river and the Indian Ocean. In these areas the concept of M'Bona varied yet again. It will be seen, then, that the M'Bona cult had a long and dramatic history by the time it came into contact with missionary Christianity in the nineteenth century. By that time the cult was integral to the cultural identity of the Mang'anja people, then much threatened bytheincursionsof slavers from Mozambique. But it would have been quite misleading to regard it as a 'traditional', unchanging, and archaic expression of a timeless tribal culture. The Mang'anja themselves had gained an identity from a specific history, and the M'Bona cult

14

M'Bona shrines and Christian

missions 15

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AFRICAN

RELIGIONS

had experienced radical theological, mythical, and symbolic change. In so far as missionary Christianity was seen as an additional threat to Mang'anja identity the M'Bona cult would provide a focus for rejection of the missionaries. But if missionary Christianity appeared compatible with Mang'anja identity, and possibly a means of protecting or enriching it, there was much in the history and nature of the M'Bona cult which would allow for interaction rather than repudiation. Such possibilities for interaction arose partly from the special history of the M'Bona cult. Contrasted with the shrines of central Malawi, which had remained a part of the High God network, the M'Bona cult had developed a powerful mythology of a historical prophetic figure; of a martyred saviour, the shedding of whose blood had liberated great spiritual power. The parallel with the central myth of Christianity was obvious, and we shall see that it was exploited in a whole variety of ways. But the possibilities for interaction with Christianity also arose from characteristics which the M'Bona cult shared in common with the High God shrines and with other territorial cults in Central Africa. These territorial cults contrasted, and still contrast, with more privately oriented types of worship appropriate to villages and to matrilineage sections. Territorial cults are concerned with the good of the total community, with prevention of floods, droughts, epidemics, wars. Organizationally they are characterized by a network of permanent shrines, by specialized priests, by a seasonal calendar of worship. Theologically they emphasize the creative and directive power of God rather than of the family and nature spirits which are the focus of village and matrilineage veneration. They contain within themselves, to a greater or lesser degree and through different mechanisms, the idea of prophetism - the idea of the authorized spokesman of God, who can demand a return to the old order but who can also announce new commandments. In all these ways the territorial cults were similar to missionary Christianity, with its macrocosmic view of the world, with its mission centres, with its clergy, with its theology of an activist God, and with its own prophetic traditions. Naturally, the fact of this similarity did not mean that there was inevitably collaboration between the officers of the territorial cults and the missionaries. Far from it. Obviously, under certain circumstances the very similarity could lead to bitter competition. Nevertheless, there were many openings for adaptation and even for dialogue. We shall see that relations between the M'Bona cult and Christianity passed through a spectrum of responses which may be regarded as paradigmatic of other such encounters. At the first, when missionary Christianity presented itself as an evident threat to Mang'anja society and the values sustained by the cult, the priests of M'Bona used their own hierarchical, extensive, and prophetic power to oppose the missionaries. Then, when British 'protection' enabled a restoration of Mang'anja political authority, the officers of M'Bona allowed the development of a dialogue in which the missionaries were revealed not only as political and economic powers but as the bearers of ideas which sounded many echoes of their own. These resonances enabled the officers of M'Bona to enter into and reside within a world of religious pluralism, in which they could combine without sense of strain membership in a mission church and continued 16

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CHRISTIANITY

service at the shrine. Later still, as tensions between blacks and whites, between 'traditionalists' and 'modernizers', again became acute, the priests of M'Bona were able to make use of Christian ideas to strengthen the power of their 'Black Christ'. 1 DAVID L I V I N G S T O N E TO C E N T R A L A F R I C A ,

AND T H E U N I V E R S I T I E S '

MISSION

1859-64

The M'Bona cult's encounter with Protestant Christianity began with David Livingstone himself. From the very beginning of his journeys into Malawi Livingstone paid regular visits to what he called 'Mboma's village' at Khulubvi. 2 He did not visit the village because it was a cult centre but because it was the only place where food could be bought in great quantities and at very low prices. The village bordered on the Ndinde marshes which allowed for year-round cultivation. Its ample food-supply sustained the pilgrims who flocked to M'Bona's shrine from as far away as the east coast and the Zambesi delta.3 The coming and going of these pilgrims had stimulated a readiness to trade which impressed Livingstone, and some of the pilgrims had stayed to settle in the village and to compete with the Mang'anja.4 Its favourable location, just above the marshes and well within the boundaries of the later Protectorate, made it a port of call for the many missionaries, traders, and administrators who passed through in later days. M'Bona's village had in fact been visited intermittently by Portuguese from the nearby town of Sena on the Zambesi in the centuries preceding Livingstone's arrival. Portuguese ships plied the Shire from the seventeenth century and probably before that time.5 Mang'anja oral history recalls a Portuguese nicknamed Chigunda, who was a devotee of the cult and paid several visits to the shrine in the company of his servant, Landao.6 In their turn the Mang'anja were quite familiar with Sena, to which they exported coarse cotton cloth and iron objects.7 There had been some contact, too, in terms of religious ideas and rituals. The first Scottish missionaries were surprised to hear a canoe song in praise of the Virgin Mary sung on the Shire.8 Many Mang'anja had witnessed Portuguese religious festivals in Sena. Livingstone described a procession in honour of St Anthony which was organized in the Zambesi town of Tete after the ceremonies of the local rain-makers had failed,9 and there are enough mentions of incidents of this kind in the missionary annals of Malawi to enable us to guess that rain ceremonies were traditional foci of interaction between Christianity and the local cults. 10 When Livingstone came to the Lower Shire Valley, then, its inhabitants were not altogether ignorant of Christianity, which they knew to be the religion of the Portuguese. Livingstone himself adopted the habit of identifying himself as a Christian whenever he had to explain the aim of his travels. This he did when he visited Chief Nkhunga Tengani, one of the important authorities at the Khulubvi shrine. Livingstone described this encounter at length, adding some sour remarks about his interpreter who, then as on earlier occasions, wound up his translation by stating that 'the Book told people to plant cotton and sell it to the English'. 11 17

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This incident may be worth mentioning as a graphic illustration of the way early and passing contacts with Christianity were often perceived. People not unnaturally looked beyond statements for the secular and political interests they suspected in the person meeting them. A man's actions and the kind of people he associated with, or was thought to associate with, were far more important determinants than words of the interaction between Christianity and traditional religion. In the event neither Livingstone nor the Universities' Mission to Central Africa could escape becoming deeply involved in Mang'anja politics, and it was in this context that the first face-to-face encounter between the M'Bona cult and Christian missionaries took place. During the first year of Livingstone's explorations the country of the Mang'anja had already begun to feel the threat of slavery. The notorious slaver, Mariano, had begun to build a stockade near the Shire confluence, ready to strike. 12 At the time of Livingstone's first ascent of the Shire the country was in state of alarm - threats were shouted at him from the river bank; Tengani had a little army ready equipped with the best weapons the explorer had as yet seen in the Zambesi area, and more than once armed men came upon Livingstone's party, when they sought shelter in a village. 13 Tengani gave Livingstone a cool reception and his ally Mankhokwe, higher up the river, was even more reserved. Mankhokwe was still regarded as the Paramount of the southern highlands between the Ruo and Shire rivers and Lake Chirwa. 14 But the Paramountcy had become purely nominal and chiefs could enter into every kind of alliance on their own accord without being afraid of punitive action by Mankhokwe. The north-west of the valley was under the control of Chibisa at Chikwawa and of Kabvina, who guarded the old trade routes to Tete. When slavery became a profitable proposition these two allowed the Tete traders to make use of the route in return for tribute. 15 Livingstone was unaware of all this and did not realize that Chibisa and Kabvina were hated by other Mang'anja as allies of the slavers. He struck up a friendship with Chibisa, whose calculating mind was quick to seize the fresh advantages which this would bring him, and who sent his son with Livingstone to claim those parts of the highlands on which the explorer set foot. 16 Livingstone first, and then the Universities' Mission to Central Africa after him, associated themselves with the man they should have been most concerned to avoid, and this, in the end, proved disastrous to the missionaries. Some of the important highland chiefs followed suit and turned to Chibisa for help instead of to Mankhokwe. Mankhokwe naturally resented this since it represented a grave interference with the internal politics of his chiefdom and on at least one occasion he demanded that Chibisa dismiss the English. 17 Mankhokwe's suspicions increased when Livingstone's men, the Kololo, dismissed by their master because of their insubordination, established themselves in the neighbourhood of Chibisa's and became downright robber barons. 18 Livingstone and the missionaries, and all connected with them, seemed to constitute a threat to the traditional political authorities of the Mang'anja and to the religious values of the M'Bona cult. It was at this very point that the U.M.C.A. missionaries directly encountered the M'Bona cult. The missionaries were disgusted with the behaviour of the Kololo and sought to move away from Chibisa's to a new site. They chose Mount 18

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Thyolo. But Mount Thyolo was under the direct jurisdiction of Mankhokwe. Moreover it was the site of an M'Bona shrine which had once been the centre of the whole cult, 19 and which had regained some of its former influence during the nineteenth century with the decline of the Lundu kings and the reassertion of the Mankhokwes.20 The missionaries could hardly have chosen a more inappropriate place at a more inappropriate moment. And to dramatize the situation the missionaries Steward and Waller arrived at Mankhokwe's just at the moment when the chief was receiving a deputation from the M'Bona shrine at Khulubvi. Khulubvi had been the chief M'Bona shrine during the time of the Lundu empire and had been the centre of the new theology of M'Bona, the slain prophet. Mankhokwe had long wanted to gain control of the shrine. It seemed now, in August 1862, as if his chance had come. Delegates came from Khulubvi asking him to supply a new spirit-wife, carrying with them M'Bona's sacred spear as token of their authority.21 Shortly after on the same day, 6 August, the U.M.C.A. missionaries arrived. Mankhokwe was in no doubt which of the two religious embassies was the more important. The missionaries had to wait outside the village until the more pressing business of Khulubvi had been concluded. While they spent a night outside the village the missionaries heard the cries of the woman who had been chosen to become M'Bona's wife. Next day they were allowed their interview. Surprisingly, Mankhokwe appeared quite willing to let them live on Thyolo. Perhaps he felt that he was achieving a monopoly of every source of spiritual influence in the area. But when the missionaries went up the mountain they ran into a resistance such as they had never encountered before. The inhabitants, many of them refugees from the valley, were prepared to defend the shrine with their lives. 22 'The people seemed almost mad with superstitious apprehension,' recorded the missionaries; 'they seemed as though they were living in the actual but invisible presence of a mighty spirit, to whom we were antagonistic, and whose wrath could be visited on them. We might have killed them before they would have consented to our coming.' 23 Dispirited, the missionaries turned back to Chibisa's, where two of them were soon to die. Today, after more than 100 years, people in the Chikwawa district still tell the story of Europeans who trespassed on M'Bona's sacred grounds notwithstanding the warnings they had received. Upon their return home some of them had become demented, running up and down the edges of the cliff on which their village stood and shouting at the top of their voices until they died. Clearly, M'Bona had defeated his enemies.24 Thus, the first encounter between M'Bona and Christianity was perceived by the population as essentially political; part of a violent attempt to invade Mang'anja society. In this encounter M'Bona was victorious. In the following year, 1863, the U.M.C.A. missionaries left the area, and although the Khulubvi shrine had been razed to the ground by the slaver Mariano, a few months before, so that the departing missionaries passed by the ruins of their rival's village as they navigated downstream, at least the M'Bona cult was left in sole spiritual possession of the area.25

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J O S E P H B O O T H ' S V I S I T TO T H E K H U L U B V I S H R I N E ,

1894

The second face-to-face enounter took place under rather different circumstances. The missionary visitor was Joseph Booth, who had read about the M'Bona shrine at Khulubvi in E. D. Young's account of his journey up the Shire in 1866. 26 Booth was a very different sort of man from Livingstone or the U.M.C.A. missionaries and this in itself probably had something to do with the different way in which he was received. But what was more important, his visit in 1894 took place in a transformed political situation. After the departure of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa in 1863, Livingstone's old Kololo servants had taken over political control of the valley. When the Scottish missionaries entered the area in 1875 they were highly critical of Kololo 'slave government'.27 But despite this missionary criticism, the Kololo became valuable allies of the British. The early British officials regarded the Kololo as protectors of the Mang'anja from slavers rather than as oppressors28 and, for their part, the Kololo considered themselves black Englishmen (except, it was remarked, in the matter of monogamy). The Kololo helped the British defend the Shire valley against the Portuguese,29 and they were able to extend their influence still further to the south between 1880 and 1884.30 Little of this gave the Mang'anja chiefs any pleasure. They hated the Kololo, and British support for their enemies merely confirmed their worst suspicions of British missionary intentions. But towards the end of the 1880s things changed. British relations with the Kololo became strained and the Mang'anja chief, Tengani, was able to enter into negotiations with the British for the restoration of his southern chiefdom. 31 On 21 July 1891 Tengani, Ngabu, and others who exercised authority at the Khulubvi shrine, signed a treaty in which they ceded sovereign rights and agreed to be taxed, while for their part the British recognized Tengani as chief. 32 Thus, when Booth came to visit Khulubvi in 1894 the Mang'anja had some reason to look more kindly on British power and intentions. The British had helped remove from the scene both the slavers and the Kololo. They were still unpredictable and they governed in complex ways, but perhaps the missionaries could prove useful as guides and interpreters to the new colonial world. Nevertheless, when Joseph Booth and John Chilembwe came to Khulubvi they did not at first have an easy time.33 They met first with Chief Chataika and his headman Mkhucha. The two officials denied them a hearing and ordered all the people into their huts, taking their dogs and fowls with them. Booth was determined to make communication and he and Chilembwe began to sing Chewa hymns as loudly as they could. After a while the people emerged from their huts but again showed their contempt by drumming, dancing, and singing around the two men, drowning their hymns. But after a while this musical confrontation gave way to dialogue, and Booth was allowed to give a sermon on God and Christ, the first encounter at the level of expounded theology which had taken place. Chataika's first response to Booth's sermon was that it was all nonsense: they knew for certain that God had spoken to them through M'Bona and they had 20

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no means of knowing whether God had spoken to Booth. In reply to this Booth produced his Bible and read the Ten Commandments, which were carefully translated by Chilembwe. The discussion which followed focused on the issues of killing and stealing. M'Bona's people argued that M'Bona had also forbidden killing and the spilling of blood.34 On the other hand, the white people did not seem to pay much attention to the prohibition in the Bible, since Livingstone had brought guns and left them with the Kololo, who, in turn, had used them to make war and to steal women. Possibly with an eye on Chilembwe, they added that his countrymen, the Yao, had done very much the same thing with guns obtained from the Arabs. Finally they pointed out that the colonial government was using guns to enforce its tax rules. Booth managed to stem this reiterated conviction that the missionaries were inseparably connected with violence. A convinced pacifist himself, he managed to convince them of the sincerity of his Christian non-violence. He had presented the arguments of Christianity for the first time. Moreover, he offered to mediate on their behalf with the Government and to present a petition against the tax rules and their enforcement. Dialogue had begun. The Khulubvi elders returned Booth's visit to discuss the petition, and even went so far as to offer him a place in their village near the shrine. It does not seem too much to say that Booth's visit was a watershed in the history of the interactions between the M'Bona cult and Christianity. There is irony in the thought that Booth, who was so often accused of sowing dissension among Christians, should have been instrumental in making peace between Christianity and an important traditional cult. THE LOCAL M I S S I O N S :

1900

ONWARDS

A third period now began. The power of the Europeans was more and more obvious; so also was the advantage of the education offered by missionaries as a means of learning how to deal with that power. Missionaries did not delve deeply enough to constitute a real spiritual threat to the M'Bona cult, but at the same time Mang'anja appreciation of their utility and qualified benevolence was accompanied by a readiness to learn about the central myths and symbols of the Christian faith. In 1900 a mission was established on a permanent basis only a short distance from the Khulubvi shrine. This was the South African General Mission, which based itself first at Lulwe and then at Chididi further to the north. The South African General Mission soon set about to procure permission to establish schools, and in the prevailing atmosphere they had surprising success. Around 1912 they were given permission to set up a school at Khulubvi in the immediate neighbourhood of the sacred grounds, and the wattle-and-daub building was actually put up by the people themselves.36 Even more telling, in 1914 E. Price, head of the Chididi Mission, was permitted to deliver a sermon on Christ from the very door of the shrine. 'I addressed the people from the door of the hut,' wrote Price, 'after getting permission from the "priest" in charge. I spoke to them about the great sacrifice of Christ for the world and of God's love for mankind, etc. They said, "When we come to believe in Jesus we will be willing to give up our present worship of M'Bona." "You see," they said, "our fathers

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taught us all about M'Bona and at present we believe in him. We like you to teach our children, because they learn good things." ' 3 6 The missionaries hoped that a progression had begun which would lead M'Bona's followers to Christ. They were greatly heartened in 1916 when Nkhuche, a senior headman, came to the mission to ask for prayers for rain. 'I asked why he had not gone to M'Bona as he had previously done,' wrote Price. 'He replied, "We have no longer faith in M'Bona. Your God can give rain, pray for us or our crops will be ruined." I asked him if he really believed our God could give rain. He said very emphatically " I do". I arranged for special prayers throughout the district. Nkhuche attended daily and he had the look of one expecting rain. Yes: he had actual faith in God to give the rain although a heathen, but, I believe, not far from the kingdom.'37 Price believed that incidents like this proved that people had lost faith in M'Bona. But it seems very unlikely that this was so. The officials and adherents of M'Bona certainly reacted much more favourably to missionary education than did the members of the Nyau secret societies which Ian Linden describes in this book, who utterly opposed village schools. But this difference does not demonstrate that M'Bona ceased to be influential while the mythology of the Nyau retained its hold on the imagination. What seems to have been at stake here was the difference in response between the territorial cult of M'Bona and the localized Nyau cults. The M'Bona cult was concerned with the prosperity and moral health of the whole community, to which it now seemed that missionary education could contribute. The Nyau societies were concerned with the specifics of Mang'anja initiation, burial, and marriage customs, which were obviously incompatible with missionary teaching. Moreover, the headman's readiness to accept Christian rain-making had probably been part of Mang'anja thinking for a long time, since the Catholic processions of Sena and Tete had long been seen as supplementary rain ceremonies. During this period the followers of M'Bona drew upon aspects of mission Christianity as part of a total spectrum of belief and practice, but their ability to do so was a reflection of the essential self-confidence of the M'Bona cult. When striking events or great upheavals occurred it was still to the M'Bona myth complex that people turned in order to comprehend and digest them. In 1917 the Makombe uprising against the Portuguese took place among the Tavara and Wabarwe peoples of Mozambique.38 The uprising was defeated, and several thousands of refugees crossed into the Nsanje district of Nyasaland, bringing with them tales of horror and destruction. These refugees also brought with them a dramatic ritual of spirit possession in which the memory of those slain by the Portuguese was kept alive. In the historical awareness of the Mang'anja the rising and its suppression evoked echoes of equally violent events which had taken place in the closing quarter of the sixteenth century. At that time Chief Lundu had reacted to the closing down of lucrative trading opportunities with the Arabs by sending his dreaded Zimba warriors on a rampage in the Portuguese settlements under a leader known as Tundu or chi-Tundu.39 Tundu, whose cult persists alongside M'Bona's, was now spoken of as the mother of Chief Makombe, the Paramount and leader of the Wabarwe fighters. M'Bona was now spoken of as Makombe's father. Both M'Bona and Tundu were said to have assisted Makombe in his fight against the Portuguese. 22

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This adaptation of myth expressed Mang'anja sympathy with the refugees and provided a way in which they could befittedinto the Mang'anja metaphysic. Moreover, the idea of M'Bona's support of revolt against whites was appropriate enough to the experience of the Mang'anja themselves. The hut tax was still a source of major discontent. To make matters worse, in the very year 1918 during which the Makombe refugees began to arrive in large numbers, plots of land were leased to Europeans in the Ndinde Marsh and the thangata system of tenure was introduced into the district.40 When in 1921 the hut tax was reduced by half and the European estates gradually closed through crop failures, M'Bona's continued ability to look after the interests of his people seemed vindicated once more. Meanwhile, however, the missionary advance continued. In July 1921 the Catholics established a mission just outside Nsanje township and its members set out without delay to combat the South African General Mission and the formidable Price. The main Catholic interest, as always, was in small village schools, of which they founded a great many.41 The Catholics were coming in late; the main centres were already occupied or in the process of being occupied by the South African General Mission. One result of this was that the Catholic church in Nsanje, as in the Mulanje District, became a refuge for the immigrants from the Portuguese territories, who were looked upon with some disdain by the Mang'anja.42 For this reason, perhaps, the Catholic missionaries were little concerned with the M'Bona cult. Their mission diaries bristle with references to the school war but contain no reference to M'Bona. The missionaries were well aware of the cult's existence43 but the Sena people, who constituted the bulk of the Catholic converts, had no real stake in the cult. Hence the priests felt no compulsion to combat M'Bona as their colleagues combated the Nyau societies in the Chikwawa district.44 Generally speaking the missions, far from destroying the cult by their teachings, actually rendered it a signal service by assisting it to adapt to the changing times. The priests of M'Bona were able to give a new pattern to many of the events of M'Bona's life along biblical lines. The fact that M'Bona's father is not named in his myth - a consequence of the Mang'anja kinship system which reckons descent through the mother - became positively converted into a myth according to which M'Bona was born to a virgin.45 His food-providing powers, which had hitherto found expression in stories of miraculous rice growing along a well made by him, or delicious meals found in the sacred thicket, or of pumpkins he made to grow on trees for starved refugees, now came to be represented in the form of the biblical manna.46 At this stage, these biblical adaptations primarily reflected a sense of the similarities between M'Bona and Christ. The Mang'anja were perfectly prepared to let the two religions exist side by side. Their willingness to let the missionary, Price, preach from the doorway of the shrine was not a renunciation of M'Bona but a gesture of genuine if unsophisticated ecumenism. In time some African converts of the South African General Mission and of the Catholic Mission were appointed to functions in the cult.47 This was not perceived as a break with their church but as yet another form of peaceful coexistence. For their part the missionaries continued to condemn the cult, to denounce it as idolatry and as irreconcilable with Christianity. But beyond their words

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there was little they could do either to suppress the cult or to rival it in its areas of most effective operation. Any drastic attempt to destroy the cult was out of the question, especially since District Commissioners occasionally made gifts to the shrine and would certainly not have supported the missionaries against it.48 The missionaries did not endeavour to use spiritual power for healing or to ensure fertility, with the exception of occasional prayers for rain, nor did they encourage the prophetic role. Thus the M'Bona cult remained in exclusive possession of a larger part of the religious spectrum of the Mang'anja. CHIEF MOLIN TENGANI,

1936-63

To most Mang'anja Christians this was a perfectly acceptable, indeed desirable, state of affairs. But the South African General Mission had also produced a small group of African preachers and evangelists who took a much less lenient view of the cult. One of these, Molin Tengani, was to be instrumental in upsetting the balance of power. The Tenganis belong to a dynasty of senior Mang'anja chiefs whose ancestry goes back several centuries. After the restoration of the Mang'anja chiefdoms in 1891 they came to be regarded as the Paramounts of the southern part of the valley. Traditionally, the Khulubvi shrine was under their control, but several of their obligations had in the course of time been delegated to the sub-chiefs Malemia and Ngabu who lived nearer Khulubvi. However, the main ritual, which consists of a periodic rebuilding of the shrine, remained the obligation of the Tenganis, without whose consent and active co-operation it could not be performed. Molin Tengani had become a Christian at the Lulwe Mission in 1902.49 For a time he worked as a foreman on the railways, but he afterwards joined the mission staff as a teacher, serving successively at Mpatsa, the Tengani headquarters, and Malindi, further south. Following this, he was employed at the Chididi station, where he served till 1936. His uncle Thenzwa, the tenth incumbent of the Tenganiship since Livingstone's visit, had died in 1934 and Molin became a leading favourite for succession. He refused the position at first but finally gave in, and he was duly invested in 1936. He proved to be a stern ruler, unlike his predecessor, and his handling of court matters became notorious. Moreover, unlike the missionaries, he was in a position to damage the M'Bona cult. Upon his accession he refused to make the customary offering at the Khulubvi shrine, and let it be known that as a Christian he would not continue the obligations to the cult that had formerly fallen to the Tengani chiefs. 50 When the shrine became dilapidated it could not be rebuilt. The cult officers asked sub-chief Mbeta to take the place of Tengani, but he also refused. 61 The priests who lived at the shrine had hitherto escaped taxation but now they were forced to pay. 52 Rumours began to circulate that the waters of the sacred poor at Ndione, said to be reddened with M'Bona's blood, had now turned the normal colour, a sign that M'Bona had withdrawn from the area.53 But the M'Bona cult was not without its own resources in this combat. Among the various rules enforced by Tengani, the one which caused the most resentment was that of ridging the gardens before the planting season. Tradi24

THE I N T E R A C T I O N OF THE M'BONA CULT AND C H R I S T I A N I T Y

tionally, people were used to a system of shallow cultivation which required far less effort and they complained that ridged gardens tended to dry out more quickly.64 Their protests were ignored. Defaulters were either fined or imprisoned, and grudgingly the population had to comply. 55 The year 1949, when the rule was first proclaimed and agricultural instructors began to conduct meetings with headmen and villagers, was a year of exceptionally severe drought. Emergency feeding programmes had to be organized to save people from starvation.56 M'Bona's medium let it be known that the drought was due to the introduction of garden ridges, to which M'Bona was most vehemently opposed. The people began to put pressure on the cult officials to rebuild the shrine in despite of Tengani. At last it was decided to obtain a spirit-wife from Village Headman Thunye, and the shrine was restored.57 The M'Bona cult remained a focus of opposition to Tengani throughout his career as chief. Tengani declared himself in favour of the proposed Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and became one of its most stubborn proponents.58 As a result the opposition to him became more intense and the M'Bona cult developed new myths to help to power it. The whole long-drawn conflict, which only ended with Tengani's retirement in 1963 and his death in 1967, had assumed the form of a contest between M'Bona and Christianity. Where previously the M'Bona priests and followers had used biblical analogies to stress the similarities between the two religions, now they began to stress the differences. Christianity once more seemed hostile to Mang'anja and African welfare, and in this atmosphere there was developed the theory of M'Bona as the Black Christ.59 According to this theory God had two sons: Christ who was white, and M'Bona who was black. It was so ordained by God that both had their own section of humanity to look after, and that neither had the power to intervene in the other's section. This idea came to be applied in a number of different ways. In one version, the 'footprints' ascribed to M'Bona in various parts of the valley, were actually those of Christ, who had come to Africans but upon finding good people only in Africa had gone away to convert the sinful Europeans. The latter thereupon lived up to their bad reputation by killing him.60 Yet even in this expression of anti-Christian and anti-white feeling, we can see the change which had taken place since 1917. In that year anti-European sentiments had been expressed in terms of Mang'anja history, not in terms of the Bible. This difference seems to be indicative of the widespread diffusion of Christian ideas in the intervening years and of the profound influence they had on the cult. CONCLUSIONS

Throughout this long encounter the missionaries took an exclusively negative view of the M'Bona cult. Steward considered it 'a puerile and debasing superstition' ; Rowley characterized it as 'a painful manifestation of false religion'; to Price it was 'a power of darkness'; and the Catholic catechism described all spirit cults as the 'worship of false gods'. 61 Their desire was to see M'Bona's cult disappear, and Price requested the fervent prayers of his readers for this purpose.

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The majority of Mang'anja apparently did not see things in this way. Except when Christianity was evidently linked with the enemies of the Mang'anja way of life - as Livingstone was linked with the Kololo, or Molin Tengani with agricultural rules and the idea of Federation - they did not see any intrinsic incompatibility with the M'Bona tradition. T o non-Christians the missions were at least intermittently effective agents of rain-calling. 62 T o 'converts' there appeared some telling parallels between the life histories of Christ and M'Bona; both were 'sons of G o d ' ; both were murdered though innocent; and both were food-providers. When biblical themes were sufficiently diffused throughout the population they also provided a new and effective context in which to express anti-European sentiments. Previously, anti-white emotions had been expressed through reference back to the Zimba wars or to the defeat of Livingstone's Kololo in i8gi. 6 3 But both events were part ofMang'anja history and became less suitable to express anti-European sentiments when the number of Sena immigrants had reduced the Mang'anja population to a relative minority. A common tradition was needed, and that need was filled by the Bible. Yet it would be mistaken to end upon a picture of 'Christianity' as intolerant of and unaffected by the M'Bona cult, and of the M'Bona cult as tolerant of and profoundly influenced by Christianity. Christianity among the Mang'anja consisted of very much more than the missionaries, and among African Christians the attitudes of Molin Tengani were the exception rather than the rule. The character of Mang'anja Christianity has been deeply affected by the existence and development of the myths, and symbols, and attitudes of the M'Bona cult. NOTES 1 For fuller treatments of the history of the M'Bona cult see W. H. J. Rangeley, 'M'Bbona the Rain Maker' The Nyasaland Journal 1953, VI, /, 8-27; J . M. Schoffeleers, 'The History and Political Role of the M'Bona cult among the Mang'anja' in T . O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo (eds) The Historical Study of African Religion (London 1972); J. M. Schoffeleers, 'The Chisumphi and M'Bona cults in Malawi: a comparative history' (unpublished paper delivered to the Lusaka Conference, August 1972). For a discussion of territorial cults in Central Africa see T. O. Ranger, 'Report on the Proceedings of the Lusaka Conference', African Religious Research, 1972, 2, 2, 6-16. 2 D. Livingstone Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries, and of the Discoveries of Lakes Shirma and Nyasa, 1857-64 (London 1865) pp. 93, 94, 96; J . P. R. Wallis (ed.) The Zambesi Expedition of D. Livingstone (London 1956) pp. 89, 105, 123, 127. 3 For evidence on pilgrimages from the east coast see T. Price, 'The Meaning of Mang'anja' The Nyasaland Journal 1963, XVI, /, 75; for pilgrimages from the Zambesi delta see P. Schebesta, 'Religioese Anschauungen der Asena - Mulungu und seine Verehrung' Bibliotheca Africana 1929, E I , /, 6. 4 Wallis (ed.) Zambesi Expedition, op. cit., p. 105. 6 Joao Dos Santos (1609) in G. M. Theal Records of South-Eastern Africa VII, (London 1898-1903) 268. 6 Interview with M'Bona's medium (31 October 1966); in his opinion'Chigunda' represents a cult name applied to that person. It was also the name of the chief

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Massingire leader, and a cult of that name exists at Chiphuphu in Mozambique territory. 7 For an early testimony on this trade see Francisco de Monclaro (1572) in Theal Records, op. cit., HI, p. 229. 8 The text of this song is in D. C. Scott A Cyclopaedic Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language (Edinburgh 1892) p. 484; A. Werner The Natives of British Central Africa (London 1906) p. 217. 8 D. Livingstone Narrative, op. cit., p. 47. 10 W. A. Elmslie Among the Wild Ngoni (London 1970) pp. 168-78; J . L. Pretorius, 'An Introduction to the History of the Dutch Reformed Church in Malawi', University of Malawi Conference on the Early History of Malawi (1970), and oral communication to the conference; E. Price, 'The Defeat of M'Bbona, the Rain Chief' The South African Pioneer 1916, X X I X , 7, 82-84. 11 Livingstone Narrative p. 77. 12 The exploits of the slave dealer Mariano, also known as Matekenya, are amply documented in the writings of the Livingstone expedition; see Wallis (ed.) Zambesi Expedition, op. cit., Index, s.v. Mariano; see also M. D. D. Newitt, 'The Massingire Rising of 1884' Journal of African History 1970, XI, 1, 87-105. 13 Livingstone Narrative pp. 96-97. 14 Livingstone Narrative pp. 102,108; Wallis (ed.) Zambesi Expedition, pp. 183,247. 15 Wallis (ed.) Zambezi Expedition, p. 188 (6 August 1861). 16 H. F. Wilson, 'David Livingstone - Some Reminiscences' The Nyasaland Journal 1959, XII, 2, 16, 21. 17 Wallis (ed.) Zambesi Expedition p. 188 (1 August 1861). 18 0 . Chadwick Mackenzie's Grave (London 1959) pp. 88, 157. 19 The theory of the original primacy of the Thyolo shrine is one of the conclusions from research undertaken in the area of Chief Changata, April 1971. 20 Schoffeleers, 'M'Bona cult', op. cit., p. 82. 21 H. Rowley The Story of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (London 1866) p. 226; J . P. R. Wallis (ed.) The Zambesi Journal of James Stewart (London 1952) p. 93 (6 August 1862). 22 Wallis (ed.) Zambesi Journal pp. 94-96. 23 Rowley Universities' Mission p. 401. 24 Tradition collected at Ngabu, October 1966. 25 Kirk found Khulubvi destroyed in May 1863; cf. R. Foskett (ed.) The Zambesi Journal and Letters of Dr John Kirk, 1858-63 (London 1965) p. 521. It appears, however, that the raid took place before 25 March 1863, when news reached Livingstone of the death of Tengani at the hands of Mariano's men; cf. Wallis (ed.) Zambesi Expedition p. 228. The destruction is also mentioned by Rangeley, 'M'Bona the Rain Maker', p. 24. 26 E. D. Young The Search after Livingstone (London 1868) pp. 88, 91. 27 D. MacDonald Africana I, 196-203 (London 1882). 28 W. H. J . Rangeley, 'The Makololo of Dr Livingstone' The Nyasaland Journal 1959, XH, 89. 29 A. J . Hanna The Beginnings of Nyasaland and North-Eastern Rhodesia 1859-QS (London 1956) pp. 143-48. 30 J . Buchanan The Shire Highlands as Colony and Mission (Edinburgh 1885) pp. 33-34; Hanna Beginnings pp. 65-6, 125-26; Newitt, 'Massingire Rising', op. cit., pp. 98-105; A. Ambali Thirty Years in Nyasaland (London 1923) p. 12. 31 The Kololo had grounded a steamer of the African Lakes Company and demanded that Mrs Fenwick together with a large sum of money be handed over to them as

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compensation for the murder of Chiputula; cf. S. S. Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland (London 1922) p. 12; Hanna Beginnings p. 66. 32 Rangeley, 'Makololo', p. 98. 33 See details of the Booth episode in G. Shepperson and T . Price Independent African (Edinburgh 1958) pp. 59-63. 34 The taboo on the shedding of human blood applied to all territorial shrines but, strictly speaking, only to the sacred enclosure; it also serves as one of the reasons forwarded by the population to explain why the Nyau, whose performances sometimes lead to brawls and bloodshed, are forbidden in the vicinity of such shrines. 35 Price, 'Defeat of M'Bona', op. cit., p. 82. 36 ibid. 37 ibid., p. 83. 38 For details of the Makombe rising see T. O. Ranger, 'Revolt in Portuguese East Africa; the Makombe Rising of 1917' St Antony's Papers No. 15 (1963). 39 On the theory of Lundu's control of the Zimba, cf. E. Alpers, 'The Mutapa and Malawi Political Systems' i n T . O. Ranger (ed.) Aspects of Central African History (London 1968) pp. 1-20; for supporting evidence, cf. Schoffeleers, 'M'Bona'. 40 This applied to fourteen plots of 500 acres each in the Ndinde Marsh leased to Europeans for cotton planting, and to one sisal plantation of approximately 1000 acres four miles north of Nsanje; Murray Handbook, op. cit., p. 68. 41 Nsanje Mission Diary. 42 The Nsanje baptismal register shows that of the early converts only ten to twenty per cent were Mang'anja, whereas at that time they constituted around 67 per cent of the population of the then Lower Shire District; cf. Murray Handbook pp. 7273; I am indebted to Dr I. Linden for drawing my attention to the mission data. 43 This is confirmed by the Rev. J . Van der Velden, who for many years served on the Nsanje Mission staff. 44 J . M. Schoffeleers and I. Linden, 'The Resistance of the Nyau Cult to the Catholic Missions in Malawi' in T . O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo (eds) The Historical Study of African Religion (London 1972). 48 Traditions to this effect were collected both at Nsanje and Chikwawa; two of these testimonies, given independently, came from shrine functionaries. 46 The tradition of the miraculous rice is documented in T . Price, 'M'Bona's water-hole' The Nyasaland Journal 1953, VI, 1 , 28-33 > the story of the pumpkins is in Rowley Universities' Mission, op. cit., p. 401; the tale of the dinners found in M'Bona's thicket is very general. 47 At present four of the leading functionaries of the shrine belong to the South African General Mission, now known as the Africa Evangelical Fellowship, while the medium of M'Bona is a Catholic. 48 Information obtained from the late Headman Mbeta and confirmed by the District Commissioner's Office, Nsanje, as still being practised (October 1966). 49 Details from Tengani's curriculum vitae are from a manuscript written by one of his sons. 60 Interview with the officials Mbukwa, Mkombe, and Kambalame, 9 October 1966; this is also the general conviction of the population. 51 Interview with Mbeta, 3 October 1966. 52 Information collected at Ngabu, November 1966; the exemption was reconfirmed in that year according to information provided by the District Commissioner's Office, Nsanje (August 1967). 63 The sacred pool of Ndione is the place where, according to all traditions, M'Bona's body is buried; the water is indeed of a reddish colour, due probably to the presence of iron oxide. 28

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CHRISTIANITY

54

The traditional cultivation method is briefly described in A. W. R. Duly, 'The Lower Shire District, Notes on Land Tenure and Individual Rights' The Nyasaland Journal 1 9 4 8 1 2 , 15. 55 Information provided by Mr F. Malemia, agricultural instructor at that time; interview 15 October 1966. 56 Information provided by Rev. J . Van der Velden, one of the organizers of the food distribution. 67 Interview with M'Bona's medium, 31 October 1966. 58 The Nsanje Calendar of Events, used in the 1966 Population Census, states that in 1953 Chief Mwase of Kasungu exerted his influence over the people of Nsanje District to disobey Chief Tengani. 59 Testimonies to this effect have been collected in several places, both in the Chikwawa and Nsanje Districts. M'Bona's medium appeared to be a very articulate proponent of this theory; interview 31 October 1966. 60 Interview at Changata's, Thyolo (April 1971); the informant himself made a spontaneous distinction between the past and present interpretation of the 'footprints'. 81 Wallis (ed.) Zambesi Journal p. 94; Rowley Universities' Mission p. 269; Price, 'Defeat of M'Bona', p. 84; for Catholic teaching on spirit cults, cf. L . Villy Maphunzitso a Eklezia Katolika (Lilongwe 1950) pp. 182-87. 62 Elmslie Ngoni p. 177. 63 An extensive description of the Kololo defeat at the hands of M'Bona was given by headman Chapirira; interview 15 August 1964; tapes in my possession.

29

IAN

LINDEN

Chewa Initiation Rites and Nyau Societies: the Use of Religious Institutions in Local Politics at Mua 1 INTRODUCTION

The Western division between things that are secular and things that are religious seldom fits African societies. It does not fit the territorial cults described by Matthew Schoffeleers in this book because their history was closely linked with the development of states and chiefdoms. Still less does it fit initiation rites or secret societies, which are religious, political, and educational institutions at the same time. And if territorial cults can provide a focus for anti-white feeling, so, too, initiation rites often took on a new political significance, during the colonial period, being used to proclaim an intensified sense of cultural identity. A challenge to old forms of initiation and transition and the introduction of new ones can have profound cultural and political as well as religious reverberations since such rites define the individual and reaffirm the values of the whole society. For this reason the encounter between Christianity and traditional religions has often taken the form of a confrontation between transition rites. It was no accident that the first crisis of the early Church centred on the issue of circumcision.2 It was no accident, either, that the nineteenth-century missionaries in Africa unerringly singled out secret societies and transition rites for their complaints. 'There was some attempt at the native howling at the funeral,' wrote a C.M.S. missionary from Nigeria in 1862, 'but it was checked.'3 Ajayi provides another example in which Hope Waddell is berating a Christian who has taken part in the masked dances of a secret society. 'I could not recognize a brother in the Lord in such a fellow,' he complained, adding that he did not know enough of the secret society concerned 'to mention all that might be bad in it.' 4 With all their vulgarity and superficiality such comments identified a fundamental confrontation. Sometimes, though rarely, missionaries tried to resolve the clash of transition rites by means of an attempt to Christianize African initiation. Terence Ranger's study of Anglican attempts in the southern Tanganyikan diocese of Masasi to create a Christian boys' initiation ceremony reveals both the symbolic and the political difficulties of such a policy.5 But in any case this Anglican experimentation, partly a product of the Oxford Movement's respect for historical consciousness in the Church, had few rivals. Liturgical innovation, such as Bishop A. I. Ogunbiyi's adaptation of a Yoruba naming ceremony, was not guaranteed official approval even in African independent churches.6 3°

C H R I S T I A N I T Y AND CENTRAL AFRICAN R E L I G I O N S

The story of the clash between the Roman Catholic missions and Nyau societies and initiation rites in Malawi 7 is an example of the more common relationship of incomprehension and hostility. Its importance lies not in any missiological illumination but in the light it throws on the ways in which the Chewa reacted to alien institutions, whether these were European or Ngoni. In contrast to Schoffeleers's account of the M'Bona cult this story is not one of tolerance and adaptation but of a resolute attempt to repudiate all alien influences on Chewa culture. The particular case of the Mua district, with which this paper is especially concerned, enables us to identify the sort of circumstances under which this Chewa cultural defiance could be successful. THE NYAU

SOCIETIES AMONG THE CHEWA

The Nyau secret societies had been a central feature of Chewa culture for many centuries. They were societies of men whose identity was concealed during dance performances by the wearing of masks of ancestors and animals. Their participation was essential to the effective carrying through of the major rites of transition, whether of rebirth through initiation or of death. In contrast to the centralized territorial cults and their connections with Phiri chiefs the Nyau societies are locally organized and usually Banda led. The conflict between officials of the rain shrines and Nyau dancers, mentioned in traditional stories, may well reflect the tension between the emerging Phiri kingdoms and the villages which they were seeking to control. Certainly today the Nyau represents the level of the village and matrilineage section as opposed to the level of the territory and the state. Schoffeleers has investigated the Mang'anja Nyau with great thoroughness. 8 We know less about Nyau among the Chewa but it seems clear that there are a number of differences within an overall similarity. In both areas the Nyau members perform masked dances, but the Chewa dance practically naked except for clay daubed on the body, in contrast to the long flowing garments of the Mang'anja Nyau. Among the Mang'anja Nyau is not danced in connection with spirit possession but the Chewa Nyau perform if a villager is repeatedly bothered by the spirit of a deceased relative in a dream.9 Nevertheless, for the Chewa Nyau as well as for the Mang'anja the essential activity is the performances at the major rites of the chinamwali girls' initiation and at the funerals of chiefs and headmen. These are the only occasions at which the njobvu elephant mask appears. At the girls' initiation ceremony the initiates are first chastised by the Nyau dancers and then allowed to grasp the tusks of njobvu under the supervision of the chief or headman as a sign of their acceptance into the reproductive community.10 Moreover, we can safely apply Schoffeleers's analysis of the symbolic and social function of the Mang'anja Nyau to the Chewa societies. The Nyau dances re-enact, so he argues, the primal Chewa myth of the original peaceful coexistence of men, animals, and spirits, and their subsequent separation by fire. At the same time they play a role of continuing social relevance. Nyau performances are characterized by obscene and vituperative male behaviour which is best explicable in terms of the social conflicts which exist within a matrilineal system.11 At Mua, for example, the first act of the Nyau initi32

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SOCIETIES

ate is to run through his wife's matrilineage to steal his mother-in-law's chickens. It will readily be seen how little likely it was that missionaries would tolerate Nyau, with its noise and its obscenity, and its dominance of the key rites of transition. It will be seen also that the Nyau were bound to resist missionary influence just as they had resisted previous alien or centralizing agencies. Throughout Chewa country the Nyau became a major object of missionary attack, and simultaneously the Nyau developed as the main focus of cultural opposition. Such opposition could not simply be expressed by the Nyau societies remaining exactly the same. They changed during the colonial period under the pressures of a cash economy and as a result of the very strategies which they used to combat the missionaries. The cost of an Nyau performance rose, and rights of tnzinda, ownership of consecrated ground on which the dance took place, slipped from the hands of major Chewa chiefs and proliferated under the authority of minor headmen.12 Young boys were initiated contrary to custom in order to keep them out of the mission schools, and traditional taboos on sexual intercourse during performances tended to break down amongst the increasing number of people who went to dances distant from their own home village. This degeneration of the societies led to an attempt by the Chewa chiefs to reform the Nyau in the late 1920s.13 But despite this decrease in their religious content, the Nyau societies had come to assume a new symbolic significance for the Chewa by the 1930s. To dance Nyau was to stand out against the White Fathers and the Dutch Reformed Church, who were making a concerted effort to suppress the Nyau in the Central Region of Nyasaland as they had been suppressed in Northern Rhodesia. To dance Nyau was to support traditional society and to show respect for the elders. It was to be Chewa. Participation vaNyau and the defiant continuance of initiation rites produced a sense of Chewa identity such as had not been observed since the heyday of Maravi power in the seventeenth century.14 The results of this confrontation between Nyau and the missions were variable. In some places the missions found powerful African allies who enabled them to press home their attack. These allies were the Ngoni chiefs and headmen who for reasons of their own wanted to suppress Chewa institutions and who allied with the missionaries to do so. The interest of the Mua district, to which we now turn, is that the balance of power between the Ngoni, the Chewa, and the missionaries was so delicate and complex that the Nyau societies were able to survive through the colonial period and not only to survive but to articulate and defend Chewa identity. N G O N I A N D C H E W A I N MUA

DISTRICT

From 1894 the Maseko Ngoni occupied the major chieftancy and appointed most of the headmen in Mua. But this did not assure them dominance in the area. By the 1890s only a few of the original Swazi-clan families who had begun the Ngoni migrations still survived, and the majority of the 'Maseko Ngoni' were barely assimilated captives. The Maseko Ngoni had been forced to move south from the Songea district of Tanganyika by a rising of their vassals and, 33

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far from being the lithe-limbed warriors of Victorian fantasy, Laws described the true Maseko in 1878 as 'grey-haired aged men'.15 The Maseko spoke a mixture of ChiNgoni, ChiChewa, and ChiYao but by the 1890s ChiNgoni had virtually disappeared from use.16 The Maseko Paramountcy, under Chikusi, was beginning to disintegrate.17 Segmentation was the natural form of evolution for Ngoni state systems, but in this instance there was little vacant land into which the disaffected section could move. Under the leadership of Chifisi the rebels made a bid for autonomy, were defeated and forced down into the lakeshore plain, and were only saved from annihilation by British intervention. This was hardly a propitious origin for the Ngoni chiefship of Kachindamoto, which became the major political authority at Mua. The condition of the victorious Lizulu war division under the new Paramount, Gomani, was little better. They begged the Scottish missionaries for war medicines against the powerful Yao. In 1896 the ruthless execution of Gomani by the British effectively decapitated the already enfeebled Ngoni body politic.18 The Ngoni in Mua district offered no resistance to the establishment of British rule; in fact the Ngoni chief Kachindamoto pleaded for a British fort to be built at his headquarters at Ntaka-taka in the hope that this would bolster his authority over the surrounding Chewa. Yet the Chewa were in no position to offer any formal challenge to Ngoni rule. Mua district had once formed the heart of the Maravi empire of the Kalonga kings, but the last of the Kalongas, Sosala, and his wife, the Mwali,19 had been killed in 1870. After this the Mwali's title had been changed to 'Kafulama' - she who submits. For over thirty years the Chewa of Mua had been the prey of slave raids by the Yao. The old trade route that led from Dedza across the escarpment to Mua from Bembeke had been a highway for Ngoni raiders who had stocked their expanding kingdoms with Chewa women and children in the 1880s. Between the Ngoni and the Chewa of Mua a balance of weakness rather than a balance of power existed. The one initiative which the Chewa were able to take in the early years of colonial rule was a movement of population back into Mankhamba, the six miles of territory between the Nadzipulu and Nadzipokwe streams which had once formed the core of the Kalonga's empire. When the first Catholic missionaries came over the escarpment in 1902 to found Mua mission they went into raptures at the density of the population, 'the greatest we have found in Africa'.20 By 1905 Mankhamba was made up of seventeen villages with an estimated population of 1800 people.21 There was in this movement something of a deliberate return to their origins for the Chewa,22 and an ethnic consciousness that was to be important in the politics of the area. THE STRUGGLE OVER

NYAU

In this heavily populated district, with its Chewa traditions of initiation still flourishing, the missionaries were bound to run up against the Nyau societies very rapidly. Soon one of the proofs of conviction demanded from converts was their repudiation of the Nyau. In 1909 catechumens at Mua were excommunicated for attending Nyau dances.23 By 1918 the Nyau were hitting back. In May of that year the Nyau dancers and drummers performed so close to the church 34

CHEWA

INITIATION

R I T E S A N D NYAU

SOCIETIES

that the French White Father Chateauvert could not make his harmonium heard over their noise. Finally exasperated, he rushed out of Benediction, slashed two of the drums with his knife and put the dancers to flight.24 We seem to have here a second generation challenge to the mission. Sixteen years after the founding of the mission the generation which had grown up under mission influence had reached the eligible age for Nyau membership. (A similar violent confrontation took place at Chikwawa mission in 1936, a comparable length of time after its foundation in 1918.) 25 In this contest the missionaries needed all the allies they could find. They could expect little from the British administration. Indeed, Chateauvert was fined and made to pay compensation to the dancers. But they could expect more from the Ngoni. The Ngoni chiefs certainly disliked the Nyau and they also hoped a good deal from their alliance with the missionaries. On the other hand, Ngoni power over the Chewa villages of Mua was extremely fragile. The best index of the shifting influence of the Ngoni, the Chewa, and the missionaries is the history of Njoro village near Mua. The first Ngoni headman of this village was the son of Kachindamoto's leading war induna. But this Ngoni headman made such concessions to the Chewa population of his village that he adopted the Chewa name, Njoro, and worshipped at a local rain shrine 'to make peace with the land'. 26 This first Njoro resigned in 1912. 27 He was succeeded by a malleable appointee of Abraham Kachindamoto, whose loyalty to the interests of the Ngoni chief caused much discontent in the village, 28 and who was held in general contempt for being 'nothing but a messenger boy for Kachindamoto'. 29 This headman did his best to support the missionaries, since Chief Abraham Kachindamoto himself was a good friend of the mission. The only impediment to his full membership was his numerous wives; he used always to take a catechist with him on hunting expeditions in case an accident precipitated the need for baptism in articulo mortis. When Abraham did die in the 1930s his successor, Kachindamoto III, was enthroned in much pomp and with the father superior at Ntaka-taka mission to deliver the peroration.30 But though the Ngoni Paramount might wish his nominee to assist the missionaries in their war on Nyau this turned out to be very difficult to do. Njoro II found it almost impossible to keep order in his own village and had recourse to such frequent mwabvi poison ordeals that he was deposed and gaoled in 1938.31 His successor, Njoro III, was chosen with due regard for the will of the Chewa majority and at once showed himself very hostile to the mission. Significantly enough he attacked local Christians on precisely the issue of initiation. The missionaries had been encouraging converts to use Catholic matrons, alangisi, instead of the traditional namkhungmi sponsors for their daughters' instruction at puberty. Njoro III disliked this interference, which threatened a sizeable portion of his income. 'What's this I hear about a different chinamwali ? Are you going to abandon the customs of your ancestors ? The chief used to be given mats, baskets, chickens, and money on this occasion. Is the Gurupa 32 the head of this village? Is Chamare?' 33 The missionaries thereupon counter-attacked and brought a complaint against Njoro at Kachindamoto's court in Ntaka Taka. The irony of the following dialogue, recorded by Champmartin, can only be appreciated when it is remembered that the Njoro headmanship was supposedly Ngoni. 35

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Kachinda then turned to Njoro with a smile on his lips and asked him to what tribe he belonged. 'The Abanda.'34 'Banda is the name for land not a tribe,' replied the chief. 'Amaravi,' Njoro hazarded. 'You come from the mountains yet you call yourself a Maravi, a native of the lakeshore!35 I do not understand. This Maravi chinamwali with all its filth, does it belong to your people ? No. You borrowed it from others. Why couldn't you have left it to them ? Your people are right and you reprove them for wanting to do the right thing.' 36 So the contest over initiation swung to and fro in Njoro's village. At Ntaka Taka itself there was never any doubt that the Kachindamotos wanted to ally with the missionaries against Nyau and chinamwali. The Ngoni rites of female initiation, umsindo and umgonxo, did not involve the manipulation of the labia minora, ritual intercourse, or the performance of the Nyau, and the Ngoni joined the missionaries in thinking chinamwali unclean.37 In addition, the Nyau societies were a source of opposition to authority and it would be a real strengthening of Ngoni influence if they were suppressed. But this alliance of the missionaries and the Ngoni was marred by severe limitations of power on both sides. The priests lacked any civil authority. Kachindamoto had to go carefully in his treatment of the Chewa. The real power lay in the hands of the local district commissioners who, when they were not fulminating about Chewa indolence and complaining about the weakness of their chiefs, saw in the Chewa the underdog who had to be protected. Above all, Kachindamoto's influence was limited by the sheer numbers of his Chewa subjects and their sense of cultural identity. In 1925 a British administrator did depose a kapitao from Kafulama's village for offences associated with Nyau, but so far from rejoicing, Kachindamoto felt it wise to ask for his reinstatement!38 Kafulama's was after all a key Chewa centre; it had the leading mzinda of the district and its headman was traditionally waku dziko, the area head of the Nyau. Even with mission support the Ngoni chief could not afford to quarrel with the village. The Ngoni attitudes towards the Chewa were ambivalent. On one hand they saw them as their former 'slaves', but on the other had the acumen to realize that they now voluntarily made up the bulk of the people under Ngoni Native Authorities. Read describes an interesting case of Gomani's, the Maseko Paramount, in which a 'young chief, but a very important one, was summoned to the Paramount's court for insulting a Chewa woman, [and] was made the occasion for a long public discourse on the present relations between Chewa and Ngoni, pointing out that an Ngoni whose Chewa subjects left him would "spoil his country" and "all his people would be ashamed".' 39 At Ntaka Taka, where there were fewer Swazi-clan Ngoni, the situation was even more sensitive. Moreover, there was the constraint of the long history of political poisoning in the district. Father Champmartin wrote of the new Kachindamoto in the 1930s: He does not want to displease his subordinates and always wants to be 'the good chief' come what may. His other deep-rooted preoccupation is poisoning. He is frightened they might just be capable of it . . . There have been enough examples in the past.40

36

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SOCIETIES

Now that the Ngoni chiefs could no longer enforce the mass mwabvi ordeals to which they had subjected Chewa commoners in the past they felt that they had little defence against their animosity. Thus the loose Ngoni-mission alliance at Mua never proved capable of crushing the Nyau even though similar alliances were successful at Dedza and Ncheu. Ceremonies of transition remained hotly disputed throughout the colonial period. In the early days young girls would be snatched from their huts to be forcibly initiated and chastised by Nyau dancers.41 But later on funerals were the occasion of the most violent confrontations. The macabre squabbles that took place over corpses have already been described in an earlier book, but they are still worth emphasis here since they show in the purest form the issues at stake.42 The Catholic belief in a heaven populated by souls of the dead accounted for the mission's behaviour, and the Chewa belief in an afterlife which saw the transformation of man into mzimu spirit accounted for that of the Nyau. It was firmly held by both parties that only the correct mortuary rites could guarantee the dead man's passage into the spiritual community. Because of the mission's insistence on Christian burial after baptism, even the baptism of a member of Nyau on his death-bed, the Chewa community of spirit was being depleted just as surely as the growth of the corpus christianum was visibly eroding traditional village community life on earth. The affiliation of the dead, either to the lineage or to the Communion of Saints, was no less important than their allegiance in life. In the theology of the Eucharist it was the whole Church, both living and dead, who participated in the liturgy, just as in thegule mankulu, the Nyau, both ancestral spirits and living villagers were united. All this tension made it difficult if not impossible for mission-educated men to assume positions of influence or leadership in the Mua villages. Mission teachers and other leaders who moved from the Ngoni areas to the vicinity of Mua mission were made to feel very much out of place.43 A mission clerk, Zacharia, became headman at Kafulama's village but was obliged to step aside in favour of his brother. His mission position would have been impossible to reconcile with headmanship over the leading Nyau mzinda of the area. It is widely thought today that he would have been poisoned had he remained headman into the 1940s and early 1950s, when feeling over the Nyau was so intense that Ngoni and Chewa nearly came to blows before Kachindamoto over Nyau cases in his court.44 THE NYA U AND N A T I O N A L

INDEPENDENCE

The end of colonial rule gave the Nyau societies a new respectability. As early as 1963 Dr Banda praised them before the Legislative Assembly as important Chewa institutions which instilled respect and prepared youth for citizenship.45 On Independence Day Nyau dances were performed defiantly on the steps of Mua church, and a somewhat censored version of the dances is today a regular feature of Independence Day celebrations. In 1969 the Mang'anja version of Nyau was performed at the Kwacha Cultural Centre in Blantyre, and the dancers were introduced with the assertion that only the coming of the Europeans had turned Nyau into a secret society. Like much history this 37

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RELIGIONS

new-found version of the Nyau spoke as much of present needs as of past reality. It might be possible to see the Nyau societies through the decades of colonial rule as keeping the flame of Chewa culture burning and acting as a sort of cultural wing of the proto-nationalist and nationalist tradition. And, indeed, it has been argued by some writers that nationalism in Malawi under Dr Banda has used the Nyau and other 'traditional' Chewa institutions as storm-troopers against a potentially critical and independent-minded mission élite.46 But this would be a distortion of the meaning of the story of resistance which this chapter has set out. Today, membership of the Nyau is not merely an expression of the same sentiments which lead a man to join the Malawi Congress Party. In many districts Nyau membership is far more meaningful to Chewa villagers than party membership. The Nyau continue to represent localism, and the government's attitude towards this powerful force in village life is not surprisingly equivocal. There is a desire on the part of the government and the party not to alienate the Nyau as the missions did. There is also a desire to get the societies into the open where they would be more manageable. Meanwhile the Nyau still seem to play some of their ancient role as a local balance to central power. The police are notoriously reluctant to prosecute for offences associated with Nyau because of their fear of reprisals. At X where I had the privilege of attending the Nyau performed for the funeral of a local schoolteacher, it was noticeable that party officials kept clear of the mzinda. When the leading official approached the dancers he was roughly handled; he had not been initiated and had no right to see the Nyau. This village-level power of Nyau makes its support worth seeking. At least two government ministers are initiated members. During the selection procedures for Members of Parliament that took place at the beginning of 1971, a candidate for the Dedza constituency went to great lengths to indicate his support for the societies to the point where Nyau began in a village which had never formerly danced. Yet what all this amounts to is that the Nyau are not in modern terms politically minded or politically usable on any scale larger than the village or locality. In some districts Nyau members certainly did settle old scores with educated Ngoni Christians at the time of Independence. But this was not and could not be part of a wider nationalist plot against the mission élite. Nyau has always been much too decentralized for that, and in any case no such explanation seems necessary. It is simpler and more realistic to understand the Nyau as a refuge for traditionalists who have been unwilling, or unable, to rise in the mission élites, and who are capable without direction of giving vent to their jealousies and frustrations. No one has ever been able to use the Nyau in a coordinated, centralized way. In the 1920s the Chewa chiefs were unable to exert their authority over Nyau to bring about reforms; the missionaries were unable to crush them in many districts; and pressure from the government today would certainly be counter-productive. Lacking literacy, the majority of the Nyau members could not expand their realization that the European presence was damaging traditional village life into an understanding of the wider nature of colonialism in southern Central Africa.47 Their nascent political consciousness was still-born in attacking the most obvious local symbol of the European presence, the mission school. But this attack

38

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SOCIETIES

left the sources of European power and of village decline untouched. The disintegration of Chewa village life was fundamentally an economic problem and could only be solved by a change in the economic relationships of villagers vis-à-vis the colonial industries in southern Central Africa. The first Chewa Native Associations, made up of mission-educated men, understood this; the Nyau societies could not.48 Nyau resistance to the missions was not proto-nationalism. It was a gut resistance at the level of local belief and local symbol. It could not even 'modernize' or expand its mythology in the way the M'Bona cult did by means of its biblical borrowings. Nevertheless, during the colonial period this gut-level assertion of Chewa-ness was very important in the face of the pressure of the missionaries and of the Ngoni. It seems most probable that the real relationship of the Nyau to national Independence will turn out to be very different from the assumption that the coming of Independence meant the triumph of Nyau. After Independence, 'Chewa-ness' no longer needed Nyau in the same way. Ngoni power in the Central Region, already declining in the colonial period, waned further. An important Ngoni party official, Makwangwala, was murdered by political rivals and the Maseko Paramount, Willard Gomani, placed under house arrest during the ensuing local unrest. On the other hand the movement of the capital from Zomba to Lilongwe, at the centre of the Chewa heartland, and the beginnings of the Lilongwe Development Project, a settlement scheme costing several million pounds, has naturally boosted Chewa morale. The position of the European missions also changed after Independence. It was no longer possible to identify the church with government, and the mission stations became isolated centres, in which the spiritual task was accompanied by various undertakings for material betterment. Many missions provide good medical treatment and the Christian Service Council of Malawi is making a valuable and immediately obvious contribution to local development. All these changes in the relative status of the Chewa, the Ngoni, and the missions in the Central Region, has meant that the pressure is off the Nyau. And there is evidence to suggest that with the decline of pressure the power of the societies themselves may be declining. Thus, early in 1971, Rita Kafulama, the last of the Mwalis, died in her village near Mua mission aged more than ninety. She had somehow managed to combine being head of the women's section of the Legion of Mary with ownership of the female initiation rites. The priests from the mission gave her the last sacraments, anointed her, and she died; her death was widely proclaimed throughout the district as Christian, and to celebrate the passing of the last figurehead of the Chewa in that area, and to honour her position as leading Catholic laywoman, an impressive solemn requiem mass was concelebrated in the village by all three priests from the mission. It was generally assumed that a major Nyau celebration would occur at the funeral with masks and animal structures from a wide area. The decision on this rested with the waku dziko, the deceased Kafulama's son, Epiphanio Kankhumba, a weekly mass-goer but a fervent traditionalist and Nyau member. Pointing out that his mother was a Christian and that he had nothing to say za Mulungu*9 - about the things of God - he skilfully passed on the decision to his brother, Zacharia, who would 39

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have been headman himself but for his mission employment. As a result no Nyau was danced at the funeral, much to the priests' amazement. The failure of the Nyau to appear at a funeral of this importance is certainly some indication of gains by the mission. Moreover today chinamwali is carried out in at most four or five villages in the Mua area. Young girls now prefer the private talks with the Catholic alangisi to the public chastisement by Nyau dancers on the mzinda. Girls who have been educated in mission schools no longer believe that they will fail to get a husband if they are not initiated. Malawi Congress Party attitudes towards chinamwali are equivocal. The Chairman of the Malawi Women's League, Mrs Margaret Mlanga, has praised the rites and requested that they should be performed as they were in the past, but has at the same time remarked that village headmen should not ask money for performing them. The removal of financial incentive would in fact bring the rites to an end in most areas.50 Moreover, Mua has been going through something of an economic upheaval. The new lakeshore road has brought a bar and prostitutes to Mankhamba, and employment for many men. The Phiri official at the Kalonga's shrine near Mankhamba is now working as a malonda, watching the numerous trucks at the American camp near the Nadzipulu. Early in 1971 an astonishing number of villagers flocked to help pull down the old church at Mua and build a new one. It may be that the Nyau is now becoming a symbol of a past that seems less and less relevant, and that the mission is becoming the symbol of the future.

CONCLUSION

The history of the Mua area obviously deserves more than this headlong rush from 1870 to 1970. The Mua mission diary is the most complete record of daily life at a Roman Catholic, White Fathers' Mission in Malawi that I have seen. For almost twenty years its author was Jean-Baptiste Champmartin, a simple and in many ways unusually reactionary priest, whose intense love of the parish has produced a very rich narrative full of details of interest to the local historian and sociologist. There is also much oral history. Much can be learned from Chewa rain shrine officials; the tensions between the Ngoni chief and Chewa headmen have resulted in the retention of many oral traditions whose analysis can yield valuable information about the agricultural and economic development, or lack of development, of the district. There are also the papers of Mr Manser-Bartlett, a planter in the district from 1921 to 1969, which contain a few interesting oral traditions collected around 1930,51 which can profitably be compared with Read's for the Maseko Ngoni. Finally, there is the usual Catholic bonus of complete baptism and marriage records going back to 1902. From all this it would be possible to begin at Mua the type of local history which has given so much insight into daily life in Europe. Meanwhile some provisional conclusions can be drawn. It is clear that in the Mua area the Nyau societies were transformed in the colonial period into a powerful instrument of ethnic and local political assertion for the Chewa. Under pressure from the Ngoni and the Europeans the societies lost much of their religious content to become an instrument of Chewa identity. Nor did it prove to be a blunt instrument. Today Kachindamoto could still theoretically 40

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depose Kankhumba but no one imagines that he would dare to do so. H e could not have orders carried out in the M u a area without Kankhumba's assent. But in an independent Malawi, blessedly free of major tribal conflict, it is unlikely that Nyau can retain this symbolic value as a sign of Chewa-ness. A s development projects and cash cropping destroy the already vanishing Chewa matrilineal system and so remove the social rationale for the societies at village level, another prop will have been pulled from under the Nyau. T h e fate of the societies in the future is perhaps that of many dying religious institutions in Europe, to become what one observer of Nyau prematurely called in the 1920s, 'something well known in many lands . . . as "carnival" \ 6 2

NOTES 1 1 am much indebted to my wife and to Mr Elias Mandala of Chancellor College, who acted as research assistants in this work. I should like to explain that the opinions expressed in this paper are entirely my own and that Mr Mandala has no interest, and played no part, in any political aspects of the study. 2 It was also significant that European settlers in Africa often observed Christianity only in its rites of transition, which retained a cultural value for them. Newly arrived Catholic missionaries on the Zambesi often lamented that the Portuguese settlements knew 'only two sacraments, baptism and burial'. 3 J. F. A. Ajayi Christian Missions in Nigeria: 1841-91. The Making of a New Elite (London 1965) p. 109. 4 ibid., quoting Waddell Journal, X, 85. Entry for 23 October 1854. 6 T . O. Ranger, 'Missionary Adaptation of African Religious Institutions: the Masasi case', in T . O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo (eds) The Historical Study of African Religion (London 1972) pp. 221-51. 6 J. B. Webster The African Churches among the Yoruba: 1892-1922 (Oxford 1964) P- 1337 For a full account see I. Linden Catholics, Peasants, and Chewa Resistance in Nyasaland (London 1974). 8 J. M. SchofFeleers Symbolic and Social Aspects of Spirit Worship Among the Mang'anja Doctoral Dissertation (Oxford 1968) pp. 320, 421. It is impossible to trace the origins of Nyau. The societies seem, however, to combine two elements. It may be that when the Maravi groups entered modern Malawi from their dispersal area in the Congo they brought with them a type of secret society. Into this Maravi secret society were absorbed hunting-gathering rituals previously practised by the so-called Akafula, who preceded the Maravi as inhabitants of the area. Amongst the Chewa the Nyau societies were reserved for men. Members learnt a special cult language and how to make the masks and structures. Unlike in the secret societies of the Luba area there was no complex hierarchy of cult officials, but officers did exist and had jurisdiction over disputes involving members. 9 This is called gule wa mizimu at Mua. 10 A dancer known as fere, and representing a fierce warrior, with spear and axe, accompanies njobvu to keep onlookers at bay. It is of some interest that the original inhabitants of Malawi are sometimes called Ajere. This lends some support to Schoffeleers's thesis that the Nyau incorporate elements of stone-age hunting rituals. 1 1 Schoffeleers Symbolic and Social Aspects (op. cit.) pp. 395-402, 412-14. 12 Mzinda was used in the nineteenth century for large Chewa towns and it seems likely that Nyau were only danced then at mzinda because this was where the leading

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Chewa chiefs and councillors resided. It was a constant complaint of Banda and Mbewe clan chiefs such as Dzoole, Matanda and Mkanda in the 1920s that the trouble with the Nyau was its new ownership by irresponsible headmen. 13 A directive from the Chewa chiefs under the chairmanship of the Provincial Commissioner for the Central Region, R. H. Murray, was sent to owners of mzinda in 1929. It had no effect since the Chewa chiefs had no power and the government were unwilling to strengthen Native Authorities at the expense of village headmen. 14 See J . Vansina Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison 1968) pp. 14-18 for a discussion of the reality of such identities. 16 R. Laws, 'Journey along part of the western side of Lake Nyasa in 1878' Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc. 1879,1., 307. 16 This loss of language occurred when the Ngoni were swamped by Mtumba, literally those 'found' when the Ngoni arrived - a mixture of Nyanja, Nsenga, Bisa, Yao, etc. 17 1 . Linden, 'The Maseko Ngoni at Domwe: 1870-1900', in B. Pachai (ed.) The Early History of Malawi (London 1972) pp. 237-51. 18 Gomani I was a youngish man and had fled to Dombole mission on hearing of the British attack, for which he was quite unprepared. The Dombole missionaries assured him that he would be given a fair trial if he and his Ngoni laid down their arms. On further encouragement from the British, Gomani did so, and was summarily executed against a tree. The bitterness caused by this is still very much alive amongst the Maseko today. 19 Mwali was the title of the perpetual wife of the Kalonga. 20 Mua Mission Diary, 14 September 1902, White Fathers' Archives, Via Aurelia, Rome. 21 Rapports Annuels des missionaires de la Société de Notre-Dame d'Afrique 1905-6, Mua p. 261. 22 It would be more correct to use the word 'Maravi'. The area being discussed is known as 'Malawi' and extends north from the Cape Maclear peninsula. People going over the escarpment still say today that they are going to Malawi, and Tonga going south from Nkata Bay use exactly the same expression. This is doubtless because the lakeshore area was, as appears from Luis Mariano's description in 1624, the centre of the Maravi Empire with the capital half a league from the lake itself. There seems no reason to question Schoffeleers's very illuminating discovery that 'Maravi' is synonymous with the Phiri clan invaders of the fourteenth century; see J . M. Schoffeleers 'The meaning and use of the name "Malawi" in oral traditions and pre-colonial documents', in B. Pachai (ed.) The Early History of Malawi (London 1971) pp. 91-103. 23 Mua Diary, 19 April 1909. This would not have been 'bell, book, and candle', merely a temporary prohibition from the catechism classes and a probationary period, before the catechumen was accepted back. 24 Mua Diary, May 1918. 25 Chikwawa Mission Diary, 28 May 1936. Two priests on this occasion attacked the dancers with clubs. They had been dancing on an important Catholic feast-day. Later that week the Catholic catechists, led by William Chafulumira, later an author, struck in protest against the priests' action. The diary is still at Chikwawa mission. 26 Mua Diary, November 1913. An extended series of notes on local villages. 27 Mua Diary, 29 May 1912. Njoro I resigned during Governor Manning's visit to Ntaka Taka. 28 ibid., November 1937. 29 ibid., November 1913. 30 'L'intronisation d'un chef Angoni', MSS anon. White Fathers' Archives, Via 42

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Aurelia, Rome. Kachindamoto III, Isaac Matapira, was enthroned on 26 May 1932. 31 These ordeals took place near Nzama mission in Portuguese East Africa at a village called Mtengo-Mbalame. The Mua area itself lacked mwabvi trees. 32 The Gurupa was the leading catechist of the mission, or sometimes only head catechist over a few villages. The name's use varies and is equivalent in the south to the name 'kapitao'. 33 Mua Diary, January 1938. 'Chamare' was the name given to Father Champmartin. 34 Banda and Phiri are the two major Chewa 'clans'. They probably represent two major migrations into Malawi: see R. A. Hamilton 'Oral Tradition: Central Africa' in History and Archaeology in Africa (London 1955) p. 52. Research conducted in the Mua area would suggest that these are clan systems rather than individual clans, with the Banda subdivided into several clans, and the Phiri more unified as the royal clan. Oral traditions always make the Banda the people of the valleys and the Phiri people of the hills. The only clan that does not fit into the system is the Mbewe, which may have been 'autochthones' like the Banda. 35 Kachindamoto is referring to the 'Malawi' of former Portuguese records. That he is contrasting Banda and Maravi here is strong support for Schoffeleers's Phiri-Maravi equation. 38 Mua Diary, January 1938. 37 M . Read, 'Tradition and Prestige among the Ngoni' Africa 1936, 9, 472. 38 Mua Diary, 6 September 1925. 39 Read, 'Tradition and Prestige', p. 479. 40 Mua Diary, July 1935. Mua is one of the few places where the custom of drinking from the chipanda before offering it to a guest survives, known as kuchotsa mfiti, to drive away the evil spirit. Mua lacks mwabvi trees. The ordeal is conducted by professional mapondera in Mozambique. 41 Mua Diary, 6 February 1909. 42 J . M . SchofFeleers and I. Linden, 'The Resistance of the Nyau societies to the Roman Catholic missions in colonial Malawi', in T . O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo (eds) The Historical Study of African Religion (London 1972) pp. 252-77. 43 Personal Communication by Bishop Kalilombe. Bishop Patrick Kalilombe, a White Father and ex-Rector of Kachebere Seminary, has a recollection of feeling out of place when his father, Peter Kalilombe, a prominent member of the Legion of Mary, moved with his family from Ngonized Ntaka Taka to the immediate vicinity of Mua mission. 44 Mua Diary, 10 October 1952. 45 Speech by His Excellency Dr K . H. Banda to Legislative Assembly, reported in Malawi Times 23 July 1963: 'a part of our training to instil discipline, good motherhood, fatherhood, and citizenship.' 46 A. C. Ross, 'The Political Role of the Witchfinder in Southern Malawi during the Crisis of October 1964-May 1965' in Witchcraft and Healing Centre of African Studies (Edinburgh 1969) pp. 63, 70. 47 A survey undertaken by Schoffeleers of the Mang'anja societies gave a total of 516 out of 597 Nyau members completely illiterate and the remaining 81 semiliterate. Symbolic and Social Aspect op. cit., p. 335. 48 M . Chanock, 'The New Men Revisited. An Essay on the Development of Political Consciousness in Colonial Malawi', in Dzulu ndi Dzana ed. R. McDonald, East African Publishing House, Nairobi, 1974. 49 'The things of God' in contrast to za Nyau. It is interesting that when attempts are made to elicit information concerning the religious content of Nyau compared with, say, the rain shrines, informants give the analogy that the rain shrines are 'like Church' and implicitly reject the religious content of Nyau. On the other hand

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informants in a government survey of Nyau undertaken as a result of missionary pressure in the 1920s emphasized that the Nyau were spirits, and one informant said that the end of the Nyau would be the end of the world since Chiuta, the High God, would not tolerate their abolition. 60 The African 1 - 1 4 October 1971. Report of a speech at Ndirande market (a periurban district of Blantyre). 81 1 have attempted to do this myself in 'Some Oral Traditions from the Maseko Ngoni' in the Society of Malawi Journal, July 1971, vol. xxiv, no. 2, pp. 61-93, but the papers are also useful for details of Yao headmanships in the Ndindi and Mpemba area. 82 Nyasaland Times, 27 November 1928.

44

TERENCE

RANGER

The Mwana Lesa Movement of 1925 INTRODUCTION

The Mwana Lesa Movement of 1925, with its witch findings and witch killings, is at once the most notorious episode in the religious history of Zambia and one of the least known. The very wide range of available evidence has hardly been consulted. For this reason it seems worth while to present some sort of interim assessment, even though I have not myself had the opportunity to consult all the evidence. 1 It seems all the more worth while because the perspective of this book is undoubtedly the most fruitful way of looking at the Mwana Lesa Movement. The best published account - in Professor Rotberg's The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa - sees the movement in the context of African protest against whites. Other accounts have discussed it in terms of 'nativism'. But the best way of looking at it, I am sure, is precisely as the interaction of a particular form of Christianity with the particular beliefs and customs of the Lala and Swaka peoples among whom the movement spread. I shall argue in this paper that Tomo Nyirenda, the Watch Tower preacher who came to be called Mwana Lesa, the Son of God, was before all else the bearer of Christianity. I shall argue that the deeply rooted religious beliefs of the Lala exercised a profound influence upon Nyirenda and were influenced by him in turn. And I shall argue that this interaction has a good deal to teach us about a number of topics, among them the differences between Christian and indigenous millenarianism, the problem posed to Christianity by the persistence of the belief in witchcraft, and the senses in which it was true that the Lala 'needed' Christianity in 1925. A B R I E F N A R R A T I V E OF T H E M W A N A LESA

MOVEMENT

Tomo Nyirenda was a Henga from Nyasaland. He had been educated for six years at the famous Scottish mission school at Livingstonia. Like so many Nyasa 'proto-intellectuals' Nyirenda migrated into Northern Rhodesia. He worked as a cook in Broken Hill. Then in February 1925 he was converted to Watch Tower by a fellow-Nyasa, Gabriel Phiri, at Jessie Mine in Mkushi. Nyirenda began to preach the Watch Tower doctrines in the Mkushi district; was arrested and imprisoned; and soon released because of the irregularity of his conviction.2 In April 1925 Nyirenda took up the work of preaching and teaching once more. It is clear from the archival evidence that he was already highly regarded by the Watch Tower leaders in the towns: no doubt he was among the most 45

The Area of Tomo Nyirenda's activities in ig2$ Based on a map of 'The Nyendura Country' by J . T . Munday. Nyirenda was employed at Broken Hill; converted to Watch Tower in the Luano Valley; held in prison in Mkushi and after his release in April 1925 moved into Chief Mulunguwe's area to the east of Chief Shaiwila. Thence he moved into Shaiwila's area where the witch killings began; then north-west to the Swaka area; then into the Congo among the Wena Wukanda. Finally he fled into the Serenje district, where he was arrested.

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highly educated and articulate of their evangelists. Now he went out into the rural districts, to Mondoka's and then to Mulungwe's country. There he taught the millennial message of Watch Tower; the time of the second coming was at hand; the baptized faithful would be saved and rewarded with wealth, knowledge and power. He called on all to repent - and especially he called on witches and sorcerers to turn from their wickedness. 'He said: "Anyone who does not come to be baptized by me in this country, he shall be killed by the wrath of God on his coming. If everyone will be baptized you will not be dying now and then all the witches with charms must throw them away." ' 3 Gradually Nyirenda's message and practice changed. Instead of calling on witches to repent he began to detect witches, who were then excluded from the new society of the baptized. But at this stage no further action was taken against these 'witches'. By the time Nyirenda entered the country of the Western Lala chief Shaiwila he was widely known as a witch-finder as well as an evangelist and baptizer. In all these capacities he was vastly popular. Headmen called him to their villages and an overwhelming majority of the villagers came for baptism.4 Soon, news of Nyirenda's activities reached Shaiwila himself. His fourth wife, Chiwala, was baptized by Nyirenda and refused to sleep with her husband until he was baptized also. One of the men pointed out by Nyirenda as a witch indignantly refused to accept the justice of the accusation and went to Shaiwila to complain. The Anglican missionaries at Fiwila, which was very close to Shaiwila's village, asked the chief to intervene and to prohibit the Watch Tower baptisms. 5 Shaiwila sent out one of his headmen to find Nyirenda, to observe his activities, and to bring him in. The headman found Nyirenda and his followers singing hymns in the bush at night near Lutele village. In Lutele he saw Nyirenda detect witches. Then he set out with Nyirenda for the chief's village. On the way, however, a letter came from Shaiwila ordering a change of plan. Nyirenda was to be taken instead to the Kampoko stream where Shaiwila would come to meet him. The headman and many of Shaiwila's people who were with him now asked Nyirenda for baptism. Nyirenda as pastor rather than as prisoner then proceeded to the Kampoko.6 The meeting between Nyirenda and Shaiwila was vital to the development of the Mwana Lesa Movement. Out of it came the killing of witches. Out of it also came the integration of Nyirenda's Christian message into Lala assumptions and expectations. Shaiwila asked his headman whether he had seen Nyirenda detect witches with his own eyes and expressed satisfaction at his affirmative reply. Then Shaiwila talked with Nyirenda and authorized him to baptize all his people and to kill all those who proved to be witches.7 A day later Shaiwila came to the Likosa stream near Masaula's village, where Tomo Nyirenda had killed his first witches. Five people had been denounced and drowned and their bodies left by the river bank. 'Later a call was heard on the other side of the Likosa and a preacher went to see who it was and found it was Shaiwila. Shaiwila said, "It is I who called, I wish to see our Father," and the preacher brought him to the camp . . . Tomo went with them and sat by the fire and woke us up and said, "Wake up and see your Chief who is here." He then said to Shaiwila, "The things we arranged at the Kampoko 47

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I have done: in the morning you shall see at the stream where the aeroplane has been roaring." Then Shaiwila said, "That is good. I am glad . . . I want you to kill all the witches and to weed out all the villages."' Next morning the chief went down to the river to be baptized and saw the bodies as they lay beside the stream.8 For the rest of May 1925 Tomo Nyirenda moved about Shaiwila's country baptizing the people and eliminating the witches. Fifteen people were killed in this period. Tomo met with no opposition. Far from it. He was soon surrounded by young men whom he accredited as preachers and deacons. Villages competed to attract him to them. The Lala of Shaiwila regarded him as a Prophet and a Saviour, bestowing on him the title of Mwana Lesa, Son of God, by which the movement has become known. 'The people came to the man,' marvelled Judge Macdonnell in his address to the court at Nyirenda's trial in 1926; 'they fed him, built shelters for him, let their young men go with him, let him baptize them, and let him kill their brothers, fathers, and mothers as he wished - and concealed everything from the Boma. So they were to find happiness and so their country was to be cleaned! Today they see the fullness of their gain.' 9 At the end of May, however, a message reached Nyirenda from Chief Shaiwila, warning him that African police were searching for him. Nyirenda decided to move into the Congo, where important chiefs of the Nyendwa clan had been urging him to come and cleanse their country too. Accompanied by many Lala followers and by some Swaka from the boundary area between the Congo and Northern Rhodesia he entered the country of the Congolese chief Mufumbi, whose people were part of the Wena Wukanda grouping, closely related to the Lala. He spent the next two months in Mufumbi's country and in the area of Chief Nampala. Allegedly he killed 176 witches there. Chief Mufumbi reassured those of Tomo's associates who were uneasy about the scale of these killings that 'In the Congo it was permissible to kill witches'. Tomo reassured them by telling them that he could not be arrested and that he would be protected by God from any attack on him. At the end of July 1925 an encounter took place which showed that Mufumbi was wrong but seemed to show that Nyirenda was right. Puzzled because no one was coming in for baptism, Tomo sent out one of his preachers to investigate. He returned and said 'that he had met a "war" approaching, many natives and "bakabochi" with ropes and guns . . . Tomo said to his people that they must not be afraid or separate as the people who came to make war would all die. Tomo gathered his preachers and told them to go and reconnoitre and bring news of the approaching war. While they were getting ready, someone called out that the war had already arrived. Tomo was sitting down reading his papers. Two Belgian Kabochis and many people with them had come to our camp. One Kabochi asked for Mwana Lesa and Tomo was pointed out: he hit at Tomo with the barrel of his rifle but the bullet passed across Tomo's chest and killed Palanto, a Belgian kapasu. Tomo wrested the rifle from the Kabochi, reloaded and shot the Kabochi dead. Then the other Kabochi and all the people ran away, and all the Mkushi people ran off too. Then Tomo called us to return, threatening to shoot us if we didn't. We came back.' 10 Despite his escape Nyirenda was now on the run. News of another Belgian 48

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expedition came and Nyirenda's followers scattered a second time. Once back in Northern Rhodesian territory his party began to return to him and for a brief period he began to baptize again and was even joined for a while by other Watch Tower teachers. But by now the hunt was up. The Serenje Native Commissioner had patrols out for Tomo. It was still difficult to track him down; headmen concealed all knowledge of him and kept him supplied with food. Then at last he was found. 'I went to Mpesaula's village in Petauke sub-district,' testified the African policeman who arrested Nyirenda, 'and there I got seven people and Mpesaula showed me where Tomo had gone along the Kasemu stream. At noon we came upon Tomo. He saw us and ran away. I chased him. He came to where Chipaniranda's people were and they caught him and were beating him. I arrested him and brought him to the Boma.' Afraid that Tomo might still in some miraculous way escape, his captors bound his arms very tightly with wet ropes; on the way to the Boma, Tomo's arms were so cut that 'subsequent to his arrest it was necessary to amputate both his arms, owing to gangrene having set in'. 1 1 Tomo was lodged in jail and thus crippled he appeared in court in February 1926 where he and Chief Shaiwila were sentenced to death. His punishment had an effect among the Lala. 'Since Tomo and the others have been convicted,' reported a nephew of one of the Lala chiefs, 'and ever after we heard Tomo's arms were taken off, the Watch Tower adherents have become afraid.' 1 2 T O M O N Y I R E N D A AS C H R I S T I A N

EVANGELIST

The story I have briefly outlined above was variously interpreted. Many Europeans argued that Tomo's movement was 'essentially anti-white' and a settler wrote to the press asserting that its teachings were identical to those of the traditional religious leaders of the Ndebele and Shona risings in Southern Rhodesia in 1896. 13 The Anglican missionaries at Fiwila, who saw the movement develop, 'regarded it as part of the rise of nationalism in Central Africa, belonging to the post-war period of change... part of a new world movement towards nationalism'.14 Officials of the Northern Rhodesian administration argued in answer that the movement had little or nothing to do with the whites and should rather be seen as typical of 'native superstition'.16 Neither view seems convincing. I have written on the 1896 risings myself and nowhere in the Mwana Lesa material can I find evidence of the sort of resistance ideology which powered the Ndebele and Shona uprisings. On the other hand the Mwana Lesa Movement was clearly something rather different from anything that had happened before in Lala country. Tomo Nyirenda, I have said above, was the bearer of Christianity. Such a judgement may seem strange, or even offensive, after the outline of his career given above. Let me now justify it. It is clear, to begin with, that Nyirenda saw himself pre-eminently as a Christian evangelist. He was, as his defence counsel remarked, a man'with some years'training in Christianity'. He told his followers that they were now Christians and should regard themselves as such. And it is plain that most of those who came to him accepted him as a Christian teacher. 'I went to Chondoka,' testified one, Kamalondo, 'to be dipped because the

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AND

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people who came . . . advised us to be dipped, and it was good for people to know one another. When we got to Tomo's camp he himself said, "I bring you good news . . . I have come to baptize the people and make you repent in your heart, to know one another and to be baptized." I thought it was a Mission like any other. So we all went to the stream where we were baptized.' 16 It is easy to understand why people took Nyirenda's movement for 'a Mission like any other'. There was the emphasis on baptism. There was the emphasis on hymn singing - Shaiwila's headman began his investigation of Nyirenda by asking to hear his hymns sung even before asking to see him detect witches. 'Services were held day and night,' testified one of Tomo's followers, 'with hymn singing all the time and we got no sleep.' 17 Tomo married people in an explicitly Christian marriage service. He preached an explicitly Christian millenarianism. 'When Tomo taught us preachers,' remembered Kunda, 'he used to make us, in the early night time, take fire and go and make a fire out in the bush - and watch by it, till the evening star set, for God coming. He told us we should see God coming through the trees in the middle of a shining light; that he would be big but that we must not be afraid or run away or we should die. When God came all the dead would rise and all would live happily. The black men in their part, the white men in theirs. He told us we were Christians when he baptized us. Our "church" was coming. The Watch Tower was the house of the church.' Tomo enjoined his flock to love each other, to keep the peace, to be hospitable to strangers, to 'repent in their hearts', to 'know one another'. He imposed strict discipline and punished those who broke the injunctions of love and peace.18 Such supervision of his converts marked Tomo out very clearly from the great movements for the eradication of witchcraft in Central Africa. These movements swept through an area, offering protection to the innocent and promising the death of any who attempted to resume witchcraft; but having brought about an earthly millennium no attempt was made to erect any structure of leadership or discipline for the 'saved'. Tomo Nyirenda preached the imminent coming of God but he was concerned with the organizational structure of the church - 'our "church" was coming'. At his first visit to a village he appointed deacons. 'The work of the deacons was to feed the strangers. Clean a hut for the strangers - give them firewood. Also if anyone is sick we are to go there and pray for that sick man . . . the deacons were not for teaching people.' On his return Tomo would 'appoint an elder to look after all the Watch Tower' in the village. Over and above the village structure of deacons and elders, Tomo appointed preachers and teachers, to baptize and expound. He kept elaborate written records of the names of those baptized - 'he sent a letter to my village,' reported one witness, 'asking for a child which had not been dipped that it might be taken to him and be dipped'. In short, Tomo was trying to create structures for a Christian community. And we should perhaps note that so universal was his success in Shaiwila's country that Watch Tower there did not take on the aspect of the withdrawn sect, breaking away from traditional village society. Tomo was not concerned to build up separate Watch Tower villages but to regulate the existing villages on Christian lines.19 It can be seen then that in many ways Nyirenda's movement introduced the Lala to ideas and forms characteristic of the missions, including the outlines 50

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of a literate administration. But it may reasonably be asked how Christ-centred the movement was. It seems that Watch Tower teaching as a whole placed more emphasis on God than on Christ. But there is no doubt that in its profession Nyirenda's movement acknowledged and proclaimed the central place of Christ. Nyirenda preached on texts which emphasized Christ's power to drive out demons; his promises to the poor and meek. Among Nyirenda's papers those beloved papers he was calmly reading when the Belgian askaris burst in upon him - there is a remarkable sermon. 'The young man was going to Jordan. Did he arrive Jordan? No; he died on the side of Jordan. Why? because of his not trusting the words of the God. They were not trusting in him. Those that were left, how many journeys were they given ? Two: one way of Satan . . . the wide road. Which of the journeys was good? The way of Jesus Christ.' 20 Finally, there is evidence that Nyirenda's converts reacted to his message not merely because they were impressed by his literacy or because they were impressed by his claim to identify witches but also because of its Christian promise of brotherhood. It is important at the outset to realize that though we may feel that the killing of the witches made Nyirenda's teaching of peace and love totally incongruous, no such incongruity appeared to his Lala converts. 'It was good for people to know one another.' Some of these converts seem, indeed, to have had a high Christian self-confidence. Oddly enough, the best evidence of this comes in a prize-winning schoolboy essay by a young man who rather smugly recounted how he had resisted the persuasions of his brother and others to accept baptism from Mwana Lesa. 'They spoke many useless words,' wrote Alfred Kalaba as recorded in the U.M.C.A. journal Central Africa; 'these words maked very angry indeed.' But he also recounted the faith of Nyirenda's converts. 'They used to go to their prays in the night. One night they went away to their prays, and my brother went. When they were coming from their prays in the middle of the way they met a leopard. They bowed down in front of the leopard and said, "God has saved us from this Satan's creation." The leopard went away. After that they said, "God has heard our words.'" 2 1 As we shall see, other elements entered into Nyirenda's movement as it spread among the Lala. But for the moment we must ask from which sources it derived these Christian characteristics. Nyirenda was very much the Watch Tower preacher and we shall see that Watch Tower teachings were the main source of his ideas. Still, Nyirenda had spent six years at Livingstonia and only a few months as a Watch Tower convert. It is reasonable to suppose that some part of his theology and some part of his ideas of organization derived from this Livingstonia experience. Later in this book John Cook describes how a great number of other men from Nyasaland who had been educated at Livingstonia - among them several also named Nyirenda - migrated to Northern Rhodesia and came to play a leading role in the first stirrings of modern African politics in the territory. Cook shows how these men remained loyal to the Livingstonia emphases on self-reliance, on improvement, on democratic discussion; he shows their intense commitment to the idea of education. All this seems worlds away from the atmosphere of the Mwana Lesa Movement. And yet Tomo Nyirenda certainly saw himself as a 'modern' man whose power was drawn in the most literal sense from the book.22 Moreover, we must 5i

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remember that the pupils of Livingstonia, in common with the rest of Nyasaland's 'proto-intellectuals', were exposed not only to the ideas of self-improvement but also to the intense millenarianism of Nyasaland. At least till the end of World War i most varieties of Nyasaland religion - traditional, Muslim, Christian - were touched with millennial fervour. Within the Scottish mission church itself there were sweeping and enthusiastic revival movements - and Kenan Kamwana, the founder of Central African Watch Tower in 1908, was himself a Livingstonia graduate. Thus, it seems very likely that even before his conversion to Watch Tower Nyirenda was familiar with millennial ideas.23 And yet the Watch Tower influence as such was certainly the main source of his ideas. He carried with him as he moved through Lala country a collection of Watch Tower texts; he was in regular correspondence throughout with Watch Tower leaders in the towns; and when he came back into Northern Rhodesia from the Congo he was joined for a time by other Watch Tower preachers. However different his movement had become from Watch Tower generally - and no other Watch Tower preacher killed witches - he was clearly still regarded as a member and leader of the church. The most ironic document in the Nyirenda files, indeed, is a letter written to him in English by Pastor I. B. Malengain July 1925. At a moment when Nyirenda, the Watch Tower preacher, had become Mwana Lesa, the Son of God, Malenga wrote that he 'heard that you are doing the work of our Lord and teaching the Bible in the International Bible Tract and Society'. At a moment when Tomo had taken himself far outside the law of the white man Malenga wrote to tell him that: 'I have received letter from our Teacher at Cape Town. He tell do not Preaching or kubatisa, just only wait. The white Brother to come and visit with us. He will assistant us.' 2 4 Malenga's letter reminds us that the African Watch Tower preachers formed part of a loose movement and that attempts were being made in the middle 'twenties to tighten up that movement and place it under central - and white control. But it was a long time before these attempts succeeded and meanwhile African Watch Tower remained a movement of great variety, given a single identity only by a common use of the teachings of the International Tract and Bible Society. The teachings of Watch Tower developed in response to each local situation, and we shall see how this happened in Mkushi. But also the particular Watch Tower message carried into an area varied from pastor to pastor. In Nyirenda's case we are fortunate to have not only much more copious oral evidence of what he preached when he got into Lala villages than for any other Watch Tower preacher, but also a quite specific- indication of the original message he carried to the Lala. There survives among his papers a long typed and duplicated collection of texts in English originally selected and arranged by Pastor Isaac Bright Malenga and used by Tomo as the basis of his preaching. What was the message of these texts ? 2 6 It was, of course, a millenarian message. A cluster of texts was grouped by Malenga under the heading 'FOR THE KINGDOM'. 'And there followed another Angel, saying Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication'; 'He hath pulled down the man from the King's seats and he hath put those that are poor. He

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hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.' Tomo added a variety of flavours to his millenarian message - especially the notion that Afro-Americans would appear as liberators in the last days. Yet it remained a biblical millenarianism based on Malenga's texts. These texts were also concerned with the ills of the individual and of society. Under the heading 'THE SONS OF THE SPIRIT' Malenga had arranged texts relating to the driving out by Christ of the legion of devils from the possessed men. At Tomo's trial it was said that he had made much use of the text, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live', but it does not appear in Malenga's collection. The emphasis there is on exorcism, not on punishment. But above all, Malenga's texts were concerns with the old, the poor, and the weak. Under the heading 'FOR MY GRANDFATHER OR MOTHER' he had placed Luke 4 : 1 8 . ' T h e Spirit of the

Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.' At Nyirenda's trial it was said that the people accused of being witches and then killed were drawn from among the old and weak. Yet Nyirenda entered Lala country with a message 'for my grandfather or mother'. Somehow we have to reconcile the witch killer with the man who wanted, in the words of his defence counsel, 'to make the world good for Africans, for the oppressed'.26 T H E B E L I E F S A N D N E E D S OF L A L A

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'The origin of this killing, my Lord,' declared Tomo's counsel in 1926, 'lies at the door of the Watch Tower Society.' But it is not an easy conclusion to accept just as it stands. The counsel, M. Melland, argued that it was 'an easy stage' to move from Watch Tower millennial teaching 'to think of ridding the world of those things that make it evil - witches'. But only Tomo of all the Watch Tower preachers took this step. Others excluded 'witches' from their congregations; only Tomo killed them. Moreover, although Tomo's movement always remained strongly marked by Watch Tower ideas, there were many other features in its imagery and expectations that had no parallels elsewhere. Tomo brought the Watch Tower message to the Lala. But the Lala brought many things with them when they responded to the Watch Tower message. The Mwana Lesa movement was formed through the interaction of the two of Nyirenda's particular Watch Tower teaching and of Lala religious beliefs. There is, in fact, some difficulty in describing accurately just what Lala religious beliefs were in 1925. No detailed or reliable study of them has ever been made. We depend for our knowledge of Lala religion on two brief articles published some thirty years ago by J . T . Munday and on scattered references in the writings of missionaries and settlers.27 But two things seem plain. The first is that most Lala religious ideas were shared with neighbouring African societies. Thus, the Lala concept of the high god, Lesa, and of his characteristics was certainly shared with the neighbouring Lamba. So also was the idea of the polarity of East and West; the former standing for light, life, and good, the latter for darkness, death, and evil. The second generalization which seems secure is that most of the particularities of S3

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Lala religion arose from the political history of the area during the 100 years before European intervention. During this 100 years leading men of a single clan, the Nyendwa, came to achieve political leadership over the Lala and Swaka. Nyendwa chiefs and headmen were established throughout the LalaSwaka area and Nyendwa ancestors came to be thought of as owners of the land, even though their ascendancy was probably as recent as the late eighteenth century. The Nyendwa chiefs asserted a special link with Lesa, who was held to stand in the relationship of maternal uncle to the clan. At the same time the relationship between the Nyendwa and their 'subjects' seems to have given rise to increased witchcraft tensions at the political centre. Nyendwa traditions recounted the death of a number of chiefs through the witchcraft of commoners.28 To my mind both the generality and the particularity of Lala religion are significant in an attempt to assess the Mwana Lesa Movement. Thus, I shall argue that scraps of evidence indicate that the Lala shared important ideas with the Lamba or with other African societies in Northern Rhodesia for whom we do possess detailed studies and I shall argue that we can with caution extrapolate from the latter to the former. On the other hand I shall argue that the particularities of the Lala situation meant that common ideas were held among the Lala with a particular intensity. I wish to look first at the Lala concept of God in so far as we can determine what it was at the point of Nyirenda's appearance. From Munday's account one derives an overwhelming impression of Lesa's remoteness and ineffectiveness. Lesa was thought of during the early colonial period, so Munday tells us, as an old and decrepit deity, forgetful and easily tricked. So strong is this impression, indeed, that a recent interpreter of the Mwana Lesa Movement has made it the basis of his analysis. 'Under ordinary circumstances,' writes Professor Fetter, 'Lesa was very inactive, an old man who had retired from participation in the affairs of mortals. Only witches who generated the power necessary to kill their enemies could rouse Lesa to bring death. On rare occasions, however, Lesa took the initiative of making his presence felt through some natural disaster such as a plague or famine. The hardships suffered by the Lala in the years immediately preceding 1925 had led many to blame Lesa for their misery . . . The chiefs and headmen . . . could do little to save their people. Help could only come from someone who could control Lesa himself. It was at this point that Tomo Nyirenda appeared as a champion . . . As time went on, Nyirenda asserted his direct connection with the divinity, calling himself Mwana Lesa . . . The term, Mwana Lesa, could . . . be legitimately interpreted as " T h e Child of Jesus" or " T h e Successor of Lesa", the latter title indicating a capacity to defeat the creator god . . . Lesa the creator god had proved himself not indifferent but downright malevolent. Mwana Lesa promised an end to his predecessor's calamities and witchcraft. For a brief period, at least, the Christian God had challenged and defeated the African god.' 29 Such an interpretation - that Nyirenda's teaching was attractive to the Lala because it provided them with a more dynamic notion of God than was available in the idea of Lesa - fits in with recent general analyses of the Christian encounter with African religion. But I do not think that it really fits the Lala 54

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case. I would argue that Nyirenda's relationship with Lesa, as perceived by the Lala, was a very different one; that Nyirenda was not seen as in any sense supplanting Lesa but rather as fulfilling Lesa's will in his capacity as Son. This argument depends upon the process of moving from scraps of evidence relating to the Lala into an extrapolation of what we know of Lamba - or even Ila belief. Thus, to begin with, we know from the writings of one of the first British officials to enter the Lala area that at the time of the arrival of the whites the Lala of Shaiwila had a lively expectation of the end of the world, of the intervention of Lesa through the agency of his son, Luchyele, and of the establishment of a golden age. 'Chirupula' Stephenson, the official concerned, goes so far as to tell us that he and his companions were mistaken for Luchyele and his associates, and that it was believed that they came bringing the new dispensation from the east.30 Munday says nothing about these millennial beliefs. To learn about them in more depth we are obliged to turn to the study made by C. M. Doke, missionary and scholar, of the religious ideas of the Lamba. Doke tells us, then, that the Lamba believe that Lesa, the Creator, made the world. 'He arranged the whole country, rivers in their places, mountains, anthills, grass, trees, and lakes. He came from the east and went to the west, where he climbed up a ladder to heaven. It is said that he left word with the communities of people whom he placed in the land that they were to remain and await his return, even if it were to be long delayed. He will come down again in the east and, then, as he passes, will take all his people with him.' Among the Lamba it was believed in the early 1920s that Lesa, in his personification as Luchyele, would return at dawn and that with him would return all the dead. The essential 'persons' of the dead, meanwhile, freed from both the body and the spirit, rested in the realm of ichiyawafu, 'the great place of levelling'. 'The dead of all tribes and nations go there, and live in perfect harmony. There is but one tongue, which each person acquires immediately he is greeted by the king (of ichiyawafu), there is no distinction of social status; no distinction is made between the persons of chiefs, commoners, or slaves. Even the persons of witches or wizards go to ichiyawafu, for their witcheries have been left behind them.' All these dead, it was believed, would return with Lesa-Luchyele as young males in full health.31 Obviously the existence of this millennial belief compels us to modify, if not to abandon, thefirstimpression of Lesa's remoteness - or of his malevolence. Unhappily there is no historical information at all about the origins or development of the millennial idea. We do not know whether it has coexisted with the idea of Lesa as creator from the earliest days of Lamba and Lala religion or whether it grew out of a much later need to believe in the possibility of divine intervention. We do not know whether the idea was available at successive crises through Lala history or whether it was peculiarly a response to the crises of the late nineteenth century. We cannot even be sure of the different role played by the millennial idea in the various societies which shared it. But it does seem, on the basis of the slender evidence we have, as if the Lala of Shaiwila had a particularly acute millennial expectation in the early colonial period. Thus we can add Stephenson's evidence of the lively belief in the imminent coming of Luchyele to Munday's account of the disillusionment of 55

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the Lala with their Nyendwa chiefs and consequently with 'establishment' representation of Lesa's relationships with society. Munday tells us that 'before the arrival of the Europeans the chief duties of the chief were defending the people from enemies, certain ritual duties, and to a certain extent the hearing of disputes and the punishment of wrong-doers. In the first the Nyendwa clan were notable failures; the raiding Ngoni and Bemba met no resistance, in many cases the chiefs fled, and when they did not fly they stayed inside their stockaded villages. The Lala have never forgotten that their chiefs who sat on lions' skins, and who boasted of having been anointed with human blood, and whose young clansmen had worn scarlet feathers as a sign of having killed a man, did nothing for their people in their extremity.'32 At any rate one can see in the reports of Tomo Nyirenda's preaching among the Lala a fascinating intermixture of two millennial ideas - the ideas of Watch Tower and the ideas of the Luchyele myth. Remember Tomo's instructions to his preachers: 'He used to make us, in the early night time, take fire and go and make a fire out in the bush - and watch by it, till the evening star set, for God coming. He told us we should see God coming through the trees in the middle of a shining light. . . When God came all the dead would rise and all would live happily.' Here the echoes of the dawn coming of Luchyele are strong. On the other hand the Luchyele myth itself was reshaped by Watch Tower teaching. Thus, Doke records for the Lamba, a 'recent addition' to the Luchyele myth, dating from the late 1920s. This new version held that Luchyele instructed the first people, after he had planted them, 'to plant their corn and, when they had reaped their harvest, to follow after him. But they were too lazy and stayed where they were. Those, however, who did obey reached a great river where Luchyele washed them white and gave them great wisdom and much wealth from out of the water.' Watch Tower teaching was much concerned with the disparities of wealth between black and white, and attached to its idea of the millennium was the notion that black and white would live together as equals, or sometimes that blacks would inherit white wealth. Something of all this is reflected in the 'recent addition'. But above all what is reflected there is the idea of baptism. Doke guesses that the 'great river' is the sea. It seems more likely that what we have here is an echo of the baptismal river of Jordan and of Nyirenda's young man who never reached it because he preferred the broad and easy path of Satan.33 And, if from all this we can infer Nyirenda's identification in the minds of the Lala with 'traditional' ideas of the millennium, the title Mwana Lesa itself makes things more explicit. For this title had a specific meaning, relating to another layer of millennial belief. Throughout the whole area bounded by the Ila-speaking peoples to the south and by the Lamba-Lala peoples to the north there was a long-standing belief in Mwana Lesa, the true son of God, who had once come down to live among men. Once again we can be sure that such a belief existed among the Lala and Swaka only through scraps of evidence. We know that not only was Nyirenda himself hailed as Mwana Lesa by the Lala but that there had been a previous incarnation of Mwana Lesa in the area of Nyirenda's operations.34 But once again we have to extrapolate from more detailed evidence elsewhere to obtain some idea of what the title meant. Thus E. W. Smith, preaching in Ila country

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in July 1906, recorded in his diary that 'after service this morning, three women came and talked with me. They are baatni (prophetesses). Had not been at service, but had heard I had been telling people about the Son of God. Told me spontaneously about Mwana Lesa. Came down long ago in the country of Lusaka; was kind and gentle, went about telling people to stop fighting. After a time people killed him . . . His spirit enters into many baami, who foretell events and tell people to stop fighting.'35 In Lamba country also, so Doke tells us, there were Awami prophetesses, some of whom achieved great fame for their predictions. One of these, recorded before Nyirenda's arrival, has a good Watch Tower ring to it: 'that the time will come when the white men will "roll up" again their railway line, and take their departure with it back to the sea from whence they came'. Thus, Tomo Nyirenda as prophet stood in the line of the Awami. But more than this. There was a widespread idea that Mwana Lesa not only inspired prophetesses, but that he would come again or at least reappear through a possessed man. The missionaries Baldwin and Smith both encountered stories of men claiming to be Mwana Lesa - in Baldwin's case in 1898 the story ran that a man so claiming had appeared to a woman out gathering roots and shown her a fantastic storehouse of food, promising her and her people good harvests; in Smith's case in 1909 a man claiming to be Mwana Lesa was loaded with gifts by the Ila because he claimed to be able to stop excessively heavy rain and so ensure fertility.36 In view of Nyirenda's reputation as Mwana Lesa it is interesting to note the element in his teaching which stressed the same sort of supply of abundant food and the guarantee of good crops. 'Tomo told the people that they should only work till noon and not till the evening in case they missed their dead relatives on their coming. He also said that when we went to our gardens before we hoed or commenced to work we were to pray to God and he would see we had large crops.'37 Or again: 'He also taught the people that Americans were coming with vast wealth and if anyone took them a small basket of grain they would receive a huge cloth and that the Americans would give them lots of wealth.'38 Thus, Tomo fitted in to the notion of the return of Mwana Lesa. He fitted in also as the good man who 'went about telling people to stop fighting'. 'I used to hear Tomo preaching and teaching the people. He told them to change their hearts, to be hospitable to strangers and treat them well, not to abuse other people, to stop fighting. He said those who had been baptized were given everlasting life and would not die and that God would come with their relations and that they would all live together again. Those who were not baptized . . . would be destroyed by God on his coming, as they were witches.' Tomo was both the preacher of peace and the killer of witches.39 To their encounter with Nyirenda, then, the Lala of Shaiwila brought a keen sense of imminent divine intervention and a catholicity which found no problem in accepting the alien, educated, Christian, Nyirenda, as Mwana Lesa. Nyirenda brought to the encounter a directly millenarian Christianity to which the Lala of Shaiwila were able to respond, and he brought also a Christian version of the triumph of a black man's God. So Nyirenda was taken in by the Lala. In bestowing the title of Mwana Lesa upon him the Lala of Shaiwila were giving him great honour and power. Shaiwila himself called Tomo 'father'; Chief 57

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Mfumba 'clapped his hands before Tomo'. But they were also making a claim upon him. They took him in because they wished him to respond to their needs. One of these needs was precisely for an articulation and extension of millennial belief. Another was for some resolution of the fear of witchcraft. The initiative in killing witches was not Nyirenda's. He was detecting witches before he entered Shaiwila's country. He began to kill them only in response to the demand made upon him by Shaiwila and by the Lala people themselves. The role of Shaiwila emerges clearly even from the brief narrative given above. At one stage, indeed, the Northern Rhodesian administration was inclined to see the whole affair in terms of a conspiracy between Shaiwila and Nyirenda, in which the chief plotted to rid himself of personal rivals and enemies. 'When this self-styled "Teacher" came into the country of the Alala,' said Judge Macdonnell, 'the nearest chief sent his messenger to find out what manner of man this was. The Chief feared the Boma a little, but was not a strong man. There were the seeds of evil in his heart and there were many of his people whom he hated and wanted to destroy . . . And after the two met they made a compact to help one another in evil doing . . . In the past not once or twice but many times the people of a Chief who acted thus have risen and slain him.' In this way, Macdonnell argued, Shaiwila had offended against the laws which traditionally bound 'the blackman's chief'. 40 But a more detailed reading of the evidence reveals a different story. Shaiwila certainly had his own fears of witches, as had many Nyendwa chiefs before him. When he gave Nyirenda the authority to kill he certainly spoke with the voice of Nyendwa tradition. He spoke of witches who struck at the health of chiefs and the fertility of their wives. He promised Nyirenda, whose name was soon elided to Nyendwa, the traditional mark of the 'young clansmen [who] had worn scarlet feathers as a sign of having killed a man'. At his first meeting with Tomo, Shaiwila said that 'had it been in the old days I would have given Tomo a red cloth'; at the Likosa stream after the first killings he said, 'I want you to kill all the witches and to weed out the villages and then come to my village and weed it out and I will buy you a red cloth to put over your head.' Headman Masaula testified later that on this occasion Shaiwila told Tomo that he could 'wear an nduba feather now'. 'And when I heard this,' said Masaula, 'I thought Shailwila had indeed given Tomo power.' 41 Yet it is clear also that the killing of the witches commanded wide public support and even that Shaiwila and his headmen were under popular pressure to authorize it. When Headman Masaula himself objected mildly to the killing of the witches at Likosa 'all the people, the women, who had come and were listening said, " N o , let them be killed, they are witches and that is why we are barren: if you refuse, Masaula, we will all leave you." ' 4 2 The atmosphere of the clamour for Nyirenda's services comes out of the letters among his papers entreating him to come to this village or that. 'Come and make a dance for us,' runs one of these letters, 'because we have a wondrous thing, Tomo Yedwa, we pray you, you said that will have to come to our village, I pray you, Tomo, do not miss us I pray you, you only danced, you did not pick out the weeds, we have a wondrous thing, come on Friday, I pray you even unto God.' 4 3

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As the administration inquired further so they came to abandon the idea that Shaiwila had terrorized his people. 'I do not think they were terrorized at all,' wrote one local magistrate. 'The fact is, in my opinion, that Tomo and his doings were very much to the taste of the natives.'44 Even men accused by Tomo of witchcraft and killed by him often submitted out of their own belief in the evils of witchcraft and in their own guilt. Thus, Lipereto, who had come to Tomo in the hope of becoming a Watch Tower preacher, accepted his fate. 'Tomo said to him, "You have come, Lipereto ? Today you are going to die." Lipereto said, "All right, if I am a wizard, I must die" . . . Lipereto submitted without struggling or resisting. He said, " I must die: I have a little horn of jealousy." ' 4 5 Seemingly, then, as Lala society accepted Tomo Nyirenda as its own, it increasingly exercised upon him enormous pressure not only to detect but also to kill witches. Just as the millennial belief seems to have been especially immediate among the Lala of Shaiwila, so also the widely held witchcraft beliefs seem there to have reached a special intensity. How is this to be explained ? Two hypotheses seem possible in default of the detailed oral inquiry that is needed for any final interpretation. One hypothesis is that the Lala had been more concerned than other Northern Rhodesian peoples with the detection and killing of witches even in pre-colonial times; that they resisted and resented colonial bans upon witch-finding more bitterly than other peoples; that, in short, the 1925 witch killings were part of a 'traditional' sequence rather than being a novel response to new pressures. The other hypothesis is that the colonial period had brought new tensions within and new pressures upon Lala society which led to greatly increased fear of witchcraft in the 1920s. Both hypotheses seem worth examining, even though I do not possess the evidence to allow me to state either in more than the most conjectural way. I have not worked on the administrative archives for Mkushi district before the 1920s, nor have I worked on oral traditional evidence for pre-colonial Lala history. I rely for some knowledge of Lala history on the writings of Munday and of Stephenson. Nor have I undertaken any wide-ranging research into Lala social structures in the 1920s, and I depend mainly upon evidence thrown up by the inquiries into the Mwana Lesa Movement itself. But for what it is worth the hypotheses can be stated on the following lines. First, the hypothesis that the killings of witches were part of a 'traditional' sequence. We have already seen two scraps of evidence supplied by Munday which are relevant here. One is the fact that Nyendwa traditions relating to the pre-colonial period often deal with the death of chiefs through witchcraft by commoners and the other is Munday's assertion that by the end of the nineteenth century Lala commoners had come to feel a particular resentment at the failure of the Nyendwa chiefs to give protection against the Ngoni and the Bemba. Taken together these bits of evidence suggest a situation in which Nyendwa chiefs might well feel a constant threat of attack by witches. Moreover, the Nyendwa chiefs were not removed from their 'subjects' by any elaborated hierarchical or bureaucratic state system. Essentially they had imposed themselves over a cluster of small 'kinship villages', to use Munday's term. The chief lived in his own village and during the course of the year visited 'each of his villages'. There the people brought the chief gifts and the chief 59

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performed rituals believed to achieve fertility. Annually also the headmen of the kinship villages, themselves usually commoners, would attend at the chief's village where offerings were made at the graves of the royal clan.46 And if the Nyendwa chiefs were exposed to the dangers of recurrent 'faceto-face' contact with the commoners in their villages, these kinship villages were themselves of a type likely to breed much tension over witchcraft. Munday describes them. 'These villages are small, and though in British territory each must have at least ten adult tax-paying male inhabitants, few have more than twenty such men . . . Most villages tend to be made up of five classes of persons, i The headmen and men of the same clan as he, for although marriage is by custom matri-local, after being married for some years couples often tend to move to a village whose headman is a member of the husband's clan, and who is usually his close relation . . . 2 Young men who have come to the village to marry and for the time being at least are living there with their wives and children, these latter of course being mostly of the headman's clan. If a man is happy in his in-laws' village he will often stay there for life. 3 Women who are widows or who have been left for good by their husbands . . . and women whose husbands have one or more wives in other villages. These women together with their children are again mostly of the headman's clan. 4 Children of the second and third group, and young people whose mothers have gone to live in their husbands' villages, sending back their children to the care of the maternal grandmothers and maternal uncles . . . 5 Besides the above there will probably be men of other clans and their wives attracted there by friendship or by the good reputation of the village. These "kinship villages" tend to be small and quite self-contained, each producing all that is needed for everyday use . . . Each village, especially in thinly populated areas, lives a life more or less isolated from other villages.' 47 We have here almost a blue-print of the witch-dominated spiritual economy as it is described by Mary Douglas. The various tensions produced by the complex relationships enclosed within one of these small villages are reflected in the character of the accusations of witchcraft made to and by Nyirenda, just as were the witchcraft fears of the Nyendwa chiefs. Thus, one especially striking theme in the accusations made against those denounced as witches was the tension between brothers and sisters which arose from the structures of Lala society. Headman Nkutye, authorizing Tomo to kill all witches found in his village, protested that 'if one of them were my sister I should say, let her die'. In other villages that was precisely what happened. A revealing case took place at Chondoka's village. Old Chondoka, the headman, was sick. His maternal nephew, Ntembelwa, was already acting as headman. In this situation the person denounced and drowned as a witch was Chibuyi, old Chondoka's sister and mother of Ntembelwa. Other cases hinged upon this same fear that a sister might wish harm to her brother in the interests of her son. Lipereto's case reveals the counter fear. Lipereto was killed because he was said to have confessed responsibility for his sister's barrenness. There was a good deal of tension between husbands and wives during Tomo's tour of Shaiwila's villages - with some wives abandoning unbaptized husbands and following Tomo - but this does not seem to have given rise to witchcraft accusations in the same way that the more essential Lala brother-sister relationship did.48 60

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It was this countryside of shifting, small kinship villages that the Anglican missionaries at Fiwila described as 'the worst place in the world for witchcraft', writing of 'very beautiful country, which would have made you sing for joy but for the thought of its being soaked in witchcraft'.49 Into this situation came the British administration. 'Chirupula' Stephenson was the first executive officer in the area. In his eyes Shaiwila and the other Nyendwa chiefs were 'priest-kings'. Among their foremost duties was the duty to protect their people against witchcraft, the duty to sponsor the administration of the poison ordeal, and to arrange for the punishment of detected witches. But Stephenson's own account suggests that these 'establishment' ways of dealing with witchcraft had come to seem inadequate. His own arrival, or so it appears, was seized upon as an opportunity for a sweeping millennial solution. When Stephenson himself arrived in Lala country along with his administrative senior, Jones, they announced a new order to the assembled chiefs; including the then Shaiwila. 'Tell them,' said Jones, 'that we have three things to say. First, in this country there shall be no more war. Secondly, in this country there shall be no more witchcraft. Thirdly, in this country there shall be no more slavery.' These announcements were very favourably received. ' " N o more witchcraft." Was the millennium at hand ? Were there really to be no more envyings, no more coverings, no more jealousies?' As we have seen, Stephenson claims that the Lala were indeed ready to suppose that the millennium was at hand and that he and his companions were thought of as Luchyele and other divinities, entering the land from the east and proclaiming the new order of peace, equality, and freedom from witchcraft. 'The message was brought from the East,' he writes, 'and such an intimation of sinless future must surely be divine.' 60 The white man as God! We have heard it too often before to find it easy to swallow. Still, there were other places in Central Africa where the coming of white missionaries was at first associated with a hope that fear of witchcraft would come to an end - and the manner in which the Lala fitted the stranger Nyirenda with his announcement of a new order into their own structure of myth suggests that Stephenson's analysis may be closer to the truth than we might at first suppose. At any rate, the millennium did not arrive. The old necessities to take action against witchcraft were still felt. If Stephenson had been Luchyele he now became Chirupula, the flogger. It was a significant transformation from the initiator of a 'sinless future' to the man who smote people who dared take action against witches. Soon Stephenson was acting against a chief, Mbowoka, for the execution of a supposed witch. Mbowoka was arrested while he was making a courtesy visit to Stephenson's camp, put in the 'slave-yoke', indicted for murder, and sent under armed guard to Fort Jameson for trial. The outraged chief escaped from his askari escort, whose sympathies were clearly with him, and fled into the Congo. And briefly 'the whole countryside' rose up in violent protest.61 Stephenson was replaced by other administrative officers but the tension with the Lala chiefs over adjudication on witchcraft went on. In 1910 or 1 9 1 1 another case occurred, this time concerning Chief Lwimbaula, the 'granter of absolutions' and 'remitter of sins'. Lwimbaula purified men after acts of 61

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violence. 'In the exercise of his office he "absolved" the authors of some halfdozen murders in the Irumi Mountains . . . That is, the Authorities called them murders, though in Lala eyes they were perfectly legal executions as a penalty for proven witchcraft . . . anyhow, the executioners were apprehended and tried for their lives on a charge of murder, and with them, as "accessory after fact", Lwimbaula as well; and poor Lwimbaula died in gaol.' 52 Stephenson's biographer, Baroness Rukavina, tells a melodramatic story of the coming of Nyirenda into Stephenson's farming area in 1925; of the direct test of spiritual power between the two aliens, in which Nyirenda predicted that Stephenson would be struck down just before he did, in fact, collapse; and of the increase in Nyirenda's power that resulted. It may be true: at any rate it has a symbolic fitness. What we do know for certain is that Stephenson wrote to the administration in April 1926 to express his astonishment and dismay that the Lala headmen closest to him, including Lwimbaula's successor, had allowed their people to be baptized. 'Since June 1925 I have noticed an alteration in the attitude of the local natives towards me,' wrote the man who sometimes proclaimed that he had become more Lala than English. 'Natives who formerly visited me in a friendly way and sometimes worked regularly for me did not come near my farm.' The days of Stephenson's new order were long over; the time had come for the millennium of the black preacher.53 It is possible, then, to see Shaiwila's support of Nyirenda as nothing more than a continuation of the tradition of 'some half-dozen murders' of witches in the recent past, or rather as another swing towards a millennial instead of a 'normal' solution of the problem of witchcraft. On the other hand it is possible to present a fairly forceful argument for the other hypothesis - that the Mwana Lesa movement sprang not so much out of Lala 'tradition' as out of new and painful tensions and pressures. There is evidence to suggest that any 'traditional' insecurity of the Nyendwa chiefs had been greatly compounded and that the 'traditional' tensions of the kinship village had been greatly increased. Munday tells us of the fate of the chiefs. 'Before the coming of the British the clan must have presented a sight of great riches to the commoners when compared to their own poverty. They claimed all the ivory from elephants killed in this area . . . they obtained slaves in various ways who did much field and household work and who were often sold to traders, and they enjoyed the tribute labour of their subjects. A ruling chief had the moral support of his whole clan behind him, living and dead, including the ruling chiefs of a very large territory, and where his orders had to be enforced he could send a body of "soldiers" to compel obedience. Today two sources of wealth and prestige have dried up, the ivory and slaves are no longer available.'54 'What of all these petty kings and chiefs of the copper belt ?' wrote Stephenson. 'Where is their land today ? Where is their ivory, their right of rank ? Where are their labourers and the gardens they tended ? The answer is plain. As to land - "Crown lands", constituting some fifty per cent of the land, belong half to the Crown and half to the British South Africa Company. The ivory that is a Government perquisite, too. And the minerals? All belong to the British South Africa Company - a hundred per cent of anything and everything, even the iron from which the natives used to fashion their hoes. The 62

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labourers ? Well, the mines absorb most of the young men . . . but of course the chiefs and their gardens must fend for themselves.' When Shaiwila promised Nyirenda an nduba feather he promised him also an elephant tusk - in defiance of the Government monopoly on ivory! 55 Some authorities contend that the Shaiwila of 1925 was in a particularly insecure position because many of his elders regarded him as a usurper.66 But over and above this there was a more general chiefly insecurity. Striving to retain something of their old prestige they found themselves endeavouring to exact from commoners tribute that no longer had legal sanction - demanding 'at least one day's tribute-labour from every able-bodied commoner'; demanding a tribute of 'at least five shillings' from those who had been fortunate enough to obtain paid employment with the whites; and extracting 'rather uncertain income from "fines" from law cases which are not recognized by government'. These exactions in their turn intensified the insecurity of the commoners.57 For not only the chiefs were uncertain of where they stood or how to express their prestige. The development of the mines and towns, even though at an early stage in 1925, had an impact especially on the younger men. Some of them had picked up a smattering of education and knowledge of the wider world - but none of them had enough education or wealth to enjoy secure prestige as 'modern' men. It is striking that many of Tomo Nyirenda's assistants are described as having returned from the mines. It is striking, too, that the great majority of his immediate entourage were young men in their teens. It is true that such young men in other societies followed other more 'traditional' witchcraft eradicators - they were freer to move about than older men. But in Tomo's case another element was present. These young deacons and preachers had a smattering of education. Tomo used them to keep his lists of baptisms, to write letters for him in Lala and to translate letters which he received. In this way they enjoyed a prestige as 'clerks' which only much better educated and experienced men could have obtained in the service of the mission. One vivid incident illustrates the dependence of illiterate chiefs on these young men. After the drownings of Makwati and Lipereto, Tomo sent a letter to Shaiwila, formally and rather incautiously announcing their elimination. The letter was written for him in Lala by a seventeen-year-old, Kabwela, whose 'work was to write down the names of the baptized'. When the letter was delivered by headman Chipanga, Shaiwila could not read it and had to call on another youngster, Faifi. 'When Shaiwila came,' testified Faifi later, 'Chipanga gave him a letter which Shaiwali put in his jacket pocket. Chipanga said, "You needn't do that, Faifi, here, can read" . . . So Shaiwila handed me the letter to read . . . When I read it Shaiwila just said, "That's right, you've read it, now I'll burn i t . ' " 8 8 It is significant of the precarious literacy of these young 'clerks' that on the two or three occasions on which Tomo's secretary, Kabwela, gave evidence to the official inquiries he made his mark rather than signed his name. And Tomo's personal papers are full of so-called baptismal lists in 'pretend-writing', obviously compiled by young men able to impress a congregation with their scrawling imitations but not, in fact, able to write. I do not make this point in order to mock the young men who gathered

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around Tomo and who were so impressed by his files and his book. They were victims of the process which had thrust the Lala of Shaiwila into contact with the new world without bothering to provide them with any of the skills necessary for handling it. Though close to the centres of economic development, the area was markedly deficient in schools and in social services of any kind. So the young men found an outlet in Tomo's service. But there is much suggestion also, that many of them feared injury from witchcraft just as did the chiefs. The chiefs feared that witches were striking at their health and at the fertility of their wives; the young men seem to have feared the jealousy of the old. A third source of tension seems to have been associated with the drawing away of migrant labour from Mkushi. Some years later the remarkable young missionary-anthropologist, Moore, found, in a survey of villages in the rural hinterland of the Copperbelt, that an extraordinarily high proportion of those who lived in the villages were dependent upon the support or charity of others for survival. As we have seen, the kinship villages of the Lala had always contained children left by mothers who had moved elsewhere and, of course, they had always contained men and women too old to work. But now it seems that the proportion of these dependents increased very significantly. A recent study of witchcraft in sixteenth-century England has suggested that one of the main causes of accusations of witchcraft there was the guilty conscience of those who were trying to evade traditional obligations of neighbourly aid and hospitality. It may be that the felt guilt of such evasions was added to the long-standing tensions of the kinship villages in the 1920s. It may be that Nyirenda's stress upon the obligations of hospitality and his appointment of deacons to supervise its provision on a communal basis had some relationship to these developments.59 One can only guess at the relative importance of these two hypotheses. My own guess is that the first is more important than the second. The explanation of colonial tensions is too general since these affected many African societies in much the same ways. Moreover, the renewed outbreak of witch killing in Shaiwila's country in 1970 suggests that we are indeed dealing here with a particular and long-standing idiom of Lala action. I would guess that the pressures of the early colonial period upon Lala society were probably no greater than those of the period of the Bemba and Ngoni raids. But I would think that the evidence adduced for the second hypothesis is important as demonstrating the ways in which pressures had changed and the ways in which insecurities and tensions now manifested themselves. But we need further field research in Lala country before we can make any more confident assertions.60 T H E M W A N A LESA M O V E M E N T I N F U L L

PERSPECTIVE

I have not been seeking to prove in this demonstration of the ways in which Lala beliefs and needs worked on Nyirenda that he changed from being one thing to being another. Thus, he entered Mkushi district as a Christian teacher and he left it as Mwana Lesa. But the point is that he was felt to be both at the same time. In the same way a selective use of the evidence might seem to show that he was especially an ally of the Nyendwa chiefs and concentrated on witches accused of causing Mufumbi's 'sickness in the eyes and legs' or of 64

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making headman Chondoka 'quite ill and unable to leave his hut'. But a similarly selective use of evidence might reveal him as especially the ally of the young men. A number of the witches killed were accused of hostility towards Tomo's young helpers - Makwati was killed because he was accused of being responsible for the death of one of Tomo's deacons; at Lutele the father and mother of one of Tomo's young preachers were denounced and killed; Mwape was accused for 'swearing at the children in the village'. But the point again is that Nyirenda was felt to be the ally of old chiefs and young men at the same time.61 Watch Tower, as I have already said, was not a sect in Lala country. Nyirenda's movement seems to have been a genuinely universalist movement of Lala reconstruction. As such the whole range of the movement's symbols and teachings became relevant. The Lala wished to assimilate Nyirenda to their mythical system and sought, through him, to realize their millennial expectations. But they also wanted to draw upon the new things he had to offer. They were impressed by his mastery of literacy. They took comfort from his promise of powerful saviours from outside Lala society. It is instructive to run through the whole gamut of the effective symbols of Nyirenda's prestige. He was the man who wore the red nduba feathers, 'the Lala symbols of life and death'. His name was elided by the Lala from Nyirenda to Nyendwa, the title of the royal clan. He was Luchyele returned. He was Mwana Lesa. But he was also the possessor of the book; the messenger of AfroAmerican liberators; the man who possessed the destructive power of the aeroplane. One testimony gives us this feeling of the combination of symbols the traditional symbol of the roof, the modern symbol of the aeroplane. 'Tomo used to say that he was an aeroplane and a roof and that he would kill anyone who opposed him. The song he used to sing when finding witches was "The aeroplane is roaring" . . . Tomo taught us this and told us that in the war aeroplanes made a loud noise and killed people and he told us that he was like an aeroplane." ' 6 2 And all this power was to be used to structure Lala society afresh, to 'cleanse' it, rather than to overthrow the whites. Even the Afro-American liberators, who were used elsewhere in very militant anti-white ways, were used in Lala country to hold out a promise of a peaceful society of brotherhood. 'He told them to change their hearts, to be hospitable to strangers and treat them well, not to abuse other people, to stop fighting . . . He also taught the people that the Americans were coming with vast wealth . . . He said that he had come from America and that Americans lived together with white people . . . He said the Americans and white people were "sons of sisters" and lived together like one people and that the baptized would live with them. First, he told us to be good people and not commit adultery and to be kind to one another.' 63 M I S S I O N C H R I S T I A N I T Y AND THE MWANA LESA M O V E M E N T

So far, in all this story, missionary Christianity has hardly entered in. The missionaries at Fiwila were close to Shaiwila's village; they knew of Nyirenda's baptisms and urged Shaiwila to stop them; later they heard of the killing of witches and informed the administration. That seems about all. There is little

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evidence that articulate resentment against the mission played any part in the Mwana Lesa movement although it was reported that Nyirenda had promised Shaiwila that he would one day live in Filwia mission house. Nor was this peripheral role at all surprising. The Fiwila mission had had a short and spasmodic history. It was opened in 1918 but closed again a year later. When it was reopened in April 1924, barely a year before Nyirenda's arrival, it served as much as a teacher-training college as a mission to the Lala. Yet in a profound sense the Mwana Lesa episode was very relevant indeed to the development or lack of development of missionary activity in Mkushi. So far from being hostile to Christianity, all the evidence suggests that the Lala were anxious to make use of it. In 1924 the U.M.C.A. missionaries reported with surprise and pleasure that they were welcomed 'everywhere' in Lala country. In one sense the Lala themselves turned Fiwila into a mission by coming in to its services. 'As many as two hundred or more heathen' came in every Sunday, thereby providing the missionaries with their main contact with the surrounding population. One has the sense of the Lala pressing in hopefully on the mission rather than of the classic early mission situation of the embattled outpost surrounded by hostility. And then Nyirenda came and Fiwila became for a while an embattled outpost. 'The heathen and Hearers, who hitherto had been friendly disposed, changed their attitude.' 'Stubborn resistance and avoidance' replaced the earlier welcome. In June 1925 Bishop May placed the district under an interdict. And yet what was going on was not a turning away from Christianity but a response to Nyirenda's form of Christian message.64 The time has perhaps come to make it plain what I am saying about Nyirenda. At the time of his trial in 1926 there were three available interpretations of him. One was the horrific glimpse of him experienced by Roy Stevens, a ten-year-old American boy, who persuaded the guards at the prison to let him see Mwana Lesa. 'Peering timorously through the bars, the white boy caught his breath. A strange creature stared back at him. An armless black being who, at the sight of the fair-haired youth, opened his mouth and grunted for scraps. Roy dug into his pockets and found the monkey nuts that constantly resided there, and withdrawing a handful he held them between the bars. The armless killer snapped at the offering like the caged beast he had become.' Thus Nyirenda as less than human - 'it was kinda funny', reported the boy to his family, 'Mwana Lesa didn't look like a human being at all'. 65 Or there was the version of the prosecution at his trial. 'He is a clever man and strong man, who can reason well and dominate others for his own gain. He cares nothing for the lives of others and has finished by making a living for himself out of the deaths of his fellow-men. If there is an evil thing of which the country should be cleansed it is surely he.' Thus Nyirenda as villain.66 Finally, there was the version of the defence. 'He has been brought up in, saturated in, an environment of superstition . . . On top of this he had had the misfortune to become mixed up with the doctrines of the Watch Tower Society. . . . On top of this he had a third misfortune: he met a chief anxious to expel witches from his country . . . His scanty education has not eliminated the belief in witchcraft: he still believes in it: and so he believes that the chief is 66

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right and that the chief knows the witches. He lends his power and his popularity to what he considers the good cause.' Thus Nyirenda as victim.67 What I have been saying is that I do not believe that Nyirenda can be seen as monster, or villain, or victim. Strange though his movement was, we can only grasp it if we see it was explicable. And I believe it to be explicable in terms of the avidity of the Lala for some sort of Christian message; and in terms of the vulnerability of Nyirenda's form of Christian message to the pressures of Lala society. This vulnerability produced terrible distortions. And yet by looking at what the Lala demanded of Tomo Nyirenda we can get some idea of what they wanted from Christianity. Judging from the Mwana Lesa movement they wanted four things. First, they wanted a means of comprehending the wider world into which they were being precipitated - a means of access to education and a source of credible explanatory myth. It is true that African religions themselves were capable of expanding to deal with the problems of the wider world, but Christianity in any form had one great advantage. Christianity was the religion of the white rulers and hence explanatory myths which bore the Christian stamp could offer a much more credible explanation of power relationships and a much more reassuring promise of eventual black triumph. As Eugene Genovese has written in the quite different context of Afro-American religion under slavery, the Lala needed 'a spiritual life adequate to the task of linking [them] to the powerful culture of the masters'.68 Hence the response to Tomo's literacy and his 'modernity'; hence also the impact of his universal message of morality and brotherhood. Secondly, the Lala wanted a religion which did not merely allow them to operate in the metaphysical and geographical regions outside Lala society but which also enabled them to operate in and upon Lala society itself. It is true once again that Lala traditional religious belief, with its strong millennial tendencies, offered a means of revitalization. But once again the reinforcement which Christian millenarianism could give to these pre-existing ideas was important. Even in terms of revitalizing Lala society the enlarged millenarianism of Nyirenda seemed more credible. Thirdly, for any revitalization to be effective it had to be universal. The Lala, aware of strain and evil, internalized it; the cause lay at the heart of Lala society. If Christianity was to serve the need it had to be a Christianity which affected everyone - rapid and universal. Hence the response to Nyirenda's mass baptism - 'We have seen baptism today? said the enthusiastic Watch Tower converts. Hence also the importance of Nyirenda's concern to bring in the old - 'my Grandfather or mother' - as well as the young. Nyirenda offered a form of Christianity which did not divide but united; his promise was that 'they would all live together again'. And finally, the Lala wanted a Christianity which offered a spiritual solution to the problem of witchcraft. In this they were by no means alone. Some eight years after Nyirenda's movement, in another district of Northern Rhodesia, a District Commissioner was faced with an insoluble problem. Six women in Mwinilunga had come to him and confessed that they were witches, 'that they had caused the deaths of a number of people and tampered with their graves'. The District Commissioner made inquiries; demonstrated that the graves had 67

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in fact not been disturbed; but the women persisted. 'How can legislation adequately deal with a case of this nature ?' asked the harassed District Commissioner. 'These women desire to be exorcised, to be cleansed of their evil powers . . . they have confessed to the Boma. Surely, then, the policy of Native Administration is to enable them to be cleansed of their evil Spirits, and not to punish them and incarcerate them in Gaol.' Unlike the leaders of the great movements for the eradication of witchcraft, Nyirenda did not 'cleanse' those guilty of witchcraft; rather he purged society of them. But he took witchcraft seriously and believed, as did the Lala, that it could only be countered by spiritual force.69 In the context of a book such as this we must surely ask whether these four needs could not have been met by a more orthodox, less vulnerable, Christian movement. Why, to be precise, did the formal missionary endeavour in Shaiwila's country make so little contact with Lala sense of need ? This question is all the more necessary because the Universities' Mission to Central Africa was widely known in the mid 1920s for its special responsiveness to African customs and symbols. In Tanganyika the reputation of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa was linked with the names of two remarkable bishops, Frank Weston and Vincent Lucas, both of whom had been particularly concerned to explore the theological implications of the Christian encounter with African societies. Both Weston and Lucas are remembered by Africans today as men who had broken through the European blindness about witchcraft and who had come to accept its reality. Lucas had pioneered in the diocese of Masasi in southern Tanganyika a series of famous experiments in which African rites were Christianized. Finally the U.M.C.A. had set up a network of schools which had helped to produce an educated Tanganyikan élite.70 In view of all this it has often been said that the work of men like Vincent Lucas was one of the reasons why independent African church movements did not flourish in Tanganyika. Why, then, should Nyirenda have been so spectacularly successful - if his tragedy can be thought of in such terms - in U.M.C. A. territory ? There are many possible answers to this. One is that the dominant influence on the Northern Rhodesian U.M.C.A. was Bishop Alston May, a rather different sort of man from Weston or Lucas. Under May the Northern Rhodesian U.M.C.A. was not famed for adaptation. But another answer is that in any case the sort of adaptations worked out by Lucas in Masasi would not have answered the specific needs of the Lala situation. For one thing Lucas was never confronted in his own area with a clearly defined or persistent millennial tradition which was open to Christianizing. In 1905 before Lucas's arrival in Masasi the mission station had, indeed, been burnt down by the Maji Maji warriors, who were inspired by a non-Christian millenarian ideology of great power and scope. But the expressed wish of the U.M.C.A. to follow the defeated Maji Maji men back into the area where the ideology of the revolt originated never came to pass. There was no confrontation of two millennial theologies. In Masasi district itself, despite the brief initial expectations that the coming of the missionaries would mean an end to witchcraft, Lucas never had the need to think hard about how to develop a Christian eschatology appropriate to Africa. In general, U.M.C.A. teaching put little emphasis upon the theology of 68

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the last things. In this respect Watch Tower had a great advantage with the Lala. Moreover, Lucas had been able to persist with his predecessor's policies of patient and lengthy preparation for baptism without undermining the influence of the U.M.C.A. in Masasi district. The main reason for this was that the U.M.C.A. was allied there with powerful Yao chiefs, men of 'modernizing' and outward-looking mind, who held out the prospect of the development of 'tribal' churches. But in Lala country, where a chief like Shaiwila was in a totally different position, and where men could not wait upon the majestic development of an established Lala church, the slowness of the U.M.C.A.'s baptismal procedures meant that the mission could not respond as Nyirenda did to the crisis atmosphere of Lala demands upon Christianity. Finally, although Lucas believed that men and women did set out to harm their fellows through witchcraft and knew very well how strong the fear of witches was, he was unable to develop an effective Christian answer to it. In Masasi the church did not face a witch-killing movement like Nyirenda's but it did face a series of movements for the eradication of witchcraft, which provided a medicine to be taken by all and which promised cleansing from the sin of witchcraft as well as relief from the fear of witchcraft. The U.M.C.A. constantly opposed these movements and excommunicated Christians who participated in them; but it was never able to offer any Christian substitute for them. The problem of its ineffectiveness in the face of fear of witchcraft was one of the greatest weaknesses of the U.M.C.A. in Masasi. Certainly there was nothing in the U.M.C.A.'s Tanganyika experience to help the Fiwila mission of the U.M.C.A. in Shaiwila's country to cope with the intense Lala need for a spiritual answer to the problem of witchcraft. 71 Still, in one field the U.M.C.A. obviously had an advantage over Nyirenda. It was much better equipped to provide education and modernizing skills. But here we reach a main reason for the lack of impact of the U.M.C.A. - and other mission societies - in Northern Rhodesia. The missionary history of Northern Rhodesia in general, contrasts sharply with that of Tanganyika. The missionary outreach in Northern Rhodesia was much later and much weaker. Adrian Hastings has recently written of Catholic work in Northern Rhodesia: 'Whereas the history of the church in Tanzania goes back to the late 1860s . . . Catholic missionary effort in modern Zambia only dates from the 1890s. This late start makes a considerable difference. Nor was a great deal done even when a beginning had been made. The expansion in the next twenty years . . . was rather slight. By 1920 there were still only thirteen mission stations in the whole country as against forty-nine in Uganda. Catholic missionaries . . . only began work in most of the west of the country after 1930. For most of the Protestant missions, too, their "late start made a considerable difference".' Certainly it did for the U.M.C.A. By 1925 the U.M.C.A. in Masasi had been operating for nearly sixty years and despite many setbacks its influence was profound. It was able to engage the problems posed by the post-war years to African societies from this position of strength. We have already seen by contrast the brief and fitful history of Fiwila mission, which by 1925 had hardly made an impact on the Lala. Crippled by shortage of funds and staff the educa69

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tional effort of Fiwila did not appear obviously more credible as an offer of modernizing than Nyirenda's movement. 7 2 I have said that Nyirenda was too vulnerable to the pressures of L a l a society. F o r all the reasons given above the U . M . C . A . and other Northern Rhodesian missions were not vulnerable enough. T h e y rightly did not respond in N y i r enda's way - for one can hardly think that the killing of witches provides any final answer to the spiritual or social needs of the Lala. But they did not really respond at all. T h u s , they left T o m o Nyirenda, a tragic figure, to offer the only grass-roots Christian response to the Lala, and to be destroyed in the process. Bishop Alston M a y saw a good deal of this quite clearly. Writing of the challenge of Watch T o w e r in general, the year before the M w a n a L e s a movement, he defined the nature of that movement itself more precisely than any contemporary. ' I n this part of Africa the native, even in the villages, is no longer content with the traditional ideas and customs of his tribe. Western civilization, with all its materialism, has not yet succeeded in wholly materializing even those who in the mines and townships are most directly under its influence. Here is a movement which is home-grown, and in no small part it owes its success to the fact that it is a religious m o v e m e n t . . . and claims to satisfy the spiritual aspirations of its followers. Eliminate the religious element, and it would make no strong appeal. What our people are really after is a social and religious order, which on the one hand is superior to tribalism as they know it, and on the other African - their very own. All this means for us . . . that we have today a great opportunity and a correspondingly heavy responsibility.' 7 3 Once the legacy of misunderstanding and bitterness after the suppression of the M w a n a L e s a movement had been survived, this combination of opportunity and responsibility was an admirable description of the position of the missions in Lala country. What they have made of it is the subject for papers other than this.

NOTES 1

The only contemporary published accounts of the Mwana Lesa movement are sensationalist and unreliable. They are: Carl von Hoffman Jungle Gods (London 1929), and Kathaleen Stevens Rukavina Jungle Pathfinder. The Biography ofChirupula Stephenson (London 1951). Baroness Rukavina's account draws upon the memories of Stephenson, who farmed in Lala country, had a Lala wife, and was regarded as a uniquely expert source on the Lala. Many of the details given reveal her access to inside information but other details are totally inaccurate and her overall interpretation of the movement is most misleading. A published account which draws upon the archival material in the Lusaka Archives is R. I. Rotberg The Rise ofNationalism in Central Africa. The Making ofMalawi and Zambia, 1873-1964. (Cambridge 1965) pp. 142-46. Primary evidence for the movement is extensive. The National Archives in Lusaka possesses very full material on Nyirenda. Some of it relates to his trial in 1926; most of it relates to the very detailed inquiries that were made to determine the collective responsibility of the villages in which Nyirenda operated; some of it comes from Nyirenda's own papers, which were taken from him on his arrest. The logbooks of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa station at Fiwila, which was

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sited in the very centre of the Mwana Lesa area, are now held by the Anglican authorities in Lusaka and are available on application to them. At Rhodes House, Oxford, are summaries of the evidence in the Mwana Lesa case, cited by Professor Bruce Fetter, who has made use of them in F. L. Brown, 'Legal Proceedings', including summaries of evidence in Mwana Lesa's case, 1925, Rhodes House (Oxford M S S Afr. s. 1066) pp. 18, 92, and 44. My own experience in Tanzania, where valuable oral evidence has been collected on movements for the eradication of witchcraft, suggests that fieldwork in the Lala area would be fruitful. I have not carried this out, however, and as far as I know it has not yet been undertaken by anyone else. I am very grateful for the comments on the first draft of this paper made by the participants at the Chilema conference in August 1971 and by the members of my graduate seminar at University of California, Los Angeles. I am also very grateful for the written comments of Canon George Hewitt, Professor Kees Bolle, and Professor Bruce Fetter. The photographs of Nyirenda were obtained for me by Dr John Cook. 2 Official narratives of Tomo Nyirenda's career may be found in: Judge Macdonnell to Governor, 3 February 1926; Acting Attorney-General to Chief Secretary, 6 February 1926; 'Summary of Events', 8 June 1926; all in file B 1/2, 'The Mwana Lesa Trials, 1926, Related Correspondence', National Archives, Lusaka (hereafter NAL). 3 Evidence of Mulakasa, 20 November 1925, file K S M 3/1/2, 'Enquiry, Watch Tower Activities, Ndola', N A L . 4 One of Nyirenda's assistant pastors, Sukuta, gave this account of Tomo's practice at this point of his career. 'When all had been . . . assembled a hymn was sung . . . Then Tomo addressed the Headmen of the village and said, "Look, all of you. I am planting and I am weeding the ground, and I can discover the wizard," and the Headmen replied, "Good; tomorrow we wish you to find such witches as are here," and in the morning all the people were put in a line and Tomo went down the line singing a hymn and as he sang he caught hold of one, then another and said they were witches. The Headmen were all pleased to have the witches caught.' Evidence of Sukuta, 15 October 1925, K S M 3/1/1, 'Enquiry about Watch Tower Activities in the Mkushi Sub-District', N A L . It will be noticed that this witch finding took place after baptism and without assault on the denounced 'witches'. 5 Evidence of Chiwala, 26 May 1926; evidence of Muswato, 24 October 1925; K S M 3/1/1/, N A L . 6 Evidence of Muswato, 24 October 1925; evidence of Sukuta, 15 October 1925; K S M 3/1/1, N A L . 7 Evidence of Kabwela, 26 October 1925, K S M 3/1/1, N A L . 8 Evidence of Sukuta, 23 October 1925, K S M 3/1/1/, N A L . 9 Judge Macdonnell's address was in fact written by the Secretary for Native Affairs, E. S. B. Taggart, who had acted as an Assessor at Nyirenda's trial. Judge Macdonnell's address to the prisoners, February 1926, B 1/2, N A L . 10 Evidence of Sukuta, 22 September 1925, K S M 3/1/1, N A L . 1 1 Evidence of Kapaso, 25 May 1926, K S M 3/1/1, N A L . 12 Evidence of Mwashe, 9 April 1926, K S M 3/1/2. 13 The argument that Nyirenda's movement was potentially rebellious was made in a letter from one Randall Mclver published in the Morning Post on 14 January 1926. The cutting" is preserved in file B1/1/A 533, 'Attitude and Conduct of Natives towards white residents', N A L . 14 This citation of missionary views is made from a letter to the author written by 71

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Canon George Hewitt, who was stationed at Fiwila mission in 1925 and represents his summary of missionary response at the time. 15 Memorandum, Acting Secretary for Native Affairs, Livingstone, 13 March 1926, B 1/1/A 533, NAL. According to the Acting Secretary, 'Tomo was a true African witch-doctor' whose activities could be paralleled 'in almost every feature from the trials of primitive witch-doctors'. 16 Kamalondo's evidence, November 1925, K S M 3/1/2, NAL. 17 Mulakasa's evidence, 12 April 1926, K S M 3/1/2, NAL. 18 Kunda's evidence, 17 October 1925, K S M 3/1/1, NAL. 19 Mulakasa's evidence, 20 November 1925, K S M 3/1/2, NAL. Tomo's success was not nearly as general among the Swaka, where some of the chiefs opposed him and many villages refused baptism. Among the Swaka his movement had the more typical sectarian character. According to Chief Chitina of the Swaka and his nephew, Mwashe, indeed, Tomo's movement among the Swaka was hostile to chiefly authority. 'I want the Boma to make a case against all those people of mine who were baptized,' said Chief Chitina; 'They do not obey me now and they refuse to tell me anything although they are my people. They call me "Muyandani" (ashes) because I was not baptized.' According to Mwashe these Swaka Watch Tower 'told me that the Chiefs would be driven away by the Americans and "Wachitawala" put in their place'. Evidence of Chitina and Mwashe, 9 April 1926, K S M 3/1/2, NAL. Even among the Lala of Shaiwila there were a few who stood out against baptism, some of these being men who later sought baptism because their wives had left them on the grounds that they were unclean. But while Chitina said that twentyfive Swaka villages had refused baptism and only nine accepted, all Shaiwila's villages held mass baptismal ceremonies. 20 This sermon is included in a folder of Tomo's papers now in the National Archives, Lusaka. The original is in the vernacular, so that the oddities of the English rendering are the work of the official African translator. 21 'St Mark's College, Mapanza' Central Africa July 1933, 607. 22 Nyirenda claimed that a book of revelation had come down to him from heaven and that the book, when placed by the baptismal stream, could reveal witches. Indeed when Nyirenda's followers were asked by others how the witches died they replied that they were struck dead by the power of God operating through the book, rather than that they had been drowned. Published accounts sometimes allege that the book was a copy of Foxe's Book of Martyrs. In fact it seems to have been an issue of The Rhodesia Methodist Magazine. 23 The best account of this general millennial climate in Nyasaland in the first decades of the twentieth century is: Jane and Ian Linden, 'John Chilembwe and the New Jerusalem' Journal of African History 1971, XII, 4. 24 Isaac Bright Malenga to Tomo Nyirenda, 19 July 1925, Nyirenda's papers, NAL. The letter is in English. 26 The collection of texts is headed, 'Isaac Bright Malenga Nguluwe, Watch Tower Mission Society, Part 1, Zion, 24/2/24'. It is to be found in file K S M 3/1/1, NAL. Also taken from Nyirenda was a little black notebook which appears to have been used for vernacular translations of Malenga's texts. There is no evidence that Nyirenda had a copy of the Bible with him. 26 M. Melland's address for the defence, February 1926, B1/2, NAL. 27 J . T . Munday, 'Some traditions of the Nyendwa Clan of Northern Rhodesia' Bantu Studies December 1940, XVI, 4, pp. 435-54; 'The Creation Myth amongst the Lala of Northern Rhodesia' African Studies March 1 9 4 2 , 1 , 1 , pp. 47-53. 28 Thus, the owner of the veld in Shaiwila's area was Bwashi, the Nyendwa con-

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queror of the Swaka people, who had flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century. Munday tells us of Bwashi that 'he was a difficult man to get on with even in the eyes of his own fellow-clansmen; he was killed by supposed witchcraft'. J . T . Munday, 'Some traditions of the Nyendwa Clan', p. 451. 28 Bruce Fetter, 'Mwana Lesa among the Lala: A Mad Prophet in an Ailing Society', paper presented to the African Studies Association annual meeting in 1 9 7 1 . 1 know of no other authority for the translation of 'Mwana' as successor. 30 J . E. Stephenson Chirupula's Tale. A Bye-way in African History (London 1937) pp. 63-67. 31 C. M. Doke The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia. A Study of Their Customs and Beliefs (London 1931) pp. 226, 231-32. 32 J . T . Munday, 'Some traditions of the Nyendwa Clan', pp. 449-50. 33 Doke The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia pp. 30-31. Professor Fetter has commented to me that he suspects 'that the Lamba followed Jeremiah Gondwe instead of Nyirenda'. For an excellent account of Gondwe, with some comment on his attitudes towards Nyirenda, see Sholto Cross, 'A Prophet not without honour: Jeremiah Gondwe', in C. Allen and R. W. Johnson (eds) African Perspectives (Cambridge 1970). 34 A. Sohier, 'Un prédécesseur de Mwana Lesa' Revue de droit et Jurisprudence du Katanga 1926, II, p. 97. This Mwana Lesa appeared in 1923 at Tshinsenda. I owe this reference to Professor Fetter. 36 E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (London 1931) pp. 226, 331-32. 38 Smith and Dale The Ila-speaking Peoples pp. 143, 146. 37 Evidence of Mulakasa, 14 May 1926, K S M 3/1/1, NAL. 38 Evidence of Kunda, 4 February 1926, K S M 3/1/1, NAL. 39 ibid. 40 Judge Macdonnell's address to the court, B 1/2 NAL. 41 Evidence of Sukuta, 23 October 1925; evidence of Masaula, 23 October 1925; K S M 3/1/1, NAL. 42 Evidence of Sukuta, 23 October 1925, K S M 3/1/1, NAL. 43 Elyakuda Busi, Syaluka village, to Nyirenda. This letter was written in pencil on the back of a business letter from a Bulawayo chemist. Other letters taken on Nyirenda indicated the more routine preoccupations of his deacons and preachers. 'Your teachers are well, your Christians are all well,' wrote Amon Mbulo from Mutakashya village. 'I am sending you a pair of long trousers, value 5/-, as I am your son, my father, Tomo Nyirenda. If you will be unable to find 5/- you can give 4/-.' 44 Report by R. T. Chicken, Acting Magistrate, Serenje district, June 1926, B 1/2, NAL. 45 Evidence of Chisenga, 8 October 1925, K S M 3/1/1, NAL. 48 J. T. Munday, 'Some traditions'. 47 ibid., pp. 438-40. 48 Evidence of Sukuta, 15 October 1925, K S M 3/1/1, N A L ; evidence of Mulakasa, 20 November 1925 ; evidence of Chisenga, 25 November 1925, K S M 3/1/2 ; evidence of Chisenga, 8 October 1925, K S M 3/1/1, NAL. 49 M. Clarke, 'A visit to Fiwila' Central Africa March 1926, 519. 80 J . E. Stephenson Chirupula's Tale. A Bye-way in African History (London 1937) pp. 63-67. 81 Stephenson Chirupula's Tale pp. 156-66. 62 ibid., pp. 140-41. 53 Statement by J . E. Stephenson, 3 April 1926, K S M 3/1/2, NAL. 54 J . T . Munday, 'Some traditions', pp. 448-49. 73

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55

Stephenson Chirupula's Tale, pp. 136-37. Professor Fetter, 'Mwana Lesa', citing the Rhodes House material, summarizes the official view of Shaiwila's position as follows: 'Of the Zambian Lala chiefs, the weakest was Shaiwila, holder of the first chieftainship to come under European rule. Ordinary Lala werefloutinghis authority: one man, a veteran of the First World War, went about in his army uniform as if to assert his independence of the chief; another killed a village headman, going unpunished because the chief no longer had the authority to try capital cases . . . Shaiwila had committed the unpardonable sin of sleeping with one of his uncle's wives before the old chief's death . . . The Lala believed that he would die because of his breach of the taboo. Sharing these beliefs he lived in fear that untimely death would overtake him.' 57 J. T. Munday, 'Some traditions', p. 449. 58 Evidence of Koni and Faifi, 17 October 1925, KSM 3/1/1, NAL. 59 Moore wrote: 'In a count of over a hundred rural villages, one in six adults was found to be dependent on relatives through old age or sickness . . . There is nothing abnormal in youth and old age; what is abnormal is the reduced number of able ones to care for them.' R. J. B. Moore These African Copper Miners (London 1948). The study of sixteenth-century Essex is A. D. J. Macfarlane Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England. A Regional and Comparative Study (London 1970). Macfarlane suggests that accusations of witchcraft in Essex were typically made by 'middling to rich' villagers against 'slightly less prosperous and older neighbours'. He writes: 'Population growth and changes in land ownership created a group of poorer villagers whose ties to their slightly wealthier neighbours became more tenuous. People increasingly had to decide whether to invest their wealth in maintaining the old at a decent standard of living or in improvements which would keep them abreast of their yeomen neighbours . . . This was the period of witchcraft accusations . . . People still felt enjoined to help and support each other, while also feeling the necessity to invest their capital in buying land and providing for their children.' 60 1 was informed of the witch killings of 1970 by Zambian delegates to the Chilema conference in August 1971. They told me that inquiries were currently being made in the court of the present Shaiwila. 61 Evidence of Sukuta, 22 September 1925; evidence of Malaika, October 1925; evidence of Mulonda, 22 October 1925, KSM 3/1/1, NAL; evidence of Mulakasa, 20 November 1925, KSM 3/1/2. 62 Evidence of Kalunga, 15 October 1925, KSM 3/1/1, NAL. 63 Evidence of Kunda, 4 February 1926; evidence of Changwe, 4 February 1926, KSM 3/1/1, NAL. 56

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A. G. Blood The History of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa II, 1907-32

(London 1957) pp. 193-94, 273-75, 2§ 565 Kathaleen Stevens Rukavina Jungle Pathfinder p. 196. 66 Judge Macdonnell's address to the court, B 1/2, NAL. 67 Melland's address for the defence, B 1/2, NAL. 68 Eugene D. Genovese, 'American Slaves and Their History' The New York Review of Books 3 December 1970, XV, 10. Genovese's full sentence runs: 'The evidence suggests the emergence of an indigenous and unique combination of African and European religious ideas, adapted to the specific conditions of slave life by talented and imaginative individuals, and representing an attempt to establish a spiritual life adequate to the task of linking the slaves with the powerful culture of the masters while providing for a high degree of cultural separation and autonomy.' 69 Provincial Commissioner Kasempa, to Secretary, Native Affairs, 15 July 1933; 74

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District Commissioner Mwinilunga to P. C. Kasempa, 10 July 1933; Secretary, Native Affairs, to P. C. Kasempa, 4 August 1933; file ZA 1/9/181, 'Witchcraft, 22 February 1929 to 24 November 1933', NAL. 70 For Lucas's adaptation of African customs see T. O. Ranger, 'Missionary adaptation of African institutions: the Masasi case' in T . O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo (eds) The Historical Study of African Religion (London 1972). 71 Ranger, 'Missionary adaptation'. I am currently working on a book on the interaction of Christianity and African religion in the Masasi district. 72 Adrian Hastings Mission and Ministry (London 1971) p. 123. 73 A. G. Blood The History of the Universities' Mission II, pp. 195-97.

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S A L A T H I E L K.

MADZIYIRE

Heathen Practices in the Urban and Rural Parts of Marandellas Area and their Effects upon Christianity My intention in this paper is to present information about heathen practices in the urban and rural parts of Marandellas district. Marandellas town is about forty miles from Salisbury on the Salisbury-Umtali road. It contains two main African townships, Nyameni and Dombotombo. It is the centre of a rural district which covers some seven hundred square miles and which contains Svosve, Rusike, Chiota, Bromley, and Macheke. This large rural district has had a dramatic religious history. The great Shona prophet, Chaminuka, is said to have lived there. Christianity was brought there by the Anglican and Methodist martyrs, Mizeki and Moleli, who were both killed in the 1896 rising. Today the Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, and the Methodists are the main denominations, and they run many schools and other institutions throughout the territory. There are about seven hundred Anglicans in Marandellas, mainly children and women, with a very small number of men. There are also many African independent churches. G A V A J E N A , MEDIUM OF A MHONDORO IN M A N Y E N E RESERVE

TRIBAL

SPIRIT

Before I write about my own experiences as an Anglican priest in Marandellas district, I want to describe a great prophet and rain-maker in Manyene Reserve in the Charter district, where I was born and brought up. From the early 1920s to the mid-forties Jeche Munyani Gavajena was possessed by a Mhondoro (senior tribal) spirit. Gavajena was concerned with foretelling the future, with rain-making and casting lots, and he believed that he had received these powers from Chaminuka. He was the only man in the district who was possessed by a tribal spirit, though later, during his lifetime, a new female spirit, Dembetembe, made its appearance. Jeche changed his name to that of the tribal spirit, 'Kasosa'. His sons, wives, daughters and all who came to him for interview were obliged to call him by this tribal spirit name. He changed his totem, Museyamwa, to that of his Mhondoro. Jeche Munyani Gavajena spent a good number of days - even weeks - fasting, living on water or beer. He was interested in dancing, with a spear and a knife in each hand, imitating hunting. He was good with children and very many of them gathered around him as he danced about. When he was possessed he spoke in a hoarse, whispering voice. On these great occasions he hired Hoore, a man 76

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from the Manyene Hills, who was an expert player of the mbira. Jeche - or Kasosa as he then called himself - remained in this possessed state for very many days and nights. He celebrated it by singing alone until the final day, when he became dispossessed. One wonderful thing he could do was to go to the deepest parts of a river or a pool. He was fond of snuff, so he would enter the deep pool, holding some of it in his palm, and go down to the depths, where he remained underneath the water for a good number of hours. Nobody can tell how he used to breathe underneath the water. When he came out his snuff still remained as dry as it was when he went down into the pool. Jeche could foretell the future, either by dreams, or when he was possessed. He could foretell drought, rains, fortunes, misfortunes, illness. This wonderful man foretold the truth about the 1947 famine in Southern Rhodesia. Some years ago during the great days of the locusts he used to warn people before time to beware of them. In the 1950s, before his death, he told me of something that was to happen to me during my lifetime. I waited for it to happen and everything came true. I kept all this in my mind to test the type of tribal spirit that possessed him. Jeche would not eat anything before the food was sent as an offering to the spirit and placed at the shrine overnight. The shrine was a special hut built of Muchakata poles, and its centre was a Msasa tree wrapped round with black cloth. Kufainyore, his favourite son, was sent with the food to the shrine. Then he went back next morning to bring back the food. 'Kasosa' and Kufainyore were the first to eat from it. Very many people travelled from all over the Reserve and even from far away in other districts to seek his advice. He was very good at entertaining strangers. He was the first man who received the missionaries and provided them with a place to worship in. The first Mass in the country was celebrated in his mother's hut. But it took him the rest of his life to get converted, although his children and wives became Christians, teachers, preachers, and priests. He could speak of great men such as Archdeacon Upcher, Arthur Cripps, Father Andrew, Father Samuel Mhlanga, and the Brothers who started work at All Saints, Wreningham, Gavajena Mission. He could also tell of the old days when the people and villages were in flight from Lobengula's armies, which failed to reach his village because of the great darkness that fell each time they came near it. The turning point of his life came during his final illness. He felt that he was being called to accept baptism in order to prepare his journey heavenward to Nyadenga (God). He took a new Christian name, Abraham. I shall never forget the time of his death when there were torrential rains for three days, allowing some sunshine before his burial, followed by great thunderstorms during the burial service. Now he belongs to the ages but when alive he was the only man possessed by the Mhondoro spirit and the only man who could ask for things from Nyadenga. M E D I U M S OF C H A M I N U K A S P I R I T S I N

MARENDELLAS

There are some men and women like Jeche Gavajena in Marandellas district whom a priest can respect. One of them is a man called Gore, who lives in 77

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Mrewa, but who spends much of his time in Dombotombo Township. Gore is given great honour and is respected by all who meet him. He wears neither shirt nor trousers but only a black cloth around his loins. This black cloth is the famous 'uniform' of Shona spirit mediums. He wears some white ndoro shells around his head. I happened to meet Gore in Nyashanu store, whose owner, Mariga, was his follower and who showed him great respect, calling him 'sekuru', uncle. We got into conversation about rain. He told me that the supply of rains from Nyadenga would fail, that people and animals would starve, and other disasters follow. I asked him if he believed in the teaching of the Christian church. He answered: 'You have your own way of speaking to God. So please continue to pray for rain to Almighty God.' At the end of our long conversation I asked him if he would receive my blessing, which he accepted. We shook hands with each other as a symbol of friendship and everybody who was in the shop was very much surprised and pleased. Finally we all clapped our hands in respect to our spiritpossessed sekuru. It was so much joy to meet a man who considered himself a cousin of Chaminuka and who yet believed that the Christian family could contribute prayers to God for rain and blessings. A few days later, some strange faces appeared at our house. They were from Chiota Reserve and one of them, a woman, turned out to be of much help to me in my inquiries. The fact is that all the people possessed by tribal spirits believe that Chaminuka was a great prophet and that their own possessing spirits are descended from him. So they believe that they have inherited their powers from Chaminuka. Any tribal spirit, whether possessing a man or a woman, tries to establish a relationship with Chaminuka. This I was to learn from our guest. She was on her way to Dedzo, where a medium who is possessed by Chaminuka's spirit itself lives. She was related to my wife and stayed with us while waiting for her bus to Dedzo. With her was her son, Stephen, a teenager. His main job is to play the mbira hand-piano, but when he wanted to play she stopped him because, as she said, 'We are at the pastor's residence. T h e spirit of Mbuya Chigutiro has told me that this is a holy place and these are different people from our own organization.' She told my wife in the kitchen how she had become possessed by the spirit of Mbuya Chigutiro and how she was travelling to Chaminuka's at Dedzo. But I paid her very little attention at this time and only later learned that she was a spirit medium who would like to disscus matters with me. After two weeks had passed, the medium of Mbuya Chigutiro arrived again at our house on her way back from Dedzo. Now that I knew who she was, I called her for discussion and she told me that she would willingly describe how she had been recruited into the organization of the Chaminuka spirits. 'My heathen name is Matinetsa Mahere,' she said. 'My Christian name is Grace. I was baptized in the Methodist Church and have been a member of the Mothers' Union in Chiota Reserve. I married by African customs in the District Commissioner's office many years ago. My first two children died. My husband spend much money consulting doctors and waganga without any help.' At last the waganga suggested that she would not experience so much trouble if she went to live in the town. So she left for Salisbury to live with her husband

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in Harare township. But the same trouble began again and her fourth child died. After further illness she went again to the nganga to discover the causes. This time she was told that she must return to the rural area and that it was the spirit of her own mother who was causing all this. She was very reluctant to return to the rural area where at that time the political situation was terrifying in the Chiota Reserve because of the rivalry of the African nationalist parties. But she carried out the instructions. When back in Chiota Reserve she was told that Bvukubwe was holding a festival for his Mudzimu family spirits. When she attended the festival she entered the Bganya of Kamavara, a room where those who were possessed stayed. And there she too was possessed by a spirit. 'I have come from Mazumba,' said the spirit possessing her. Grace did not know then that Mazumba was another name for Chaminuka. She saw that all the others in the room were wearing black cloth. She could hear the sound of the mbira. She was possessed by the spirit, Mbuya Chigutiro. It was because this spirit had wished to speak through her that she had been ill for over seventeen years and most of her children had died. At this second meeting with me Grace, or Mbuya Chigutiro as she was now called, was returning from Dedzo where she had been attending a conference of Chaminuka spirits. These meetings were held at three special times of the year, she told me. On 13 January the mediums met to pray for the new crops; on 25 April they met to make harvest thanksgiving; on 17 September they met to pray for rain. At such conferences the spirit mediums would visit the Bganya of Chaminuka with gifts of cloth or money. She herself receives many visitors in Chiota, especially those who come to seek their fortune, for aid in getting jobs, those troubled with illness and other anxieties. A fee of twenty cents is charged at the beginning and later the person concerned brings her the sum of six dollars if he has had better fortune. She said that there were false mediums who frightened the public with wild claims and she blamed the failure of the rains on these people. But her own organization coincided in many ways with the customs of the Church; they wore black clothing like the vestments of sisters and priests. She explained that some mediums were against being greeted by people, that they did not want to meet people, or to look at a dead body, or even eat together with others, but that Chaninuka's spirits accepted all these things. They were different from the spirit of Mbuya in Nyandoro who had caused the failure of the rains. She believes that in the early days of the current political strife, a man appeared at Chitungiza, where the great Chaminuka medium was killed by the Ndebele in the nineteenth century. He falsely claimed to be Chaminuka. But neither he, nor any other false spirit, can stand against the true power of Chaminuka. Chaminuka will overcome false prophets like Mai Chaza, the foundress of a large independent church. She claims that the bright star which appeared in the east in 1970 was Chaminuka himself, foretelling the failure of the rains. Mbuya Chigutiro hopes that when she dies she will have children attending her burial, playing the mbira. She has lost the desire to be buried as a Christian. 'We have our own place of rest,' she said.

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OR MUDZIMU

SPIRITS

All this is quite different from some of the other heathen practices in the urban and rural parts of Marandellas. In spite of the fact that the people of Marandellas pay Chaminuka great respect and even claim that he lived in their area, many other 'gods' and spirits have been introduced recently as a result of the political crisis in Rhodesia and of social changes. Many teenage boys have recently accepted spirit belief and been buoyed up by the pride of being possessed by spirits. Many have claimed to act as foretellers of the future for the communities in which they live. They demand to be respected, feared, worshipped. People have become very terrified of these boys. These boys were practising Christians during their time at school. They obtained a reasonable education so far as Grade Seven but not enough to get them anywhere in the world. So they have returned to claim the power to tell the future, make rain, etc. I happened to encounter such a boy in a bus on a journey to Salisbury. This young man wanted to win the support of the passengers. He began to attack the Church and all who served it. He told the passengers that he was baptized a Catholic and was educated in a Catholic school but that he had discovered that the missionaries were leading him away from the truth in his ancestral beliefs. He expressed his desire to worship his ancestors and his refusal to return to Christianity. Others on the bus teased him about his Christian name, John, and his European clothes. Some members of the Vapostori Independent Church mocked at him and expressed the desire to see him converted to Christianity again. In the villages around Marandellas are very many of these teenagers and young people who pretend to have been possessed by family spirits, mudzimu. They claim the right to direct the affairs of every village and every headman with regard to rain, the success and failure of crops, maintaining peace, and settling tribal disputes. They spend the nights dancing, drumming, and playing the mbira. One afternoon at Diaka compound very many people were at such a party. As soon as they caught sight of me, particularly with my dog-collar on, a number of our Christians who were present and knew that it was evil suddenly stopped drumming and dancing. I inquired whether any of the young people who had spent the night dancing and singing were Christians. One answered me: 'I was a Christian once.' THE NYAHANA

DOCTORS AND THE CHURCH

This expression - 'I was a Christian once' - has become a very common phrase everywhere in Mashonaland. I heard it when I went to talk with a shopkeeper and his daughter at Mere Estate near Dowa division. The daughter told me that she had been baptized but that now she was grown up she found she could not be a Christian because she could not afford church taxes. But this was not the real reason. The truth was that the family as a whole were once practising Christians; the father was once a preacher and leader of the local church; but the mother had become a Nyahana, or doctor, and had pulled the whole family away from the Christian faith. 80

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But most of the Njahana I have visited have no grudge against Christianity. They believe in God and would like to practise the Christian way of life. Although they are herbalists they need to be people of prayer. One told me that the church would not allow her to practise healing and medicine. Others remarked that many denominations would not allow them to attend services unless they cast everything away. They were surprised when I asked them to attend church services and said they would like to be Anglican Christians if they could continue their lives as herbalists. As to who is the more powerful, God or the power in themselves, they felt that God's power was great, that he created all that they used to cure people with. At two preaching centres female Nyahana approached me to express their desire to be converted to Christianity. One was a member of the Ngangas Association of Rhodesia, and she told me how she had become a Nyahana. She told me that she had long desired to be a Christian and to seek means of denying the devil. She once became a member of the Mai Chaza Church and later a member of the Vapostori. It is now three years since she became a member of the Anglican Church and she had been confirmed. Another female doctor told me that each time she entered the church her spirit worried her in such a way that she always left the church before the end of services. The only way to deal with such a case was to stop her from marching out of the services and insist that she remain in church to listen to the Gospel, sermon, and prayers. Though she obeyed my instructions she still felt that the evil spirit feared the prayers that were being offered to God. But the struggle ended when she reached the day of her baptism and she is now a member of the Macheke congregation. THE C H A L L E N G E F A C I N G

CHRISTIANITY

There is a great need among the heathens, the doctors and Nyahanas to become children of God. A great number of teenagers have wanted to become Christians. But the Christian Church has great problems even though many spirit-possessed people themselves speak well of Christians. One question is whether people who believe so much in so many kinds of spirit can really understand what Christianity is about. I can give an example from my own experience. At one of our out-stations in the rural area, the Svosve Reserve, there is great fear of a man who is a powerful doctor. So they have elected this man as a church warden and a local preacher! The pastor was a newcomer, and when it came to the point of voting for these offices the doctor had more votes than the rest of those nominated. A year later he was voted as preacher. This time some of the Christians of good standing could not accept the vote. They pointed out that he was a doctor and that he was possessed by Shave spirits; that he wore Shave costumes as he healed patients. Can the church go on with this sort of faith ? In any case this is a time of trouble for the Church. Many have hidden themselves during these terrible days of crisis in Rhodesia. Surely the politicians must have contributed something towards this and towards the desire to return to ancestor worship. Why have some Christians helped burn down church buildings for which they helped to pay ? Why have other Christians hidden their 81

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RELIGIONS

faith ? The teenager, whether boy or girl, used to take great pride in the 1950s in being seen walking with his friends to church on Sunday. But the teenagers now put themselves forward as spirit-possessed leaders of African communities, offering sacrifices to the ancestors, renewing the old religion which really has no place in this Christian, civilized world, where Jesus Christ is stretching out his hands in order to reign. This has all come about since the early days of U.D.I. It appears that political change in Rhodesia affects the faith of the whole people and of the whole Church, which should be fighting a battle against the breaking through of heathen practices not only in Marandellas but everywhere in Rhodesia. Rhodesia is crying out for another renaissance.

82

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RANGER

Introduction Three of the papers in this section deal with the lives of individual churchmen. John Weller's paper discusses the career of Alston May, Anglican Bishop of Northern Rhodesia, whose influence within the colonial political structure he assesses as beneficial to African interests. Adrian Hastings draws upon the papers and writings of John Membe, one of the pioneers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Zambia, and describes how this remarkable Zambian acted for decades as agent for the great Afro-American missionary outreach. And Murray Steele attempts an assessment of the life and works of Arthur Shearly Cripps, poet and protester and rebel against the missionary establishment in Southern Rhodesia. The remaining two papers deal with particular mission stations - with the Methodist station at Epworth near Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia, and with the Scottish mission at Livingstonia in the northern province of Nyasaland. At first sight, then, it would seem that they must constitute mere fragments of the huge mosaic of the Christian history of colonial Central Africa. For if one is to approach that history through biographical or mission-station studies, then there remain hundreds if not thousands of lives that need to be written and dozens of mission stations that need to be described. Yet the papers in this section do not offer us quite so fragmentary a picture. For one thing the three men whose lives are presented to us, and the two mission stations whose expansion is described, are undoubtedly especially interesting and important. For another thing the ways in which the papers approach the subject - and the interaction of the papers with each other - raise many of the questions which are central to this period of Central African Christian history. Thus these papers lead us to ask how far and in what ways churchmen, whether missionaries or independent church leaders, were the creators of the colonial situation. They lead us to ask how best we can account for the different attitudes of the various missionary societies and how important these differences were. They lead us to ask why missionary and independent churches expanded in the precise ways that they did and what was the effect of these logistics of conversion. They lead us to ask whether our impression that a few mission centres have had an influence out of all proportion to their resources is, in fact, a correct one and, if so, why this should have been the case. I wish to explore these questions briefly in this Introduction, and at the same time to try to fill some of the gaps which this selection of papers certainly does leave open.

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ARTHUR C R I P P S AND T H E IDEA OF E S S E N T I A L

CHRISTIANITY

In the Introduction to Part One of this book I tried to separate the religious factors which operated in the encounter between Christianity and African religions from the political, social, and economic factors. This is an enterprise that is worth carrying out in order to demonstrate that there are religious factors to consider. But as soon as that demonstration has been made it is very important to set both Christianity and African religions back into their political, and social, and economic contexts. African religions were deeply involved with African social systems before the coming of Christianity. In their turn the varying forms of Christianity presented to Africans by different missionaries and different missionary traditions were profoundly shaped by the varying social environments of Europe or South Africa. Moreover, missionaries were often seen in their early encounters with African societies as representing not so much a religion as a 'life-style' or as offering potentially valuable economic or political alliances. And often these alliances between missionaries and African chiefs did not involve any profound religious confrontation, the link with the ruling minority sometimes preventing any significant missionary contact with the majority of the people. In many places, finally, the missionaries were unable to make any sort of impression whether in religious, or political, or economic terms - until an African society had been decisively defeated by European military might. After the conquest and the imposition of colonial rule missionaries were not liberated from the necessity of having to take political and social structures into account, or enabled to concentrate upon purely religious activity. Missionaries now operated within the total context of colonial white activity. They were economic entrepreneurs, and teachers, and doctors, and land-owners, and members of legislative assemblies. Their converts were using Christianity as a means of surviving or succeeding in the economic and social realities of colonialism. So one cannot merely oppose, as the title of this section does, Christianity and Colonial Society as if the two things were distinct from and independent of each other. Colonial society - both the colonial society of the whites and the society of Africans under colonialism - was in some senses Christian: and Central African Christianity was in many senses colonial. It does not make much sense to talk about 'Christianity' in the abstract, as if it were possible to separate the essence of the religion from the social context of its practitioners and evangelists. It does not make much sense - but does it make any ? This is the question raised by the brief biographies presented here of three remarkable men Alston May, Anglican Bishop of Northern Rhodesia; Arthur Cripps, rebel against the Southern Rhodesian Anglican establishment; and John Lester Membe, pioneer Minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Northern Rhodesia. If we look at these three men in the context of this question May and Membe stand together on one side and Cripps stands on the other. There were very many differences between May, the colonial bishop of the Anglican church, and Membe, the African minister of an all-black movement of self-help. But one thing they had in common. Both operated within the colonial system as it was. 86

INTRODUCTION

Alston May sought to mitigate the hardships of colonial rule by working 'through the system'. Membe offered his converts a discipline and a doctrine which sought to meet the needs of those Africans who were trying to adjust to the demands of life under colonialism. Cripps, on the other hand, stood out against the propriety of working within the colonial system and was always appealing away from it. He stood out also against the necessity of Africans having to adapt themselves to industrial discipline and the Protestant ethic of self-help. He sought to achieve an encounter between an essential Christianity and 'traditional' African society. He sought to find what in his poetry he called the Black Christ. For Cripps an essential Christianity must lead to a repudiation of the values of late nineteenthcentury England and to an attack on financial and industrial power: for him an essential Christianity would find its fulfilment in the austerities and humilities of African life; the Black Christ would incarnate all the chosen simplicity of African tradition as well as all the enforced poverty of colonial Rhodesia.

M I S S I O N A R Y BACKGROUNDS AND M I S S I O N A R Y

ATTITUDES

It takes little away from the value of Cripps's position if we realize that it was itself conditioned by his particular social background and experience. What that social background and experience was comes out very clearly in the letters of Cripps's close friend, Frank Weston, the remarkable Bishop of Zanzibar. Weston wanted Cripps to join him in Zanzibar, and to fight against the 'vices of luxurious whitemen'. He wanted Cripps because of his experiences in England. Like other Anglican university graduates Cripps had worked in the London slum missions and in Weston's view had proved himself there. 'Don't let men come to teach the black races who have not yet learnt to be really friendly to the uneducated and the poor,' wrote Weston. ' T h e slums are a good school for an African missionary. There he learns to believe in man, as man: here he can put his belief into practice. But the man who patronizes the poor patronizes the Africans.' So Cripps took to Africa the Christian Socialism and the horror of industrialism which he had learnt in the school of the London slums. 1 Weston also wanted Cripps because of his creative abilities and because of his education. Weston lamented, with a seemingly absurd snobbery, that most of the clergy of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa were not Honours degree men but had taken a variety of undistinguished Pass degrees. 'They are nearly all keen men; many of them hard workers; all more or less willing to die for the African; but they are many of them absolutely unable to see that the African is a gentleman, in some cases, and that there are other objects in life than running your own line in spite of Africans' advice. There is no talk except Mission: and Mission means the White Man's way of adjusting the Black Man's Burden.' Cripps could see that the African was a gentleman - indeed, this archaically phrased idea gets to the heart of much of Cripps's writing, with its appeal to chivalry. He was secure in both an intellectual and economic status which allowed him to perceive that there were other objects in life than running his own line regardless of African advice. Above all, he was able to break away from the dominance of the notion of Mission. 2

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But by Weston's definition there were not going to be many missionaries like Cripps; the background and experiences of most missionaries were more likely to result in varying ways of 'adjusting the Black Man's Burden'. One of the needs of Central African Christian history is a thorough exploration of this question of missionary sociology. We need to know much more about the backgrounds of the missionaries of the different churches. It is relevant, for example, that the Dutch Reformed Church missionaries in Central Africa, during the first decades of colonial rule, were largely drawn from the small towns of the South African countryside rather than from the farms or the cities; that they, in fact, hated the cities with as much intensity as Cripps, though from a different perspective; that they had a profound distrust of British cosmopolitanism and a sympathy for the idea of'tribal' communities; and that they combined all this with an inflexible paternalism towards African culture.3 It is relevant also that in contrast both to Cripps and Weston and to the Dutch Reformed Church missionaries, the Scottish missionary tradition in Nyasaland, about which John Cook writes, did not repudiate the British industrial or urban tradition but rather sought to equip Africans as craftsmen and technicians who could operate effectively in the modern economic world.4 These things we do already know and we are beginning at last to know something of the numerous different tendencies within Central African Catholicism drawn as its missionaries were from so many distinct national and pietistic traditions.5 But there is a good deal more we need to know before we can determine the multitude of ways in which the Black Man's Burden was adjusted. Thus, we know almost nothing about the backgrounds of the American sectarian and Pentecostalist missionaries, or of their white South African converts, who have played so large and unrecorded a part in the Christian history of Central Africa. And we know very little, for that matter, of the backgrounds of the Afro-American missionaries and bishops of Membe's African Methodist Episcopal Church. A F R I C A N INDEPENDENT CHURCHES AND E S S E N T I A L

CHRISTIANITY

We can reasonably be sure of one thing at any rate - that these varying backgrounds and assumptions had important consequences, especially in the differential development of African education, but that none of them brought the results which Cripps desired. None of the white-led churches, so he came to think, could reach out to the Black Christ. But what of churches led by black men themselves ? Cripps was much more sympathetic towards the ambitions of the African-led churches than the great majority of his missionary colleagues. When it was proposed to prevent the entry into Rhodesia of African evangelists who were independent of white control, Cripps protested that Christ Himself would have been turned away at the Rhodesian border. Perhaps, he thought, black apostles could preach in the name of the Black Christ. One of the deficiencies of this book is that it does not give a fair impression of the range and variety of Central African independent Christianity. The Mwana Lesa movement of 1925, described in the first section, was an aberrant and atypical phenomenon. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, which is 88

INTRODUCTION

discussed in Adrian Hastings's paper, is not strictly speaking an African independent church at all, since it springs out of a great Afro-American church and has been until recently under Afro-American supervision. This has given the A.M.E.C. a special character even in Central Africa, where its African members had a great deal of initiative because the administrations of the Central African territories would not allow Afro-American missionaries to enter. Still, we may use the A.M.E.C. as representative of one dominant tendency within African independency. This was the tendency towards 'Westernization'. It was the assumption of the A.M.E.C. and of many other African-led churches that it was necessary to obtain the skills and disciplines possessed by whites. It was also their assumption that whites could not be expected to equip Africans with these skills and disciplines, so essential for survival or competition in the modern world. In this way the representatives of the A.M.E.C. in Central Africa, along with the spokesmen of the so-called 'Ethiopian' independent churches, adopted a range of positions quite different from those of Cripps. In the case of the A.M.E.C. leaders, the social background which conditioned their attitudes was that of the Christian élites of the Cape or of Basutoland. Most of the A.M.E.C. pastors in Rhodesia were 'black settlers' from South Africa; men who had come in originally as evangelists for the European missions or as economic entrepreneurs. They had no admiration for Shona or Ndebele traditional society. They stood for individual land ownership and for free economic competition with the whites, while Cripps stood for the preservation of African collectivity.6 The atmosphere of the church - and of many other African-led churches comes out clearly from an address made to its Matabeleland quarterly meeting by its Southern Rhodesian leader, Z. C. Mtshwelo. 'Heaven helps those who help themselves,' said Mtshwelo. 'The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Teach your people the spirit of industry, not by sleeping but by waking, watching and labouring continually. The solid foundation is a character, the school of difficulty is the best school of moral discipline, for Ministers as individuals. Indeed the history of difficulty would be but the history of all the great and good things that have yet been accomplished by men.' 7 These sentiments would have been familiar to Cripps as representing a dominant tendency in the sermons preached to London slum-dwellers. As an expression of 'Black Christianity' they would have disconcerted him. Yet, as John Cook's paper shows, such teachings were very attractive to those Africans who wanted to adjust the Black Man's Burden for themselves, whether they were clerks on the Copperbelt or fishermen entrepreneurs in the Luapula Valley. The A.M.E.C. met an existing and felt African need. Plainly enough, though, it did not meet Cripps's need. What was needed, perhaps, to produce a fusion of an essential Christianity with African cultures, was an African-led movement of a very different sort. What was needed was an Apostolic movement, in which the profound realities of 'traditional' African cultures were Christianized as the Apostles had Christianized the ancient world : through signs of healing and prophecy, through martyrdom or the readiness for martyrdom, through effusions of the Holy Spirit which might Christian89

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ize African ideas about spirit and spirit possession, through a confrontation and defeat of witches by the use of superior spiritual power. The mission churches in Central Africa had their martyrs in the early days; some missionaries had once responded to the expectations of African societies by engaging in rain-making contests; African revival movements within the mission churches sometimes had the character of an Apostolic movement. But in general neither the mission churches nor the A.M.E.C. and its fellow'Ethiopian' churches lived in the world of miracle and prophecy; neither really engaged or confronted African religious concepts. If we look for a continued martyrdom of imprisonment and assault; for the confident employment of the power of the Holy Spirit; for healing and rain-making and for prophecy - then it is in the so-called 'Zionist' or 'Spirit' churches of Central Africa that these things can best be found. It is here, especially, that this book is deficient. It contains no account of this strain within independency. Fortunately I can direct the reader to the recently published and remarkable studies of Martinus Daneel. In his account of the Zionist church of Mutende and of the Vapostori church of Johane Maranke can be found a quite explicit re-enactment of the Apostolic role. There can be found also the most complete encounter of Christian and 'traditional' ideas. This encounter has resulted in an effective replacement of traditional ideas and methods of healing and of prophecy by Christian equivalents. As a result there is a much more bitter hostility between the spokesmen of African religion and the 'spirit' churches than there is between traditionalists and the mission churches which condemn but do not confront. 8 Here, if anywhere, we come close to the Black Christ. Yet Daneel's book is also a sociological study. He shows us that it is just as important to understand the social context of the leaders of these churches as of the white missionary or the Afro-American bishop. Mutende's church has something in common with a timeless Apostolic tradition. It is also very much the church of a Rozvi living in the Shona frontier area of Victoria district and very much the church of a man denied advancement or sympathetic spiritual interpretation of his dreams and trances within the Dutch Reformed Church: the movement of the migrant labourer and the exile. 9

T H E P A T T E R N S OF C H R I S T I A N E X P A N S I O N I N C E N T R A L

AFRICA

Daneel's work offers us a bridge between the theme of the contrasting strategies and aspirations of May, and Membe, and Cripps, and the second theme which arises from the cluster of studies grouped in Part Two of this book. This theme is the way in which various Christian movements grew and diffused in Central Africa. Daneel shows how fascinatingly similar are the patterns of growth and segmentation in the Shona 'spirit' churches to those of 'traditional' Shona political history. The charismatic founder of a Shona 'spirit' church is in some ways like the founder of a pre-colonial Shona empire or chiefdom. He makes use of his immediate family for key administrative functions. He establishes his influence first over his own extended family. He establishes his 'royal' centre of hospitality - as at Mutende's village capital - at which the leader receives tribute 90

INTRODUCTION

and extends patronage and makes rain. On the death of the founder there is the succession crisis, so familiar in Shona political history, when the mature lieutenants of the dead leader dispute, or back for their own ends, the hereditary claims of his sons. 10 T h e temptation is to suppose that these similarities - which make the Shona 'spirit' churches the closest parallel to Shona state building in a period when African political units in Rhodesia have been deprived of the capacity for expansion - are another proof of the uniquely African character of the 'spirit' churches, and that nothing even remotely like this could happen within the Mission churches. But to suppose this would be to make too much of the contrast between missionary structure and pentecostal spontaneity. As Roger Peaden's paper in this section shows, missionary churches sometimes expanded, almost despite themselves, through the rhythms and patterns of African movement and growth. Thus, we might have expected that the patterns of expansion of the Methodist church in Southern Rhodesia would have been dictated by considerations external to Shona society - by the availability of recruits and supplies from Britain, by the dependence of the church on land grants from the British South Africa Company, by the agreement with other mission churches to observe spheres of influence. And, of course, all these factors were important. But Peaden shows that within its sphere of influence Methodism expanded through the dynamics of village settlement and segmentation among the rural Shona of the Salisbury hinterland. His demonstration does a great deal to explain the continued dominance of certain Shona families in Rhodesian Methodist history. Peaden's is the only paper in this book which deals explicitly with the shaping influence of the ways in which a church expands. But the theme is implicit in other papers too. Thus, there emerges from John Cook's paper another corrective to the stereotyped contrasts that we might be tempted to make between mission and independent churches. We might suppose that a mission church was much more the master of communications and much better able to sustain a network of congregations over a very wide area than the independent African church of rural origins. Yet John Cook shows how Livingstonia mission, which had so deeply influenced the migrating clerks, and foremen, and domestic servants who left northern Malawi for work throughout Central Africa, made no attempt to follow up these men. Livingstonia preferred to operate within the concept of the rural mission homeland and left the migrants in the towns and on the mines to other churches, often to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. All this contrasts sharply with the 'spirit' Vapostori church, which originated in the Shona rural districts of eastern Rhodesia, but which has maintained links with its congregations in the Katanga and in three or four other African territories, its late founder spending his whole year perambulating the bounds of his vast spiritual realm. John Weller's paper, on the other hand, points up the advantages of the mission homeland strategy, which both Livingstonia and Epworth were able to follow, by contrast with the predicament of the Anglican church in Northern Rhodesia. In that territory the Anglican mission stations were widely scattered and small, serving not so much as beach-heads from which to penetrate the 9i

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whole territory but as besieged citadels which demanded a quite disproportionate expenditure of energy merely for their survival. Lastly, Adrian Hastings's paper shows the varying patterns of expansion of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In Nyasaland the church was able to establish itself in its own rural homeland. Its base there was among the Chewa people of Chief Mwase Kasungu, in whose area the Nyasa founder of the church, Hanock Phiri, set up his schools and preached the doctrine of Chewa selfreliance. In Southern Rhodesia though, the A.M.E.C. could not penetrate the rural areas. Its ministers, mostly South African, were barred from the Reserves by a suspicious administration. Consequently, in Southern Rhodesia the A.M.E.C. existed in the towns, on mining compounds, and in those few and scattered areas of farming land where 'black settlers' had managed to lease or buy land. In Southern Rhodesia the 'Ethiopian' tendency was represented in the Shona rural areas not by the A.M.E.C. but by the numerous local churches founded by returned migrant labourers. But if this almost exclusively urban-based pattern of development seemed a weakness for the A.M.E.C. in a Southern Rhodesia where the major missionary denominations all possessed their wide and exclusive spheres of rural influence, it turned out to be an aid to the rapid spread of the A.M.E.C. in Northern Rhodesia. As Hastings's paper shows, the church spread into Northern Rhodesia along the line of rail, from town to town and from mine to mine, reaching the Livingstonia migrants in Ndola and Lusaka and the other towns and providing them with the urban home which Livingstonia was not prepared to offer. 11 A D E F I N I T I O N OF M I S S I O N A R Y C E N T R E S OF P E C U L I A R

INFLUENCE

The final theme that comes out of these papers taken together is that of the extraordinary influence of one or two mission centres. The clearest example of this in the literature is Livingstonia mission, and John Cook's paper carries the argument about Livingstonia a stage forward by showing that its influence was extensive not only in Malawi but also in the urban centres of Zambia. Livingstonia's influence sprang, so it is argued, from its commitment to education, and its involvement of Africans in the internal procedures of church government. Livingstonia thus provided a stimulus and a training towards the articulation of the views and interests of the educated African Christian élite. And if at the same time the frustration within the church of the expectations which it had aroused led to the forming of independent African churches in Malawi, then these, too, can be seen as a product of the Livingstonia tradition. So, in the same way, John Cook argues that the élite urban congregations which came into the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the towns of Zambia and which played a dominant role in the proto-political welfare associations there were working out the implications of the Livingstonia tradition. Epworth Mission has not previously figured in the literature in this way, largely perhaps because the missionary historiography of Southern Rhodesia has been so underdeveloped. But Roger Peaden's paper shows clearly the sort of argument that could be made for Epworth. Situated so conveniently close to Salisbury and offering a base for the would-be African competitor in 92

INTRODUCTION

the modern economy; providing a milieu in which there could be interaction between the 'black settlers' from South Africa and indigenous Shona leadership ; providing also an education and an experience of participation in Protestant church government - it is not surprising to find in Peaden's paper that Epworth played a key role in the founding of the Rhodesia Native Association. And, in fact, Peaden could, had he wished, have much amplified this aspect of his paper and gone on to show how Epworth men figured'in the development of the African section of the Missionary Conference, in the development of the first Congress movement in the 1930s and in African political activity in the 1950s and 1960s. The proposition argued by Cook and implied by Peaden is a convincing one. On the evidence presented no one can dispute that these two mission stations played a significant role. But the question still remains - precisely how significant? Our answer to this depends on our assumptions about the character of African political history in Central Africa and about the nature of the processes of change. Clearly, if we assume that African nationalism was the creation chiefly of the articulate generations of élites who formed the first welfare associations, and then the post-war political movements, we shall attribute a quite central significance to the institutions like Livingstonia and Epworth that notably fostered these élites: if we assume that the key factor in change in twentieth-century Central Africa has been the man of 'modern' attitudes we shall attribute quite central significance to institutions which fostered industrial skills, individual self-reliance, the entrepreneurial spirit, and so on. Everyone who reads this book will want to make up his own mind on these questions. But readers may be interested to know that there has recently been a challenge to the idea of the special importance of places like Livingstonia and Epworth. This has come partly from historians working on the Catholic church in Central Africa. Ian and Jane Linden, for example, in their recent study of the Catholic church in Malawi, argue that the Christian history of that nation has been distorted by an over-emphasis upon the Protestant tradition and on one part of the Protestant tradition at that. They argue that up until recently historians paid attention to the Scottish missions but neglected the Dutch Reformed and the Catholic churches. Of course, this has been partly due to the language problems which impede work on the D.R.C. or the different Catholic orders, and partly due to the much more conscious concern of the Scottish churches to put themselves on public record. T h e imbalance is being made up today by the Lindens' own work on the Catholic church, by the research currently going on into the history of the Anglican mission in Malawi, and by the beginnings of historical work on the D.R.C. But the Lindens suggest that the initial emphasis on the Scottish churches - and on the African independent church movements which broke away from them - was also due to certain preferences or biases. They argue that historians have been looking for the 'modern' men, the articulate founders of welfare associations, the individualist business entrepreneurs, and that they have therefore concentrated upon the missions whose educational policy it was to produce such people. At the same time, so the Lindens assert, historians have ignored the profound communal impact of Catholicism. 12 A much more general statement of propositions of the same sort is made in 93

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Martin Channock's recent discussion of 'Development and change in the history of Malawi'. Channock writes of 'the concentration of historians on the "modernizing" elements, the new men, the precursors of today's rulers'. As a result, he says, 'our understanding of recent Malawian history is out of focus. We focus on the educated élite in a peasant dominated country; on the influence of urbanization in a country with no cities; on industrialization in the most rural part of Central Africa.' Channock cites historians of Malawi in order to demonstrate their 'complete and explicit. . . adoption of Livingstone's criteria of advancement' and remarks that 'we are still. . . victims of the image which the missions had of themselves and accept the missionary assumption that Christianity was a "modernizing" religion . . . Historians in Malawi's missions have concentrated on the role of the Scots missions in producing an "élite". The Catholic and Dutch Reformed missions which did not play this role have been ignored.' Channock is arguing two things here; one that Christianity as a whole had a much less 'modernizing' effect than is usually assumed, and the other that in so far as missionary history is significant to modern Malawi its significance lies rather in the typical experience of the Catholic or D.R.C, convert than in the experience of the Livingstonia élite. He calls upon students of Malawi in general, among them students of its Christian history, to examine the feasibility of an alternative to 'the historiography of optimism'. 'Could we not construct an alternative model: one which would not force the changes that have taken place into a value based version of modernity; one which would de-modernize the Christians, de-politicize Independency and stress the cohesion which the migrant system helped to preserve. We would then be able to regard the nationalist movement, for example, for what it was - a mass movement in a peasant country - and to depart from our fascination with the rhetoric of the "new men" and examine the reactions of the "old".' 1 3 For my part I would not wish to use this new perspective to repudiate the idea of Livingstonia or Epworth as centres of a special significance. But I would want to use it to introduce the idea that quite other sorts of missionary (or independent church) centres were also centres of special significance. I think that we should look more closely at centres which did not produce men with post-primary education or training in technical skills; which did not send out hundreds of men to take up positions as clerks or foremen; which did not foster welfare associations; but which did in other ways profoundly affect the lives of thousands of Africans. If we do this, then clearly, to take one example, the headquarters village of Mutende, leader of the Zionist church in Victoria district, emerges as a centre of peculiar influence. And it is an influence of a fully practical kind - an economic influence and a political influence. Mutende may not have played a part in the élite politics of the centre but he certainly played a part in rural politics, backing one candidate for the chieftainship against another, and presiding at his annual rain ceremonies over gatherings which included several chiefs. And all this brings us back to the point at which this Introduction began. I began by drawing a contrast between Alston May and John Membe on the one hand, and Arthur Cripps on the other. In the context of this discussion the contrast needs to be re-examined and enlarged. May and Membe were clearly in aspiration if not in achievement men of Livingstonia-style aspirations. But 94

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what was Cripps? I said earlier that in many ways a church like Mutende's Zionist church came closer to Cripps's idea of the Black Christ than any other. But does this mean that Cripps's own missionary centre has to be seen in terms of its local, rural, economic, and political impact in the same way as Mutende's ? It would be interesting, I think, to look at the local history of Cripps's mission in this sort of way. But in default of new evidence it seems fairly clear that Cripps was neither peculiarly influential in the Livingstonia way nor peculiarly influential in Mutende's way. The question obviously is, then, whether he was peculiarly influential in any way. This question has obviously worried Murray Steele, author of the paper on Cripps which appears in this book. Most of the hard evidence leads towards the conclusion that Cripps failed - though we should perhaps remember that his missionary methods would not have appeared as quaint anywhere else outside Southern Rhodesia. If Cripps chose to walk everywhere rather than to make use of a car he was merely doing by choice what Alston May often had to do through necessity. And there is enough overlap between the views of Cripps and those of Frank Weston, the intensely achieving Bishop of Zanzibar, to make us hesitate before writing Cripps off as wholly impractical. But in Southern Rhodesia, certainly, Cripps's refusal to admit that the presence of the dominant settler minority transformed the realities of the missionary field cost him dearly in terms of public success. Weston produced a score of well-trained African priests to lead the church in Tanganyika. Cripps would not produce African priests shaped to fit the assumptions of the church in Rhodesia. Nor could Cripps operate at the heart of Shona traditional life as Mutende did. Cripps took a more overtly political stand than almost any other missionary but his was the politics of correspondence : his own church and farm existed in substantial detachment from either the local rural or the central élite levels of politics. And yet in listening to the memories of Cripps retailed by African delegates to the Chilema conference, one could not help wondering whether Cripps's 'counter-demonstration' to the dominant missionary technique had not achieved an astonishing success at the level of imagination and of myth. Cripps did not take the initiative in asserting the powers of a rainmaker, or healer, or prophet, as Mutende did. But there is another way of achieving a reconciliation between traditional values and those of Christianity. In this case, so the Chilema meeting was told, the powers of rainmaker, healer, and prophet were attributed to or bestowed on Cripps by his adherents and by rural Africans in his area generally. Whether or not Cripps's mission centre and farm was a place of'peculiar influence' there seems no doubt that his grave, now an object of pilgrimage, has become so. Thus, the career of Cripps fittingly brings this Introduction to an end since it reminds us that when every calculation about missionary sociology and logistics has been made, and when every argument on educational and political significance has been voiced, there remains the immeasurable but vastly important dimension of myth and imagination in the Christian history of Central Africa.

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NOTES 1 Weston to Maynard Smith, 24 May 1900, Archives of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, Westminster, A 1 (XVII) Box 1, 66-71. 2 Weston to Maynard Smith, 6 June 1902, ibid., 125-30. 3 J . L. Pretorius, 'An Introduction to the History of the Dutch Reformed Church Mission in Malawi: 1889-1914', in B. Pachai (ed.) The Early History of Malawi (London 1972) pp. 365-83. 4 K . J . McCracken, 'Livingstonia Mission and the Evolution of Malawi: 1875— 1939', Doctoral thesis (Cambridge 1967). 5 The fullest study of the Catholic missionary effort in Central Africa is Ian and Jane Linden's history of the Catholic church in Malawi, Catholics, Peasants and Chewa Resistance in Nyasaland (London 1974). Some indication of its argument on the different background of the various Catholic missionaries can be obtained from Matthew Schoffeleers and Ian Linden, 'The Resistance of the Nyau Societies to the Roman Catholic Missions in Colonial Malawi', in T . O. Ranger and I. N. Kimambo (eds) The Historical Study of African Religions (London 1972). 8 A number of researchers are now working on the missionary activities of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Central Africa. Preliminary accounts, which analyse the backgrounds of the Afro-American missionaries and of the African representatives of the church in Southern Rhodesia are: Gene Williams, 'The African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908', and T. O. Ranger 'The A.M.E.C. in Central Africa', both research seminar papers, University of California, Los Angeles, Spring 1972. 7 Presiding Elder's Schedule, Matabeleland District, 1931, file ZA 1/9/1/1, National Archives, Lusaka, Zambia (NAL). Mtshwelo's predecessor in Bulawayo, M. D. Makgatho, revealed his own disdain for Ndebele traditional practices when he told the Carter Land Commission in 1925 that if the Ndebele were placed in Reserves too far away from the whites 'they will go back into their old habits. They have not yet matured enough to fall into line. As long as . . . the natives could be under the supervision of white people, it would be all right.' This evidence was in striking contrast to that given in 1925 by Cripps, who urged respect and protection for Ndebele and Shona traditional agriculture. 8 Martinus Daneel Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches, Volume 1, Rise of the Major Movements (The Hague 1971). 8 For another study which brings out the particular situation of a Rozwi independent churchman in this area see Sister Mary Aquina, 'Christianity in a Tribal Trust Land' African Social Research June 1966,1. 10 Daneel Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches. 11 Of course the African Methodist Episcopal Church was as much, if not more, restricted in its outreach through lack of resources as any of the mission churches. It happened that it could move along the line of rail but it could not follow up the rural thrusts made by ardent evangelists like Membe. It could not rely on regular or steady support from the parent church in South Africa or in Afro-America, and since it was a church which cared about modern facilities, especially schools, it could not easily live off the land. When an Afro-American bishop at last visited the work in the early 1950s he found a number of decaying and abortive A.M.E.C. outreaches. His wife, Arteshia Jordan, recorded one of Membe's failures: 'The only congregation we have in Tanganyika is on Mbeya, not many miles from the Northern Rhodesian line . . . The story of this lone congregation is a sad one. About 40 years ago a Presiding Elder, the Rev. J . L. C. Membe, from Nyasaland, started the mission. The enthusiasm was so great for a church managed and

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supported by non-whites, that a large membership was soon gathered of more than 600 persons. On a desirable site a building was started that could hold 300 persons, but it was not completed for lack of funds. . . Appeal after appeal to our home church brought no results, in fact no response. Presiding Elder Membe was eventually moved to another district and his active interest directed elsewhere. Then followed a period with no pastor, and no presiding elder visits . . . Members of the new Mission at Mbeya, as the years came and went with no word from the Mother Church, and no pastor, began to drift back into the Missions they had formerly attended. Many believed that they had been mis-led, that there was no such thing as an all-African church, and certainly no non-white bishop. When Bishop Jordan and I visited there, we found eleven discouraged members left out of 600 enthusiastic followers.' Artishia Jordan The African Methodist Episcopal Church in Africa (n.d.) pp. 131-32. 12 See note 5. 13 M. L. Channock, 'Development and Change in the History of Malawi', in B. Pachai (ed.) The Early History of Malawi (London 1972) pp. 429-46.

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DAVID

J.

COOK

The Influence of Livingstonia Mission upon the Formation of Welfare Associations in Zambia, 1912-31 An important stage in African political development in both Zambia and Malawi during the colonial period 1 was the formation of Native or Welfare Associations. These marked the emergence of a new social group in African society - educated men from the Christian missions: teachers, evangelists, office clerks, and storekeepers - with ideas of their own. By attending the mission schools and acquiring the skills which enabled them to enter the European economy at a higher level than that of a casual labourer; they had become men of standing in the community and were known for their knowledge of English and the European way of life. Men with a foot in two worlds, what coloured their perception of the new ways particularly was that they had encountered them first of all in a Christian context. THE FIRST

ASSOCIATION

The earliest of the political organizations, the North Nyasa Native Association, according to one of its founders, Mr Levi Mumba 2 (who, in 1944, became the first President-General of the Nyasaland African Congress), was formed in 1912 to give educated Africans in the northern parts of Nyasaland a political voice. When in 1907 the British Central African Protectorate had become the Protectorate of Nyasaland, Executive and Legislative Councils had been established. Some European settlers were made members of the Legislative Council but African interests were only represented unofficially by the one missionary member.3 At district level government officials also called meetings with chiefs and headmen to explain government policies but educated Africans did not feel that their distinctive views could be expressed at these gatherings. They were, said Mumba, insufficiently 'representative of native public opinion'. Hence the need, in his view, for a different type of organization alongside the tribal, with a recognized right to speak to the government. This was granted, and between I 9 i 2 a n d i 9 3 i a network of Native Associations sprang up throughout Nyasaland where educated Africans discussed public affairs and put forward resolutions to the government, though their power to criticize was carefully limited. A similar, but slightly later, growth of native welfare associations took place in Northern Rhodesia. All of them were consciously modern in type and their membership non-tribal. Since these organizations, it is generally agreed, were the forerunners of the 98

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Nyasaland African Congress (established 1944) and the Northern Rhodesia African Congress (established 1948), and therefore sources of the mainstream of African nationalism in Central Africa, they have already received a good deal of attention from historians,4 but as yet no systematic study has been made of the educational and occupational background of the creators of these associations from which it might be possible to draw some conclusions about the social and intellectual influences which were at work in their formation. In the course of interviewing a number of these men or their relatives I have been struck by the preponderance of those who were educated in the schools of one mission - the Livingstonia mission, where the first three associations were formed. THE L I V I N G S T O N I A

MISSION

The Livingstonia mission of the United Free Church of Scotland has the longest continuous history of any of the missions in Nyasaland, having been established in 1875 by Dr Robert Laws at Cape Maclear on the southern shores of Lake Malawi, and then moved northwards to Bandawe (1881) on the western side of the Lake, whence it radiated stations which influenced most of the north and west of the Protectorate. In 1894 entered into the northern districts of Northern Rhodesia where Mwenzo mission was established on the route to Lake Tanganyika, followed by stations at Lubwa (1905) and Chitambo (1907) on the borders of the ancient Bemba polity. During the same period many schools among the Senga, Tumbuka, and Chewa peoples of northeastern Rhodesia, bordering upon Nyasaland, were being established in a mood of great enthusiasm by teachers who had but recently been warriors in the Ngoni armies of Mbelwa. Livingstonia mission was fortunate to have in Dr Laws a man both of vision and of a down-to-earth common sense, and his long period at the mission, from 1875 to 1927, gave it stability and the leadership of a person who was passionately determined to found as quickly as possible a 'self-governing, self-supporting African church' as independent as the Free Church which supported the mission. With that in mind he established in 1894 at Kondowe with the help of generous backing from some Glasgow industrialists the most advanced educational institution in Nyasaland, the Overtoun Institution, which had a profound intellectual influence upon the whole of Central Africa. 5 In this paper I shall argue that it was the influence of this mission that provided the major intellectual stimulus behind the formation of the native and welfare associations. Not only were the first associations created at stations of this mission, but also, when the larger associations were formed in the towns of Northern Rhodesia, it was men from Livingstonia mission schools, by then employed as clerks and shop assistants, who pioneered their foundation. By tracing this connection I hope to say something not only about the welfare associations but also about the political culture of a certain mission, and to suggest thereby the need for comparative studies of the influence of different churches in Central Africa. These may well reveal that there was not one missionary factor at work but several different ones. Since in this region right down to the 1950s most education was mission education, such studies 99

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would make an important addition to the intellectual history of Malawi and Zambia, which has been so far largely neglected.6 THE

INFLUENCE

UPON

OF L I V I N G S T O N I A

THE PIONEER ASSOCIATIONS

MISSION IN

NYASALAND

All three of the pioneer associations in Nyasaland were established at stations of the Livingstonia mission - the North Nyasa Native Association at Karonga in 1912, the West Nyasa Native Association at Bandawe in 1914, the Mombera Native Association at Ekwendeni in 1920. But how far was this mere coincidence ? In the case of the North Nyasa association there are a number of oral traditions about its formation, each of which illustrates a combination of mission influence with other circumstances. According to some early members interviewed by Mr S. A. Bwinga between 1969 and 1970 four factors contributed to the formation of that association. First of all was the fact that a number of prominent young men educated at the Overtoun Institution were working in the district, either for the government or as mission teachers. Among these were the founders: Levi Zililo Mumba, Jeremiah Nyirenda, Robert Nyirenda, A. Simon Mhango, and the Rev. Amon Mwakasungula. These men could speak English, were in close touch with Europeans, and felt able to act as spokesmen for the local people. In this they were encouraged by Dr Meredith Sanderson, a liberal-minded medical officer who came to Karonga in 1910 and periodically visited the dispensary there. In the third place there was a strong sense of local grievance which had arisen as a result of the removal of certain local people from their forefathers' land and graves to make way for the building of the new Boma, and Dr Sanderson and Dr Laws are said by the local people to have supported this protest. Finally, as we have seen, in 1907 a missionary had been nominated to represent African interests in the Legislative Council. The first representative, Dr Hetherwick, came from the south, and the northerners, fearing that their voice would not be heard, began to talk about forming an association to put their views to the government. In this they were encouraged by Dr Laws who became the missionary representative on the Legislative Council in 19x3 and was glad to have a local body to advise him. As we shall see, it was Dr Laws who persuaded the Governor to give the associations formal recognition. If the formation of the South African National Congress in 1912 had any influence upon the North Nyasa Association, as Dr Rotberg has suggested, it is unlikely to have suggested its formation, as Mr Bwinga's informants told him that the very first meeting to discuss its formation was held at Overtoun Institution as early as 1910, and Dr Kamuzu Banda, now President of Malawi, in a letter many years later referred to meetings planned by 'Mr Edward Boti Manda and others . . . at Livingstonia Institution . . . before 1914' where all these young men had originally met each other as students. All the men whom I have interviewed who were at the Institution at that time agree with this. The present Principal, Mr Chiswakhata Mukandawire, who was born and educated there at that time, says that Levi Mumba arranged a number of meetings all round the district between 1912 and 1915, whilst he was working at the Institution, most of which were held at the Institution itself, Chitimba or Karonga. 7 Yet another founder member, Mr Robert Nyirenda, then a mission teacher, 100

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and later a government interpreter, suggested quite a different background to the formation of the North Nyasa Association when interviewed by Dr Tangri. 8 In his opinion it was formed in response to the appointment of chiefs as Principal and Village Headmen under the new District Administration (Native) Ordinance, 1912. The government had already used chiefs informally as administrative agents but the new measure gave some of them official status. Young, educated men hoped the appointments would be based upon education rather than tradition, and decided to organize to win popular support and the ear of the government. For this member it was the rivalry between the chiefs and the 'new men' that was important, and no doubt this was important for him as he was one of the Henga migrants into an Nkonde area. One wonders though, if this Ordinance was as important as Dr Tangri suggests in stimulating the formation of associations, why none were formed in the south in the Shire Valley, where it was first put into effect in April 1913. 9 Moreover, chiefs did become members of the association provided that they were educated and could speak English. Mr Peter Mwakasungulu, for instance, an Nkonde who was the treasurer of the North Nyasa Association, was a chief's son educated at Livingstonia, and later became Chief Kyungu. Mr Gilbert Sichale remembered that Chief Chikulamayembe attended the association at times.10 What was important was that members stood high in the association because of their education. One is reminded of the great surge towards education of a decade earlier amongst the Ngoni after the death of Mbelwa and the penetration of the tribal leadership by the young Christian princes, Amon and Yohane Jere, with their adviser Mawalera Tembo, an ardent evangelist in charge of Njuyu mission, but also the son of the old Senga nganga who had advised Mbelwa. Part of the background to these associations may be the Christianizing of the old structures. The associations stood for the modernization of village life. In the only account we have of the very first meeting which was written down, it is noticeable that members discussed infant mortality, the feeding of children, sanitation, and village reconstruction, all of which were part of the mission programme of improvement.11 Protest movements these bodies were, at times, when Boma officials had outraged local feeling, but they were also pressure groups acting upon the local community to co-operate with the Christian revolution. This is why the associations were limited to educated men because those were the men who believed they had the means to uplift their people and put them on a similar footing to Europeans. After World War 1 the element of protest in the North Nyasa Association grew stronger. Its members, radicalized in many cases by war service, spoke angrily, for example, of the soft-pedalling of educational and economic growth, and high-lighted such glaring abuses as mtenga-tenga.12 The influence of the mission upon these pioneer associations is evident in many ways. Although the District Administration Ordinance was put into effect throughout Nyasaland, it was only at the mission stations of Karonga, Bandawe, Ekwendeni and Overtoun Institutions that associations were formed between 1912 and 1920. The first meetings of the first association met in the readingroom and library at Karonga and the only report we have of them is in the mission journal. The interest in village improvement, and in education, and the constitutionalist outlook of the associations reflected that of the mission journal,

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which was often critical of government failure to consider African interests. Missionary support over local grievances, it will be remembered, was part of the oral tradition of Mr Bwinga's informants many years later. The founders of the associations had all been educated at the Overtoun Institution and that is where the idea was first mooted. Many of the prominent members were still mission teachers. The moving spirit in the first association, Mr Levi Mumba, was particularly identified with the mission. Having passed brilliantly in his final examinations at Overtoun Institution in 1903, he had been the first to receive a commercial course there, and was then appointed the first African teacher of commercial subjects and book-keeper at the Institution in March 1905, becoming Dr Laws's right-hand man in business matters, and responsible for paying all the workers at the Institution until he left for war service in 1915. 1 3 In his account of how the first association began, Mr Mumba mentioned the advice he had received from Dr Laws. Fortunately in a letter to the Acting Chief Secretary of Nyasaland some years later, Dr Laws explained just what that was. He had, he says, been consulted about the formation of the North Nyasa Association some years earlier and had encouraged it. He had also recommended its founders first of all to obtain government sanction before they began their meetings, to hold their meetings in public, to send minutes of their proceedings to the Resident Magistrate, the Secretary for Native Affairs, and to the Governor, and to limit their membership to men of good character and education. This advice established a number of important precedents which governed the relationship of all future associations with the government. Dr Laws's letter was also decisive in obtaining continued government recognition for these associations in 1920 despite the new mood of the government since the Chilembwe rising. The Acting Chief Secretary had written to Laws for further information about the two associations that had been revived at Bandawe and Ekwendeni after the war. His letter, which was full of the dangers of the alarming spread of Watch Tower, expressed doubt about the safety of allowing such associations to continue. Dr Laws's advice, though couched in careful terms, was no different from that of the editor of the mission journal, Aurora, in 1907, who had written: some constitutional means should be provided whereby the natives, who form the majority of the population, should have, by a native Council or otherwise, the means of expressing an opinion on Legislative changes which concern themselves. Were this done, and done early, we believe the gradually increasing educated native community would be enlisted on the side of constitutional government. . . 1 4 From Dr Laws's letter it is clear that the idea of forming associations had not come from him but from the leading Africans at the mission. These men had been in contact for many years with missionaries who had taught them to expect their church to become by stages self-governing, self-supporting, and entirely African controlled, and had seen the Presbyterian system of church government being introduced in which laymen were given considerable responsibility and met regularly to discuss policy. The better educated men, by obtaining positions of leadership in the school system or as church elders, had learnt to use bureaucratic and representative institutions of a European type, and it is they who were 102

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closely involved in the pioneer associations. How far the lay leadership in the schools and churches provided the membership of one of these early associations may be seen from the Mombera Association founded at Ekwendeni in 1920. Fortunately its Minute Book has survived and I have been able to use the complete list of members drawn up in its hey-day in 1924. With the help of the Rev. Shadrack Gondwe, who had been a teacher and then a government clerk in the Mombera district, I have obtained information about thirty-seven of the fiftyone members. All of these had been educated at Ekwendeni or Loudon stations of the mission, and most of them had completed their schooling at the Institution up to Standard Six, said to be equivalent to the end of a second year in a secondary school today. Their occupations in 1924 were as follows: Mission Teachers Government Clerks Ordained Ministers Chiefs

Chief's Councillor Headman Cook

22 (of whom nine later became ordained ministers) 8 (of whom all but one had previously been mission teachers) 2 (both previously teachers) 2 (both ex-mission teachers, and in 1924, Principal Headmen under the District Administration Ordinance) 1 1 (Village Headman) 1

The large proportion of the membership who were or had been teachers is striking, and one has to remember that teachers were preachers at the weekend at this time. Half of the total, in 1924, were church elders conducting the business of their church in Kirk Sessions, a body which could admit or suspend members and controlled local funds. Some, including the first President, and the two secretaries between 1920 and 1935 had also been delegates from their Kirk Sessions to sit on the North Livingstonia Presbytery for many years. 15 During the period covered by the Minute Book (1920-35), the membership did not alter very much. Ministers, teachers, and church elders held their positions for years at a time and dominated the discussions along with the two chiefs. Except for the Head Clerk, Mr Hezekiah Mwanza, who was an active member and doubtless the best-paid person attending, the government clerks do not appear very high on the list of members' names, and none of them held office in the association during its first fifteen years of existence, by contrast with the urban associations of Northern Rhodesia. The moving spirit of the association, and its secretary, was the Rev. Charles Chinula, another man like Levi Mumba of great independence of mind, who finally left Livingstonia mission in 1935 to lead the independent Church of the Black People until his death in 1970. A member of North Livingstonia Presbytery since 1912, at times he fell into the phraseology of the Presbytery whilst writing the association minutes. Frequently, for example, he headed the list of members present with the Latin word sederunt, which was invariably used in Presbytery minutes, and began his account of the meeting with the Presbytery-type sentence: 'The Mombera Native Association met and was constituted with devotional exercises.' The Mombera Association may have been an unusually close-knit and mission orientated body, placed as it was in the still highly integrated Ngoni community 103

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which had found through the mission a means of transition into the modern era, nevertheless it is unlikely that the membership of the other two associations was very different. 16 Professor van Velsen has suggested that because Africans were employed at an earlier date in the civil service in Nyasaland than elsewhere in Central Africa, they had a chance to study the processes of government from the inside, and for this reason became the pioneers in political organization for that part of Africa. This is more likely than that they copied the European settler societies, as Professor Rotberg thought, for no educated African in the colour-conscious society of Central Africa could have entered a settler association meeting or have studied its constitution and, in any case, the settler associations existed in the south, not in the north. Useful as Professor van Velsen's insight is for the later associations in Zomba and Livingstone, where government clerks predominated in the leadership, it may be doubted whether it fits the pioneer associations. Levi Mumba's experience of organization before 1915 came almost entirely from Livingstonia, apart from a few months as relief clerk at Chinsali Boma, from July 1905, where he had been lent by Dr Laws at the time that Mr David Kaunda was beginning the Lubwa mission there. 17 Charles Chinula and Edward Boti Manda spent all their formative years at the mission. It does seem more likely that the pioneers of the Nyasa associations obtained their first experience of democratic procedures in the mission. Here they had experienced the election of officials, the keeping of minutes of meetings, the technique of formulating and passing resolutions, and the habit of collecting funds and of auditing accounts, all of which seem to arrive so surprisingly fully fledged in the pioneer associations. The idea of constitutional government could hardly have come from the colonial administration, which, in practice, so far as Africans were concerned, was a despotism. By contrast, from the outset Dr Laws had set about founding self-governing institutions and placing Africans in responsible positions. As congregations were formed they obtained the right to regulate their own affairs by forming Kirk Sessions. From November 1907, in the North Livingstonia Presbytery, which covered the territory of the first three associations, each congregation 'was in future directed to send up one elder (from Kirk Sessions) for every three hundred church members, or part of three hundred' 18 to Presbytery meetings as in Scotland, and in the following year the first Native Christian Conference met and sent in its recommendations to the Missionary Council. 19 Of course, we should not overlook the problems of this form of church government, because some churches were not, and could not for decades to come, be entirely self-supporting. Some policy decisions continued to be made solely by the European missionaries in consultation with their committee in Scotland, for they still had control over funds voted from overseas and of whatever grants for education or medical work came from the governments of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, small as those were. 20 The difference in education between European missionary and African minister or elder was still large. Salaries of missionaries paid from Scotland, though small by British standards, were ten times those of their African colleagues, and with this went differences in housing and means of transport which Dr Kenneth Kaunda commented upon bitterly during the struggle for independence in Zambia. 21 104

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Tension between the democratic ideal and the actual situation of the church caught up in the dual economy of Central Africa alienated a number of the mission intelligentsia, and this was another stimulus to independent African organization. The account of the North Nyasa Association's first meeting 22 makes it clear that the new reading room in which they met had been built particularly to cater for educated young men who had drifted away from the mission, and some, though not all, of the association's members fell into this category. Association leaders like Levi Mumba or Charles Chinula found themselves in an ambivalent position, for the mission was both the source of their education, democratic aspirations, and religious belief, on the one hand, and on the other hand a form of European authority against which they were seeking to assert themselves. The dilemma was sometimes resolved by the formation of independent churches. Thus, later in 1929, Levi Mumba was connected with the formation of the African National Church, which permitted polygamy, his article written for the International Review of Missions (1930) on 'The Religion of an African' shows him searching for a more distinctively African cultural identity than as a younger man at Livingstonia he had been taught.23 The growth of race-consciousness amongst educated Africans during the inter-war years was an inevitable response to the arrogant white nationalism of the settler population in Central Africa, and placed a different intellectual influence alongside that of the Livingstonia mission. The Watch Tower church, which was so many different things to so many men, was a powerful vehicle in Central Africa of race-consciousness at this time, for it first proclaimed the apocalyptic end of the white establishment. I have found few members of this church amongst the leaders, or even the membership of native or welfare associations, and this is probably because Watch Tower rejected schools and other modernizing institutions, which in the view of educated Africans were essential to the advancement of their people and themselves.24 Far more attractive to the ex-mission intelligentsia was the exciting prospect of Negro development in the United States of America which had taken place despite great handicaps and hardships, the confident programme of self-improvement of Booker T . Washington, and the pan-African visions of Marcus Garvey. Writing in 1935 the Rev. J . M. Mokone recalled how in 1895 the McAdoo Jubilee Singers . . . electrified the African audiences in Johannesburg . . . with their singing of the Negro Spirituals, and told of the sufferings and rapid rise of the Negroes in America from slavery to the exalted posts in the American Democracy.26 This contrast between 'slavery' and 'exalted posts' was important, for educated Africans in the 1930s needed hope to prevent themselves falling into despair. Mokone's words appear in his account of the planting of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa in 1896 by his father, the Rev. Mangena Mokone. This church became an important mediator of American Negro influence. Its foundation brought into South, and later Central Africa, a whole set of sentiments and sacred history of persecution of American Negroes and their triumph over it which was extremely relevant to educated Africans faced by colour bar in the ghettos of white towns. Bishop Allen, the freed slave who

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had founded the church, was a prophetic figure with whom they could closely identify. At the same time the doctrines of the church were orthodox Methodism, in the main stream of Liberal Protestantism, which put a premium upon modernization, and, as Professor Ranger has pointed out,26 there was a promise of higher education in South Africa and America. As we shall see, the African Methodist Church swept through the leadership of the Northern Rhodesian welfare associations in 1931 and 1932, thereby opening a new chapter in the intellectual history of those associations and of the educated élite that led them. This provides us with a terminal date for our study. After 1931 another religious influence was at work besides that of the Livingstonia mission. However, it will be noted that just as Mr Mumba began his North Nyasa association long before the formation of the African National Church, so the welfare associations were formed in Northern Rhodesia before the coming of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and it is to them that I now turn. THE FIRST ASSOCIATION IN NORTHERN

RHODESIA

The first association in Northern Rhodesia was formed at Mwenzo mission, probably in 1912, the same year as the North Nyasa association, by a group of teachers and school inspectors headed by Mr Donald Siwale, after consultation with his school friend, Mr Levi Mumba. Mwenzo mission had been the first station to be established by the Livingstonia mission in north-eastern Rhodesia, in 1894, and was situated along the Stevenson Road, which had been built in the 1880s to link Karonga on the northern end of Lake Nyasa to the harbours on the southern end of Lake Tanganyika in Northern Rhodesia.27 Though today a quiet backwater, at that time the Stevenson Road was the main highway for trade, and mixed tribal communities had settled at the African Lakes Corporation store near Mwenzo, as they had at Karonga, and the presence of Europeans was welcome not only for the cloth they brought but also for the promise of protection they afforded against Bemba raiders.28 The significance, for our purpose, of Mwenzo station is the ready acceptance its mixed Namwanga and Mambwe community gave to the preaching of the Rev. Alexander Dewar and the fact that the more able of its young converts were sent within a few years to the Livingstonia Institution in Nyasaland. It is not without importance, also, that Dewar rapidly became the champion of the local people against the British South Africa Company's official who had been burning villages and putting chiefs and headmen in chains to intimidate them into sending their people to do carrier service. Dewar's complaints went eventually by way of the African Lakes Corporation to the Foreign Office in London. 29 LIVINGSTONIA

I N S T I T U T I O N AND ITS

INFLUENCE

It is difficult to over-estimate the impact of this Institution upon its students, and its importance for our study. When Mr Siwale arrived with the second batch of students from Mwenzo it was something like a small town with a blacksmith's forge, engineering shop, hospital, printing press, church, and school buildings, which accommodated over 200 boarders, both men and women, and 106

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served altogether nearly 2,000 pupils in day, evening, and out-schools. It had been Dr Laws's intention to create at the Institution the first University of Central Africa, but chronic shortage of funds and the lack of interest of the colonial government prevented this. 31 Nevertheless, the Institution already offered one of the benefits of university life to its students. It provided an intellectual ferment which awakened their imaginations to the concept of progress, and gave them a new role and sense of authority as Christians and educated people in bringing about the advancement of their people. This partly came from the official policy of the Institution. As early as 1902 a debating society was formed, and discussed such subjects as 'the development of native trade and industries' and 'the future of Africa'. 32 In June 1912 Livingstonia News devoted seven of its sixteen pages to a full report of the Tuskegee Conference on Negro advancement held in the United States of America and concluded its report: If Dr Booker Washington could become what he is and do what he has done, why should not some of the natives of this land, by the grace of God, follow in his steps. Equally important was the informal circulation of ideas between students drawn from many different tribes, and the consciousness of their common situation as Africans. It was here that Donald Siwale first met both Levi Mumba and Edward Boti Manda. Mr Edward Boti Manda, then training in the theological course, was one of the early students who became a teacher at the Institution and then an ordained minister. Many of his students have recalled to me the powerful political influence of his sermons and history classes, and his keen interest in the emancipation of American Negroes. Years later, in 1931, when the District Commissioner was asked why the North Nyasa native association was taking such a critical interest in the new penal code, he found the answer in this politically minded minister who 'possesses a copy of the Penal Code, as he subscribes to the Government Gazette and has it carefully bound'.33 It was with Levi Mumba and Edward Boti Manda that Donald Siwale discussed the need for an association to put the educated African viewpoint, and to discuss why it was that 'Africans were being called boys by Europeans although they were grown men'. 34 T H E M I S S I O N S E T T I N G OF T H E M W E N Z O

ASSOCIATION

At the Institution the idea of association was born, but the possibility of putting the idea into practice came with the rapid expansion of Mwenzo mission, which put these students into positions of leadership and responsibility as soon as they had returned from the Institution. The country is divided into districts, each of which is put in charge of a certified teacher who acts as inspector, and makes monthly tours, instructing and encouraging the teachers, urging the claims of the school on parents and children, reporting fully on everything to Headquarters.35 Since the station for much of the time only had one European missionary, Dr Chisholm, who, as a doctor, was also heavily involved in the mission hospital, 107

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a large area of initiative was left to these school inspectors, and this gave them their opportunity. 36 T h e obvious time to meet was when all the teachers and school inspectors (over 200 strong in 1909 3 7 ), came in to Mwenzo from the villages and from Lubwa for the teachers' school each year in June and July. The discussions had begun informally between the school inspectors, Donald Siwale, David Kaunda, Peter Sinkala, Hezekiya Nkonjera Kawoso, and a few others, soon after their return from Nyasaland, and then developed into a more formal public meeting which D r Chisholm sometimes attended, and which was sometimes addressed by the B.S.A. Company official from Old Fife Boma, M r 'Bobo' Young, who was sympathetic with their aims. Meetings were held in English, and thus confined to the mission intelligentsia. M r Siwale had obtained from Levi Mumba a copy of the North Nyasa Association's constitution, which he adapted and used some time before 1914. From this it is clear that the aims of the founders of the two associations were identical. They sought recognition of Africans as human beings, and advancement of their conditions, not independence from colonial rule. It was the discrepancy between the responsible tasks they exercised in the mission, and their devaluation in the wider colonial society, which seemed to demand some form of self-assertion and an opportunity to speak to local officials. They had already had some experience of conducting formal meetings because Mwenzo Kirk Sessions had begun in 1900. Donald Siwale had represented Mwenzo at the North Livingstonia Presbytery in 1906, and his colleague Peter Sinkala was secretary of Mwenzo Kirk Sessions. 38 And, as M r Siwale remarked to me, 'We were reading our Bible and knew that every human being was the same. Our idea of equality came from the Bible.' 3 9

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Unlike the pioneer associations in Nyasaland the context of Mwenzo Association was entirely local. In Northern Rhodesia until 1 9 1 7 there was no representative Advisory Council of Europeans as had been provided for Nyasaland in 1907. African interests were considered to be represented by an official, the Secretary for Native Affairs, who did not receive a copy of the proceedings of the Mwenzo Association until after 1923, because no attempt to contact the central administration was made by its members until then. They did not have D r Laws at hand to advise them. Then again, Northern Rhodesia was much larger in area, and more thinly populated than Nyasaland, and before 1 9 1 4 the chief centres of education were on the edges of the country, for the missionaries moved in from Nyasaland or northwards from Bechuanaland. T h e opportunity for territorial organization had to await the development of towns and schools along the line of rail. The Mwenzo Association could not of itself grow into anything larger, and it collapsed at the outset of World War 1 when the mission for a while was evacuated on account of fighting near the border of Tanganyika. Yet, many of the important founder members of later welfare associations, the African National Congress, and the United National Independence Party, including such wellknown present-day politicians as M r Simon Kapwepwe and President Kaunda, came from Mwenzo or from Lubwa mission further south. T h e most important role of the Mwenzo Association, it seems, was to create a tradition of political awareness which was handed down by teachers inside the Livingstonia mission 108

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stations to future generations, and began the political education of their pupils. Neither in Mwenzo, nor in Lubwa or Chitambo, the other two Livingstonia mission stations in Northern Rhodesia, do we find associations with a continuous history. They form and peter out, and are re-formed by another group of enthusiastic teachers, but there seems to have been a continuing tradition, which later flowed into Congress and the United National Independence Party in those areas. In no other missions, however, have I so far been able to discover associations of this kind before 1950. 40 T H E R E V I V A L OF T H E F I R S T A S S O C I A T I O N I N

1923

It is outside the scope of this paper to trace the history of the Mwenzo Association, but something should be said about its first revival between 1923 and 1926, first of all because earlier historians have confused the pre-war with the post-war association, and secondly, because the short-lived nature of the second association shows how already the mission intelligentsia was moving away from the rural areas. Not unnaturally Richard Hall and Professor Rotberg, 41 who relied largely upon government records for their accounts of native associations, assumed that the Mwenzo Association began in 1923 because the first reference to it in government files occurs then. But officials only mentioned what concerned them, and oral evidence shows that a great deal of the history of these associations has no written record at all. In this case earlier historians have combined two periods of the association into one. Thus they refer to Donald Siwale, David Kaunda, Peter Sinkala, and Hezekiya Nkonjera as the founders of an association in 1923. These men certainly did found the pre-war association but Peter Sinkala could have played no part in the second, as he had died of influenza at Mwenzo in December 1918. 42 Nor could Hezekiya Nkonjera have been there, as he left Mwenzo to become a government clerk before the outbreak of World War 1. Donald Siwale, who since October 1914 had left the mission and been employed as chief clerk at Old Fife boma, near the mission, says that the association was revived in 1923 with his help by the headmaster of Mwenzo school, Jonathan Mukwasa Simfukwe, and the first archival reference43 adds the name of the headman, Andrew Sichula, an adventuresome ex-student of Livingstonia who had recently returned with £350 from trading in Elizabethville and established his own shop and village near the mission.44 The founders had called it the Northern Rhodesia Native Association, indicating that they had more than a local interest, and had sent in a number of questions to the Administration, sufficiently pointed to bring the Native Commissioner to Mwenzo to explain to the teachers how the taxes were used.45 From official reports and information from past members it seems that the background to the revived association was a combination of the post-war depression which had affected most parts of the world between 1920 and 1923 and the revival of the mission and its schools and corps of teachers after a period of collapse during the war when German troops were in the area. With this were linked many local feuds and divisions which are difficult to unravel but were concerned partly with the dislike some of the Namwanga had for the Mambwe refugees from Mbala who had fled to that area from Bemba raids not long before 109

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the mission began and had welcomed the Europeans as protectors. A group of these were well placed in the mission leadership. Both Simfukwe, the headmaster, and his boarding-master, Simon Silavwe, were Mambwe. With the help of Samuel Longwe, a Tonga sent from Livingstonia in 1919, they had revived some of the schools even before Dr Chisholm returned from the army,46 and through the association were now making a bid for local leadership in alliance with modernizing chiefs like Waitwika, and Andrew Sichula and Donald Siwale, both of whom, in different ways, also stood for the new order of things, whilst the conservatives were led by headman Kasichila, who bitterly opposed the mission because it stood on his land.47 These differences became linked with broader issues. Taxes and prices of store goods had doubled since the war, yet there was little local employment in the north outside the missions to earn money for tax. Men had to seek employment hundreds of miles from their homes, and the minutes of the association show their concern about the effects of this upon marriage ties.48 The resources for expansion in Mwenzo mission had also diminished since the post-war depression had badly hit Scottish industries and the middle class whose contributions had financed Livingstonia mission. Many villages that asked for teachers had to be refused, and teachers' wages could not be increased to keep up with rising prices so that the revival of the mission was less rapid than some people hoped for. These northern parts of the territory were uneasily settling into their post-war role of centres of supply for migrant labour to the towns down the line of rail. In this period of uncertainty the rival forces in Mwenzo area were the Mwenzo Association and Watch Tower. Watch Tower preachers, the earliest being former Mwenzo teachers who had returned from work in Southern Rhodesia in 1917, were teaching people to see in the German invasion the imminent end of the colonial order. Like the preachers to the Thessalonians, or the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, their message was eschatological and revolutionary. Consequently their followers for a period refused to obey their chiefs and separated themselves from the villages. They stopped cultivating their land, paying taxes, building roads or pit latrines that district officials were encouraging headmen to construct, and awaited the end of the present era.49 It was the response of those on the fringe of mission influence with little education and slight hope of advancement. By contrast the association more optimistically stood for self-improvement and community development. On the one hand its members queried the doubling of the tax and asked the Governor for 'schools in which useful industries would be taught such as carpentry and agriculture'.50 On the other hand they organized meetings at the villages of friendly chiefs to exhort the people to send their children to school, pay their taxes, experiment with coffee growing and introduce sanitation into their villages. As the mission re-established itself and schools revived, Watch Tower millenarianism declined.51 But self-help and rural development were not policies that could succeed in the rural areas, either, without the support of large-scale planning quite outside the resources or philosophy of colonial government in that period. It is not surprising that many of their exponents in the association migrated to better opportunities themselves. Once the recovery of industry in Europe and the discovery of new copper resources between 1925 and 1929 made possible the growth of the mines, the mission intelligentsia flooded into no

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the towns and gave them the leadership which the rural areas largely lost. Mwenzo Association once again collapsed in 1926, and was not revived until 1941. T H E W E L F A R E A S S O C I A T I O N S OF T H E

TOWNS

The associations in the towns of Northern Rhodesia were all formed between 1929 and 1931. Almost every urban centre had one, though not all the records of their meetings have survived. I shall deal only with the three largest associations, in Livingstone, Broken Hill, and Ndola, which were all officially recognized by the government in 1930 and were the first to use the word 'welfare' in their name. I shall examine, first of all, what proportion of the leading founders came from Livingstonia mission originally, and secondly how far we can trace a 'mission' influence in their early proceedings. Their urban setting made them both much larger and more influential organizations than their predecessors, more in touch with government, and less in touch with any mission. They were certainly more secular. The one-time mission teachers had become government clerks and store-keepers. Many members were lapsed Christians as they had become polygamists, but it seems that even some of those suspended from church membership still continued to attend church, and that competitions between church choirs were almost as popular as football matches. The Ndola church, in particular, as we shall see, became a vehicle for pressure group tactics before the welfare association had been formed, and the congregation more or less supplied the membership of the association. On the whole the large associations in Livingstone and Broken Hill were more secular in outlook but the mission background of its members was still important. LIVINGSTONE NATIVE WELFARE ASSOCIATION -

ITS

SETTING

The oldest and largest of the towns, Livingstone, had developed not around mining but as a centre of government and a railway depot. The chief employers of educated Africans here were the government departments and the stores. As the government and the mines were both competing for the relatively small number of well-educated Africans in the country during the boom period between 1925 and 1929, their rates of pay rose and they found themselves in a position where in June 1927 they could form the first Native Civil Servants' Association in Livingstone in order to discuss with the Secretary for Native Affairs both wages and conditions of service, which he was willing to do in order to keep his clerks from moving away. Seventy-eight clerks and messengers met to form the association. The man who began it was Mr J . Ernest Mattako, a Public Works Department clerk from Nyasaland, who had once been a teacher and preacher in Livingstonia mission. He was elected secretary. The veteran Lawson B. Chipolle, a local preacher at the Paris Mission church in Maramba compound, was elected chairman. As in most towns there were a variety of associations in Livingstone which helped to provide some sense of belonging in the excessively mobile and insecure situation of an African compound in that period. Of these, the Nyanja church founded in Maramba compound by the Paris Evangelical Mission was one of the oldest and provided a meeting-place for some of the men from Nyasaland and hi

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Rhodesia who eventually founded the welfare association.Two of the church elders, Andrew and Duncan Funsani, 52 were well known amongst this politically minded group through the fact that as early as 1924 they were receiving regular copies of Marcus Garvey's The Negro World, smuggled in from Bulawayo in a Bulawayo Chronicle, which they circulated to fellow church members. According to one informant it was the existence of another association formed by Nyasas which looked down on local people because they lacked political initiative that stimulated the formation of the welfare association.63 This was formed by a group who wanted to create a union drawn from all the tribes represented in the compound. They appealed to all Africans to join, on the grounds that as they were all suffering together they should combine together in order to defend their interests and put their views as a united community to the government. Probably the peak of this association's influence was reached on 24 December 1932, when it successfully prevented a pitched battle between rival tribes in the compound, which had been planned for Christmas Day. We may compare this with the efforts of Clement Kadalie's Industrial and Commercial Workers Union to prevent Christmas faction fights in Bulawayo and the appeal of Masoja Ndlovu, the I.C.U. leader: 'I.C.U. is not only for Matabele; it's a movement for the Africans . . . Go back, do not fight, this movement is a Christian movement.'54 So the association was born out of the confidence of a boom period. It was not formed to push economic interests - there was already a Civil Servants' association to do that. It was an attempt by a group of educated men to unite the many tribal communities living cheek by jowl in the compound. When we examine their speeches we shall find that the founders appealed sometimes to Christian brotherhood, sometimes to the need for self reliance (which has a distinctly Livingstonia ring about it), sometimes to Pan-African ideals which may have come from Marcus Garvey or simply arisen as a reaction to colour bar, and sometimes to their rights as citizens of a British Empire which claimed to be based upon justice.55 Above all, they were concerned with the terrible problem of racial discrimination. T H E B A C K G R O U N D OF R A C I A L

DISCRIMINATION

First of all we should consider the regulations of the European-controlled Town Management Board, which forbade Africans to walk on the pavements, or to stop outside a European shop to look in the windows.56 Pass legislation from 1927 onwards made it obligatory for Africans to have permits to enter towns along the line of rail, or to move around inside the town after dark. To understand the corrupting effects of discrimination upon the churches one should consider the history of Bishop Hine, newly appointed Anglican Bishop of Northern Rhodesia, who had been accustomed to integrated churches in Zanzibar and Nyasaland, and came into violent collision between 1910 and 1912 with the committee of leading white townsmen and government officials who had raised the money to build the first Anglican cathedral in Livingstone. They had refused to agree to the Bishop's suggestion that an early morning Holy Communion should be held for Africans in the church. Although he fought so hard that he was eventually isolated, even from his fellow-clergy, and the church was

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left unconsecrated for over a year, in the end Bishop Hine had to give way, and virtually agree to separate church buildings. 57 Field study shows that some European residents in Livingstone, as in Nyasaland, at that time insisted upon Africans taking off their hats when they passed a European in the streets, and that if they would not do so their hats were knocked off. In this respect the evidence of M r Philip Jamin Silavwe is typical. He was originally a teacher at Mwenzo, and then became senior clerk in the AttorneyGeneral's department in Livingstone from 1927, and was Assistant Secretary and Librarian to the Livingstone Association for its first five years. 88 T h e hatknocking incident happened to him twice and on each occasion he reported the incident to a government official, since he knew it was illegal, and the European resident was punished. If an African knew the law, and had access to a government official, he could get justice, but most were too ignorant of the law, and too afraid to do so. Herein lay an important purpose of the welfare association. It was intended to protect the ordinary urban African against abuse, to take up cases of abuse (especially the misuse of police power) with the authorities, and to attempt to lessen discrimination. T H E I D E A L I S M OF T H E F O U N D E R S OF A S S O C I A T I O N S

T h e association leaders set about their task with a high sense of idealism, which was not, of course, confined to men from Livingstonia. This idealism may be attributed to a more general mission influence, and to a widespread mood of expectation and hope for better things, of which Watch Tower was but the most extreme example. People were waiting for a Moses to appear, and some were wondering if they were the chosen person. Here, for example, is M r Nelson Nalamango, Secretary of the Livingstone Association between 1934 and 1936, and brought up in the Calvinist tradition of the Paris Mission, writing in 1931 from Ndola to his friend, Leonard Price, then training to be a Methodist minister at Waddilove. After describing his terrible experience as an interpreter underground in the Roan Antelope Copper Mine, where 'every day a man had to die or get badly wounded', he continued, 'Leonard, every one of your people expects you to be a man of unusual energy . . . Africa expects you to take her position on a high scale . . . we are failing to do much better than our parents who were still in the deepest darkness . . . We educated young men remain quite responsible to uplift the Light of Jesus all over our native lands. We are failing to raise up the rights of God which He has upon His poor Africans, though we have been instructed to do so while at school.' T w o years later, the Rev. Leonard Price wrote from Broken Hill: 'There is a great demand of leaders in this part of the country. We look to God to give us one. I have been asked to be vice-chairman of the Native Welfare Association (in Broken Hill) to which I gave my consent.' 59 T H E F O U N D E R S OF T H E L I V I N G S T O N E W E L F A R E A S S O C I A T I O N

This high sense of purpose comes out clearly in the record of the first public meeting of the Livingstone Welfare Association, when 350 people gathered on a Saturday afternoon, 19 April 1930, to watch the election of officials and to "3

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listen to the first chairman's speech. Of course, this was not the first meeting. Negotiations had been going on with the government for over a year before permission finally came to hold such a large public meeting, and the government had taken the precaution of inserting a C.I.D. agent in the association's membership. The meeting opened with prayer, after which the chairman, Mr Rankin Isaac Nyirenda, explained their two-fold object - to build brotherhood between Africans of different tribes, and to protect native interest by having this recognized channel of communication with the government. 'We shall not only be able to transfer to our people the results of European civilization, but will, by our example and influence effect a rapid uplift of our people.' Mr Isaac Nyirenda, a Henga from Nyasaland, and a stock-taker at Creeds Stores, had been educated at Livingstonia Institution (1904-9) where he had been known for his good singing voice in the choir before being rusticated 'for impudence to a member of staff'. Since then he had worked in Feira, Bwanamkubwa Mine, Salisbury, and Bulawayo.61 His words place him in the tradition of Levi Mumba and Boti Manda, who were young teachers at the Institution during his time there. Possibly, too, he had known the I.C.U. in Southern Rhodesia. His address was followed by a speech from an older man, John Kamuvi Nkata, a clerk in the Mines Department, who came from Fort Jameson. 'The white man brought in liberty and abolished slave trade through justice, peace and love. It is now surprising to see that the white man is now ignoring his first duty.' (applause) 'Brothers we cannot have a thing without asking . . . we must come together and submit our feelings to the government.' James Nkata, who was elected secretary, had been educated at a school of the Livingstonia mission station at Tamanda which served the Eastern Province of Northern Rhodesia, and then trained as a teacher at the Institution, after which he began to teach and preach near Fort Jameson as early as 1904, in the same period as Donald Siwale. Like him he had later become a government clerk. It was in his yard at Maramba that the founders first met in 1929 to discuss the formation of an association and it was he that wrote to Levi Mumba for a copy of the constitution of the North Nyasa Association to use in Livingstone.62 He was followed by Mr J . Ernest Mattako. Africans are now on their way marching to civilization . . . we have this Association as a rope pulling the freedom to the lake or river of happiness . . . it matters not what tribe we may belong to. Let us all realize that we are no more in the dark days in which our forefathers lived. Let us get together and even die together if at all. (applause). Some people think that since we are Africans with black skins we are the only inferior creatures and that we shall never escape from that inferiority, no that is a mistake, just let us behave ourselves like human beings and respect ourselves . . . Mr Mattako had been educated at the Livingstonia mission station at Kasungu and at Livingstonia Institution. He was a nephew of the Rev. Hanock Msokera Phiri who had accompanied Hastings Kamuzu Banda, now President of Malawi, to South Africa in 1917. We have already met him as the organizer and secretary of the Civil Servants' Association, and he probably initiated the welfare associa114

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tion in Ndola, where he was transferred later in the year. With him at the meeting, and formerly with him at Livingstonia Institution as a student, was another Nyasa from Kasungu, Mr Sam K . K . Mwase, son of Chief Mwase Kasungu, and also related to Hastings Kamuzu Banda, from whom he was receiving news of his life in the United States of America and newspapers, including those of Marcus Garvey. He was also in touch with the trade union leader, Clements Kadalie, another man educated in Livingstonia mission schools.63 At this meeting Mr Mwase was elected to the committee, and later he became Vice-Chairman. With him on the committee of five was his senior colleague in the Medical department, Mr Conrad Lumiah, the first African in Northern Rhodesia to be trained in microscopy (at the Union Minière hospital in Congo), and the brother of an early London Missionary Society evangelist. Mr Lumiah was educated at the Mbereshi station of the London Missionary Society. A third committee member was Mr Moffat Sinkala, who provides a direct link with the Mwenzo association, since he was the son of Peter Sinkala who had helped to found the pioneer association in Northern Rhodesia. After his father's death in 1918 he had been brought up by Mwenzo mission and then sent to Livingstonia Institution 1923-26. 64 It will be seen from this brief survey that the first Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary, and two of the five committee members of the association, had been educated at Livingstonia, and from their speeches we can gather that they had not departed from its constitutionalist and modernizing tradition, but had broadened their views through contact with American Negro politics. It also appears that this looked rather a dangerous tradition at first to men of a different upbringing, for Mr Godwin Akabiwa Mbikusita,65 who succeeded James Nkata as secretary in April 1931, and became a very active member of the association, said in a speech he made after his election: I was asked and employed as an Interpreter at the first meeting of this Body in the Beer Hall, where I noticed . . . that the intention . . . was to criticize the measures of the Government, which action greatly discouraged me to enrol myself on the Membership List. This experience as Secretary between 1931 and 1934 must have brought him into contact with a broader tradition, for he became an active member of associations later on on the Copperbelt, and he was elected the first President of the Northern Rhodesia African Congress in 1948. T H E C I V I L S E R V A N T S ' A S S O C I A T I O N AND T H E W E L F A R E

ASSOCIATION

It does seem that the Welfare Association represented a more daring approach to government than the Civil Servants' Association, and that its formation was due to the initiative of a different group of men, although there was some overlapping of membership. Those leading the Civil Servants' Association were older men, mostly of Nyasa or Lozi origin.66 Those leading the Welfare Association were younger men - perhaps the 'Young Turks' who were still waiting to rise into senior positions. They were a combination of Nyasas drawn from Livingstonia and Northern Rhodesians from Luapula, the north and Eastern Province, a combination similar to that which formed the leadership of the very "5

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radical Zambia African National Congress established much later in 1958 by Mr Kaunda and Mr Kapwepwe from Lubwa. If we examine the names of the twenty-one men who petitioned the government in 1929 to obtain permission to form the Welfare Association, we find that all but three came from Northern Rhodesia, and that the names of the three Nyasas, Messrs Nyirenda, Mattako, and Mwase, had been added at the bottom of the list as if these men had wanted the initiative to come from the local men.67 Of the eighteen local men, the origin of one is unknown. Eleven came from Livingstonia schools - six from Eastern Province, four from Mwenzo, and one who had begun his schooling at the Kawimbe mission of the London Missionary Society but had been sent on to the Livingstonia Institution to complete it. The other six also came from London Missionary Society schools. The London Missionary Society was the only other mission in the north which had a large network of schools offering general education up to a fairly high standard before 1914. It was closely linked with Livingstonia. Dr Laws had been called in to settle a dispute in 1905 and to give advice on the London Missionary Society school system.68 Thereafter up to 1914 Livingstonia-trained teachers were sent to Kawimbe and Mbereshi schools in order to raise their standards and to introduce Livingstonia methods. Student teachers from London Missionary Society schools were sent on to Livingstonia Institution to complete their teacher training from 1905 to 1910 until proper teacher-training schools had been begun at Kawimbe and Mbereshi. In 1914 the London Missionary Society District Committee even decided to join a proposed federation of Nyasaland Calvinist churches, but the advent of war prevented this.69 For these reasons the educated young men of Mbereshi, Kashinda, and Kawimbe had close contacts both with men from Mwenzo and Lubwa, and with Nyasas from Livingstonia. A cross-tribal and cross-territorial relationship had been established, which formed the basis of the Livingstone Welfare Association leadership, and which was extended, once the association had been formed, to the large number of Lozis in government departments, who gradually joined after Godwin Mbikusita became Secretary in April 1931. 7 0 CREED'S

STORES

Finally we should consider the role of Creed's Stores. Founded by an eccentric Irish big-game hunter, Mr Creed, this company had by 1930 a large chain of shops along the line of rail, said by the head stock-taker to have numbered over forty, selling its African customers anything from a piece of cloth to a bicycle. Each shop was in charge of an African store capitao. These were supervised by African stock-takers who went from shop to shop up and down the line of rail, either by rail or bicycle, checking on the stock and accounts. It was a pattern very similar in some respects to that used in Livingstonia mission stations for education. The stock-taker and store capitao corresponded to the inspector and schoolteacher. As in the case of Livingstonia mission stations, Creed only had two Europeans at the head of his organization - Mr Priest and Mr Lawson - so there was much room for African initiative. It is not at all surprising that he recruited most of his senior staff from ex-teachers of Livingstonia mission, for 116

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they were accustomed to responsibility. A further point of importance was the territorial organization of this business concern. Its leading stock-takers were constantly moving up and down the line of rail and quite obviously were taking with them political ideas as well as store goods. 71 THE BROKEN H I L L WELFARE

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Besides Rankin Isaac Nyirenda, Chairman of the Livingstone Association, another stock-taker of Creed's who had signed the letter to the government in 1929 asking for permission to begin the association, was M r Abiner Bright Kazunga, a man of great natural intelligence who was a close friend of M r Sam K . K . Mwase. A Chewa, whose parents had been driven by the Ngoni to Kasungu but had returned after the defeat of Mpezeni into the Jumbe district of Eastern Province in Northern Rhodesia, he received his education at Tamanda station of Livingstonia mission, then proceeded from job to job along the line of rail until he found himself in the post and telegraphs department in Livingstone in 1924, living in a one-room house, earning £2 10s. a month. Creed's Stores offered him £ 5 a month, so he transferred to them in 1929 and was given charge of a group of shops on the line to Broken Hill. In the foundation meeting of the Livingstone Association it was he that had suggested the name 'welfare association' for the new organization, and it was he that took the idea of forming such an association to Broken Hill. 7 2 With another founder member of the Livingstone Association, M r Anderson Kampheta Sakala, a postal clerk and an ex-teacher and preacher in Fort Jameson area, and close friend of Ernest Mattako, M r Kazunga had been able to contact a most remarkable self-educated Lunda who was related to Chief Kazembe, Abel Kashell, the chief cook to a Broken Hill mine official, who had already organized a Dance Club and later became a Methodist lay preacher. These three now drew in others who formed the nucleus of a welfare association in 1930, which was always very democratic in that almost from the outset, on the suggestion of M r Kazunga, its meetings were held in the vernacular rather than in English, and its members were not only clerks and teachers but also domestic servants, tailors, ivory workers, and laundry men, though the mine did not allow its employees to attend until 1935. It was over two hundred strong in its hey-day. The first chairman, M r George Nyirenda, was the brother of Rankin Isaac Nyirenda, the chairman of the Livingstone Association, and is said to have taught in Karonga district after his education at the Livingstonia Institution. In 1930 he was employed by the police as an interpreter, and had been chosen chairman partly in order to have close contact with the police, whose misuse of power was one of the chief problems of life in an African compound. Nyirenda's successor as chairman was Anderson Sakala, a Chewa related to Chief Chikuwe of Fort Jameson district, who had been educated and taught for a few years at Mvera mission in the days when the Rev. Andrew Murray was working with Livingstonia mission. A prominent founder member of the Livingstone association, he retained his keen political interest throughout his life, being chairman of Fort Jameson African National Congress from 1952, and with his son, Raphael, following Kaunda into Z A N C in 1958. 7 3 In this association the Livingstonia leadership at the beginning was also marked. The first two

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chairmen, two treasurers, two secretaries, and two vice-chairmen, in the first three years of its existence, had been educated in Livingstonia schools. THE NDOLA WELFARE A S S O C I A T I O N

The third large welfare association to be formed in 1930 was that at Ndola, a rapidly growing centre of trade, and a railway junction for the copper mines, the large-scale development of which got under way between 1928 and 1930. The Ndola association began in June, only six weeks later than the one at Livingstone, and the stimulus came from Mr J. Ernest Mattako who had been transferred to Ndola just after the inaugural meeting of the Livingstone Welfare Association. However, the leadership of the association immediately passed into the control of the group of very able government clerks who had already given their community much service. Foremost among these was Mr Ernest Alexander Muwamba, who was elected the first chairman, and like Mattako was an ex-teacher from Livingstonia mission. He was the cousin of Clements Kadalie, the man who had built up the first African trade union movement in South Africa, and like him possessed remarkable powers of organization.74 These were first employed in creating a strong United Church of Ndola from the small group which a fellow-clerk from Livingstonia, Zebediah Chiuma, had begun in his home in the 1920s. The large congregation was drawn from men trained in a variety of Protestant missions and was an outstanding example of African initiative. In 192275 he had persuaded the nearest mission, the South African Baptist at Kafulafuta, to send them an evangelist and two teachers, and the Rev. A. J. Cross to add their church to the many others he supervised. A school was built, which was perhaps the motive for contacting Kafulafuta, but its teaching did not satisfy men accustomed to Livingstonia standards, and Mr Muwamba out of a salary of £7 a month employed his own teacher at 105 a month to instruct his children. The church building also was largely paid for by the local congregation,76 and was used in 1928 to discuss the failure of the mission to provide good teachers and the need for someone who could teach their children English. The same question had been discussed at the inaugural meeting of the Ndola branch of the Native Civil Servants' Association, which had been formed by Ernest Muwamba, as soon as he had heard of the formation of the parent body in Livingstone in 1927.77 It can be seen that Ndola already had a strong African pressure group at work before the arrival of the welfare association. In 1928, for example, the United Church congregation 'successfully fought a proposal by the Village Management Board' - the European Town Council - 'to establish a Beer Hall in the vicinity of the Town Location'. 78 The significance of the European pressure for a Beer Hall was that it was hoped to use the profits to provide the minimum sanitation needs of the African location, and thereby save the Board some money. One reason why the church won mass support over this issue was the fact that once the Beer Hall had been established the authorities would ban the brewing of 'native beer', which was an important source of income to many women. The membership of the church provided the membership of the welfare association, once it began. Mr Ernest Muwamba, the church elder and treasurer, 118

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was elected Chairman. Mr Elijah Herbert Chunga, his colleague in government service and also educated at Livingstonia, who was a local preacher in Ndola church, was elected Secretary.79 Of the ten office bearers elected annually during the first two years of the association's life, only three were not educated in Livingstonia schools. Five, including Muwamba, were from Nyasaland, the other two from Lubwa in Northern Rhodesia. Representing the association in 1935 at the General Missionary Conference held in Ndola, to which the association sent a deputation and a letter of welcome, was Mr Nelson Manda, the son of the Rev. Edward Boti Manda whose fiery political sermons at Livingstonia Institution we have mentioned earlier. At this time the welfare association found itself in alliance with the General Missionary Conference, which was meeting in a rebellious mood under the chairmanship of the Rev. J . Soulsby, who strongly protested against the proposed ten per cent cut in government expenditure upon African education, and against the disastrous use of troops to suppress the first strike by African miners on the Copperbelt. The deputation from the welfare association was also mostly concerned with the need for higher education. From the start the Ndola association had been organized in an extremely efficient way, holding every fortnight or three weeks during the first two years committees of some ten or a dozen men, composed of office bearers and tribal representatives. The introduction of tribal representatives was an innovation. One was chosen to represent each tribe in the compound, the population of which was more polyglot than in Livingstone. The task of the tribal representative was to channel individual cases of grievance, particularly ill-treatment by Europeans and by the police, to the committee, which then laid them before the District Commissioner. Some minutes of early committees have been preserved. At the one held, for example, on 7 November 1930, with ten present, the meeting opened with a hymn from Sacred Songs and Solos and a reading from the Epistle to the Ephesians, which emphasized the duty of the committee to behave like men and to 'put off foolish things'. The same sense of commitment existed as in the Livingstone Association.80 Because of this, for some years the association was able to do some of the work of an African town council, for which no provision existed. It successfully prevented the Sunday opening of the Beer Hall, which seems to have been established despite the earlier campaign. It pressed forward the building of a government school and formed a sub-committee with Mr T. Opper, the Inspector of Native Education, to encourage parents to send their children to this school. With Mr Opper's help it founded a library. It pushed the government into improving the appalling sanitary arrangements at the location, expressed firm objections to amalgamation with Southern Rhodesia (1933), established a town market, and garden plots (1934), asked for an African newspaper which later came in the form of the government newspaper Mutende, and (best remembered of all) raised the whole question of native passes, and arrangements for travel by rail at night. As a result the railway company agreed to make a 'halt' to allow Africans to alight from the train by night in the location. Previously they had had to alight at the 'European' station and wait there all night as they were not allowed to travel through the 'European' town to the African location during the hours of darkness. (Today this is known as Muwamba halt.) 119

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In this period of self-confidence it is significant that the Ndola United Church congregation, almost as one body, passed out of the Kafulafuta Baptist mission connection into the African Methodist Episcopal Church under Muwamba's leadership. The founding of the government primary school helped this to happen,81 as the educated African community at Ndola no longer depended upon a missionary connection to provide schools for their children. THE AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL

CHURCH82

The importance of the African Methodist Church has already been mentioned earlier. It provided a vehicle for American Negro cultural influence upon southern and central Africa, and heightened race consciousness. Although its clergy were instructed to take no part in politics, and went out of their way to express loyalty to the colonial government,83 nevertheless some of the hymns and sermons had political overtones; its laymen have been politically active, and included for a period in the 1950s many of the Northern Rhodesia African Congress leaders such as Kenneth Kaunda, now President of Zambia, Justin Chimba, Wittington Sikalumbi, and Robert Makasa.84 More important, the very existence in 1931 of a substantial church organization outside white control seemed a step forward, and members spoke of their 'religious emancipation'. Although the liturgy was fixed by a Book of Discipline similar to that of any Wesleyan church and written in English, choirs introduced an important African element, using traditional tunes and dancing into and out of the services. Holy Communion was followed by a joyful dance of the whole congregation at a time when such expressions of African culture were out of the question in a mission church.85 Nevertheless the African Methodist church did not sustain its promise of higher education and help from Negro America. The American Negro bishop had his headquarters in Cape Town and Johannesburg where the church was strongest, and almost all the financial help from America was going to build up the schools and churches in South Africa. Not until after World War 2 did any appreciable aid cross the Zambesi into Northern Rhodesia. Consequently the church was independent but poor, and it was difficult to keep in being the few schools that were established. Members often had to send their children to mission schools for higher education. Some left altogether and returned disappointed to their mission churches. This was essentially the same problem as affected the growth of self-government in the Livingstonia churches, and it is noteworthy that since Zambia has achieved independence and income has been redistributed from the white settler community and companies to the urban African middle classes, the African Methodist church has grown rapidly. But the failure of the church to sustain its initial rapid advance in the early 1930s is instructive. It shows us that even although the educated Africans of the 1930s were becoming more concerned about their identity as Africans, this came second to the means of education and advancement in the modern sector, which the mission churches still controlled. However, in the years 1931 and 1932, before the full effects of the World Depression had begun to diminish the ranks of educated Africans in Northern Rhodesian townships, and temporarily undermine the influence of the welfare 120

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associations, most of the founders of those associations whose biographies we have briefly reviewed, did enthusiastically enter the African Methodist church to become local preachers and officials in it. Some, like Mr Abiner Kazunga, Mr Ernest Mattako, Mr Lester Membe, and Mr Kampheta Sakala remained in the church for the rest of their lives. Others, like Mr Ernest Muwamba, Mr Elijah Chunga, and Mr Hastings Kamuzu Banda remained only for a period. The planting of the African Methodist church in Northern Rhodesia came from two different directions, from the south and from the east. In the east, the Rev. Hanock Msokera Phiri had established the church in Nyasaland in 1924, after Dr Donald Fraser of Livingstonia mission had recommended the Nyasaland government to grant it recognition. Subsequently Phiri tried but failed to obtain permission to found a church in the Fort Jameson district of Northern Rhodesia where he had a number of converts,86 but it was his influence upon his relative, Ernest Muwamba, between 1929 and 1931, that had led to the dramatic secession of Ndola United Church in January 1931 and the establishment by Muwamba of preachers at the mines and in Luapula Province, and the formation of a church at Luanshya by Ernest Mattako.87 After that Lester Membe, at one time a teacher at Mwenzo, created a strong church in the Abercorn area. Since all these men were educated at Livingstonia mission, we can see here, also, the Livingstonia factor at work. From the south came the missionary outreach of the strong African Methodist church at Bulawayo, led by the remarkable Rev. Z. C. Mtshwelo who had established churches at most of the mines and railway towns.88 Wankie mine, cited by Professor Ranger as a seed-bed of Watch Tower, 89 also had a strong African Methodist church, whence migrants from Barotseland had returned home and asked Mtshwelo to send them a pastor.90 Mtshwelo, who in 1927 had experienced temporary deportation when trying to enter Southern Rhodesia, played his hand skilfully with the new Secretary for Native Affairs, Mr Moffat Thomson, and not only won recognition for the churches in Barotseland, Livingstone, Ndola, and Broken Hill but also obtained a personal interview with Thomson and made a sufficiently good impression for the Secretary for Native Affairs to defend him later against adverse reports on Mtshwelo's sermon in Ndola by the inevitable C.I.D. agent.91 WHY THE L I V I N G S T O N I A

I N F L U E N C E W A S SO S T R O N G

From our analysis so far we have seen that the influence of the Livingstonia mission upon the three leading welfare associations in Northern Rhodesia was considerable. We have traced the idea of such an organization back to Mwenzo and the pioneer association at Karonga, and even before that to the political discussions of young students at the Livingstonia Institution. We have seen how many of the founders of associations at Livingstone, Broken Hill, and Ndola came from Livingstonia mission schools and brought with them a strong sense of civic duty and the vision of uplifting their people. We have also traced a searching for a more African identity than their original schools offered and the way in which for a period this encouraged the planting of the African Methodist church almost alongside the welfare associations. It would be possible to trace a similar influence at work in the smaller associations that were formed between

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1931 and 1932 in Kasama, Abercorn, Luanshya, Lusaka, Choma, and Mazabuka. Why, it may be asked, was this particular mission so influential at this time ? Historians have already commented on the 'Nyasa diaspora' into Northern Rhodesia to provide its offices and stores with the educated Africans that its own less-developed school system had failed to provide before 1939. From studying the leadership of welfare associations it seems that educated men from the other Nyasa missions - the Church of Scotland mission at Blantyre, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, and the White Fathers' mission, played a minor role. Three lines of explanation suggest themselves, and I consider that all three were important. In the first place, Livingstonia mission had stations both in Nyasaland and in Northern Rhodesia, and the brightest of the Standard Four boys all went to the same Institution for their advanced education and mixed together. Student teachers from London Missionary Society schools also went there for a period before 1914. In effect the whole of Luapula, Abercorn, and the Mporokoso edge of Bemba country, which were served by London Mission schools, came under Livingstonia influence in that its most educated men met at Livingstonia with Namwanga from Mwenzo and Bemba from Chinsali, and came to know the languages and people of North Nyasaland and the students from Tamanda and Lundazi stations in Eastern Province through attending the Institution. Thus a cross-tribal relationship was begun, and this helps to explain the 'politically minded north and east' even before the growth of the mines on the Copperbelt mixed and radicalized those peoples. It should be noted that in studying the men who founded the welfare associations we are in touch with a generation that was not typically affected by direct experience of the mines, though some did work as mine clerks. The growth of the mines had certainly created the urban setting and provided the money which enabled government departments and shops to develop, but the few educated men the mines recruited were not allowed to take part in welfare associations before 1935. This has to be emphasized, as there is a tendency for historians to attribute almost every social development in this period to the growth of the mines. An explanation which stresses the early and widespread influence of the Institution may help to distinguish the role of migrants from Livingstonia from those from Blantyre, as in other respects those two missions seem to have had a similar political orientation. Blantyre missionaries were interested and active in politics, and Dr Hetherwick was at one time thought of as a 'Member for the Opposition' by irritated colonial officials.92 Dr Ross has shown that the early political culture at Blantyre was radical, but it is possible that men from there had less contact with Northern Rhodesians than men from Livingstonia and more naturally formed Nyasa organizations than cross-tribal ones. This is difficult to determine. They did play some part in welfare associations. For example, Mr McNeil Liabunya, who was a clerk educated at Blantyre, was the first chairman of the Abercorn Association, though the vice-chairman and secretary came from Livingstonia. The second explanation refers to the different balance between economic and educational development in north and south Malawi, as a result of which fewer men came from Blantyre and more from Livingstonia to Northern Rhodesia. Livingstonia mission started very early, and with early advantages. It had the backing of wealthy men before 1914, and Dr Laws was able to build what for

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many years was the only institution for advanced education in Central Africa. Fairly early in the history of the mission, too, Dr Laws had come among people, the Lakeside Tonga and Henga, to whom the coming of Europeans meant a liberation from the possible threat of extinction by the Ngoni, and they responded rapidly to the intentions of the mission,93 providing most of the first generation of mission teachers and preachers - the Mandas, the Nyirendas, the Muwambas, the Kaundas, and many others, whose children came to Northern Rhodesia. It was among these people, and then the Ngoni, that the first widespread system of Christian education was established. In 1905 Livingstonia mission schools contained sixty per cent of the children attending any school in Nyasaland, and that included the only secondary school in the territory.94 At that time Blantyre mission had only seven per cent, and the Henderson Institution was not begun until 1909. Missions like the White Fathers (with one per cent of the children) and the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (with four per cent) provided very little general education before 1914, although the U.M.C.A. trained a small number of remarkable African priests like the Rev. Yohana Abdallah and the Rev. Leonard Kamungu at the Zanzibar seminary.95 However by 1914 the balance of advantage had begun to tilt against Livingstonia mission. The economy of Nyasaland did not develop in the way that Dr Laws had hoped. The northern parts, where Livingstonia influence was strong, became a labour reserve for southern Africa rather than the land of prosperous Christian peasant farmers and craftsmen that he had originally envisaged. What development there was, was in the south. The same was true in the northern and eastern parts of Northern Rhodesia where Livingstonia had its stations. This was so because the modernizing economic influences were coming up from the south, and stayed along the railway routes. So the Livingstonia area in both territories became quite literally another Scottish highlands exporting educated people to a more economically developed south. In view of the different opportunities for cash farming in the north and the south, different political concerns tended to develop. Politics for people living around Blantyre with its fertile land and markets for cash farmers was bound up with competition for land between African and white farmers, as the Chilwembwe rising indicates. Mr Andrew Funsani, from the Blantyre mission and district, although for many years a clerk in Northern Rhodesia returned to Malawi to retire, and when I interviewed him he saw politics in terms of the seizure of his father's fertile land by a white settler and spoke of the 'tangata' system which had forced his relatives to work upon European estates.96 His political outlook was focused upon the local scene. By contrast, a northerner's concern was to gain a footing in the new place of work, the town, and his politics centred on resistance to colour bar and drew him into solidarity with all other town-dwellers. A third way of considering the political influence of Livingstonia mission is to examine the political and educational tradition which its missionaries brought with them. Mission staffs tended to be drawn from a similar country, or social class, or intellectual tradition, and this, in combination with its particular religious tradition, determined what each mission thought it should do with regard to education, and what kind of social and political attitudes were encouraged. Certainly later when its students left the mission for the town they 123

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would come into contact with many different ideas, but the original mission teaching was still there in a man's mind, helping to interpret his new experiences. This would particularly be the case with the better educated men who had spent many years learning and teaching within a certain tradition. To analyse the Livingstonia tradition we should have to refer to the turning away from the contemplative and priestly traditions of Mediaeval Christianity during the Reformation, and their replacement in Scotland by a form of Christianity which measured the good life in terms of active involvement in secular pursuits. The Presbyterian church was essentially a body of laymen, governing its affairs through elected councils, and referring to the Bible for its final authority. Its members therefore required a good level of general education and training in self-government. As Dr Laws said: 'we require . . . a thoroughly trained laity, otherwise we shall have a priest-ridden people'.97 He also drew the corollary from his aim of founding a self-supporting African church that its members would have to advance into the cash economy to earn their living in order to finance their church, so that whilst he protested at the evil effects of labour migration, his educational policy made it more possible, particularly as the Institution trained skilled artisans, clerks, postal workers, and book-keepers as well as teachers and ordained ministers. In the end the mission saw migration as a means of founding new churches. Church members were taught to be selfreliant and to build their own churches and schools, as Muwamba and his fellows did at Ndola. (In a strange land, of course, these churches became centres of Nyasa identification.) The ideas of the Livingstonia missionaries reflected their national culture, and their social position, with which their religious heritage was closely knit. Since 1616 Scotland had enjoyed a system of parish schools provided by the Church of Scotland which gave her inhabitants in 1859 a degree of literacy not attained in England until 1886, France until 1888, or Italy until 1925. 98 Because of its relatively poor economy ambitious young Scotsmen had relied upon these schools to provide themselves with the means to leave their home and seek their fortune. Advancement came through the school, and the prestige of the Scottish schoolmaster had been correspondingly high. In the nineteenth century rapid industrialization of the Lowlands brought with it not only well-known social evils but also manifold opportunities for self-reliant men and encouraged an optimistic belief in progress and social improvement. Most of the Livingstonia missionaries, like Laws himself, were first-generation university men who had risen as a result of higher education.99 At the university they became heirs not only to Calvin but also to Adam Smith and the Scottish enlightenment, with its belief in the advancement of man through education, science, and industry. Thus Dr Laws celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the mission in 1905 by switching on one of the first electric supplies to be installed in Nyasaland, as if to signify that the mission was there to change the material as well as the spiritual order in Africa, and he encouraged his students to believe that it was their religious duty to improve their people. The emphasis upon education and Westernization was a feature of most Scottish missions overseas in the nineteenth century. Dr Alexander Duff, the first Church of Scotland missionary to India, had founded the first large, western-style school in Calcutta in 1830, where he taught the young Hindu intelligentsia to value science and English 124

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literature in preparation for their role (as he hoped) as the future Christian leaders of their country. From this school Calcutta University grew. 100 Dr James Stewart followed with Lovedale Institution in Cape Province (from 1866) where he added industrial education to courses in science and English. 101 In due course Fort Hare University developed from it. It was in this tradition that Livingstonia mission was formed. Stewart had first suggested founding the Nyasa mission and Duff was the Convener of the Committee that sent it out. 102 CONCLUSION

By the early twentieth century the area served by Livingstonia mission had become a major centre of intellectual and religious innovation. It was here that a powerful Watch Tower movement had originated under the lead of Eliot Kenan Kamwana, a one-time student of Livingstonia Institution. It was here that had been educated many of the founders of the independent African churches not only of Nyasaland but also of Northern Rhodesia and Tanganyika. 103 It was here also that the new traditions of political organization and negotiation with government by educated Africans began and flowered into the inter-war native and welfare associations. In his pioneer study of the Nyasaland native associations Professor van Velsen twice raised the question why it was that political organization had begun in the north, when most of the problems that might have stimulated this were in the south where settlers were establishing their estates at the expense of African landholders.104 In this, as in other historical situations, it is not only the environmental pressures that we have to consider for our understanding of political development but also the vision that encourages some new form of response. In this paper I have related political innovation in the north of Nyasaland to the democratic tradition of a certain mission where educated Africans could obtain experience of responsibility in a modern structure. This stimulated some of them to go further and to take independent action in the secular political field. As we have seen, this democratic tradition was handed on in a religious setting. It was the planting of a self-governing church that Dr Laws and his colleagues were first of all concerned about, but his letters, and those of his colleagues Dr Elmslie and the Rev. Fraser, reveal also a consistently liberal approach to secular politics. 105 Theirs was certainly a more cautious outlook than that of the Seventh Day Baptist missionary, Joseph Booth, who had asked in 1899 for African self-government in Nyasaland 'after twenty-one years'. 106 The more cautious political intention of the Scottish missionaries, which was to reproduce in Central Africa the evolution of their own society from autocracy through rule by the educated middle classes to full democracy was not the only political idea that influenced the intelligentsia of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia but it was the idea which first encouraged some of them to set about gaining some experience of political organization. Limited in aim as these associations seemed to a later generation of African nationalists faced with the threat of anti-liberal, white settler nationalism, they were, as Dr Laws had thought they would be, the training ground for the founders of self-governing African states.

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NOTES 1 Malawi and Zambia became independent states in 1964. Throughout this paper 1 shall use the names 'Nyasaland' and 'Northern Rhodesia', which were employed in the period that this paper covers. 2 Levi Mumba 'Native Associations in Nyasaland' The South African Outlook 2 June 1924. 3 Nyasaland Legislative Council Minutes Opening session, May 1908. The first missionary representative was Dr Hetherwick of the Church of Scotland mission, Blantyre. 4 See Richard Gray The Two Nations (London i960) pp. 168-78; J . van Velsen, 'Some Early Pressure Groups in Malawi', in E. Stokes and R. Brown (eds) The Zambesian Past: Studies in Central Africa (Manchester 1966). R. I. Rotberg The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa (Harvard 1966); J . Hooker, 'Welfare Associations and Other Movements of Accommodation' Comparative Studies in Society and History 1966-67, IX, 1; R. Tangri, 'The Rise of Nationalism in Colonial Africa' Comparative Studies in Society and, History 1968, X , 2; R. Tangri, 'Inter-War "Native Associations" and the Formation of the Nyasaland African Congress' Trans African Journal of History I, January 1971, pp. 84-102; T . 0 . Ranger The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (London 1970). 5 Named after the Glasgow chemical manufacturer John Campbell White, who became Lord Overtoun in 1893, and gave £10,000 of the £30,000 Laws asked for to build it, and altogether £50,000 to the mission in his lifetime. (National Library of Scotland, MS7901 Lindsay to Laws 13.7.1898; MS7874 Gossip to Overtoun 5.7.1899; NLS7864 Fairley Daly to Manson 2.10.1901; NLS7864 Fairley Daly to McFarlane, 27.3.1903. For the Tumbuka and Senga: Annual Report, Lundazi District March 1905, K S T 4 / 1 / 1 Zambia National Archives (ZNA).) In 1905 there were nineteen schools in that district supervised from Loudon Mission Station by the Rev. Donald Fraser. For Laws see W. P. Livingstone Lams of Livingstonia (London 1923). Although the mission was founded by the Free Church of Scotland, Laws himself came from the United Presbyterian Church which had a tradition of both independence and ecumenism, as it had gathered together in 1847 a number of breakaway sects from the established church dating back to the eighteenth century. 6

A major study on the influence of the Livingstonia mission upon Malawi, to which I am indebted, is K . J . McCracken Livingstonia Mission and the Evolution of Malawi 1875-1939 (D.Phil, unpublished, Cambridge 1967). Much of the biographical information I have collected in personal interviews. T o reduce footnotes not every reference has been given. I should like at this point to acknowledge the help in particular of the Hon. W. Nyirenda, the Hon. R. Makasa, the Hon. J . Sokoni, the Hon. W. Sikalumbi, M r J . Chimba, M r Donald Siwale, the Rev. F . McPherson, M r Samuel Muwamba, the Rev. Shadrack Gondwe, the Rev. Ewen Siwale, Mr Philip Jamin Silavwe, the Rev. Abiner Kasunga, Chief Mwase Kasunga, Mr Conrad Lumish, M r Abel Kashell, M r Tom Manda, M r Andrew Funsani, M r Elijah Chunga, the Rev Paul Gwamba, Mr Aaron Mwenya, M r Herbert Chipungu, and to thank the University of Zambia for a research grant which facilitated oral research. T o Professors J . van Velsen, Richard Gray, and Bridglal Pachai, Dr Robin Palmer, D r Garth Watson, Messrs T . J . Thompson and B. Rau I am grateful for reading an earlier draft of this paper and making helpful comments. 7

The first part of this paragraph relies upon S. A. Bwinga The North Nyasa Native Association History Seminar Paper at the University of Malawi (13.3.1971 mimeo). I am grateful to Dr R. Palmer of the University of Zambia for drawing my attention 126

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to this paper. R. I. Rotberg, op. cit. p. 116, has the reference to the S. African National Congress. I am grateful to Professor van Velsen of the University of Zambia and to Professor B. Pachai of the University of Malawi for the reference to Dr Sanderson, and to Professor Pachai for a copy of part of the letter of Dr Kamuzu Banda, President of Malawi, to the Rev. H. M . Phiri, 21.4.1946. For the reference to Dr Laws see note 14. For further information on Dr Sanderson see Annual Medical Report, Nyasaland, year ended 31 March 1 9 1 2 (CO 626/1) and Nyasaland Blue Book (1922). 8 R. Tangri 'Inter-War "Native Associations" and the Formation of the Nyasaland African Congress', pp. 86-87. Cf. R. I. Rotberg The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa, pp. 1 1 6 - 1 7 . 9 Minutes of Executive Council, Nyasaland 15 April and 3 November 1913. CO 626/2/1913. The Ordinance was first applied in April 1 9 1 3 to Shire region and not until after November 1913 in the North Nyasa district. 10 S. A. Bwinga, op, cit., and personal interview, M r Gilbert Sichale, 17 May 1972. 11 Printed in the mission journal Livingstonia News October 1912. Government records of this period were partly lost by fire and no minutes of the pre-war associations exist. 12 In effect a form of forced labour whereby villagers were recruited by the Boma messengers to carry heavy loads. Both Simon Muhango and Levi Mumba served in Tanganyika with the Kings African Rifles, 1 9 1 5 - 1 8 . (Personal interview: Gilbert Sichale, 17 May 1972.) Compare the remarks of George Shepperson's review article 'The Military History of Central Africa' Rhodes Livingstone Journal i960, X X V I , 23-33. 13 The Rev. T . Cullen Young in a short biography of Levi Mumba in International Review of Missions 1930, 19, 362; The Rev. S. Gondwe, personal interviews 27 October 1971 and 28 October 1 9 7 1 ; Tangri 'Inter-War "Native Associations"' p. 100; Livingstonia Register, 1895-1908; Mr Gilbert Sichale, interview, 17 May 1972; Letter from Mr J . D. C. Drew, National Archivist, Malawi, 13 December 1971. 14 Aurora December 1907. In his letter Laws wrote: 'Full electoral native franchise and native members of a Legislative Assembly are a long way off yet, but this has to come in the future, and the sooner the A B C of such responsibilities are learned the safer for the country.' D r Laws to Acting Chief Secretary, 1 2 January 1920 in Outletter Book of the Livingstonia mission in Malawi National Archives. I am grateful to the Rev. P. C. Mzembe, the General Secretary of the Livingstonia Synod of the Church of Central Africa (Presbyterian) for permission to use the Livingstonia mission records in Malawi National Archives and to M r J . D. C. Drew, the Director of Archives, for his help. 15 Kirk Sessions was the representative committee of the local congregation. T h e first six elders and six deacons were ordained at Bandawe in 1895. In 1899 the Kirk Session of Ngoniland was constituted, and in the same year Presbytery began. This was composed of delegates from Kirk Sessions of all the churches in its area. Karonga Kirk Sessions began in 1900, Ekwendeni in 1901. The Minute Book of the Mombera Association is now in the Malawi National Archives. It was given by the Rev. C. Chinula to Professor van Velsen, who placed it in the archives. I am grateful to him for permission to use it. No other Minute Book has survived. The Rev. Shadrack Gondwe's father, Mr Saulos Gondwe, was a member of Mombera Association, as were two of his uncles and three of his teachers, so the Rev. Gondwe knew a large number of the members on the 1924 list. 16 The two elected offices were secretary and president. The following were elected presidents: 1920-22: The Rev. Hezekia Tweya, in Ekwendeni Kirk Sessions since 1902.

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1922-23: Chief Amon Jele, ex-mission teacher and Principal Headman. 1923-24: Mr Mawelera, mission teacher and composer of Ngoni hymns, also Clerk of Ekwendeni Kirk Sessions since 1902. 1924-25: Chief Amon Jele. 1926-27: Mr Thomas Nhlema, school inspector and church elder. 1927: Mr Yobe Nhlane, teacher and local preacher. 1929-31: Chief Lazaro Jele, ex-mission teacher and Principal Headman. The two secretaries were: Rev. C. Chinula (1920-22 and 1925-35), and Mr Yesaya Chibambo (1922-25) a school inspector and church elder. 17 van Velsen 'Some Early Pressure Groups in Malawi', p. 409; Rotberg The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa, pp. 1 1 5 - 1 6 ; Livingstonia Register, 1895-1908, Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, and D. Siwale, personal interview, 18 May 1972. 18 Aurora (December 1907). 19 Livingstonia News (January 1908). 20 The first grant for education made by the Nyasaland Government was in 1908, and amounted to £1,000 for all schools in Nyasaland. Livingstonia mission's total expenditure in that year was about £11,000, a great deal of which was for education. 21 Dr Kenneth Kaunda is today President of Zambia. His father was the Rev. David Kaunda, educated at Livingstonia Institution and the founder of Lubwa mission in Chinsali district where he established the first schools and church. The comments are in K . D. Kaunda Zambia Shall Be Free (London 1962). 22 Livingstonia News (October 1912). 23 International Review of Missions 19, 362-76. 24 Henry Chibangwa, a deportee from the mines of Southern Rhodesia (T. O. Ranger The African Voice p. 146) was for a short period a member of Luanshya Welfare Association but was rejected by his staider fellows when they found he was taking the association into a head-on clash with government. Note the dislike expressed by E. A. Muwamba for Watch Tower in his evidence to the Northern Rhodesia Copperbelt Disturbances Commission of Inquiry 1935. 25 Rev. J . Mokone The Early Life of our Founder (Johannesburg 1935) p. 17. 26 T . Ranger 'Education in East and Central Africa 1900-1939' in Past and Present 32, 81. Although Livingstonia Institution provided education for Africans of the highest standard in Central Africa it still left them without a full secondary school course. 27 L. H. Gann A History ofN. Rhodesia (London 1964) p. 36. James Stevenson was a philanthropic Glasgow merchant interested both in the African Lakes Corporation and in the Livingstonia mission. He planned the road in 1879. 28 Frederick L. M. Moir After Livingstone (London 1924) p. 158, describes his journey in 1890 between North Nyasaland and Lake Tanganyika making treaties with chiefs. It was then that the new trading station of 'Mwenzo' or 'Fife' was planned. It had been established by 1891, according to a letter of the Rev. Mather to Thompson, London Missionary Society, April 1892 (L.M.S. Archives). The earliest reference I have found to Mwenzo mission is an account for Nyanja New Testaments and hymnbooks, 18 October 1894, Livingstonia Letter Book 3. 29 ZNA, NE/A/1/1/1; and NR/A/1/4/4/8. I wish to thank the former and present directors, Mr D. Stiles and Mr P. Makulu, for all their help. 30 Aurora (February 1902). 31 National Library of Scotland, MS7888 Laws to Ashcroft 11.4.1925, suggesting the formation of a Jubilee Fund to build a new college; MS7888 Laws to Ashcroft 3.10.1925 describes negotiations with and visit of the Governor of N. Rhodesia; 128

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MS7889 Laws to Balfour 12.4.1926: 'I hope this will yet be known as the Overtoun College of the University of Livingstonia.' 38 ibid. 33 van Velsen 'Some Early Pressure Groups', p. 400. 34 Mr Donald Siwale, personal interview, 19 December 1969. 35 Livingstonia News (1911) Mwenzo schools. 36 The most outstanding example of heavy responsibility was the entrusting to Mr David Kaunda the opening up of the Chinsali area, 1905-13. When in 1913 the Rev. McMinn arrived he found '45 schools with 77 teachers and . . . 1521 boys and 996 girls on his roll' Livingstonia News (1913). He was a Tonga from Bandawe. 37 Livingstonia News (June 1909). 38 Minutes of North Livingstonia Presbytery, 2 November 1900; 10 May 1906; and extract from Mwenzo Kirk Sessions 6 October 1916 in Presbytery Letter Book, MNA. They were also men of great natural ability. Donald Siwale was top of the list in 1904, taking Standard Seven with 91 per cent, Livingstonia Mark Book 1904-26, Church of Scotland, Edinburgh. 39 Mr Donald Siwale, personal interview, 19 December 1969. 40 There were welfare associations at Mporokoso and Luwingu, close to London Missionary Society and White Fathers' mission stations respectively, but these were in existence in 1950 and probably formed by members of associations returning from the towns. In any case by 1950 welfare associations were rather out of date as Congress had captured the hopes of younger men. See Rotberg The Rise of Nationalism p. 229. 41 Richard Hall Zambia p. 1 1 3 ; Rotberg The Rise of Nationalism p. 124. His account is also inaccurate in its reference to Mr Siwale, who was not 'transferred' but went on leave and travelled in the Congo for nearly a year, ZNA: ZA7/1/10/9. 42 Livingstonia News (1919). Peter Sinkala died just before his ordination to be a minister, leaving two sons, Moffat and William, who were brought up by the mission. Mr William Sinkala, personal interview, 1969; Reuben Masenga Siawe, teacher at Mwenzo, 1908-14, personal interview, 21 December 1969. 43 'Tour Report', ZNA: KSL6/1/1. 44 J . M. Simfukwe, a Mambwe, educated at Livingstonia Institution (with 74 per cent in Standard Five in 1904 - Livingstonia Mark Book 1904-26). Later ordained and the first African minister at Mwenzo (Letter, Ewen Siwale, 4.8.1970). Andrew Sichula, taught by Donald Siwale at Mwenzo, then trained as a teacher at Overtoun Institution. Worked in store at Broken Hill before 1914, and was imprisoned for a year for fighting a European. Migrated to Star of Congo mine, Elizabethville, where he made clothes with a hand sewing-machine and traded until his return to Mwenzo after 1918. (Interviews: P. J . Silavwe 21.9.1970 and D. Siwale 18.5.1972.) 45 Annual Report, Tanganyika District, 1923-24 ZNA: ZA7/1/7/9. Interview: Simon Kaswanje Silavwe, 22.9.1970 - a teacher at Mwenzo school 1920-9 who remembers the visit. People were saying that the tax was taken to Britain for use there. Silavwe entered the Overtoun Institution from Mwenzo December 1910, became a probation teacher, 1912, and took the early part of the commercial course up to December 1913, when he ran home in mid-session and took a store job at Kasama (Livingstonia Register). Subsequently came back as teacher and boardingmaster at Mwenzo. (Interview: 22.9.1970.) 46 Annual Report, Tanganyika District, year ending 31 March 1920. Simfukwe began the revival of the schools February 1920, Chisholm returned in June, ZA7/1/4/9, and Fife District Note-book ( K S L 3/1 vol. 1. ZNA). 129

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Simon Kaswanje Silavwe and his son 22.9.1970. Donald Siwale later became Councillor to Chieftainess Waitwika after the introduction of Indirect Rule. 48 Minutes of Native Association, Mwenzo. (B1/1/A950. ZNA.) 49 Watch Tower. Summary of Reports 15 August 1919. Many were Wiwa and Chief Kafwimbe of the tribe was bitterly attacked by the preachers. In 1918 the government arrested a number of them but the movement continued to be strong, 1919-23. (ZA7/7/2 ZNA.) 50 Annual Report, Tanganyika District, 1 §25-26. (ZA7/1/9/5 ZNA.) 51 Mwenzo church membership increased from 1,400 in 1926 to 5,000 in 1928, and according to the District Commissioner children of Watch Tower parents were attending Mwenzo school. (NLS Riddell Harrison to Laws 4 March 1926 and ZNA: ZA7/1/9/5 and ZA7/2/2/6.) 52 Letters of Mme Roulet to her husband the Rev. J. Roulet in Geneva, 1 March, 14 August, 5 September 1921; 29 May 1923 (Paris Mission Archives) refer to her close friendship with Mrs Andrew Funsani. The Roulets supervised the churches and school in Livingstone for many years. The Negro World was an illegal publication in N. Rhodesia. 53 Personal interview, Rev. Abiner Kasunga, 8.9.1970. 54 'Minutes of Livingstone Welfare Association', Sec. Nat. 321, ZNA. For I.C.U. see T . O. Ranger The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (London 1970) pp. 148-49. 55 Members' speeches, Sec. Nat. 321, ZNA. Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican Negro, tried to link Negroes in the West Indies with those in U.S.A. and with West Africans, especially in Liberia. His idea of 'Africa for the Africans' was influential in South Africa. 56 Complaints about these regulations appear in 'Minutes of Livingstone Welfare Association'. Sec. Nat. 321, ZNA. 57 Letters of Bishop Hine 1909-12, kindly lent to me by the Rev. J . Weller, to whom I am indebted for pointing out this incident. 58 Sec. Nat. 321, ZNA; and Mr Silavwe, personal interview, 21 September 1970. 59 N. Nalamango to L. Price 1 October 1931 and L. Price to J . W. Price 14 November 1933. Leonard Price was an Afro-European brought up by the Methodist missionary, the Rev. J. W. Price. He was trained at Waddilove and ordained as the first non-European Methodist minister from N. Rhodesia and became a prominent leader of the Afro-European community and member of the Broken Hill Welfare Association. I am grateful to his son for these references. With regard to Nalamango's reference to accidents at Roan Antelope, it should be noted that there was a big increase in the accident rate due to rapid expansion of mining 1929-30, but also that the official figures of 1-13 per thousand fatal accident, 5-01 per thousand nonfatal accident, and 20 per thousand sickness (half of it pneumonia) were half those reported at Witwatersrand, South Africa. Annual Report N. Rhodesia Department of Mines (Livingstone 1930). 60 Sec. Nat. 321, ZNA. The speeches that follow are quoted from that file. 61 Livingstonia Register and Gilbert Sichale, personal interview 17 May 1972. Sichale was at the Institution with Isaac and his brother, William Nyirenda, who became a teacher in Nyasaland. 62 Tamanda and Kasungu stations of Livingstonia mission were begun in 1904 but transferred to the Dutch Reformed Church in 1924. The Rev. Paul Gwamba Bota, my informant on James Nkata (personal interview, 14 May 1972), had the letter from Mumba to Nkata enclosing the constitution, but the file containing it has been mislaid and I did not see it. Mr Abiner Kazunga was present at the meeting in 130

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1929 and remembers it was in Nkata's yard (8.9.1970). James Nkata was uncle to Reuben Kamanga, one of the militants in the N. Rhodesia Congress, and in 1973 the Minister of Rural Development in Zambia (Gwamba Bota). 63 Personal interviews: Rev. Hanock Msokera Phiri, 23 October 1971; Chief Mwase Kasungu, 19 August 1971; Mr Tom Manda, 26 November 1970; Mr Abiner Kazunga, 8 September 1970. 64 Personal interviews: Mr Conrad Lumiah, 17 September 1970; Mr W. Sinkala, 20 December 1969. 65 Today he is the Paramount chief of what was formerly Barotseland, but is now known as Western Province, Zambia. He was educated at Barotse National School and had close links with Paris Mission, even visiting Paris for a period some years later than this in order to help the Rev. Jalla with translation into Lozi of parts of the Bible. Hooker, 'Welfare Associations', connected his withdrawal from welfare association work later with the part that he played in the Kafue Conference of 1933. In fact he lost his government job at Mongu in 1935 after a dispute with the District Officer (ZNA: ZA1/9/34/5). Then he joined mission employment and later became a mine clerk, when he again entered politics. 66 The start that Nyasas and Lozis had in education explains why this was so. In Nyasaland the missions began earlier than in N. Rhodesia. There the first mission was that of Coillard to the Lozis. The advantage the Lozis obtained from this early start was increased by the foundation by the government in 1907 of the Barotse National School, which remained the only state school in the territory for twenty years. The point made about the differences in ages of the leaders of the Civil Servants' Association and welfare association is taken from a list of African clerks and artisans working for government, giving their length of service with government. The list was drawn up in October 1927 by the Civil Servants' Association during discussions with government about housing conditions and is in ZNA: ZA1/9/34/1. It shows that Chipolle had had sixteen years' service, whereas Kazunga had three and a half, Sam Mwase two and a half, Godwin Mbikusita two and a half. Ernest Mattako, who was a leader in both associations, stood between the two groups in age, with nine years' service in 1927. 67 'Minutes of Livingstone Welfare Association', ZNA: 2A1/9/45/1. Vol. 1. 68 Aurora (October 1905). Also Dr Laws to the Rev. Robertson of L.M.S. 28 October 1905 informs him he is sending the experienced teacher, Herbert Kosamu Mkandawiri to teach at Kawimbe (MNA). The District Committee of L.M.S. held at Mbereshi, 8 October 1906, shows that thirteen student teachers took the examination at Livingstonia Institution in 1906. In February 1907 the Rev. C. Nutter reported that there were forty student teachers from L.M.S. at Livingstonia. Minutes of Tanganyika District Committee, October 1910, report the completion of a small teacher-training school at Kawimbe, the L.M.S. station near Abercorn. Thereafter some L.M.S. teachers were trained there instead of at Livingstonia. 69 'Tanganyika District Committee' 22 June 1914. 70 Sec. Nat. 321 ZNA. The three elements in the educated élite in Livingstone were (1) Nyasas, (2) Lozis, (3) Northern Rhodesians from the north and east from schools of Livingstonia and L.M.S. In interviews members of (1) and (3) knew about each other, but not about members of (2) to the same extent. 71 Personal interviews: Abiner Kazunga, 8 September 1970, and Mr Tom Manda, 26 November 1970, and others. 72 Minutes of first meeting in 1929 in Sec. Nat. 321 ZNA show that Amanzie called it a 'native' association and Kazunga proposed the name 'welfare'. I have asked him why he used this name and he does not remember, but it seems likely that it came from someone's knowledge of its use in S. Rhodesia, either from the

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Bulawayo Chronicle or from Isaac Nyirenda. I interviewed the Rev. K a z u n g a a number of times, the main interview being 8.9.1970. His information was corroborated by what was said by M r Roger Kamanga in an interview 5.12.1970. Kamanga, recently from Livingstonia Institution (1924-27), was a young clerk at the foundation meeting in Nkata's yard, and to him the 'big men' were Kazunga, Mattako, Mwase, James Nkata and Anderson Sakala. One must remember, though, that these were the men from his own region. According to A . B . Kashell (personal interview 28 August 1970) and T o m Manda (26 November 1970) George Nyirenda had been a teacher in Karonga area, but I have not been able to find his name in Livingstonia Institution Register. Possibly he adopted his European names after leaving school. G . Sichale says he was at the Institution. H e was chairman of the Broken Hill Association, M a r c h 1930 to M a r c h 1931 (Sec. Nat. 324 Z N A ) . Information about Anderson Sakala was kindly supplied by his son, M r Raphael Msukwala Kampheta Sakala, M . P . ( U . N . I . P . , Malambo) in an interview, 4 December 1970. I n 1932 Anderson Sakala became a preacher of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in which he was active throughout his life (ZA1/9/1/1 Z N A ) . 73

His father, Yakobe Msusa M u w a m b a , a mission teacher, died at Bandawe in 1900 just before his ordination as a minister (Letter Book o f North Livingstonia Presbytery Minutes, November 1900). Ernest was educated at Livingstonia Institution and taught until he left for Ndola in 1913, where he was in turn a mine clerk, and clerk in Government (from mid-1914). L i k e M r D . Siwale he rapidly rose to the position of chief clerk and was responsible for the rations of all the carriers going north from Ndola 1914-18 ( Z N A : ZA7/1/3/7). I am grateful to M r Samuel M u w a m ba, his son, for a great deal of information about his father. 74

'Annual Report Ndola', Z N A : ZA7/1/6/7, describes how the mission agreed to send two teachers. In the annual report for 1927 the D . C . Ndola echoes Ernest M u w a m b a ' s disatisfaction with the low standards of the school. 76 'Annual Report, Luangwa', Z N A : K D A 4/1/1. T h e congregation had raised £56 and the building was opened by the Assistant Magistrate in 1927, at the invitation of the congregation. T h i s 'United Church' had also established churches at Nchanga and Roan Antelope mines. In his report the D . C . Ndola commented that Kafulafuta mission station had been practically out o f action 'for the last 18 months' due to lack of food and staff, that the Rev. Cross was on furlough in the first part o f the year, and that the school was not open, through lack of a teacher ( Z N A : Z A 7/2/2/7). It appears that most of the initiative came from the Ndola congregation and little from the mission. T h e congregation numbered 325 in 1928. 75

Z N A : ZA7/2/2/6 and ZA1/9/34/1, letter of Ndola branch to Livingstone. Z N A : ZA7/2/2/7. 7 9 Whilst a clerk at Fort Jameson in 1927 he had started a branch of the Native Civil Servants' Association and was its secretary, in touch with Ernest Mattako, the secretary in Livingstone. (Sec. Nat. 322 Z N A , and personal interview 13 M a y I972-) 80 Sec. Nat. 322 Z N A . T h e hymnbook used by Sankey and M o o d y in their revivalist meetings in the late nineteenth century and used in some Baptist churches. It probably came from Kafulafuta mission. 8 1 P. C . Ndola to Secretary for Native Affairs ( Z N A : ZA1/9/1/1). 8 2 1 am grateful for the kind help of the Rev. M . Wakunguma, the Rev. F . Bennett, the Rev. Lester M e m b e , the Rev. Hanock Msokera Phiri, the Rev. Shadrack G o n d we, the Rev. J. Leake for introducing me to h i m ; the Rev. L o t i Mkandiwire, the Rev. Nathan Sichone, and the Rev. Abiner Kazunga (elsewhere referred to as M r Kazunga as his ordination was in the 1950s), w h o have lent me their papers and 77

78

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ZAMBIA

discussed the A.M.E. Church with me and made me welcome at their church services. 83 See 'Correspondence of the Rev. Z. C. Mtshwelo with the Secretary for Native Affairs 1930-32' (ZNA: ZA1/9/1). 84 Mr Kaunda (now Dr Kaunda, the President of Zambia) was a choir leader and preacher; Mr Makasa (today the Zambian High Commissioner to Tanzania) was a teacher in one of the A.M.E. schools; Mr Silalumbi (today Minister of Lands and Mines) and Mr Chimba are still prominent laymen in the church. 85 Based upon my own observations of churches in Lusaka, Ndola and Livingstone and from interviewing church members. According to E. H. Chunga (13 May 1972) dancing and African music came to Ndola from South Africa 1934-36 during the pastorate of the Rev. R. J. Mkwayi. 86 ZA1/9/1/1. P. C. Nkata to D.C. Fort Jameson and Rev. H. M. Phiri to D.C. Fort Jameson. 87 Rev. H. M. Phiri, personal interview, 23 October 1971. Ernest Mattako was his nephew. Also the biography of E. A. Muwamba by S. Muwamba in M S S . and interview with Mr S. Muwamba 5 May 1971. 88 Z N A : ZA1/9/1/1. 89 Ranger The African Voice, pp. 143-7. 90 Z N A : ZA1/9/1/1. 8 1 ibid. 92 Rev. A. Ross 'The African - A Child or Man' in E. Stokes and R. Brown (eds) The Zambesian Past, pp. 332-51. 93 J. van Velsen 'The Missionary Factor among the Lakeside Tonga' Rhodes Livingstone Journal i960, pp. 1-22. 94 Annual Report, Nyasaland, 1904-5 Report on Education. 98 Attendance of Children in Mission Schools, Nyasaland 1905 and 1922

Livingstonia Dutch Reformed Blantyre Zambesi Industrial U.M.C.A. White Fathers Montfort Marist Fathers

1905

1922

0/

/o 25 27 7 5 5 7

/o 60 21 7 4 4 1 schools 0 (began 1906) 97

0/

19 95

Sources: Report on Education in Annual Report, Nyasaland, 1904-5. Bluebook, Nyasaland, 1922. The figures are those of average attendance for each mission, and I have given them here as percentages of the total number of children in schools in the territory in each of the years. A few small missions have been omitted. There were no government schools at all, and in 1905 Livingstonia had the only secondary school reported and its central village schools took children up to Standard Four. 96 Mr Funsani, personal interview, 26 October 1971. 97 Aurora (October 1907). 98 Carlo M. Cipolla Literacy and Development in the West (London 1969) pp. 18,89. 99 K . J. McCracken, 'Livingstonia as an Industrial Mission 1875-1900' in Religion

133

C H R I S T I A N I T Y AND COLONIAL SOCIETY in Africa (Edinburgh 1964) p p . 75-96, deals with the social class background of the early Livingstonia missionaries in detail. 100 Bruce T i e b o u t McCully English Education and the Origins of Indian Nationalism (New York 1940) pp. 41-90; and Gustav Warneck Modern Missions and Culture trans. D r T . Smith (Edinburgh 1883) pp. x-xviii, where the translator defends the F r e e C h u r c h against Warneck's criticisms. Warneck regarded higher education as something with which a mission should not be concerned and criticized the F r e e C h u r c h for spending money on it. 101 G . Warneck, op. cit. pp. 58-59; James Stewart Lovedale, South Africa (Edinburgh 1894), where he wrote (p. 31) ' W e m u s t provide the African with the highest education we can' and (p. 258), ' t h e evolutionist wants aeons for his process. T h e missionary can do with less. I n morals, as in mechanics, the intensity of the factor diminishes the necessity for time. T h e tremendous chasm between fetishism and Christianity is seen to be passed at a single bound in the lifetime of an individual.' 102 J . W . Jack Daybreak in Livingstonia ( L o n d o n 1901) pp. 20-26. 103 t . O. Ranger The African Churches of Tanzania (Historical Association of Tanzania, Paper N o . 5, Nairobi). 104 J . van Velsen ' S o m e Early Pressure G r o u p s ' , op. cit. pp. 378 and 408-9: ' O n e would have expected that formal pressure groups would have originated in the south . . . I cannot offer an explanation for this.' 105 See D r Laws' letter quoted in note 14 and many articles in the mission journal Livingstonia News. 106 George Shepperson and T h o m a s Price Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting and Significance of the Nyasaland Native Rising of igis, E d i n b u r g h , 1958, p. 120.

134

ROGER

PEADEN

The Contribution of the Epworth Mission Settlement to African Development INTRODUCTION

Epworth Mission lies about seven miles to the south-east of the present-day Salisbury centre. The mission consists of three farms - Epworth, Glenwood, and Adelaide - and has a total area of more than 9,000 acres. Epworth farm was granted to the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in February 1892 by the British South Africa Company, while the others were obtained later by purchase. 1 The purpose of missions in obtaining large farms is well known. It was to create model Christian communities on them. The traditional culture of the people was held to be so alien to Christianity that it would be difficult to make converts where people were living in their natural setting. On the other hand, it was considered that a climate favourable to the progress of Christianity could be produced on mission-owned land by the imposition of church rules and regulations.2 The early reactions to the mission are therefore of considerable interest, and this paper will devote relatively more attention to the earlier years, when the Christian community was being formed, than to the later development of the work.

CHIREMBA V I L L A G E AND ITS SETTING IN

1892

Before the European occupation the area had been in the Seke territory where the Harava people lived. A few miles to the north was the Chinamora territory of the Shawasha, the boundary being the Makabusi river. But when Epworth was surveyed, the area to the immediate south of the mission had already been made into European farms. On the other hand, for some miles to the north were a number of African villages of varying sizes.3 Three of these were of great importance for the future development of the mission. The largest of them, Chirimba, was in Chinamora country, and Chirimba, the headman, belonged to one of the chiefly houses. The other two were in Seke country. One of them, called Besa, was about a mile north-west of Epworth, and the other, with the name, Chiremba, rather similar to the largest village, was on the border of the mission itself. Numerically Chiremba contained only about a dozen household heads, but it became the most important village in the early years of the mission because it was then the only community to accept the Wesleyan mission whole-heartedly. In 1892 Chiremba Village consisted mainly of three extended families 4

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belonging to the chiefly families of Mashonganyika, Chihota, and Rusike, and included individuals who may have had expectations of attaining the chieftaincies of their respective nyika (tribal territory). For various reasons all these families were living outside their tribal areas, and at the same time longed to return home. Mashonganyika according to tradition had been the original headman of the village, but had refused to meet the European officials in the early days of settlement. Chiremba, the younger brother of Chief Chihota, was prepared to meet them and came to be regarded as the headman, so usurping Mashonganyika's position. As will be seen, the Mashonganyika group later moved back to Zvimba, their home area, but not apparently because of animosity towards Chiremba. The background of Chiremba and Rusike is important. Chiremba was by profession a nganga (diviner). Logically therefore, as an heir apparent to the Chihota chieftaincy and as one whose job was to intercede with the family ancestors in time of trouble, Chiremba should have been a custodian of the tribal traditions. But when an elder brother died, Chiremba wished to inherit his young widow, contrary to the wishes of the chief. Instead of accepting this decision he persuaded the girl to elope with him on the night before she was due to be inherited by another. So angry was his family that he had to run for his life, and spent some years in exile, finding temporary homes in a number of places. Part of this time, so it is said, was spent in Ndebele territory. He had hoped to return to his own country, but his offence against tribal custom had enabled rival contenders to the chieftaincy to create such opposition to him that his life would probably have been forfeit if he went back. Mutaiko was the grandson of Mashave, who was once the reigning Chief of the Rusike. A rival house instigated his murder and in the ensuing internecine warfare the Mashave house was defeated and scattered. One of Mashave's widows ran away with her son Chakuvinga to the country of Manyene among the Hera people. There Chakuvinga grew up and married, and the first of several sons was called Mutaiko. When Chakuvinga died his sons grew restless and decided to move. From this time until settling at Chiremba their career was also one of wandering from place to place, settling for short periods in different areas. They had the aim of returning to their tribal home but were never able to fulfil it. The village itself had only been formed a few years before the missionaries came. The three family groups had met at Chirimba, where each had sought and been given a place to stay, and where they had stayed for some time before segmenting.5 This, then, was the somewhat unstable background of the village which accepted the Wesleyan mission. Later, in 1892, a school was opened in charge of a Sotho evangelist, Josiah Ramushu. About 1895 the whole village moved and was rebuilt in the mission area. THE W E S L E Y A N MISSION IN S A L I S B U R Y

Meanwhile another development was taking place in Salisbury which later was to alter the composition of the Epworth community. The Wesleyan Church 136

Salisbury District in I8Q2

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acquired in 1893 a station adjacent to the municipal location. It was officially about three acres in size, but in fact an area of about twice this acreage was occupied until 1914.6 A residential location was established on this station, with a heterogeneous population. Many had come up from South Africa as drivers, labourers, or artisans, and had decided to settle in Mashonaland. In this category were members of the Xhosa, Sotho, and Zulu tribes. Another important section of the community consisted of Tonga who had migrated some years previously to South Africa for adventure and work, and then followed the pioneers into Mashonaland. There was also on the station a small number of Shona who had gone to Salisbury to work. Various reasons have been put forward to explain why they went to live on the mission. Some were already Methodists when they arrived in Salisbury and it was natural for them to form a Methodist community there. A disposition to congregate in tribal or agnatic groups was another factor. The station was also said to be quiet, without the roistering which took place in the municipal location and so attracted the more sober inhabitants of the town to live there. A major reason, however, was the presence on the station of the mission school. This was open in the daytime for children and in the evenings for adult workers to study when their day's duties were over. The night school laid the educational foundations of some of the first teachers and evangelists to be trained by the Wesleyan Church in Rhodesia.7 By the year 1896, just prior to the rebellion, there was a small Christian community at the Salisbury Mission, and also seven baptisms had taken place among the Shona community at Epworth, including that of Mutaika of the Rusike rudzi (clan). In addition a number of individuals from villages in the neighbourhood of Epworth had been attending church and school, although no baptisms had taken place among them. THE EFFECT OF THE REBELLION

When the rebellion broke out in June 1896 the population of Chiremba and of the Wesleyan Station went into laager together in Salisbury. But the other villages either tacitly or overtly joined in the rebellion. A few days after the laager commenced, the Chiremba people were sent out to forage for food. When they passed Besa they were fired on by the men of that village. They returned to the laager having suffered two casualties8 but their attitude to their fellow-Shona had hardened. During the next few weeks some of the Chiremba men, including Mutaika and a man called Mutendera, were sent out to spy on Shona movements.9 Later they led the B.S.A. Police and Mashonaland Field Force to the rocky hiding-places of the rebels. Their reason for doing so is said to have crystallized after the shooting incident at Besa, following which they decided to give their full allegiance to the European settlers. It was not many weeks before both Besa and Chirimba villages were attacked, ransacked, and burnt by troops sent out from the laager. The Chirimba people retreated in the direction of what is now Goromonzi and took no further active part in the rebellion. Besa and his people joined a number of others from the Seke area at Chishumba, a massive kopje complex with subterranean caves near

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SETTLEMENT

the confluence of the Ruwa and Hunyani rivers. This was blown up with dynamite in July 1897 with considerable loss of life. 10 During the time of the laager the multi-tribal group from the Wesleyan Mission were making friends with Chiremba's people at Epworth. A number of them later sought a permanent home on the mission, and some of them met their future wives while in the laager. THE P O S T - R E B E L L I O N

RECONSTRUCTION

When the rebellion was ended in the latter half of 1897, the Chiremba people returned to Epworth and the village was rebuilt. 11 During the next few years the community increased rapidly. Some Shona who had been made homeless in the rebellion sought, and were given, a place at Epworth by headman Chiremba. Chiremba strengthened his position by accepting more of his agnates to come and live at the mission. People of other families also moved in, following friends and relatives who had arrived before, and these included Shona as well as foreigners from South Africa and elsewhere. Whereas in 1896 there were approximately a hundred souls in Chiremba, by the year 1904 there were about 1 1 2 household heads. 12 The leaders of the Mashonganyika group, however, were not interested in the new religion. They were polygynists and had no intention of conforming with the Wesleyan mission rule of church membership, which required monogamy. In 1906 they and some of their friends moved off the mission into the present Mashonganyika territory.13 The church had, however, attracted certain individuals within the group into membership, and their influence was sufficient to enable the Wesleyan mission to follow up and open a school and church in their new home. This is the first of a number of instances when polygynists left the mission community and thereby indirectly contributed to church growth. The people of Chirimba, Besa, and the population of a number of Marava villages when they surrendered in 1897 were settled in roughly the same area as Chirimba occupied before the rebellion.14 About the turn of the century, however, they were all moved beyond the Hunyani river in the Seke nyika.15 In their new home, Chirimba and Besa built their villages close together. Here again the influence of the mission on individuals of both villages enabled the Wesleyan Church to establish work in the new area. At Chirimba a church and day school were opened, but some of the Besa people attended them. The work at Chirimba did not prosper, but in this case a different development occurred. The soil in the area was poor, having been worked out by a community which had lived in the neighbourhood previously, and the resulting bad harvests made the people decide to move again. They were invited by Chiremba to come and live at Epworth, and they moved to the newly acquired Adelaide Farm, together with their church and school, in 1909. 16 Chirimba himself was by this time deceased, and Chinamano, his nephew, was now the head of this group of Shawasha. For this reason the new village on the mission was called Chinamano. It brought a very considerable increase to the mission community, as Chinamano brought with him more than a hundred family heads. Among the early converts to Christianity on Epworth were a number of senior male polygynists of the Rusike and Chihota family groups, including

m

C H R I S T I A N I T Y AND COLONIAL SOCIETY

Mutaiko, Mutendera, and Mutukudze. The Wesleyan rule for church membership for a polygynist was that he should marry one of his wives, not necessarily the first, in church, and 'make provision' for the others. The implication of to 'make provision' for them was that they would cease to be his wives. The way this was interpreted by the mission was that the man should build separate houses for them, and make sure that they had food and clothing, but to cease to have conjugality with them. In Shona custom anyway each wife had to have a separate house and to be provided with everything that was necessary for herself and her children. Also, according to tradition a man ceased to have conjugality with his wives after they reached the menopause. In the case of an elderly polygynist all of whose wives except perhaps one were beyond childbearing years, it was not difficult to conform to the mission requirements, at least in externals. The difference probably was that in the eyes of the mission authorities the wives provided for were technically divorced, while in the eyes of their Shona contemporaries they were technically still married. Chiremba himself had five wives, four of whom were young and capable of child-bearing. After years of hesitation he married the second one in 1899 by Christian rites, 17 and two of the three youngest ones were married by other men. The remaining one returned to her home in the Darwin area. He then received baptism himself, and so became the only polygynist at Epworth who had had more than one young wife to enter into membership of the church. THE GROWTH OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

Following the rebellion the membership of the church increased steadily year by year at both the Salisbury Mission and the Chiremba village at Epworth. Gradually the rate of growth at Epworth began to outstrip that of Salisbury. By comparison the membership at Chinamano grew slowly. A comprehensive annual record of membership does not appear to exist, but the following table has been compiled from written sources and gives a reasonably accurate picture of the comparative growth rate until 1914, after which no figures until recent times have been discovered.18 Church Membership Date 1896 1898 1904 1907 1912 1914

Epworth (Chiremba) 7 12 67 84 114 150

Salisbury

Chinamano19

H 19 41 55 85 106

(i) (i) 2 (") 3 (iii) 11 (iv) H (iv) -

-

The membership at Epworth included Shona of numerous rudzi as well as foreigners who came to reside on the mission. The steps taken by foreigners leading up to residence at Epworth often were: arrival at Salisbury for work, contact with the Wesleyan Church there, then establishing a link with Epworth Mission through involvement in church activities, marriage to an Epworth girl 140

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SETTLEMENT

and appeal to the vatezvara (male in-laws) to allow them to stay with them on the mission. Permission to reside had also to be obtained from the mission authorities, but the evidence suggests that it was equally, if not more important to have made an alliance with the community itself. Examination of marriage registers relating to Epworth reveals that of the total number of Christian marriages solemnized during the period 1902-20,80 twenty-seven, or 14-3 per cent, were between Salisbury men and Epworth girls. Almost all the marriages in this category were between non-Shona men and Shona girls. The names of many of the men concerned appear later in the mission rent books. It has been pointed out by Ranger that foreign Africans in the early years of the occupation of Mashonaland formed an elitist group and that many of them linked their status with their membership of the Christian church. 21 Perhaps for this reason they were regarded by Epworth Shona fathers as acceptable husbands for their daughters. There is little doubt that the presence of the foreigners had a profound effect on the Shona community at Epworth, conducive to church growth. Mutaiko, for example, who had a claim to the Rusike chieftaincy, said on becoming the first Epworth local preacher that he no longer wished to be chief of his nyika as he was now a chief in the Wesleyan Church. In the Chinamano community a high proportion of the men, including the headman and most of his agnates, were polygynists at the time of their arrival on the mission. The village received fewer foreigners into its midst and the village hierarchy did not take the lead in becoming church members. A paucity of interest was seen in the community as a whole. Most of the earlier converts were women, and most of the men who did become church members were either foreigners or Shona vatorwa (immigrants not related to the village hierarchy). A new village called Zinyengere came under the mission authorities in 1930, and as church work developed there the first converts were women, although many of their husbands followed soon afterwards. Almost all the early settlers in this village were foreigners who were working in Salisbury. E X P A N S I O N I N T O T H E R U R A L AREAS

During the years following the rebellion until 1910, in the area being considered there were outstations of Epworth only at Salisbury and Chirimba. 22 The area immediately contiguous to Epworth was European farmland. Many landowners around Salisbury during this period established private locations on their farms for profit, charging a rental for allowing African tenants to build their own houses on the land. Many Africans, including foreigners who worked in Salisbury, were glad to find a place on these farms for a number of reasons, possibly the main ones being the stringent regulations in force in the townships and the shortage of married accommodation. The farms around Epworth were typical of this system 23 and in 1910 preaching places were opened in two of them.24 They can hardly be said to have been successful and were eventually closed. In 1911 a preaching place and school were opened at Wata in the Mazoe district. The reason for their opening was that some of Chief Wata's sons had 141

C H R I S T I A N I T Y AND COLONIAL

SOCIETY

gone to Salisbury to work and had attended school and church at the Wesleyan Station there. Then they wished to establish a school in their own village. This school functioned for a time, but the church soon aroused the opposition of the chief and the work was closed. In 1912 the Wesleyans bought a new farm called Sandringham on the edge of the Mhondoro Reserve. 25 A resident community was established and a school and church opened, which gained ground steadily. During the next ten years numerous attempts were made to extend the work into the rural areas around Salisbury, especially in Seke Reserve, but these failed to establish a firm foothold. One preaching place opened at Domboshaba in the Chinamora Reserve by a local preacher who migrated from Epworth looked promising for a time. But the main wish of the community was for a day school. The mission at the time had not the resources to provide this, and so the interest of the people faded. The first outstations of the new mission at Sandringham were opened in 1917, but the communities in the Reserves near the original Epworth mission remained indifferent to the church. The breakthrough was made in 1922, when preaching places and schools were opened at Kudyarawanza, Chitsvedemo, and Jonas in the Seke Reserve. Kudyarawanza and Chitsvedemo apparently had no previous connection with the Epworth community. In the case of Kudyarawanza, the son of the headman had gone to school at Nyamweda, an outstation of Sandringham mission, although under the general authority of Epworth. His reason for being at Nyamweda was that his vatezvara were there and he had stayed with them for a time. When he returned home he wanted his own children to have the opportunity of going to school. Chitsvedemo was opened on the initiative of a resident of that village who had lived for some time at Chivizhe, where there was already a Wesleyan church and school. While there he became a church member and local preacher. Returning home he received support from a number of men for the opening of a Wesleyan outstation and the headman condescended to allow the school to begin, although he was not personally interested.26 Jonas was a product of the Epworth diaspora and, together with similar migrations, will be considered under a separate heading. T H E D E V E L O P M E N T OF L E A D E R S H I P

The objective of creating a Christian community by means of a controlled environment led to the establishment of several levels of leadership on the mission. At the head there was an ordained European missionary who was supported by an African minister colleague. The final decision regarding most matters concerning the mission rested with the European superintendent, although from 1904 onwards there was a quarterly meeting of African church leaders over which he presided. There were also the village headmen. The larger of the two villages was Chiremba and by 1914 there were two sub-headmen, namely Mutaiko and Mutendera, in addition to Chiremba himself,27 while Chinamano was the head of the village which took his name. The function of the headmen seems to have 142

T H E C O N T R I B U T I O N OF T H E E P W O R T H M I S S I O N

SETTLEMENT

been to settle disputes between villagers which did not involve church offences such as adultery, stealing, etc., which had to be dealt with ultimately by the ministers. At one point at least there was tension between Chiremba and the missionary in charge over their relative functions. There is evidence also that Chiremba considered it a part of his function to represent the interests and wishes of his people and that these did not always correspond with those of the mission authorities.28 Another form of leadership emerged because of the system in the Wesleyan Church of dividing its adherents into groups or classes under the pastoral charge of lay class leaders. The class leaders were voluntary workers with some education who not only shepherded their flock but assisted the minister in catechizing their group and teaching them the Bible. Once a quarter at a Leaders' Meeting the class leaders were required to testify to the faithfulness of their members, or to point out any suspected breach of church discipline so that the case could be investigated by the ministers. For a resident on a mission station, good standing with the church, which was also the landlord, was a very desirable social objective. Since the gaining and maintaining of this objective was to a large extent in the hands of the class leader his status and influence were considerable. The class leaders living in the same village with their members knew all that was going on and so acted as a means of social control. They took their work seriously and on one occasion when the missionary in charge initiated disciplinary measures against some church members without first consulting the leaders they began boycotting services. Such tension was created in the community that the missionary had to climb down and negotiate with them.29 The number of class leaders was limited by the size of the membership in the church, but there was another category of voluntary lay leader, namely the local preacher, whose numbers could increase almost indefinitely. A local preacher also had to be a man of some education and be willing to do sparetime study of the Bible and church doctrine. He was commissioned to conduct services and to preach in the preaching places of a mission circuit which included the mission itself and its outstations. By 1904, when systematic records began to be kept of preachers of Epworth Circuit, there were already a considerable number of African preachers.30 Most of them were foreigners but five were Shona, namely Mataiko, Mutendera, and three sons of Chiremba called Jonas, David, and Joseph. This means that the first Shona preachers in the mission were drawn entirely from the Chihota and Rusike rudzi. Jonas in fact had already become a teacher evangelist, having been among the first group accepted for training at Nengubo Institution when courses began in 1900. The next fourteen years brought a steadily accelerating increase of preachers on the mission, thirty-four new ones being accepted during this time. Again the majority of them were foreigners and some were appointed while they were living in Salisbury before they moved to Epworth. There were, however, eleven Shona among the thirty-four preachers, seven of them resident at Chiremba and four at Chinamano. By this time Chiremba village had seven preachers of the Chihota rudzi and two from Rusike. None of the Chinamano preachers was an agnate of the village traditional leadership.31 It was not entirely forward

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expansion, as ten preachers were disciplined during the period for a variety of offences ranging from dereliction of duty to sexual immorality. Discipline continued to be a feature in the years which followed. During the years 1918-21 there was a temporary change in pattern and only one new preacher came forward during this time. In the year 1919 there was also a decrease in church membership, while giving was poor. The mission authorities regarded it as a period of stagnation. The church in other words was experiencing the effects of a general feeling of disillusionment in the post-war years. This feeling was marked in Seke Reserve and elsewhere by a resurgence of Mlimo worship and its attendant rain-making ceremonies.32 As far as Epworth was concerned it marked the beginning of the major migrations from the mission. Some of those who remained joined the Rhodesian Natives Association or other welfare organizations which acted as pressure groups for social improvement. From 1922 up to 1930 the former pattern was resumed. The rate of production of preachers on the mission again became considerable, while a new feature was the emergence of preachers in the new stations in the Reserves. At Chiremba more preachers began to emerge from the less prominent Shona families, while at Chinamano the first preacher of the Chirimba rudzi was received. In the outstations a good proportion of the new preachers came from the ranks of the former mission residents. If the class leader was important because of his function in social control, the local preacher was important because of the similarity of his duties to those of an ordained minister. Whereas the class leader functioned only in his home church, the preacher could be planted at any station in the circuit, and so became widely known and respected. Some were both class leaders and preachers, and many mission teachers fulfilled one or both functions in their spare time. This form of leadership was, however, by no means the sole province of the teacher. It is also noteworthy that all class leaders and preachers up to 1930 and beyond were male. The first women lay leaders to attend the Quarterly Leaders' Meeting were admitted in 1928. They came as representatives of the women's organization known as Ruwadzano which had been established a short time previously.

MIGRATION

The history of Epworth from the end of the rebellion onwards has been one of migration both to and from the mission. The years following the rebellion up to 1909 produced with one exception the major migrations to Epworth, 33 and this was followed by a steadier inflow. But there was also migration from the mission. Until 1920 this took the form of the flaking-off of small groups and of individuals. Some people had come to the mission following friends, or those with whom they had tribal or clan affiliation. Sometimes when a person decided to remove from the mission, a number of people with similar attachments might also leave. There were those who were expelled by the mission for breach of church rules, but a number left of their own accord. The contribution to church 144

3 Tomo Nyirenda. (above) 4 Nyirenda after his arrest and the amputation of his arms, (left) 5 A group of contrasting religious officers in Marandellas district. From left to right: Father Salathiel Madziyire; a member of the Mothers' Union; the medium of the spirit Mbuya Chigutiro; and seated, her son, Stephen, shown in his role of mbira player for the spirit. (opposite)

6 The Broken Hill Welfare Association in 1935. Mr Tom Manda is in the centre of the middle row. Mr Abel Kashell is on the extreme right of the front row.

Epworth Mission in 1908.

3

A. S. Cripps with E. Ranga, an evangelist, 1941 Arthur Shearly Cripps outside his mission buildings near Enkeldoorn, 1912. (left) John Lester Membe in Cape Town, 1934.

1 1 John Lester Membe in Kitwe, 1970.

12 African contemplatives : the Poor Clares, Lilongwe, (top) 13 African sisters celebrate: the Poor Clares, Lilongwe, (above) 14 Women of the Rukwadzano association of the United Methodist church of Rhodesia protesting against the banning of the bishop, Abel Muzorewa, from entry to the Tribal Lands in which most rural Africans live (5 September 1970, in Umtali).

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growth of these individuals and small groups in the areas to which they moved was possibly quite considerable.34 Of more importance for this study is the effect of the major migrations from Epworth which took place in the 1920s. The first of these was led by the Chiremba family itself. The headman Chiremba died in 1918 in the influenza epidemic, and within a year two of the sons, namely Mugoniwa and David, also died. The eldest and only surviving son of this house, Jonas, the evangelist, did not wish to see his family disintegrate and, resigning from the church, he inherited his brothers' widows, 35 and gathering a number of male friends both from Epworth and Kwenda (where he was then stationed) he built in 1921 a new village in the Seke Reserve. There were, however, church members among his followers, and services were held in the new village, and after a short time a day school was opened there. The deaths of Chiremba and his sons also had repercussions among the mission community. In Shona tradition no death comes of natural causes, and Mutendera was suspected of being responsible by means of necromancy for their demise in order that he might lay claim to the headmanship.36 Even before this he had not been a popular figure in the village, but the tensions were heightened as a result of the deaths. So Mutendera and his sons moved off and were given a place to live at Chirimamunga by his vatezvara in Seke Reserve. Here also a preaching place and a school were subsequently opened. From Chinamano Village a number of the agnates of Chinamano moved back to the neighbourhood of Besa, from where they had come in 1909. The reason for this appears to have been that their wives were old and they wished to take younger ones.37 They were followed by other families which included local preachers among their number. The pattern was repeated of the setting up of a new congregation followed by the opening of a school, which was called Murape. The migrations described above consisted of Shona communities led by the leading families on the mission. Also during this period there was migration of two large multi-tribal groups to Molife in Chinamore Reserve and to Mumurwi in Musana Reserve. Other large and mainly Shona groups to leave Epworth went to Kandava in Seke Reserve and Chipangura in Chikwaka Reserve. In each case except Chipangura, this resulted in the opening of a new congregation and subsequently a day school. The community which went to Chipangura, however, found the village leaders already contemplating asking for a school and were able to give them material support in their application. The typical expression of disaffection towards the mission, then, during this period took the form of segmentation, resulting in the formation of a new village in one of the Reserves but not too far away. In one of the cases described above the migration was apparently because of a misunderstanding with fellowresidents, but in the other cases it occurred because of conflict with the mission authorities, either because of church rules, or because of the necessity of paying rent, and regulations concerning land-usage. The interesting feature is that once having parted company their quarrel with the church ended. This is shown by the fact that they wished to continue their relationship with it by opening a preaching place and school in their new

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Salisbury District showing Wesleyan stations c. 7929 146

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homes. Many who left the mission while still in good standing with the church continued in unbroken fellowship with the church. Some individuals, of course, returned to traditional beliefs and practices, but their hold on Christianity had often been tenuous from the beginning. E P W O R T H AND T H E R H O D E S I A N N A T I V E S

ASSOCIATION

After World War i the leadership which had been developed at Epworth and the Salisbury Station made its presence felt in certain of the associations which were formed in order to promote the interests of the African élite and also be a mouthpiece for their grievances. One of the earliest of these, the Union Bantu Vigilance Association, catered as the name implied for the interests of African immigrants from South Africa. In 1922 the President of this association was a Sotho named John R. Moeketsi, the brother of a Wesleyan minister.38 Moeketsi worked in Salisbury as a fitter with an agricultural engineering company but for a number of years was resident at Epworth. The General Secretary and the Treasurer were also Methodists but living on different Wesleyan mission stations, namely Waddilove and Sandringham. All three were local preachers. The type of issue which concerned the association at this period may be illustrated by an interview which the Bulawayo branch had with the Superintendent of Natives in June 1922. Representatives went with requests concerning prison clothing, the provision of station waiting-rooms for Africans, and pass exemption for people who had reached a certain social status. There were also suggestions concerning the demoralization of girls and also about the code which required an African to raise his hat in the presence of a European. Most of the requests were rejected but the one about prison garb was a different matter. At the time the prison garb for Africans consisted of a coarse hemp garment resembling a night-shirt. This was regarded as degrading for an educated person. The Superintendent of Natives agreed, and later the Chief Native Commissioner wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting a change.39 More important, at least for the purposes of this paper, was the Rhodesian Natives Association. As is well known this association was distinguished from similar organizations for two reasons. It was regarded by the Government as moderate and therefore a legitimate mouthpiece for African opinion. Also, it attracted Shona people into its membership, whereas others were mainly Ndebele centred or catered for foreign Africans.40 At its beginning, around 1919, the R.N.A. is said to have consisted of a number of men, mainly Methodist local preachers from Epworth and the Wesleyan Station. These met weekly in the church building at the Wesleyan Station in Harare. The weekly meetings quickly gave place to monthly ones when it was found that attendance levels could not otherwise be maintained. Membership began to increase, bringing in non-Wesleyans and soon other venues were used as well as the Wesleyan Church.41 Throughout its history, which extended up to the mid 1950s, the leadership of the association was drawn to a very considerable extent from Wesleyans living at Epworth or Salisbury. Many of these leaders were local preachers although not all remained in good standing with the church. The early leaders

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were people of foreign origin but later the lead was taken by Shona people whose home when they originally joined the association was Chinamano Village on Epworth Mission.42 The first president of the R.N. A. was Eli Nare, a Sotho living in Salisbury Location who worked at Government House. He seems originally to have been a Presbyterian but attended the Wesleyan Church in Harare. A Malawian Tonga called Japhet Bami (or Baminingo) Mukandawiri was the first General Secretary. Originally a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, he married a girl from Epworth and came to live on the mission about the year 1914. He then became a member of the Methodist Church and a local preacher. While resident at the mission he continued to work in Salisbury as a clerk. Although the R.N.A. was considered by the Government to be moderate, its aims and objectives during the time that Mukandawiri was Secretary appear very similar to those of other associations. Resolutions sent to the Government in 1924 showed it to be concerned with improved educational facilities, the right of Africans to buy land, and such perennial problems as abolition of passes and the right of Africans to walk on footpaths in the urban areas. It also made the radical request that 'Bone throwers' (nganga) should be licensed by the Government. Almost invariably the requests were turned down.43 Other Epworth men of foreign origin to become prominent in the R.N.A. were Walter Chipwaya and a Sena called Domingo. Chipwaya was for a short time a Wesleyan teacher and local preacher, but was charged with misconduct in 1916 and discharged. He then joined the Rhodesian forces and later the Native Department. Domingo was the head-waiter of a Salisbury hotel. Among the Shona founder members of the R.N.A. from Chinamano were Timothy Zata and Abraham Chirimuta. Zata was the first Shona to become President of the Association. While living at Chinamano he worked with the Public Works Department in Salisbury. For a time he was a local preacher, but he resigned in 19x7 following a dispute with the mission authorities over rights of land cultivation on the mission.44 When Zata left the Public Works Department about 1930 he bought a store and not being able to devote enough time to the association he resigned as its President. Abraham Chirimuta succeeded him. Chirimuta was also a local preacher for a time, but later took a second wife and left the church. In the years following the accession of Chirimuta to the presidency a major question was the creation of an African association representative of the country as a whole. The R.N.A. survived the other associations but remained a Mashonaland organization. Later in the 1930s the African National Congress was formed in order to meet the need for a country-wide organization. This eventually became the main voice of African opinion, but for many years the R.N.A. continued to exist as a parallel organization, occasionally meeting jointly with the A.N.O. to discuss matters of great importance.45 CONCLUSION

In the above outline of the background to the development of Christianity and its social outworkings at Epworth no attempt has been made to provide a theoretical framework to the sociology of conversion. On the other hand, 148

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sufficient has been written to show that social, geographical, and historical factors did play their part. It would need a number of similar studies of missions in different areas and several denominations to determine whether there was a common pattern of development. NOTES 1 Mashonaland, 1891-99, Methodist Missionary Society Archives, London (hereafter M M S ; Rev. I. Shimmin, Mashonaland Mission diary (manuscript), p. 6, entry dated 26 February 1892; Rev. J . White to W. M. S. Brown, London, 2 June 1904, re Glenwood, M M S : Rhodesia, 1899-1904; White to M. Hartley, London, 2 March 1908, re Adelaide, M M S : Rhodesia, 1905-17. 2 For an account of the use of mission farms in Rhodesia see W. R. Peaden Missionary Attitudes to Shorn Culture i8go-ig2j The Central Africa Historical Association, Loc. Ser. No. 27, 1970, pp. 19-28. 3 Department of Land Settlement file contains a sketch map of the area which shows the position of four of the main villages. It was included in a letter from E. C. Sharp to the Native Commissioner, Salisbury, 18 April 1895, File 22/3/43, National Archives, Salisbury (hereafter NAS). 4 For information about the inhabitants of this village in the early days I am greatly indebted to the oral evidence of Headman Isaac Chiremba, Mr Aaron Jacha Rusike, M.B.E., Rev. Matthew J. Rusike, M.B.E., Mr Charewa Mashonganyika, and the late Mr Dickson Chihota (son of Mutendera). s Headman Abraham Chirimba and Mrs Syamonga (daughter of the first Chirimba) have provided most of my knowledge about Chirimba Village and its relationship with the mission community. 6 Epworth Mission, Minutes of a Quarterly Meeting held at Epworth 19 September 1914, M S S Minute Book, 24 April 190410 September 1920 (hereafter QM Minutes). 7 Methodist House Salisbury, Minutes of a meeting of the District Synod of the Rhodesia District, 9 December 1899, M S S Minute Book Vol. 1 (hereafter Synod Minutes). 8 For entry into the laager see Rev. I. Shimmin, 'The Mashona Rebellion', n.d. but received in London 5 October 1896, M M S : Mashonaland, 1891-99. For the Besa incident see Cape Office Letters, 3 June 1896 to 22 July 1896, and telegram from the Intelligence Department, Salisbury Laager, to Charter, Cape Town, 27 June 1896, NAS: 205/2/49. I am also indebted to the late Dickson Chihota Mutendera for an account of this incident. 9 Rebellion Reports, Intelligence and Patrol, 10 March 1896 to 29 July 1896 and Report of Capt. Dan Judson, Intelligence Dept. 20 July 1896. NAS: Ai/12/27. Also see current oral testimony. 10 Correspondence between B.S.A. Co. and London Office. F. de Moleyns, Commandant B.S.A. Police to C.S.O., Police, Salisbury, 10 July 1896. N A S : LO5/4/5. 11 Rev. J . W. Stanlake toM. Hartley, London, 21 September 1897. M M S : Mashonaland, 1891-99. 12 Deduced from communications relating to the purchase of Glenwood whereby each male adult would pay £ i z year for four years to cover the £450 purchase price and expenses. J . White to W. M. S. Brown, 2 June 1904 and 4 November 1904, M M S : Rhodesia 1899-1904. 13 Rev. W. T. Grantham, Private Diary MSS, Vol. 4, entry dated 22 October 1896. Methodist House, Salisbury. 14 Chief Native Commissioner, Salisbury, to the Under Secretary, 12 July 1897. NAS: LO5/4/4.

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Synod Minutes, 14 December 1901. General Summary, 1901. Epworth. Q M Minutes, 27 September 1909. Synod Minutes, 9 December 1899. General Summary 1899. Sources include Synod Minutes (1896 and 1898) and Q M Minutes 1904, etc. The notes in the Chinamano column are as follows:

(i) (ii) (iii) (iv) 20

SOCIETY

No work established at this date. Name appears in the records as 'Besa'. Name appears in the records as 'Hunyani'. Name now Chinamano.

The total number of marriages solemnized was 189. T . O. Ranger The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia (London 1970) pp. 45 f. and 55. 22 Under the administration of Epworth at this time, there were outstations at Zvimba and in the compounds of Ayrshire Mine and Jumbo Mine. This study however is mainly concerned with church growth at Epworth and in the nearby European areas and African Reserves, namely Seke, Chinamora, Chikwaka, and Muana. 23 There was a certain amount of migration between farms, and several Epworth residents formerly lived on one or other of the neighbouring farms. 24 The evidence for the opening and closing of preaching places is drawn from QM Minutes, 1904-20. 25 White to Lamplough, 23 December 1 9 1 1 , M M S : Rhodesia. Q M Minutes 30 March 1912. The Sandringham Mission farm and the work which developed from it was for some years under the general administration of Epworth. 26 For information about the opening of Chitsvedemo School and Church I am indebted to Mr Simon Zvakare, the young brother of Elijah Chidzaiya, the preacher who returned from Chivizhe. Mr Mutumbi Kudyarawanza, the present headman, told me about the origins of Kudyarawanza School and Church. 27 Q M Minutes, 1 January 1914. 28 Rev. W. T . Grantham, Private Diary, Vol. I l l , entry dated 16 January 1906 and Vol. IV, entry dated 1 2 May 1906 et seq. 29 ibid. Vol. IV, entry dated 29 November 1906 and 2 February 1906. 30 Information concerning preachers is drawn mainly from QM Minutes, 190420, and QM Minutes, Vol. I I (manuscript) dated 12 March 1921 to 16 March 193531 One had the same mutupo. 32 Superintendent of Natives, Salisbury. Confidential file dated 21 August 1914 to 8 January 1924. Circular letter Si/75/17 dated at Salisbury 15 October 1917 concerning Mlimo messengers. 33 The exception was a village (later called Zinyengere) mainly consisting of people of Malawian origin, which was established in 1928 just within the boundary of the mission by a neighbouring European farm-owner who claimed that the area was inside his own farm. It led to a boundary dispute and, in 1930, when the dispute was settled in favour of the mission, the village came under the jurisdiction of the mission authorities. In the years following it increased rapidly in numerical strength. 34 Chitsvedemo and Kudyarawanza were the two examples of Epworth outstations opened because of the contact that certain people had with the church while living elsewhere. It is reasonable to suppose that individuals leaving Epworth may have had the same effect in their new homes. 35 Actually the widow of Mugoniwa refused to be inherited but eventually went to live at Jonas', because in Shona law her children belonged to the new head of the 21

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household whether she herself was inherited or not. Esther, daughter of David Chihota, oral interview, 21 March 1969. 36 Headman Isaac Chiremba, oral interview, 25 April 1969. 37 Mrs Syamonga, daughter of the first Chirimba, oral interview. 38 Native Associations. Union Bantu Vigilance Association to S/N Bulawayo, 12 May 1922, NAS: N3/21/10 (hereafter NAS: N3/21/10.) Evidence presented before the Morris Carter Commission, p. 284, NAS: ZAH 1/1/1. K. J. Tsolo, member of Sotho tribe living at Epworth, oral interview, 6 November 1971. 39 S/N Bulawayo to CNC, 19 June 1922; CNC to to Sec.D. of Administrator, 29 June 1922; S/N Bulawayo to Sec. UBVO, 9 August 1922, NAS: N3/21/10. 40 Ranger The African Voice pp. 106-8. J. R. Hooker, 'Welfare Associations and other Instruments of Accommodation in the Rhodesias between the World Wars' Comparative Studies in Society and History 1966, IX, 59-60. 41 Nelson Gondo, who claims to have been a founder member of the R.N.A., oral interview, 3 November 1971. 42 Nelson Gondo, Motsi Chikwaka, and Aaron Jacha, M.B.E., oral evidence. All three of these men were members during part of the period 1919 to 1935. Most of the evidence regarding the church affiliation of the officers of the R.N. A. has been drawn from these three men. 43 Chief Native Commissioner, 1923-26: J. T. Baminingo, General Secretary, the Rhodesian Natives' Association to C.N.C., 2 September 1924, and C.N.C. to Hon. Sec. to Premier, 27 September 1924. NAS: S138/22. 44 His resignation was reported in QM Minutes, 2 November 1917. 45 A. Jacha, M.B.E., oral interview, 14 November 1971. Also correspondence contained in the personal files of A. Jacha, e.g. L. O. O. Chanakira, Gen. Sec. Southern Rhodesian African Association (formerly Rhodesian Natives' Association) to A. Jacha, 18 November 1950.

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MURRAY STEELE

'With Hope Unconquered and Unconquerable . . Arthur Shearly Cripps, 1869-1952 Some four decades ago, John White dictated from his death-bed the following assessment of his colleague and close friend: 'When the annals of Rhodesia are faithfully recorded, and the personalities who have influenced the country most potently and beneficially are written, the Rev. Arthur Shearly Cripps will occupy a very high place.' 1 Today this prophecy is only partially fulfilled. Professor Terence Ranger's important article on church-state relations is devoted to the missionary's middle years, the least rewarding portion of his life. Betty Finn's studies of his literary output offer interesting insights into Cripps, poet and man.2 The final years of blindness (1941-52), when the ailing missionary exerted a powerful personal influence upon emerging African leaders like Charles Mzingeli and Jasper Savanhu, are at present a virtual blank. Recent releases of papers3 help in the reconstruction of these last years, but significant gaps remain. Arthur Shearly Cripps was born on 18 4 June 1869 at Tunbridge Wells; proudly, he counted fellow-Kentishmen Wat Tyler and Jack Cade as his political ancestors. His lifelong Anglo-Catholicism was almost certainly attributable to the influence of his mother Winifred, a Roman Catholic. Contact with the High Church Puseyites during his Oxford days strengthened this tendency, and reinforced an inherent conviction that the Church had a holy obligation to protect the weak, a belief that flowered into Christian Socialism during a six-year ministry in London's East End. In 1901, Cripps offered his services to the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and was sent out to Wreningham Mission, located in the Manyeni Reserve near Enkeldoorn. Isolation from the main centres of literary life, a constitutional shyness, and an undying love for England, made his first years in Rhodesia ones of loneliness and yearning; 5 like Albert Schweitzer, Cripps sacrificed a promising artistic career for a life of dedicated service to Africans. The remainder of his life was spent in the Colony, except for two relatively brief periods (1914-16 and 192630). During the first of these, he served as a chaplain in the East African campaign, and accompanied the troops who stormed Bukoba in June 1915. His intense compassion for the African carriers was expressed in some of his most eloquent verse, such as the following dirge for dead porters: Supply and Transport Thou barest food and loads for us, our beast of burden thou! Thy labour's past our forcing, perforce we let thee die. Take, eat the Ration for thy Road, God send thee Angels now! God pay to thee in kind our debts for transport and supply! 6 152

' W I T H HOPE UNCONQUERED AND U N C O N Q U E R A B L E . . . '

Cripps returned to Wreningham in 1915, after the conclusion of the main fighting in East Africa; he refused a gratuity, and in later years was reluctant to talk about his war-time experiences. Between 1 9 1 1 and 1923 he received grants for four farms ('Mucklenenk', 'Maronda Mashanu', 'Moneyputt', and 'Muwhonde'), a block of land totalling 7780 acres located outside Enkeldoorn. On this land he erected the famous Maronda Mashanu ( = Five Wounds) church, a thatched stone-and-dagga building fashioned after the style of Great Zimbabwe.7 The farms became the headquarters of his Maronda Mashanu Mission, up to 1926 a sub-mission under Wreningham. Several headmen, in particular Mashonganyika and Pfumojena, followed Cripps there from the Manyeni Reserve, accompanied by their followers. His tenants were charged no rent, and were free to move about within the confines of his land. The missionary's rather easy-going methods profoundly disturbed Rhodesian whites; even the otherwise sympathetic F. L . Hadfield was moved to remark that 'there was an absence of order and restraint [which] revealed an attitude of mind in that great and honourable man not in itself commendable when detached from his good qualities'.8 Home-sickness and disagreement with the local Anglican authorities drove him back to Britain in 1926, where he resumed work in his old East End parish. However, Cripps had lived too long in Rhodesia to forget her easily, and he was back, in August 1930, as an independent missionary, styling himself simply 'Christian Missionary in Mashonaland'. The Land Apportionment Act of that year, which may have prompted his return, had placed all his farms except the small 'Muwhonde' in the Native Area, though they were not expropriated. Dogged by financial hardship, Cripps was obliged to sell 'Mucklenenk' to the Government in 1933 so that he could settle his debts, but remained living (quite unofficially) on the farm. The disgruntled Chief Native Commissioner presented his case to his new minister, Godfrey Huggins, as one that indicated the 'difficulties faced by the Native Department in its efforts to maintain the prestige of the European community and reasonable discipline amongst the Natives'. 9 Judging that his expulsion from 'Mucklenenk' might cause more trouble than it was worth, the authorities decided to turn a blind eye, and Cripps stayed on the farm until his death. A stroke in 1938, the removal of a diseased eye a year later, and total blindness in March 1941 took their toll, and left the missionary dependent on two amanuenses for the conduct of his voluminous overseas correspondence and literary work: the Anglican sister Olive Seth-Smith and the devoted African teacher Leonard Mamvura. Cripps was saved from penury in his last years only by the generosity of numerous African and European well-wishers. Failing health ultimately led to his admission to Enkeldoorn Hospital on 8 July 1952, and he died on 1 August of that year. Cripps' African name, Chapepa ( = 'He who cares for people') provides a clue to his mode of life. Betty Finn has given several examples of his Franciscan life of self-denial: how he spent his private income and family legacies on poor Africans, and gave the very clothes off his back to the destitute and needy. 10 During his extended stay in Britain, he regularly assigned £ 1 5 out of his £ 1 6 13s. 4d. monthly stipend to the work at Maronda Mashanu, continued in his absence by Cyprian Tambo. Cripps made daily visits to the Enkeldoorn

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Maronda Maskanu 1929

J

54

' W I T H HOPE UNCONQUERED AND U N C O N Q U E R A B L E . .

Hospital, where he ministered to the sick and did his utmost to gratify their wishes for comforts. His own hut, built in the shadow of the Maronda Mashanu church, and still maintained today by African Christians, was furnished in spartan simplicity: an iron bedstead and straw-filled mattress; a cabin trunk crammed with books and papers; and a picture of his mother reposing in the window-niche above his bed. Shortly before his death, Cripps characteristically told Mamvura that he would rather be buried in a sack and save his soul than have an expensive burial and lose it. 11 While commentators agree about the missionary's eccentricity and ascetic way of life, they differ as to his personality and achievements. Assessments range from J . H. Harris's view of Cripps as 'quite a potential John Brown of Harper's Ferry', 12 to G. W. Tully's recent statement that 'Cripps's image as a great fighter for Africans' rights has been exaggerated'.13 Olive Lloyd, a perceptive observer and friend, described him as an essentially mild man who became 'a wrathful prophet' when stirred by injustice.14 Examples of his obduracy are legion, especially in the numerous sorties he made into politics on behalf of Africans. Although his inflexible dedication to principle makes the ordinary, fallible Christian profoundly uncomfortable, it is the essence of the man: as a member of the Anglican Synod once put it, 'Whenever Father Cripps speaks I know in my heart he is right, but I disagree totally with his conclusions.' 16 Without this quality, Arthur Shearly Cripps would have been far less memorable, both as a priest and a man. Stories, many of them apocryphal, are still current about the missionary's devotion to 'his' Africans, and like most stories, have gained in the telling. Their tenor has overshadowed his uncompromising stance on moral issues, especially when members of his African congregation, numbering about half his followers in the 1930s, were concerned. In 1931, the Chief Native Commissioner noted that it was Cripps's practice to impose fines on Christian Africans whom he found guilty of immorality.16 The sterner side of his nature is further illustrated by the case of a tenant who wanted to divorce his wife because she had run away to become a prostitute in Salisbury; Cripps gave him summary notice to quit the mission, and remained deaf to all entreaties. On the other hand, he devoted much time and patience to hearing marital cases between Christian spouses, striving to restore conjugal harmony. Opposition to divorce was second only to his detestation of witchcraft, the subject of several cautionary tales. 17 Although he treated the 'heathen' element of his followers with Christian tolerance and regularly consulted the headmen, he spoke out against wife inheritance and polygamy, and would not allow polygamists to attend church services. Nevertheless, it is not for this that Cripps is remembered today. His followers see him primarily as a holy man, a man of prayer; or as Mamvura has put it, of all Europeans in Southern Rhodesia, the nearest to Jesus Christ in the witness and example of his life. 18 Cripps's day-to-day life emerges vividly from Olive Lloyd's graphic description of about 1936: He is a grand figure of a man, aged 67, over 6 foot, shabbily dressed, ink pot & pen in his pocket, leather golf jacket & old hat, with kahkih [sic] trousers . . . carrying almost everywhere, certainly when he goes all

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unconcernedly into the town of Enkeldoorn, six miles away, an old sack. This brown one has many holes in it & no fasteners, which is filled with an amazaing [sic] number of books, learned & up to date, letters from people in high up positions in England & Africa . . . books on poetry (I can't read half he brings us to read), then too, all his shopping goes in the bag, tobacco for our boys, tinned stuff for us, or chocolates, etc. etc. He walks or rather strides manfully along absolutely unconscious & uncaring what folk think off [sic] him, his one luxury his little pipe with the cheapest of tobacco, smelling strong, & as many cups of tea as he can get anywhere . . . otherwise very absent minded & eating very frugly [sic] . . . 1 9 Blindness necessitated drastic changes in this routine. He had to be led everywhere by one of his followers; Mamvura has described in most feeling terms how the missionary's hand bit deeply into his shoulder on the last trip to Salisbury in 1947. 20 Cripps also moved to Enkeldoorn, travelling out to Maronda Mashanu twice a week to celebrate Holy Communion. Mamvura acted as his voluntary and unpaid secretary and reader in these last years, helped by several other young Africans. On most days, he cycled to Enkeldoorn after finishing work at the school, and attended to the needs of the ailing missionary until sunset. Cripps's emulation of St Francis of Assisi's example facilitated a closer degree of contact and sympathy with his African flock than that attained by the general run of white missionaries, more responsive as they often were to the strong conformist pressures of their European milieu. His identification bore fruit in a somewhat idealized conception of African life before the coming of the white pioneers, the product of a passionate love for its supposedly Arcadian and unspoiled simplicity. This early poetry conveys the impression, belied in the particular by his large number of European friends, that he regarded the white settler as the serpent in the Mashonaland Garden of Eden. He is obsessed with the theme of metamorphosis, of the change wrought upon the Englishman by the bewitching Southern environment: How doth the northern demagogue T o southern nigger-driver grow! How are dusk serfs and tenants ground By him that was the landlord's foe! 2 1 Another theme in these works is that of the Black Christ, 'with parch'd Lips, and empty Hand'. 22 The Divine presence reveals itself in a variety of guises; in the novelette Africans All,23 Mufambi ( = The Wanderer) is struck by God's fire, takes the name Paul and travels about the country, doing good and calling people to follow their Saviour. The message is clear: the Black Christ will save Africa and raise her from degradation, if only she will accept the Word of God: . . . Rise, Land of Ophir, shine! If strangers filch thy gold, thy myrrh afford! Lift all brute sores of thine, T o those Five Wounds Divine! 24

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But Cripps was no gentle Christian philosopher, content merely to minister in the bush; he believed that God's purpose could be furthered only by the resolute opposition of Christians to the works of Mammon, specifically the oppression of Africans at the hands of an authoritarian administration. He linked the simple African peasantry of the twentieth century, exploited by a rapacious Chartered Company and its illiberal successors, with their late eighteenth-century counterparts in Britain. Hence Cripps's advocacy of 'possessory segregation' in the 1920s an action repudiated only shortly before his death; 25 the Mashona were to be spared from the demoralization of the 'dark Satanic mills'. He commented in his book, An Africa for Africans'. Every Native Area in colonized Africa should be safeguarded as an inviolable sanctuary which may shelter African tribal life, and foster its self-development.' 26 A certain innate conservatism separated him from the other 'liberal segregationists', such as M. S. Evans, J . H. Oldham, and P. Nielsen, who advocated the philosophy as a pro tempore solution to the more immediate and pressing problem of racial friction. But this tendency can be exaggerated, and some of the literature on Cripps has laid undue stress on his apparent support for a system of total racial separation.27 Like several of his missionary colleagues, Cripps told the Morris Carter Commission that he was against scrapping the Africans' existing right to purchase land anywhere in the Colony, unless at least half the unalienated land, 'chosen with some real approach to fairness', was secured for their future needs.28 He sharply rebuked The Times newspaper's book reviewer who maintained that Cripps wanted to shut Africans away from European contact, reiterating his argument that large compact areas would afford them opportunity for self-development.29 Likewise, a mythology has developed that would portray Cripps as being totally at odds with material progress. Evidence for this may be adduced from his writings; in An Africa . . ., he comments about Africa: 'Some of our High Priests and High Deacons want to hustle her, do they ? I would have her move herself towards this World's Light; but I would avert the contagion of their hustling ways from her.' 30 On the other hand, Cripps favoured African development, under certain conditions implied in the above quotation. In 1925, the year he started work on An Africa . . ., some of his followers expressed an interest in cotton-growing; lacking the necessary funds himself, he asked the Government to find and finance an African cotton demonstrator, but none could be located.31 His approach to the whole question is further illustrated by an episode taking place shortly before his death. The Natural Resources Board, frustrated by nearly a decade of resistance on the part of Cripps and his followers against their attempts to enforce compulsory land conservation, and alarmed at the rapid impoverishment of the soil on his farms, invited Mamvura and some other Africans to visit the Victoria District and inspect the advanced farming methods practised in the Native Area there. Impressed by what they had seen, the party returned home. The missionary took Mamvura to one side, and anxious lest the people were swayed by his prestige into complying against their own inclinations, asked him to let one of the other men speak on the new methods.32 Subsequently, Cripps's followers voluntarily carried out land conservation, and in the following year asked for a Government Agricultural Demonstrator. This incident suggests strongly that what Cripps detested

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was not so much progress as compulsion of any type or degree, however laudable the object.33 The missionary was equally frank in his criticisms of the Church itself, whenever he felt it was making unjustified demands on its African members. He strongly condemned the rutsigiro ( = assessment), an annual levy imposed on African Anglicans to help pay teachers' salaries, and characterized it as a 'Native Church poll tax'. The practice of denying sacraments to those who fell in arrears of payment he compared with pre-Reformation practices in Europe.34 He won a qualified victory in 1926, when Bishop Paget placed the rutsigiro on a free-will basis - qualified in that difficulties in administration developed, and in practice the old levy lingered on. In 1931, Cripps took the part of fourteen African teachers at Wreningham who resigned because Communion had been denied to those who failed to pay alms.35 The essential problem thus remained: shortly before the War, an African priest declared that his people were wearied by the Church's continual demands for money.36 In contrast, Cripps exerted no pressure on his followers over the matter of collections, an attitude that moved one of his colleagues to remark that his policy was subversive of church discipline. Less scrupulous Africans doubtlessly took advantage of his unworldliness, but the success of Cripps's ministry and methods is demonstrated by the large number of Christian Africans now living in the Manyeni Reserve extension and Purchase Area carved out of the farms after his death. He showed profound distaste for many of the appurtenances of modern missionary methods, such as committee-work, the increasing burden of officework, and the involvement of the Church in fund-raising ventures, all of which in his opinion detracted from the spreading of the Gospel. This attitude was compounded with a cordial dislike of the motor-car, which (with some justice)37 he believed inhibited the proper pastoral care of rural African congregations : Busied with engines, oil and cars' upkeep What time have these to track one straying sheep ? 38 The system of Government grants-in-aid for educational and medical purposes comprised the principal target of Cripps's offensive against the Church's policy. In the early 1920s, he supervised several schools on his farms and the neighbouring Manyeni Reserve; the 1924-25 Native Education Commission recorded a total of twenty African teachers working under Cripps, and an enrolment at out-schools of 2,000 pupils. He turned down financial assistance from the Government: 'I prefer to be independent because it gives me greater flexibility,' he informed the Commissioners.39 In point of fact, he was apprehensive about the growing identification of missions with temporal authority in this field, a trend accelerated in the 1920s as a result of the Phelps-Stokes Commission and the 1925 White Paper on Education in British Tropical Africa, both of which endorsed this association. Cripps was fearful that within the Rhodesian context this might result in mission education becoming an appendage of the State, subject to the whims of a predominantly European electorate. Faced with the problem offinancinga rapidly expanding enterprise with slender resources - an activity, moreover, that was considered to be of secondary

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importance to the main task of proselytization and pastoral care - the Anglican authorities, like other missions, had no alternative but to continue accepting grants-in-aid. The episode marks Cripps's estrangement from the Anglican Church in Southern Rhodesia. He surrendered the Bishop's licence on the grounds that the Church had compromised itself in accepting such assistance, and as we have seen, left Africa. He reapplied upon his return, but found he was unable to assent to the conditions Paget laid down. However, the disagreement in no wise detracted from their mutual respect; some time afterwards, Paget remarked that Cripps was one of a 'small circle of priests' to whom he could write from the heart.40 The Bishop held regular confirmations for the candidates Cripps had prepared, and, in an incident still remembered by Maronda Mashanu Africans, delayed the ordination of Cyprian Tambo, Cripps's principal helper, until the missionary arrived for the service.41 Shortly before leaving Africa in 1926, Cripps had handed over all but two of his schools to the Diocese, and subsequently the Government closed one because it was within three miles of the other (Maronda Mashanu school). He maintained the remaining school out of his own pocket and donations from well-wishers. Not a trained teacher himself, Cripps drew on the services of teachers at the local European school for supervision, and appointed his friend, G. R. Balne, as Treasurer. The school was operated on a council basis, thus anticipating the present arrangements in respect to primary schools in African areas: the community was consulted by Cripps and his colleagues before certain courses of action were taken. This independent system was slightly modified about 1946, when the missionary was all but penniless. If the Maronda Mashanu school were to continue, finance would be needed from somewhere. The missionary consulted his followers, and they decided to accept grants-inaid from the Government. An important problem remained: official regulations specified that only personnel from recognized missions could superintend grantaided schools. However, this particular difficulty was at first overcome since the Rev. A. C. Bailey, a kindred spirit and member of the Southern Rhodesian Labour Party, had been appointed to Daramombe Mission (successor to Wreningham). Bailey became Superintendent, but within a year he left to be replaced by a priest 'who knew not Joseph'. The new man demanded church assessment from Cripps's teachers. Incensed, the missionary made in October 1947 what was probably his last journey to Salisbury, and repudiated the arrangement. The Native Education Department, sensing trouble, agreed to his demands and paid the grant-in-aid for that year direct to Cripps. Bailey's successor shortly afterwards resigned his charge in high dudgeon. After Cripps's death, the Government would not permit the Council system to continue, and the school was taken over by Daramombe.42 Cripps built a lazaretto for venereal patients at Maronda Mashanu in 1932. At first, he decided not to take a grant-in-aid for it. Financial circumstances forced him to change his mind, but then, doubtless fortified by the proceeds from the sale of 'Mucklenenk', he actually refused a Government cheque for the first year's running expenses. The lazaretto, housing patients who went for weekly treatment at the Enkeldoorn Hospital, has been held responsible for his blindness: G. W. Tully has described how Cripps often shook hands with

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the inmates, and then rubbed his eyes.43 However, it is doubtful whether Cripps's loss of sight can be attributed solely to this cause. His two closest friends in Mashonaland were the veteran Wesleyan misssionary, John White of Waddilove, and Canon Edgar Lloyd of St Faith's, Rusape. Professor Ranger has aptly summarized the differences between White and Cripps: 'Cripps was a lone wolf - a man who could influence profoundly a few people, among whome [sic] White was one, but who could not build or lead a movement. White was very widely respected; he was an organizer of great ability - a man capable of creating and leading a party into effective action.'44 Born in 1866, and thus not much older than Cripps, 45 White had nevertheless spent a longer portion of his life in Africa. His biographer, C. F. Andrews, describes how he observed the harsh treatment of Africans shortly before the Shona rising of 1896, and was instrumental in securing the dismissal of an official who obtained an African girl for immoral purposes 46 Early in Rhodesia's history he thus gained the reputation of being an 'extremist' on all matters concerning race. These two men, so similar in outlook, naturally gravitated together; White became Cripps's confidant, adviser, and admirer. Every year, they shared a camp at a point somewhere between their two missions. Their association reached its peak in the 1920s when the Southern Rhodesia Missionary Conference entered a new and exciting phase of its existence. In 1924, Cripps, ably seconded by White, successfully moved rejection of the draft Native Preachers' Bill, a measure designed to control the activities of African separatist churches and movements, on the grounds that 'it contravene[d] accepted principles alike of British fairplay and Christian freedom'. 47 White was elected President for the next Conference (1926) and chaired the subsequent gathering of 1928. The Cripps-White combination exerted a powerful, though not dominating, influence upon the 1926 session, but the 1928 Conference witnessed the eclipse of White's activist position, when delegates recoiled from the implications of the Cripps-White challenge to the Government over the Native Juveniles 48 and Native Affairs Act. Cripps was absent from the 1928 Conference, and did not attend the following session (1930), which excluded White from the Executive; angered by this summary treatment of his friend, Cripps stayed away from subsequent Conferences. In 1931, Godfrey Huggins diagnosed cancer in the ailing White, and he died in England two years later. Canon Lloyd shared Cripps's Franciscan ideals, but occupied a more moderate position in the political spectrum: he disagreed with Cripps about the desirability of Labour winning the 1951 election in Britain, and was in favour of Central African federation. The two men had similar views on African affairs, political differences notwithstanding, and, commencing with the battle against the labour circular of 1 9 1 1 , discussed below, they stood shoulder to shoulder in many contests. Five years younger than Cripps, Lloyd spent the period of his diaconate with him, and was ordained in 1902. His personal life was full of tragedy. He lost two wives from sickness and was afflicted with chronic asthma. Of all his missionary colleagues, Lloyd came closest to filling the yawning gap left by John White's death. Their contacts declined with Cripps's blindness, and in May 1951 we find Lloyd, concerned at the failing health of his friend, pleading with him to make an extended visit to St Faith's, and to 'accept 160

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our home as your home'.49 Lloyd died only a few months after his friend, but the Franciscan activist tradition of Lloyd and Cripps wa^ continued at St Faith's Mission by Guy Clutton-Brock's leadership of its co-operative farm. Commencing with his ode to the hut tax 50 Cripps spent nearly half a century defending 'his' Africans against the legislative and administrative activities of successive Rhodesian governments. He utilized all the constitutional devices of protest at his disposal - petitions to officials in Salisbury and London, letters to the press, interviews with Administrators, Governors, Premiers, and Secretaries of State. He provided information to the various 'liberal' and missionary pressure-groups overseas, and was in touch with many colonial 'experts' such as Norman Leys, Arthur Creech Jones, Philip Kerr, and Margery Perham. Cripps's political activities were characterized by an uncompromising stand for justice, outspokenness, a burning Christian sincerity, and a desire for British fair play. His standards of correct behaviour were based primarily upon the Christian ethic, and secondly upon those of the land of his birth, an idealized England of Magna Carta, the Peasants' Revolt, and the Protestant martyrs. As with the mother country, so with her colonies: there must be no abridgement of a British subject's rights merely because he was of a darker hue than a freeborn Englishman. His somewhat naive approach to the complicated problems of a state like Southern Rhodesia nevertheless made a deep impression upon some of the officials to whom he appealed, most notably Herbert (later Sir Herbert) Stanley, Resident Commissioner and a later Governor. Admittedly, Cripps lived in an age more tolerant of turbulent priests than our own. To list the occasions on which Arthur Shearly Cripps was goaded into protest would be to set out the synopsis of a veritable history of 'Native policy' in Southern Rhodesia. We may find material from his pen in records of any of the following main episodes in this history: the raising of the hut tax (1903), 'Native labour' agitation (1910-12; 1925-27), the Privy Council land case (1914-20), the Sabi Reserve controversy (1918-20), the Native Juveniles and Affairs Acts (1926-27), Land Apportionment (1925-30), the Native Marriages Ordinance Amendment Act (1929), forced labour on roads in reserves (1934), Native Registration and Pass Laws (1935-36), de-stocking of the reserves (1938-39), the Bledisloe Commission (1938-39), the struggle against amalgamation and, later, federation (1938-52). These activities are best illustrated by taking four major episodes in which Cripps was involved - his fight over the proposed reduction of the Sabi Reserve (1918-20); the 1911 labour crisis; the furore surrounding the passage of the Native Juveniles Employment Act; and the cattle-culling incidents of 1938 in Victoria and Gutu Districts. Older Africans in the Charter District still remember Cripps's most successful campaign over the Sabi Reserve. The 1914-15 Reserves Commission had recommended that its area should be cut by 291,500 acres, to provide a twelvemile strip for the projected Umvuma-Odzi railway; 51 the Commissioners maintained that the reserve was more than ample for African requirements, and that its area had been underestimated by the Native Department in 1908. 62 161

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It was asserted that only a few Africans would have to be moved from the affected part and the proposed reduction was gazetted in February 1918. 5 3 This threat to the Sabi Reserve drew Cripps into a protracted campaign of protest over the next two and a half years, leading up to personal representations to the Colonial Office. Typically, but a little unfairly, he blamed himself, and the missionaries generally, 'for not having bestirred ourselves when first the commission's appointment materialized'.54 In fact, Cripps had told that body in 1915 that the population of the Reserve had been underestimated. He set out his indictment in a memorandum addressed to the Administrator, and dated 3 October 1918. He alleged that the Company's Surveyor-General, W. J . Atherstone, a member of the Commission, had stated the Charter reserves could be reduced by a million acres even before that body had been set up. For this reason, the Commission's impartiality was in doubt. Cripps added that the railway belt would split the reserve in half and displace 4,000 Africans; he reiterated that the population estimate was out-of-date and the general quality of land poor. Finally, he emphasized that he was not opposed to the projected railway, only to the twelve-mile provision when the usual width was fifty yards. 55 The missionary gathered a number of allies behind him. First, the local Native Commissioner, J . W. Posselt, to whom Cripps addressed the valedictory poem 'Homage' after his retirement in 1933. 56 Posselt had given evidence against any reduction of the reserves in his District, and continued to press his superiors for the restoration of the railway belt. Secondly, like-minded missionaries such as White and Edgar Lloyd and his wife Elaine. But potentially the most influential was the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society (A.P.S.) in London. The A.P.S. had unsuccessfully presented a brief for Rhodesia's Africans in the Privy Council land reference of 1918, judgement being given to the Crown. It now attempted to secure the best possible land settlement for Africans, and took up the specific question of the Sabi Reserve put forward by Cripps. Throughout 1919, he conducted a personal survey of the Reserve's resources. In his pamphlet, The Sabi Reserve - a Southern Rhodesia Native Problem, he referred to the great congestion he had found, and declared that the Commission had not been aware of the quality of soil in the area.57 He engaged also in extensive correspondence with officials. Although his attacks on the personnel of the Commission were more than justified,58 they provided the Colonial Office with the opportunity to discredit Cripps and his allies, and thus weaken the force of their main protests against the Commission's findings. At the request of the High Commissioner for South Africa, Lord Buxton, Cripps agreed to strike out all the passages of his correspondence that reflected upon the Commission's integrity. This rather uncharacteristic retraction, very damaging to Cripps's cause, was paralleled in the following year (1920) by his withdrawal of certain forced-labour allegations made against the Administration, after being browbeaten in the Company's London office. 59 Both episodes were atypical, and we can only surmise that in the latter case, inherent shyness and extreme pressure were responsible for his capitulation. Cripps went to Britain at the end of 1919. During his six-month stay there he engaged in ceaseless propaganda on behalf of the Sabi Reserve, with the

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assistance of the A.P.S.; he stayed a night (9 January) with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and enlisted the help of a mentor, Bishop Gore. The climax of his visit was an interview with the Under-Secretary of State, L. Amery, on 25 March. In a subsequent memorandum,60 Cripps offered his farms for African development on condition that the acreage of the Sabi Reserve was not reduced. A Colonial Office official commented unkindly, 'It is interesting to hear . . . that Mr Cripps himself is a landowner on so considerable a scale.'61 His offer was eventually turned down, nor was the Colonial Office interested when it was renewed without conditions. Finally, Cripps sent Lord Milner a petition from several Rhodesian missionaries, appealing inter alia for arbitration, on the grounds that Posselt's recommendations had conflicted with the Commission's findings. This, too, was rejected. Meanwhile, time was running out for Africans on the designated railway belt; the Government Notice of February 1918 had given them only four years to move elsewhere. Cripps pressed for compensation to be given to those affected,62 but the Company informed Milner that this was not necessary as they were moving voluntarily, so the matter was left over. In December 1920 the Order in Council vesting the reserves of Southern Rhodesia in the High Commissioner was issued. Although the Land Commission's recommendations were followed in the main, Cripps and his allies were heartened to find that the twelve-mile proposal had been substantially altered; the High Commissioner was given authority 'to require such modifications of the breadth of the belt to be made as may, in his opinion, be necessary in the interest of native settlements', subject to the proviso that the breadth of the belt should nowhere exceed twelve miles.63 The period of grace for removal was changed to four years from the proclamation of boundaries by the High Commissioner. Although Cripps played no small part in the abandonment of the indefensible 'twelve-mile' concept, outside circumstances were largely responsible for saving the Sabi Reserve from spoliation. The onset of a world trade depression, and growing fears that the projected railway might compete with existing routes to the financial detriment of all, led to the postponement of any final decision, and the line was in fact never built. Posselt was given instructions not to disturb Africans in the undefined 'belt', and it was formally restored to the Sabi Reserve under the 1930 Land Apportionment Act.64 The labour incidents of 1911 provided Cripps with the opportunity to attack the Company's administration through the highly effective means of polemical fiction. The development of the white economy in Rhodesia was dependent upon abundant supplies of cheap labour; in times of rapid expansion, such as that preceding World War 1, demand often outstripped supply, and pressure for some form of compulsory labour mounted. Settlers looked to the Administration, and in particular the Native Affairs Department, for assistance in securing the services of indigenous Africans. Economic self-interest was dressed up in sententious references to the dignity of labour, a concept rooted in the Victorian philosophy of the 'gospel of work'. This pressure had culminated in a number of earlier crises, when the Administration capitulated and permitted inducement of labour by more direct means; in 1911, it gave way again, and instructed its Native Department officials 'to make some special 163

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representation to the Chiefs as to the advantages of their natives going out to work'. 65 The labour outrages described in Cripps's novel Bay Tree Country: A Story of Mashonaland (Oxford, 1913), are based on events in Makoni District, communicated to him by the Lloyds. The clergy of St Faith's complained to the Resident Commissioner that their local Native Commissioner was deliberately using his messengers to call out labour; they had taken hostages from the women on the disappearance of their menfolk into the bush. The Lloyds claimed that other acts of intimidation and exaction of forced labour had occurred.86 Cripps described in his novel how a headman was bluffed into giving up his son to the messengers . . . in feudal loyalty to his super-paramount chief. How was he to know Imperial England's raison d'etre of liberty ? how was he to know that the tiny dependency of Rhodesia was just chancing her arm, just bluffing a subject-race on the sly, without her mother's knowledge ? 67 It is unlikely that in reality these labour exactions adopted quite so dramatic a form, and allowance should be made for Cripps's polemical intent. Certainly, the incidents were mild in comparison with the consequences of the Ainsworth labour circular of 1919 issued by the Kenya Government, which permitted employers to make personal representations to the chiefs.68 Nevertheless, a perusal of the official correspondence adduces weighty evidence in support of these protests, literary or otherwise. The Native Commissioner of Makoni District, L . C. Meredith, admitted to Archdeacon Upcher that he had told certain Chiduku Reserve headmen that he would recommend the cutting-up of their reserve if they did not co-operate.69 A subsequent internal inquiry led to the reprimand of Meredith for neglecting to carry out the full instructions of the labour circular, which implied that only local Native Department heads were to address Chiefs and headmen. Condign punishment was meted out to those Native Messengers responsible for the exactions; they were dismissed from the service or transferred.70 Cripps was not backward in drawing the appropriate conclusions from this selective discipline: one of his characters comments - 'One or two officials have been warned and incommoded. Some boys have been released from their [labour] contracts. Examples, too, have been made of a few black messengers; so plucky of the Government^] that.' 71 Again, it is not possible to gauge the extent of abuse merely from the few recorded instances. Strong evidence suggests that many Africans were inclined to interpret even the slightest suggestion that they should seek work as a direct order from their Native Commissioner, and no more unlawful than the yearly demand for tax payment. As a footnote to the labour incidents, reference should be made to Cripps's inability to distinguish 'shades of grey', a propensity that emerges unmistakably in Bay Tree Country. He has availed himself of the moralist's privilege of creating absolute characters in order to put across his message. Thus, Foreman Hynd is the stereotyped hard-living, hard-drinking, sjambok-wielding settler who terrorizes his black labour with kicks and cuffs. The novelist's sympathetic characters, Lyndhurst and Churton, are, in contrast, the epitome of English manhood, forthright, clean-living, and God-fearing, cast in the Henty and 164

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Rider Haggard mould. But like Foreman Hynd, they do not strike the reader as being real flesh and blood. Cripps thus conceptualizes Rhodesian history as a struggle between the two absolutes of the Christian faith, God and Satan, a tendency evident not only in his works of fiction. The labour crisis of 1 9 1 1 marked the mid-point of an extraordinarily productive period, both artistically and personally, in the missionary's life. In contrast, his activities over the Native Juveniles Employment Act achieved little in the Colony, although they did stir the liberal conscience overseas. This failure may be explained in terms of the new circumstances of Rhodesia after the grant of Responsible Government. A brief tnariage de convenance between settlers and humanitarian pressure groups had developed during the land reference to the Privy Council. The A.P.S. was disposed to assist the Elected Members, led by Sir Charles Coghlan, in the expectation of gaining concessions after selfgovernment was granted in return for services rendered by the settlers against the Company. Certain of the Elected Members, in particular H. U. Moffat and J . McChlery, welcomed the Society's support, although Coghlan had been chary of it. Cripps had few illusions about who the losers might be in this relationship; in a letter to Milner he criticized the A.P.S.'s 'recently expressed complacency as to R.G. being granted to Southern Rhodesia'. He went on: 'I regard this complacency as ill-founded. I believe that our natives are likely to lose rather than gain by any precipitancy of the Col. Office in acceding to our colonists' demand for popular (or rather oligarchic) government by themselves.' 72 The marriage partners gradually drifted apart once self-government was in sight. Moffat remained friendly but McChlery was politically discredited by his espousal of the Union cause and its subsequent rejection in the 1922 Referendum. The other Elected Members rallied behind the Company when the A.P.S. attacked its African policy. Impending divorce was signalled by the constitutional arrangements of 1923, which in effect reduced the parties in any dispute over 'native' legislation to two: the settlers and the missionaryhumanitarian alliance. Anxious to avoid a political crisis, and in any case committed by similar legislation elsewhere in British Africa, the Imperial Government invariably trusted the intentions of the administration in Salisbury, and took its part against critics like Cripps and the A.P.S. On the eve of selfgovernment, Cripps succinctly posed the problem to J . H. Harris, Organizing Secretary of the A.P.S.: 'Can you trust Sir Charles Coghlan to see that the Native Under-Dogs have fair-play ?' 7 3 The test, and final divorce, came with the Native Juveniles Act of 1926. Juvenile labour was, and had been, a long-standing institution in Southern Rhodesia; young boys herded the cattle in traditional society. However, European settlement introduced a new, more disturbing element. 'Parental control is rapidly diminishing,' reported the Chief Native Commissioner in 1920. 'One of the results of this is that juveniles, many of them of tender age, are entering towns and labour centres in increasing numbers.' 74 Consideration of suitable remedial action preceded responsible government, but the final legislation was not published until 1926. The timing of this Bill was unfortunate, as it corresponded with an acute labour shortage and, in particular, a demand from the Rhodesian Agricultural Union for some form of African juvenile indenture. 165

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Chief Native Commissioner Jackson dismissed the connection as purely 'adventitious',75 but Cripps was sceptical. 'Happy Jackson!' he remarked to Harris. 'His philanthropic adventure seems to have synchronized, roughly speaking, with more materialistic adventures engineered by the Rhodesia Agricultural Union and the Makoni Farmers' Association!!' 76 The Bill inter alia empowered Native Commissioners to make contracts for juveniles without parents or apparent guardians (Clause 6), and prescribed summary whipping for any youth 'who shall fail or refuse to obey any order of a Native Commissioner given in pursuance of the provisions of this Act' (Clause 10). These two clauses came under heavy fire from Cripps, then living in England, and certain elements of the Missionary Conference led by John White. It was Cripps who coined the expression 'Child Slavery' 77 in connection with the first of these clauses, an emotive phrase that became a catchword. The Liberal press exploited this hyperbolism to the full. 'Africa's Child Slaves: Appeal to British M.P.s. New Slave Laws by Rhodesia. Boy and Girl Babies in the Mines. Whip for Piccanins,' declaimed the Westminster Gazette.1* From his vantage-point near London, the missionary co-ordinated agitation against the measure, adducing a flood of tendentious argument in the vain hope of securing Imperial disallowance. It is difficult to reach any firm conclusion about the Act, or for that matter, Cripps's strong representations against it. The question may be examined from several angles. From the constitutional viewpoint, Royal Assent to the measure (given on 17 February 1927) established a precedent in 'native' legislation followed to 1961, when the reserved clauses were finally removed. From a sociological viewpoint, the Act was a mere palliative which exemplified the Government's propensity to solve social problems by legislation. The best solution, as Cripps and others had urged during the controversy, would have been to provide part-time education for contracted juveniles, and to aim at the eventual discontinuance of their employment in urban and mining centres.79 On the other hand, the Act was productive of some good. African parents seem to have welcomed it as a means of imposing control over errant children, and in practice, juveniles under ten were sent home by Native Commissioners.80 The Colony's white farmers, who had regarded the measure as the first instalment of a new 'native policy', were plainly discomfited by its operation in certain districts. For instance, in Melsetter, there was a chorus of protest when Nielsen, the local Native Commissioner, terminated the employment of many under-age juveniles. Its coercive provisions eventually faded into disuse; few children were contracted in terms of Section 6 and Cripps's fears proved to be groundless. Indeed, the regulatory provisions - for example, that permitting Native Commissioners to terminate juvenile employment in the event of unsatisfactory conditions (Sect. 2(1)) - in some areas assumed a significance Cripps had little appreciated. In 1938, Cripps participated in a protest against the Native Department's de-stocking activities in the Gutu and Victoria districts. Ever since his return to Rhodesia, his antipathy towards the settler administration had increased in step with each successive enactment prejudicial to African interests. But this essentially negative outlook was more than matched by his positive identification 166

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with Africans: in 1942, he wrote, 'I have come to realize what it feels like to be an African in S.R.' 8 1 The cattle-culling episode illustrates the depth of his commitment. During April and May of 1938, rumours about the exercise of compulsion at the Victoria Reserves cattle sales had filtered through to him, confirmed by a letter from the wife of the Native Commissioner, Chibi, Mrs R. Comberbach. Joined by the Rev. A. C. Jackson of Chibi Mission, Cripps instituted inquiries amongst the Africans involved, and then visited Salisbury to see Charles Bullock, head of the Native Department. In the course of the interview he asked Bullock to make a surprise visit to the Victoria District. The Chief Native Commissioner did so, but apparently his visit was not unexpected: in the words of Mrs Comberbach, 'a lovely white-washed show' was put on for his benefit.82 A few days later, Godfrey Huggins issued a formal denial to the press.83 The 'Cripps Commission' pursued its investigations, the scope of which was widened by further allegations in respect to the Gutu Reserve. Shortly before this, Cripps had appealed to the Governor (Sir Herbert Stanley) for a formal commission of inquiry, citing a few of the allegations his African informants had made - that the Acting Native Commissioner, Fort Victoria, had given a direct command to sell; that a man had been fined £ 5 for refusing to dispose of an ox; and twenty-five head belonging to an absent teacher had been sold for the absurdly low sum of £24. 84 After some delay, the Government bluntly replied that Cripps had been misinformed. In August, Cripps again travelled to Salisbury and interviewed the Governor and Bullock, who reiterated that there would be no official inquiry, although individual African complaints would be heard. 'I have no doubt in my own mind that there has been a lot of foul play by some of the subordinates in carrying out the S. Rhodesia Africans' Cattle Reduction Policy,' remarked Cripps in a letter to Arthur Creech Jones, adding that 'some big money' had been made out of the sales.85 At length, in response to pressure from the Rhodesia Labour Party Organizer, Major Walker, a Commission of Enquiry was set up on 20 October 1938. Huggins stated later he had wished to clear the names of the officials involved, but an ancillary motive might have been to discredit 'liberal' opponents of his policy, particularly Cripps. Taking the hint, the Commissioners endorsed the broad principles of the de-stocking policy and exculpated the officials concerned, one of whom had died in the interim. Cripps and his colleagues were severely reprimanded for conducting enquiries which had had 'an unsettling effect on the natives'.86 Thus vindicated, Huggins contemplated a criminal libel action against the trio, but at length decided to let the matter rest. Cripps wrote a letter to the Rhodesia Herald objecting to the findings, but it was not published; a suggestion to Walker that a motion be introduced reducing Bullock's salary came to nothing, although the Rhodesia Labour Party Organizer made some trenchant remarks about the Report in the Debate on the Estimates.87 While it is possible that Cripps may have been misled by some of his African informants, certain passages of the Report carefully downplayed by the Commissioners indicate that he had ample cause for complaint. The whole operation had stemmed from a Veterinary Department request (with which Bullock was concerned) 'that pressure should be brought to bear on the natives in the 167

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Mtilikwi and Victoria Reserves to sell their stock'. The preceding poor rainy season (1937-38) and various foot-and-mouth restrictions in the Victoria Reserves were mentioned, but the Commissioners neglected to correlate these adverse conditions with the deterioration of stock and consequent low prices: elsewhere, they stated that out of the 1529 cattle bought in the Victoria Reserve, nearly a third died in transit to the West Nicholson factory. Also, the Report recommended that no cattle sales after culling should take place after July, as stock lost condition during the winter, but omitted to censure the Native Commissioner, in Gutu, for disposing of African stock between July and September of 1938.88 The burden of Cripps's attacks was aimed at the principle of compulsion he alleged had been brought to bear upon Africans. This was denied by the official enquiry, but a closer examination of the evidence on the Gutu sales raises grave doubts. A specific case Cripps had brought up, that of Muposa, was discussed at some length in the Report.89 Muposa was a member of a partnership building up herds of cattle to finance a school project. On being informed about the forthcoming sales, he asked the Native Commissioner if the question could be held over until he contacted his partners. Subsequently Muposa appeared at a sale without his cattle, contrary to general instructions, and was punished for rendering an insolent answer to the Assistant Native Commissioner's inquiry about the whereabouts of his herd. Cripps had maintained that Muposa was punished for refusing to sell stock. This interpretation was rejected by the Commission, which accepted the Assistant Native Commissioner's version of the incident. That Cripps's allegations were not altogether unfounded is suggested by the Assistant Native Commissioner's assumption, unchallenged by the Commission, that the partnership would agree to sell - an assumption which casts doubt on the Native Department's methods. In point of fact, nowhere in the evidence is it stated that Muposa or the partnership consented. Suspicion is strengthened by the Report's low-keyed criticism of the Gutu station's failure to discuss adequately the matter of voluntary de-stocking with Africans : 'There seems no doubt that a large proportion of the natives concerned must have considered that, in effect, they were compelled to do so',90 i.e., to sell. Later, Cripps drew attention to the comment of the Native Commissioner at Gutu, cited in the Report, that when a gathering of Africans was told the Government considered a certain course of action desirable, sixty per cent of them would construe this as a direct command, and the remainder would naturally comply with the majority.91 The Native Commissioner's frankness had far-reaching implications within the broader context of African policy in Southern Rhodesia, and the dilemma posed was sharpened by the rapid deterioration of the Reserves, the result of over-stocking and inefficient farming methods. Somewhat ironically, Cripps's endeavours during this episode were partly responsible for the war-time change in policy, when the Native Department grasped the nettle and embarked upon compulsory stock limitation in the Reserves. Arthur Shearly Cripps's contact with African political movements dated from his return to the Colony in 1930, when he rendered aid and encouragement to the first Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (I.C.U.). 92 Recently 168

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released documents93 show that these contacts gradually widened, up to his death. Blindness in the final decade confined him to Enkeldoorn, but he overcame enforced isolation through the medium of correspondence. Letters to and from African leaders such as B. J . Mnyanda, head of the Harare 'Resident Party'; Jasper Savanhu, future Federal minister; Charles Mzingeli, Secretary of the Reformed I.C.U., and Chief Mangwende, may be found in these files. Unlike many missionaries of his generation, Cripps managed to negotiate the hazardous course between paternalism and partnership, mainly because he had never accepted the 'child race theory' and similar dogmas that beset certain elements of the Missionary Conference in the 1920s. 94 He did not compare the new African intelligentsia with the tribes of Roman Britain - a favourite parallel of the White settlers - but with working-class leaders in early nineteenthcentury England, battling against low wages, oppressive conditions, and their followers' ignorance and apathy. He counselled Africans to sink their differences and unite, an all but hopeless task in the personality and faction-ridden forties. Thus in 1948 he vainly advised Mzingeli to make peace with the more moderate Savanhu and the Bantu Congress.95 He provided African leaders with useful overseas contacts, a list augmented during the last War by the recently established Fabian Colonial Bureau, which kept in close touch with Mzingeli for over a decade. Cripps acted as a liaison between these Africans and overseas sympathizers, distributing literature to the former, and forwarding press-cuttings and letters to the latter. Little of his singular personality and style emerges from this useful activity: hampered by blindness and isolation from the main centres, he could be little more than a 'post office' for the two ends. Nevertheless, he performed a vital function, keeping overseas pressure groups up-to-date with the solid information they required to make effective representations. The flood of post-war legislation placed Cripps and his colleagues on constant alert. It is a tribute to his vigilance that not a single important Bill or proposal affecting African interests escaped his notice. Finally, brief reference should be made to Cripps and the Southern Rhodesia Labour Party (from 1944). The multi-racial, socialist philosophy of the Party's progressive element struck a sympathetic chord in the missionary. Of all the numerous political groups formed during his lifetime, the S.R.L.P.'s ideals corresponded most closely to his innate Christian Socialism, though it is doubtful whether its members ever appreciated the wider implications of their stated philosophy.96 He looked upon the party's emergence, like the constitutional advance of West Africa 97 and British Labour's 1945 victory, as a historical inevitability and proof of Divine assistance to the cause of the needy and downtrodden. The existence of an African branch in the S.R.L.P. led by his old friend Mzingeli was a constant source of satisfaction, and he regarded it as the first positive step towards a future non-racial and egalitarian system of government. His strong faith in God and belief in the ultimate goodness of human nature sustained him through the successive crises over the question of African participation in the white man's politics, an internal conflict that eventually destroyed the party. Cripps was not pessimistic even when the last of its 169

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parliamentary representatives hived off to join other parties on the eve of the 1948 general election: Thank God! Your fellowship stands fast. For leaders lost no longer sigh! Truth that they taught you cannot die, And can their leaderships outlast. Firm for the Truth they taught you, stand! 9 8 Arthur Shearly Cripps's political life and work gives the general impression of feverish activity, much of it fruitless, and of unrelenting striving after the Christian ideal. T h e record of his fight for Africans' rights may be fairly epitomized as a failure. In any event, the overwhelming economic, social, and political forces underpinning the peculiar structure of Rhodesian society were too powerful for Cripps - or anyone else - to overcome or modify substantially. But too often he contributed to his own defeat by overstatement, unsupported allegation, or the exaggeration of superficial details, thus gratuitously providing his critics with useful ammunition. Cripps's greatest contribution to African political movements was his encouragement and unfailing optimism at a time when they lacked basic selfconfidence. He was, and has been, a source of inspiration to many. Limited by these various factors, his personal influence in the political sphere dwindled with the emergence of a new, more nationalistically minded generation in the 1950s that had less patience with 'partnership'. 99 In effect, Cripps's political philosophy has suffered the same fate as the multi-racial forces of which he can be termed the earliest and sincerest spokesman. He appears as an irrelevance in a racially polarized society. Yet to look at his influence solely in political terms may be an irrelevance in itself. He was primarily a missionary, and an assessment of his work must be developed within this context. Several stories still circulate in the Charter District, which reveal that many Africans thought he had supernatural powers. Whenever rains came to break a long drought, it was believed by many that this was the result of Cripps's prayers. On another occasion, a European farmer notorious for mistreating his African labourers was drowned, and rumour spread that the missionary was responsible. 100 But Cripps was much more than some kind of Shona prophet: if this has been the only result of his work, his Christian witness can be rightly deemed a failure. That it is not the case is demonstrated by the fact that, nearly two decades after his death, Cripps's memory is cherished by Christian Africans at Maronda Mashanu, who place flowers on his grave and hold annual commemorative services; the one in 1969 marking the centenary of his birth was attended by over a thousand people. 101 Even in his lifetime, local Christian Africans expressed their thanks to one who had devoted his means to their welfare by organizing a yearly Christmas appeal for him. T o sum up, his greatest achievement was the production of some outstanding Christians, men and women still deeply moved by his example. T h e witness of Arthur Shearly Cripps is thus an important one, notwithstanding the failure of his political mission. In a world where historical developments seem to be dictated by impersonal forces beyond the control of dedicated men, Cripps personifies the ideals of a Christian civilization nearly two millennia 170

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in length. His belief in the ultimate perfectability of man through faith in God is one that will sustain those who hold that Christ's message is relevant to the needs of modern man.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am deeply grateful to Mrs Betty Finn (D. E. Borrell), and M r Digby Hartridge (National Archives of Rhodesia) for sharing the results of their research with me; to the staff of the National Archives of Rhodesia, Rhodes House, Oxford, Edinburgh House, London, and the Public Record Office, for access to Cripps's correspondence; to the University of Rhodesia for financing two research trips made in the course of preparing this article; to the Africans of Maronda Mashanu, especially M r L . T . Mamvura; also to my colleagues in the Department of History, University of Rhodesia, for criticism and comments.

NOTES

Abbreviations

ACJ ANG

- Creech Jones papers (Rhodes House, Oxford). - papers of the Anglican Church, Diocese of Rhodesia. A-S.S. - papers of the Anti-slavery Society (Rhodes House). C.N.C. - Chief Native Commissioner. CR4 and CR5 - papers of A. S. Cripps. NAS - National Archives, Salisbury. PRO - Public Records Office. SRLAD - Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly Debates

C. F. Andrews John White of Mashonland (London 1935) p. 120. T. O. Ranger State and Church in Southern Rhodesia Hist. Ass. of Rh. and Ny., Loc. Ser. No. 4, Salisbury, n.d. [1961]; D. E. Finn, 'Kambandakoto: A study of A. S. Cripps, 1869-1952' Rhodesiana 1962 VII, 34-43; D. E. Borrell, 'Arthur Shearly Cripps, an assessment' Zambezia 1970 I, 2, 1-3; D. E. Borrell, 'An early Rhodesian poet: Arthur Shearly Cripps' Chirimo September 1969, II, 1, 29-31; Professor D. V. Steere's God Irregular: Arthur Shearly Cripps (London 1973) appeared after this paper was sent for publication. 3 N A S : CR4/1/1; Fabian Colonial Bureau papers, Rhodes House, Oxford. 4 In a form submitted for a proposed Southern Rhodesia National Biography, Cripps gives his birth date as 10 June (NAS: WO/5/11/2/2). 5 See 'The Scales of Passion' in Cripps's Faerylands Forlorn: African tales (Oxford 1910) pp. 189-99. 6 A. S. Cripps Lake and War: African land and water verses (Oxford 1917) p. 72. 7 D. E. Finn, 'Kambandakoto', p. 36. 8 SRLAD: VII, c. i960, 24 June 1927. 9 C.N.C. to Sec. to P.M. 22 December 1933, NAS: S1542/F2. 10 D. E. Finn, 'Kambandakoto', p. 37. 1 1 Mr. L. T. Mamvura, personal interview, 4 September 1971. Copy of transcript held by History Dept. University of Rhodesia. 12 J. H. Harris to J. C. Wedgwood, 30 October 1919, A-S.S.: G.161. 1

2

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13

D. Hartridge's interview with G. W. H. Tully, 15 November 1969, NAS: ORAL T U 1/38. 14 0 . H. Lloyd, circular letter 17 October 1936. NAS: CR4/1/1, f. 18. 16 The Link September 1952, X , 8, 9, p. 4. 16 C.N.C. to Sec. to Law Dept, 20 April 1931, NAS: S 138/17. 17 See 'Julian', in A. S. Cripps Cinderella in the South (Oxford 19x8) pp. 1 1 9 18

Mamvura interview, 4 September 1971. O. H. Lloyd, cyclostyled letter, n.d. [1936]. NAS: CR4/1/1, f. 19. 20 Mamvura interview, 4 September 1971. 21 A. S. Cripps, 'The Circean South', Pilgrim's Joy (Oxford 1966) p. 37. 22 A. S. Cripps, 'Seen Darkly in Africa', Africa: verses (London 1939) p. 52. 23 (London 1928). 21 A. S. Cripps, 'Wedlock', Africa: verses p. 21. 25 A. S. Cripps, 'Note to bring this Book [An Africa for Africans] up to date - 21 April 1951 . . .', NAS CR4/1/1, f. 1916. 26 (London 1927) p. 87. 27 D. E. Finn, 'Kambandakoto', p. 42. 28 NAS: ZAH 1/1/4, 1673. 29 The Times 17 July 1928. 30 A. S. Cripps An Africa for Africans p. 140. 31 N. C. Charter to C.N.C., 19 November 1925, NAS: S138/10. 32 Mamvura interview, 4 September 1971. 33 In some respects official policy now parallels Cripps's approach. See Statement of Policy and Directive by the Prime Minister: Local Government and Community Development. . . [C.S.R. 44-1965], Govt Printer (Salisbury 1965). 34 A. S. Cripps, 'Memorandum as to Mission Assessments in the Diocese of Southern Rhodesia', 26 December 1925, NAS: A N G 1/1/7, f. 6. 36 Cripps to White, 10 March 1931. NAS: CR4/5/1. 38 Rev. J . Pswarayi, 'The Church's Fanancial [sic] Support from African Sources', [1938]. NAS: A N G 1/4/5. 37 Broderick admitted the force of Cripps's arguments in his unpublished M S History of the Diocese of Southern Rhodesia [1946-53] NAS: BR 3/3/1, p. 374. Some Native Department officials likewise regretted the superseding of the horse by the car in District administration. 38 A. S. Cripps, 'Missionaries of a New Age' Africa: verses pp. 90-91. 39 Southern Rhodesia. Report of the Commission appointed to enquire into the matter of Native Education . . . [C.S.R. 20-1925]. Govt Printer (Salisbury 1925) paras 416, 4I540 Paget to Cripps, 13 July 1932. NAS: A N G 1/1/15. 41 Rev. Salathiel Madziyire, personal interview, 17 August 1971. Transcript with Hist. Dept, University of Rhodesia. 42 Mamvura interview, 4 September 1971. 43 Tully interview (ORAL T U 1/25). 44 Ranger State and Church p. 1 1 . 45 Ranger (ibid.) incorrectly states that White 'was considerably the older man'. 46 C. F. Andrews John White pp. 36, 51. 47 Proceedings of the Southern Rhodesia Missionary Conference held at Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, 30 May - 4June 1924 p. 9. Cripps's relations with the S.R.M.C. are discussed further in Ranger State and Church. 48 This particular measure is discussed further, pp. 165-6. 49 E. Lloyd to Cripps, 26 May [1951], NAS: CR4/1/1, f. 201. 19

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A. S. Cripps: 'An Ode in Celebration of the Proposed Quadrupling of the HutTax in this Year of Grace and Dearth, 1903', n.d. [Salisbury 1903 ?] 51 Ranger State and Church, p. 18, states wrongly that it was proposed 'to delete from the Reserve a twelve-mile strip on either side of the new railway line . . 52 Cmd. 8674 (1917), pp. 44, 22. (Enclosure to No. 6.) 53 G. N. 57, 1918 (15 February 1918). 54 Cripps to J. H. Harris, 18 March 1918. A-S.S: G.161. 55 Cmd. 547 (1920): Cripps to Administrator, 3 October 1918. Enclosure to No. 9. 56 NADA 1933, pp. 90-91. 57 (Oxford 1920) pp. 12, 40. 58 See R. H. Palmer The Making and Implementation of Land Policy in Rhodesia, 1890-1936 Unpublished Doctoral dissertation (London 1968) p. 182. 59 P. Lyttelton Gell to F. P. Drummond Chaplin, 6 May 1920, NAS: CH 8/2/2/6, ff. 176-80. 60 Cripps to Amery, 18 April 1920. PRO C.O. 417/656. 61 PRO C.O. 417/656. C. T . Davis minute 20 April 1920 of Cripps to Amery 18 April 1920; cf. Palmer Land Policy pp. 209-10. 62 Letter to The Times 9 March 1920. 63 Cmd. 1042 (1920), p. 2. 64 See the Schedule to the Land Apportionment Act (Act 30 of 1930). 68 Circular No. 65/11. NAS: N 4/1/5. 66 Clergy of St Faith's to Resident Commissioner, 17 October 1911. A-S.S.: G.184. 67 Bay-Tree Country pp. 57-58. 68 Reprinted in N. Leys Kenya (London 1924) pp. 395-7. 69 N. C. Makoni to Upcher, 17 October 1911, A-S.S.: G.184. 70 NAS: RC3/7/23/446. Also see N3/28/2. 71 Bay Tree Country p. 102. 72 Cripps to Milner, 2 October 1920, PRO C.O. 417/656. 73 Letter dated 15 June 1923, in A-S.S.: G.166. The ramifications of this alliance, and the role played by African associations, are explored in T. O. Ranger The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia: 1898-1930 (London 1970) pp. 89 et seq. 74 Southern Rhodesia: Report of the C.N.C.for the Year 1920 [Aio-1921] p. 10. 75 Cmd. 3076 (1928) p. 38. 76 Cripps to Harris, 5 April 1927. A-S.S: G.167 [H.M.G.] Jackson, Supt. of Natives, Bulawayo, had prepared the first draft of the measure in 1923. 77 Cripps to the Gov. of S.R., 29 August 1926, NAS: S.138/255. 78 Issue dated 26 October 1927. 79 Cripps to Governor, 29 August 1926, NAS: S138/255; Cmd. 3076, p. 17. 80 C.N.C. Circ. letter No. C. 356/28, 18 January 1928. NAS: S235/453. 81 A. S. Cripps, Is Our Colour Bar to Cross the Zambesi? (Salisbury 1942) p. 1. 82 Mrs R. Comberbach to H. H. Davies, 23 September 1938, NAS: MA 19/2/1/3. The Native Department papers relating to this incident have not yet been released. 83 Rhodesia Herald 24 June 1938. 84 Cripps to the Gov. of S.R., 27 July 1938, ACJ 22/7 ff. 80-82. This is a copy of a letter apparently sent on 6 July 1938 (see Cripps to Davies, 11 October 1938, NAS: MA 19/2/1/3). 85 Cripps to Creech Jones, 29 August 1938, ACJ 22/7 f. 103. 86 Southern Rhodesia: Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Certain Sales of Native Cattle in Areas Occupied by Natives [C.S.R. 24-1939]. Govt Printer (Salisbury 1939) p. 17. 87 SRLAD, XIX, c. 329, 16 May 1939; c.291-93, 15 May 1939. 88 C.S.R. 24-1939, Govt Printer (Salisbury 1939), pp. 4, 3, 8.

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ibid., pp. 15, 16. ibid., p. 13. 91 ibid., p. 12. 92 See Ranger State and Church pp. 25-27. 93 N A S : CR4/1/1; the Fabian Colonial Bureau Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford. 94 See, for instance, Fr Burbridge's comment in the Southern Rhodesia MissionaryConference Proceedings of 1926, p. 41. 95 C. Mzingeli to Cripps, 29 July 1948 and 29 August 1948, N A S : CR 4/1/1, if. 881 and 919. 96 On the S.R.L.P. see I. Henderson and P. Warhurst Revisions in Central African History to 1953 Section X , C. Afr. Hist. Assoc. Loc. Ser. No.i5, Salisbury, 1965; C. Leys, European Politics in Southern Rhodesia (Oxford 1959) pp. 185-86; and M . C. Steele, 'White Working-Class Disunity: the Southern Rhodesia Labour Party', Rhodesian History I, 1970, pp. 59-81. 97 See Cripps's poem on the 1951 Gold Coast constitution in Venture (Journal of the Fabian Colonial Bureau) (August 1951). 98 ' T o the S.R.L.P.' Labour Front Salisbury, September 1948. 99 On this theme see N. Shamuyarira Crisis in Rhodesia (London 1965) p. 28. 100 d Tarenyika, personal interview, 5 September 1971. Transcript with University of Rhodesia. 101 Estimate given by various Maronda Mashanu informants. 90

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John Lester Membe Any general view of the religious state of Zambia today, in which there are indeed a very great many churches of one kind or another, cannot but take note of the very considerable strength of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. 1 On the one side it is not a western mission church, at least it has had no white missionaries and, indeed, no non-Africans working in Zambia; on the other side, it is not properly an independent church, having no African founder; it is often overlooked precisely because it falls completely into neither category. Founded by Negroes in Philadelphia, U.S.A., following a secession from a white Methodist church in 1787, it spread to South Africa during the last decade of the nineteenth century 2 and on to Rhodesia not much later. It entered Nyasaland in the early 1920s and Northern Rhodesia at the end of the decade. Today it is growing also in Katanga and has a full episcopal district in West Africa as well, but probably in no country of Africa, outside the Republic of South Africa, is it so strong as in Zambia.3 If an explanation be sought for this fact - for the dozens of little A.M.E. churches to be found today all over the country - there is, I believe, no better answer to be given than to consider the life and work of the Reverend John Lester Coward Membe.4 In so far as possible we shall follow his life in the words of Membe himself. 'I, the writer of this shortest history, I am the son of Nchilinji's fifth son Longa Membe as they called him from his birth, born by Nchilinji's first wife Nampungwe. My mother Rebecca Milundo Nakamba is still living, she is probably over 82 years of age in 1969.1 am one of Nchilinji's grandchildren and one of the great-grandchildren of Kapasa. I am over 60 years of age. My mother was the first wife of my father, a devoted Christian woman from whom I owe my Christianity and ministry in the Christian Church.' 5 John Membe's father, Longa Membe, was one of the clan of the Abena Membe, a group of the Balombwa or wa-Siwale, closely related to the Bemba with whom, according to their tradition, they came forth from Luba country. 'The ancestor of the Balombwa clan Kapasa came from Congo and was a Muluba by tribe. He was the brother of Nkole and Chiti (now Chitimukulu the Paramount Chief of Babemba tribe), but they had separate mothers, Nkole and Chiti with their sister Chilufya Mulenga from the same mother and Kapasa from another mother but all belonged to one father Chief Mukulempe who had more than one wife. In the process of time, these three brothers left their parents in Kola, Congo, and took with them a great number of men and women to go to the east to look for countries to rule.'6 Kapasa quarrelled with his brothers on account of making his stepsister, Chilufya Mulenga, pregnant: 'Chiti and Nkole called a very big meeting to discuss about the sin committed by Kapasa with

175

Map to illustrate the career of John Lester Membe

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their sister Chilufya. At that meeting, Chiti and Nkole decided not to kill him [Kapasa] because they are only three brothers there, Chiti was blind and if Kapasa could be killed Nkole would remain alone and also Nkole was a sickly man. So they spared his life, but only that he is no longer their brother in the true sense of brotherhood by birth, and no longer a Mwina-Ng'andu [Crocodile Clan] of the Bemba chiefs: that Kapasa from then and all his offspring shall be known as Bena-Membe [of man's clan]. But yet they kept Kapasa closer to them all along the way, and respected him as their step elder brother.'7 Such is the traditional origin of the Membe clan. When Lubemba was conquered Chitimukulu ordered Kapasa and his people to settle in Bulombwa along the Chambeshi river, and they became known as the Balombwa people. At a later date, after conflict with the Bemba, many fled across the Chambeshi river and tried to find a home in the Lwanga plain; of these some returned later to Bulombwa, but Nchilinji and his immediate relatives refused to do so and, finding the Lwanga plain unsuitable for habitation, moved on to higher land near Kapili Longa in the territory of Chief Chikanamulilo of the Wiwa people. For some time they were allowed to settle here and apparently acquired the new name of Siwale 'because they were very fearful people and people feared them very much'.8 They were allowed to marry Wiwa women and Nchilinji himself did so, but here too trouble developed; the immigrants were growing too numerous and were asked to move on still further east, this time to found the village of Kanyala on the Nyasaland border where John Membe's father was later born: 'They built their own village there and called their village by the name of the place "Kanyala" and sometimes they called the village "Bulombwa". The last five children of Nchilinji were born there at Kanyala including my father, and Nchilinji's brothers's children were born there. Some people wanted their village to be named after Nchilinji's name, but he refused for fear that the people there would think he wanted to be a chief in someones country, and start to trouble them because of suspicions as chief Chikanamulilo did to them in Wiwa country. 'After some years, the first whitemen of the British South Africa Company came to Kanyala from Malawi [then Nyasaland], and the first people recruited to be soldiers for the British South Africa Company were the men of the Siwale clan [Balombwa] and one of them was my father Longa Mweni-Membe who, after training, became the first African Sergeant in the B.S.A. Co., seconded by Mukundalonde and Mudachi of the Sichone clan who were my father's cousins, the sons of my father's mother's brother Kaombwe Sichone. After some time the Boma [Government Station] was moved from Kanyala to Ikawa [Old Fife] near Nakonde in Isoka District. My father was still a sergeant over all the African soldiers [Askaris] at Ikawa. My father married my mother there at Ikawa. She was the daughter of Mweni-Mukone Siyame from Wiwa in Kafwimbi's area and my mother's mother Nkweto Chibambamanshi was the daughter of the old chief Nkweto Nalimbi of Chilinda in Chinsali district, a Mubemba by tribe. 'My father Mweni-Membe continued with the B.S.A. Co. as sergeant. He was one of the first Askaris who went to the first world war of 1914-1918. When he came back at the end of the war in 1918, he joined the Northern Rhodesia Police or Regiment, but sooner or later changed to the Administrative Department as Boma messenger at Chinsali in the same year 1918. In 1920 my father 177

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was transfered to Isoka where he died in the Government service in 1928. From the beginning to the end of his life on earth, my father only worked for the Government.' 9 Membe's immediate family then was a small group, somehow cast adrift from the main body of their tribe, but one in which the 'fathers' never forgot to tell this history to their children and to remind them that their homeland was Bulombwa in Kasama District'. 10 It was natural that young men from such a group should be on the look-out for new loyalties and that when the British South Africa Company appeared in their vicinity, they should willingly have associated themselves with this new power and source of security. Membe himself, originally named Longa Kapelembe, was born while his father was stationed at Ikawa. What year was this ? Membe himself believes that it was 1910, and the date 2 February, but one uncle told him he had been born earlier, in 1904. 11 As he was already a student teacher in 1919, it seems difficult to believe that he was only born in 1910, even though he had continual troubles both then and later because he was so young. On the other hand 1904 sounds rather early; perhaps a date in between is the most probable. In these years Chinsali was a growing administrative and religious centre. Since 1907 David Kaunda of the Presbyterian Church of Livingstonia had been living there as a teacher, the leading local African representative of new things and a man of considerable personal influence. 12 He had for years urged the appointment of a white missionary but this only came about in 1913 with the arrival of the Rev. R. D. McMinn to take over the direction of the mission. The latter re-established it at Lubwa just five miles away. It was the second Presbyterian mission station in the north-east of Rhodesia, the first being at Mwenzo which had been established well to the north in 1894 about mid-way between Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa. It was directed all through these years by a Dr Chisholm and included a school for the training of teachers. This vast, sparsely populated area of what is now north-eastern Zambia had been little touched by missionary activity. The White Fathers were at work over to the west in the heart of Bemba country, but here, though the Livingstonia mission had intended for years to spread effectively westward, lack of money and of personnel had constantly delayed action. McMinn's great work was the translation of the Bible into Bemba; but through all the following years he was the sole ordained minister in the area. David Kaunda stayed on as schoolmaster until leaving in 1926 for further training at Livingstonia. In 1930 he was ordained and returned to Lubwa only to die two years later. 'When I was born at Ikawa in Isoka district, my father was transferred to Chinsali when I was only eight days old. When my father went to the war in 1914, my mother, myself and my two younger brothers Jack and William went to Bulombwa and stayed with my mother's brother, uncle Kabusha Lukungu at Mukundi's village, Chief Chitimukulu, Kasama. Early in 1916 my father came back on short leave from the war front and collected us back to Chinsali in March, 1916. He took me to his friend the late Rev. David Kaunda at Lubwa to find a place for me at school as beginner. But he told my father that I was too young to start learning in school, yet he recommended me to the school near my parents at Chinsali at Makoba's village, under teachers Shimwamba Sandford and Kosam Mfitula, and Shingoshe Uriah. These teachers nearly refused 178

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me to the school due to small age, because that time only those who were between the ages of 10 and 15 years of age or more were allowed to begin to go to school. But because they were unable to refuse the order by the Rev. D. Kaunda, they accepted me to their school. After some weeks, my father went back to the war front and left me in the school. 'Passing from one class to another in those days was not as it is today when a student stays in one class for a year before he passes to another class. In those olden days passing from one class to another depended on the ability and knowledge of the student. The examinations of class one to class five were monthly during the school session, and quarterly from 'Step by Step' or English Primer to standard one. A wise student could pass from class one to class five in six months time and to 'Step by Step' and English Primer in a year's time, so one has got to complete these two small English books before he passes on to standard one. A wise student can pass to standard two in two years' time, while today a student reaches standard one in three years for he is kept in one class or standard for the whole year before he passes to another grade or standard. 'In 1917 I reached standard two. When the Rev. David Kaunda came to inspect our school at Chinsali, he ordered the teachers to send me to Lubwa Mission to start the standard two there. When I went to Lubwa Mission in September 1917, I was refused admission to the Boarding School for I was too young for it. The standard two students in the Boarding School were very big boys and big men, for in those days there was no age limit for the beginners, even men were allowed admission in the beginners' class. 'Rev. D. Kaunda took me to his home so that I could attend the day school until I passed to standard three. I was admitted to the Boarding School in 1918. I was the youngest student in standard three in the Boarding School. In 1919 I passed to standard four. When the school was on holiday I was sent to teach at Chibesakunda School with two other teachers. These two teachers were my teachers at Chinsali before, their names were Shimwamba Sandford and Mr Shingoshe Uriah. When we got to Chibesakunda they turned me into their personal servant, to cook for them and to wash their clothes. They did not even want me to eat with them together nor to let anybody know I was also a teacher. Any food they left over was my food. When the school closed, they commanded me not to report this to the Missionary or to the Rev. Kaunda, and if I did they warned me that something was going to happen to me or be expelled from school. I believed them for they were big men and I feared them. We came back to Lubwa and I got my first pay in my life 4/6 [four shillings and sixpence] for the three months spent at Chibesakunda school which was 1/6 per month. I went to visit my uncle Kabusha Lukungu at Mukundi's village in Kasama district for three months and came back to Lubwa Mission after having visited my parents at Chinsali.' 13 The years after 1917 that Membe lived in David Kaunda's household were surely for him a formative time and Kaunda's widow has always looked upon him as almost an adopted son.14 David Kaunda had other children as well to live with him - there were six boys in all and a number of girls. Kenneth was not born at that time but Membe had as companion Robert Kaunda, his sister Kate, and others; they ate separately from the adults, and indeed the boys ate apart from the girls. In school David Kaunda taught him scripture and arith179

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metic, Mr McMinn English and geography. Kenneth he first met as a child on later visits to Chinsali, as in 1930 when Kenneth Kaunda was already at school. He only came to know him well years later at the end of the 1940s. It is worth recalling that another government employee at Chinsali in those years, and again a friend of David Kaunda's, was a Kapwepwe, a 'messenger' and then head warder, the father of Simon Kapwepwe. Yet again, Alice Lenshina's parents lived only some five miles away at Kasomo and John Membe knew them well, though Alice was born later and he only met her once - on a visit she paid many years afterwards to Mufulira. It is surely of interest to note that John Membe, Kenneth Kaunda, Simon Kapwepwe, and Alice Lenshina all grew up within a few miles of one another within a little world centred upon Chinsali and Lubwa, and in which the leading African figure had, undoubtedly, been David Kaunda. The other three are, however, considerably Membe's juniors in age. In 1920 Membe's father was transferred to Isoka and he arranged for his son to continue schooling at Mwenzo. 'During 1921 in standard five, and in standard six in 1922, some of these students including myself were selected to train as teachers. We had to attend our school in the morning from 8 a.m. to 12 noon, and every afternoon from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in teacher training class. So after having completed standard six we had already completed two years' training as teachers at the same time. Also during those two years 1921-1922 we had to go for practical teaching in the village schools during our holidays. During that period of practical teaching work I began to lose interest in teaching because of the treatment by the older teachers. At one of the schools at Mweni-Chilanga I was the head teacher over two other teachers who could not obey my leadership simply because I was too young to lead them. I was despised even in the presence of the school children in the school of which I am a leader. I continued until the end of our training. 'In 1923 a few of us who did well in training as teachers were selected and sent to Livingstonia Mission for three months for some lectures on method of teaching after which we obtained special teaching certificates and came back to Mwenzo Mission. In the same year I was sent to open a new school at Isoka as headteacher of the school with three other teachers who were older than myself. At the same time I was appointed inspector of four schools including Isoka, Kafwimbi, Mweni-Malale, and Mweni-Chilanga. This time I earned a very good salary amounting to 12/6 [twelve shillings and sixpence] per month for the two posts.' 15 At Livingstonia Membe remembers Robert Laws as an old man though continually busy, but his most vivid memory is of the visit of Dr Aggrey, which took place when Membe had briefly returned to the Institute for a further course. Aggrey talked with all the students and addressed a large outdoor gathering. He rubbed his hands together continually. What struck Membe most was the honour with which he was treated: people found it hard to believe that he was really an African. 16 Only then, in 1924, as a trained teacher and headmaster of a mission school was he baptized - on 19 November by Dr Chisholm at Mwenzo. 'My mother had been baptized already before I was born in the same Presbyterian Church of Scotland. She started to teach me about Christ when I was very young and planted a very strong Christian feeling in me. She had to tell me many stories 180

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about Jesus Christ. She had collected a number of Bible pictures and pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ to show me always when she had time, especially on Sundays when we came back from the church. When I became a teacher I used to bring together all the students for prayer meetings every Sunday morning, and in doing so men and women too came to my Sunday services, and this encouraged me to become a selfstyled preacher. I brought my people to Christ. I had to go round in the villages near to my village every Sunday to preach to them. I managed to build a small prayer meeting house at Isoka for the first time, the same at Mweni-Chilanga and Kasimbi villages. The missionary Dr Chisholm was invited to come and baptize the candidates for baptism for the first time in those areas. He came with some church elders and Deacons and were pleased to see what had been done, and they did what they were called for and went back to Mwenzo Mission. 'After school holiday I went back to Mwenzo Mission. It was suggested in the Church Council at Mwenzo that I should be accepted and officially be recognized as a local preacher. The Church Council strongly rejected the suggestion based on my age. In those days only men who are over forty years of age were considered for exercising leadership in the Church. But I was not discouraged nor to stop going in the villages to preach when I had time to do so. Anyway people liked me very much and nicknamed me Ka - small preacher.17 But the people I converted to Christ were not refused, they were baptized. 'From that time I began to think of becoming a minister. But to be a minister in the Christian church in our country particularly to the side of the country I was, one has to have turned over many years in this world. But here I am today a minister, the thing I wanted most and the Lord, through His wise providence and unfailing guidance, I am His servant. I owe my Christianity from my mother and education from my father, so both of them have played a very important part in my life and in what I am today. 'There was nothing wrong that made me to leave the teaching work in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. I just left teaching because I did not enjoy my rights in the teaching service according to my promotions, but other people had to enjoy my privilege or rights of leadership simply because I was too young to lead them. That was the reason why I left teaching work and went into Government work. 'When I came to railway line or towns, everywhere I went there was no Presbyterian Church. Many people from that church had to just join themselves to any Church they found suitable for them. When I visited Lubumbashi [Elizabethville] I met Mr Nkhata the chief clerk in British Consul's Office who recognized me to have seen me at Livingstonia Mission and at Mwenzo. He also belonged to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. He took me to his house and asked me to stay with him for a few days which I accepted. On Sunday he took me to church with him, the American Methodist Episcopal Church which he had joined when he came from Malawi [then Nyasaland] because he did not like to stay without worshipping God simply because there was no church in which he was a member before. When we went back to his house we started to talk about churches in the world, Mr Nkhata even went as far as telling me that there was a church in America for the black people only, and that the church is even in South Africa. I just listened and wondered. 181

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'I came back to Northern Rhodesia and went to Livingstone. There I was employed by the Government as clerk and Mr Ernest Katuli Simpelwe, the Chief Clerk, was asked to teach me the clerical work, and some time sent me to court to learn the work of court interpreting work. 'There was no Presbyterian Church anywhere there at all. So I had to go to the Paris Missionary Society Church on Sundays. One day I visited Victoria Falls Town in Southern Rhodesia. I found the members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church holding their Sunday services under one big tree as they had not yet built the Church building. I joined them in their services. In the following week I went back to Victoria Falls to attend the church services with them after which I joined the A.M.E. Church. I sent a letter to my missionaries at home to report to them of what is going on with me there, and asked them to send me a removal certificate to allow me to be received by the A.M.E. Church officially. Dr Chisholm of Mwenzo Mission sent me a very nice certificate of recommendation which was also sent to the Superintendent of the A.M.E. Church in Bulawayo who filed the certificate.' 18 It was in June 1928 that John Membe joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church; the clergyman at Victoria Falls was a South African, the Rev. J . R. Molefe. 'I had to cycle every Sunday to Victoria Falls for Sunday services and return to Livingstone. I converted one man a friend of mine called Pengemali (Benjamin) Chanda of Chinsali, a Northern Rhodesia Policeman. We went together to Victoria Falls every Sunday, but after two months he got tired and joined the Watch Tower movement. I kept on going all alone. I tried many times to persuade Rev. Molefe to come to Livingstone to open a branch for the church there, but he told me he had no permit to do so in Northern Rhodesia. He advised me to write to the Superintendent Rev. C. Z. Mtshwelo of Bulawayo which I did in November 1928. But before I received his reply, I was transferred to Broken Hill as clerk and typist in the District Commissioner's Office. At that time the Boma headquarters were still at Mutwewansofu before the Boma was moved to town in Broken Hill. Because there was no A.M.E. Church anywhere in Northern Rhodesia, I decided to go to Wesleyan Methodist Church on Sundays. All the time I had been thinking very seriously of the reason why should the A.M.E. Church be in Southern Rhodesia alone and not in Northern Rhodesia. I began to talk to so many friends about the A.M.E. Church. The first people I converted to the A.M.E. Church were Mr Aaron Mwenya and his wife Elizabeth from Kawambwa, Mr and Mrs John Mwila both from Serenje, Mr Lazarus Besa and wife from Luapula. All of them were Mine employees and they stayed on the Mine plots outside the Mine Compound. Prayer meetings were being held in Mr and Mrs Aaron Mwenya's house for the time being and on Sundays. These people also influenced their friends and brought them to the prayer meetings until they were also joined to the first group as follows: a Mine Police Mr Meleki Kasonso, Thomas Sonta and wife, Thomas Ngwisha and wife, all of them were from Mkushi and were Mine employees except Bro. Meleki Kasonso who came from Solwezi. From Government five-acre plots who joined us were Mr Amon Mpande, Jackson Siyame and wife, Sister Maliya Kanyasu and one girl, Agnes Mvula, and Brother Lester Somanje of the Railways.' 19 At this point it is necessary to turn away from Membe's career and consider 182

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the wider growth of the A.M.E. Church. It had entered Southern Rhodesia from South Africa in 1900, but for twenty-five years little progress was made. It remained confined to a small group at Bulawayo led by the Rev. Moses Makgatho without even a church building. It was in 1925 that the great surge to the north began and the first person responsible for this was undoubtedly Hanock Msokera Chingo Phiri. He was an Mchewa by tribe from central Nyasaland (uncle of Dr Banda, the present President), and one of those early Nyasa travellers to the far south. He had been educated at Livingstonia and was already a mature, much journeyed man when he joined the A.M.E. Church about 1920 somewhere in South Africa. In 1924 he returned to Nyasaland and set about founding the church there. Later that same year he walked back the 500 miles to Bulawayo so as to attend the annual conference. At Bulawayo Makgatho paid his train fare on to Bloemfontein where at the annual conference he was ordained deacon on 18 January 1925 and appointed pastor of the Nyasaland circuit. Before the year was over he was endeavouring to extend the church into eastern Zambia, though at the time without success.20 From 1924 to 1928 Bishop Gregg was the presiding bishop throughout southern Africa and the northwards expansion was undoubtedly to some extent due to his personal support. In 1927 he appointed the Rev. Zephaniah Cam Mtshwelo, by tribe a Tembu from Cape Province, to be Presiding elder of Rhodesia and it was under Mtshwelo's direction that the church really established itself throughout Southern Rhodesia and then advanced into Northern Rhodesia. The men who assisted him in this, besides Hanock Phiri, were above all Solomon Sangweni, an Ndebele, David Dafite Khomela from Bechuanaland, and Johannes Marumo, a Lozi living in Southern Rhodesia. All these had joined the church in the early 1920s, and with some others they were now licensed by Mtshwelo as local preachers and were to be consistently used by him in the strategy of the coming years and then to continue for long as pillars of the A.M.E. Church in central Africa. In 1929 the first permanent church building in Rhodesia was opened: the Young Chapel in Bulawayo. Clearly much of the subsequent movement had an extremely spontaneous character. The African communities up and down the quickly growing towns along the line of rail were just waiting for something like this. Many of these people had belonged to a mission church in the countryside, but here in the towns the missions were weakly represented and the denominational differences which divided them were puzzling, though not necessarily meaningless. On the Copperbelt the number of African employees had risen vastly during the second half of the 1920s, there was no mission whatsoever near other than one of the South African Baptists, and faced with the need to worship in a Christian manner but deprived of the structures they were accustomed to, people started creating their own. The story of the 'Native Christian Church' which grew into the 'Union Church of the Copperbelt' is well known. 21 It started about 1925 in Ndola and quickly spread to the other Copperbelt towns; it was an African church receiving some tactful help from A. J . Cross of the Baptist Mission. In fact many early A.M.E. members on the Copperbelt had previously been in the Union Church, and the membership of the two may indeed have overlapped to some extent. Why so many people in the early 1930s did so move across would need further study. It may well have been in part former Methodists who

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wanted a more specifically Methodist form of worship than the Union Church offered; 22 it may have been that the Union Church still had a white mission connection, while the A.M.E. had the attraction of being a wholly black church; it may have been that the Union Church was naturally somehow unsure of its own identity whereas the A.M.E. had clear rules and traditions behind it; it may have been the personal vigour of early A.M.E. representatives. Probably all these and other factors played their part. Everywhere there was a good deal of spontaneity, but everywhere too a quick willingness of Mtshwelo to send a minister and establish the basic order of A.M.E. The congregation which Membe discovered at Victoria Falls in the middle of 1928 worshipping under a tree was clearly a very young one. Within a year he had himself gathered a similar group at Broken Hill; and at least by 1930 there was a third group meeting in Ndola and writing to Bulawayo for recognition and a minister. T o work in Northern Rhodesia, however, the A.M.E. required further governmental approval, and this had been refused to Hanock Phiri in 1926. Requests for ministers were coming into Mtshwelo from several sides and Solomon Sangweni had already been sent on an initial expedition into Barotseland. On the 25 October 1930 Mtshwelo wrote to the Secretary of Native Affairs at Livingstone asking for recognition of the church in Northern Rhodesia. He gave the address of the Presiding Bishop, by now Bishop Young, in Cape Town, and offered the assurance that 'We do not participate in the politics of the land and our work is to spread the Master's Kingdom amongst our Native people and to encourage the educational facilities and industry. We possess two Training Institutions in the Union of South Africa, and over a hundred of day schools in different districts in the colonies. We are loyal British subjects under the Throne and Governments . . Z 23 The Government was none too happy about African churches developing without white supervision and it had the Mwana Lesa incident still fresh in mind, but the A.M.E.'s reputation in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia was a good one and Mtshwelo himself was a man to inspire confidence. On 12 January 1931 recognition was given. That same year David Khomela was appointed pastor at Livingstone and Presiding Elder for a new Northern Rhodesian district. Membe was recognized as a part-time pastor for Broken Hill - he was still a government employee while a certain Mkwayi from Southern Rhodesia was sent up to Ndola. Early the next year, February 1932, Khomela appointed the Rev. Joas Honoko from the Transvaal as pastor at Broken Hill and Membe became his assistant. In the following years the church spread rapidly in many directions. Ndola proved to be the most active centre. Its congregation had been already in existence in 1930, led by Benjamin Ben Chisela, Alexander Muwamba, and others, and it was visited by Hanock Phiri in January 1931, the very month recognition was given. In February he was followed by Sangweni, who returned in March with Mtshwelo himself, when there were several hundred baptisms. In the following months the church spread all through the Copperbelt, to Luanshya, Mufulira, Kitwe, and Chingola. Inevitably these early members had their homes as much in the country as the town; consequently, if the mission churches had spread from country to town, the A.M.E. equally spread from town to country. By the end of 1932 a number of congregations had been es184

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tablished in Luapula, and by the end of 1933 the same was true for the Mporokoso district still further to the north, and for Abercorn, almost on the border of Tanganyika. Doubtless it was on account of this rapid growth in and from the Copperbelt that Hanock Phiri was now appointed to be Presiding Elder for these northern areas and took up his residence at Ndola, while retaining responsibility for Nyasaland as well. Mtshwelo remained Superintendent for all three countries. Certainly this surge forward of the A.M.E. Church across central Africa between 1925 and 1934 was a very remarkable achievement, one which deserves a far more detailed study. As we have seen, if there were a number of leading actors, the over-all co-ordinator was clearly Zephaniah Mtshwelo, a South African. John Membe can only claim a relatively secondary position in the work as a whole. He was, after all, still a very young man. He was, however, the first Zambian to worship as a member of the A.M.E. within the country; he was most likely responsible for the organization of the first congregation within the country, that of Broken Hill; thirdly, he was to be the first Zambian minister at work inside the country. Johannes Marumo preceded him both as a Zambian member and minister of the A.M.E., but he was in Southern Rhodesia at the time and only returned to Northern Rhodesia some years later. For these reasons, and not unreasonably, John Membe claims to be the founder of the A.M.E. in Zambia, just as he surely came to be its most outstanding propagator; yet it was the nature of a movement such as this really to have no founder at all. It was the achievement of many men, an example of almost spontaneous expansion. What were the chief characteristics of the A.M.E. which could make an appeal to Membe and his friends ? It was not simply that it filled a vacuum precisely at the moment that the towns of Northern Rhodesia were coming alive. It offered a form of Christianity appropriate to the moment. Certainly its teaching was, through and through, a religious one, with a considerable other-worldly orientation; yet it was respectable and progressive, stressing personal improvement, self-help, hard work; it steered clear of politics but still clearer of the millennium. It offered sound, rather moralizing, Biblical doctrine strongly centred upon the person of Christ: 'God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, Man our Brother' was its frequently repeated motto. It had the great attraction of being an all-black church, yet its spirit was not hostile to whites: it wanted to imitate them rather than expel them. It had an efficient organization, clear, written regulations, a liturgy at least moderately adapted to modes of African expression. Finally, it offered far wider opportunities for becoming a minister than existed in any of the mission churches. We left Membe at Broken Hill. The congregation was in existence there before the end of 1929 and in the next year, before national recognition was granted, the Provincial Commissioner, L . A. Russell, gave him a permit, dated 18 March 1930, on a weekly renewal basis to preach in the locality.24 To continue in his own words: 'I left the Government work at my own request in 1931. Rev. Z. C. Mtshwelo wrote me from Bulawayo to get ready to go to South Africa to train as minister when the Bishop comes from America. But the Government did not like me to leave the Government service, but I struggled hard until they let me go after a three months' notice.

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'When I went to Bulawayo, Rev. Z. C. Mtshwelo told me that the Bishop who was to come here has been changed to another Episcopal District, and that nobody knows as yet when the next bishop would come. Rev. Mtshwelo encouraged me to come back to Kabwe as Pastor and continue with the private studies and get ready to go to Kimberley to sit for examination together with the Bible students from the Theological Schools of Wilberforce Institute in Transvaal and Bethal Institute in Cape Town. I went back to Kabwe and continued my private Bible studies. At Kabwe I was temporarily employed by the Broken Hill Mine (R.B.H.D. Co.) as clerk, typist, and medical orderly, because the Church at Kabwe could not support me enough. 'I continued to study in the same books that are used at the Theological School with other books they use there. As was the practice, all Bible Students from the Theological Schools were being called together at one place where the Annual Conference of the Church is meeting and the examining committee examines all the students from Theological Schools of the A.M.E. Church. Those who were on private studies were also called to these examinations and these are the examinations I had to attend every year and was always successful. After having completed and successfully passed my third year studies examinations, I was ordained Deacon in Ministry on 3rd March 1933, at the Joint Annual Conference of the A.M.E. Church held at Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, by the Rt Rev. David Henry Sims, then Presiding Bishop of the A.M.E. Church in South Africa and Central African Territories. I continued my studies. In the same year 1933, Bishop Sims asked me to leave the work in the Mine at Kabwe and be a full time minister. I left the work in June and was sent to Mbala [at that time Abercorn] to start the A.M.E. Church there. 'In 1934 Bishop Sims called me to South Africa for the fourth year Theological Examination at Wilberforce Institute in Transvaal. I was kept there with the Theological School students in the school for six months before the examination, plus practical studies around Johannesburg District helping ministers to preach and learning other things concerning the work of the ministry as well as the work of a Presiding Elder in the A.M.E. Church. After having successfully passed first with five other theological students I came back to Northern Rhodesia to Abercorn.' 25 Membe served as pastor at Abercorn from 1933 until 1944. On 24 November 1935 he was ordained an elder at Bloemfontein and appointed Presiding Elder for the Northern and Luapula Provinces. 26 On that occasion after ordination he was told to remain in position when the other ordinands left and to open his hands. All then came forward and put money into them; when his hands were full someone brought up a hat. The collection came to £86. 27 But in much of the two years before this he had had a very difficult time endeavouring to establish the church in that very remote corner in the north of the country and even to push over into Ufipa, the province of Tanganyika immediately across the border. T o have an impression of John Membe's outlook and work at this time, the beginning of his full evangelistic career, there is no better way than to read the great letter he wrote to Mtshwelo on 18 January 1935 from Chiyanga, Abercorn. T o understand the position one must remember that Abercorn was then (and still is today) very, very far from the Copperbelt or the line of rail. He was 186

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quite on his own, young and still none too experienced, but filled with a great determination to serve the church. He felt inadequately supported by Hanock Phiri at Ndola and turned at a moment of much difficulty to pour out his troubles to the Superintendent in seven typewritten pages, of which here it is possible to give only some extracts: 'I have got unhappy living in Abercorn where I have been appointed as a pastor for the past two years . . . but I am not afraid to continue carrying on with the Gospel in the same district of Abercorn where I am appointed to extend the Kingdom of Heaven under the protection of Almighty God. . . It was April 1933 when I was appointed by our beloved Lord Bishop and the Conference as a Pastor to Abercorn. I suffered and troubled a lot before I reached Abercorn as far as I know there is many miles from Railway Line say about 574 miles away from Railway Line [Broken Hill] and is very hard and important thing for a person to walk from there to Broken Hill or to Ndola by walking only. When I arrived in Abercorn, the permit to preach was issued and signed by the Provincial Commissioner of Abercorn. I went on with my work which I was appointed for as a Pastor very strongly and the work was quite organized in order as the A.M.E.C. has never been known there and was a very strange thing to the blackmen and Europeans who live there until I fought greatly to let them understand of the A.M.E. Church until they understood. 'After one or two months, I had a number of 300 men joined the A.M.E. Church. Other men came from Tanganyika Territory to join the A.M.E. Church at Chiyanga in Abercorn District through the fame which were spread all over that part of the country regarding the A.M.E. Church in Abercorn, so they also came to join the Church from their country to Northern Rhodesia where I am living at Chiyanga Station just near Abercorn about 6 miles away . . . First time, I received 56 men in one day who came to join the A.M.E. Church and I received them and instructions were given and the law and all particulars regarding the A.M.E.C. were clearly stated to them and after two days they went away back to their home very happy of their new church in the district. Again, 70 men including women appeared at Chiyanga bringing their names to convert to the A.M.E. Church, I also received them as well as those who came before them and fully explained them all about the way how this church was established and all about the " B I G " men of this church and the rules were read to them in which they all accepted according to our Discipline. From that time I started to think of the people who has come to N. Rhodesia from Tanganyika Territory.' 28 So after preparation, some earlier visits and a good many warnings about the consequences of being arrested for 'Forcible Entry' 2 9 he arrived with some companions in late September 1933 at the chief's village of Kasanga. 'When I reached Kasanga, all the people of the London Missionary Society shouted with very great noise and saying some very bad words against me, even cursing . . . and greatly mocked like a man who has been caught stealing some thing. Indeed but all those were nothing to me as I only said in my heart, God bless me, as is written in the Gospel of St Matthew 5, verse 1 1 , "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you . . .".' 3 0 He went to visit the Chief. At 4 p.m. a letter arrived from the local minister of the L.M.S. inviting him to a meeting, at which were some 500 people. When 187

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he had sat down the minister got up and addressed them: 'This man Membe was my beloved friend since I was with him at Kawambwa and I am not shame to speak to him this day. This man is a very liar man, he is telling the people that he has been sent here by the Bishop to preach the Gospel to you and we have lost many members of our church ran to their church through his lies. The Bishop of whom this man Membe telling you about, are the people who are slaves and I know there is one old man whom they call "Mtshwelo" is staying in Bulawayo who is also in the same church, he wanted to organize this their church there but he was not allowed though he had only five or less members gathering with them just outside in Location and I don't know whether they still going on with their business and their church is not for the worship of God but for money business only seeing that those people Negroes who were slaves are now free from slavery, and when they come to think the way in which they could get money and be rich they made this church is order to win money not to do the work of God and you people have been very foolish to convert to their church without convert to our church which is a true church . . .' 3 1 Afterwards Membe got up and spoke about the two men who went up to the temple to pray, but they were not responsive. 'The next morning on Sunday,' he continued, 'I asked the chief if he can show or spare any place for me to hold the Service with some men who wished to gather with me which was done and some men, who went along with me there, came there for the service and when I was praying they came making noise very badly and when I say a word they also say it laughing very loudly. When I start to preach they also make noise and repeating every word I have said, until at last some of them sat down to hear and the preach which I preached was terrible and when I finish to preach some six men brought down their names to join the A.M.E.C. from among those mockers. Indeed my dear superintendent God is God to a poor man like me at that time and I could even wish if God could take me from earth to heaven the very day but in vain.' 32 On returning to Abercorn the District Commissioner called him to his office, having received complaints from the London Missionary Society: ' " Do you really telling the people and preach to them that whitemen are going away from Africa, Membe ?" Answer, No sir, I just hear that from you only. " D o you preach to the people that they may stop to pay tax ?" No sir, what should I say that for. " D o you preach to the people that they must despise whitemen?" No sir, all those questions are nothing.' 33 Some troubled months followed. Membe had been trying to open a school at Chiyanga but had had difficulties over this too. He had received no help from Hanock Phiri, for the latter had been away in Nyasaland: 'It was altogether sadness to me.' 'We Pastors,' he concluded, 'of this Northern Rhodesia district are quite pressed down by some other denominations because when they are troubling us they could not see one to stand for us . . . we are treated like a child who has got no mother or father indeed, and the Government does not attend much to our needs through the same thing, because when they see or look at us, they do think and laugh at us and take our work to be as a joking work.' 34 He was finally insistent that Mtshwelo would try to get the school at Chiyanga opened. Some of this may be rather over-dramatic, but the basic problems vis-a-vis 188

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both government and the older-established and white-directed churches of a young and remote minister in Membe's situation are clear enough. The three chief needs which Membe had to face were, first, the establishment of the A.M.E. Church in the Abercorn area; second, its extension into Tanganyika; third, relations with other churches, in particular the L.M.S. As regards the first, his work in the eleven years he was in the district proved outstandingly successful. The A.M.E. grew and stabilized itself. The Rev. M. K . Wakunguma, the present General Secretary of the Church in Zambia, informed me that A.M.E. is today strongest in the two areas of Mbala (the present name for Abercorn) and Luapula, 35 both - be it noted - rural areas. Again the schedule of the 1965 Annual Conferences of the 17th Episcopal District lists fifteen churches in the Presiding Elder's District of Abercorn; no other district in Central Africa had so many. A White Father working in the Mbala diocese remarked to me that the A.M.E. around Mbala is often described as the BaMembe, indicative of his decisive role in bringing the church into existence.36 Secondly, comes the thrust into Tanganyika. Here there was less success. The District Commissioner at Sumbawanga, G. D. Popplewell, informed Membe by letter on 31 August 1934 that 'Should you venture to come to this district, I would remind you that you are a prohibited immigrant, and the penalties of the Immigration Ordinance will be enforced against you.' 37 Ten years earlier Watch Tower had been spreading into the Kasanga area of Ufipa from northern Zambia and the government had acted vigorously against it.38 As in Zambia a few years earlier, the initial reaction of authority was to treat the A.M.E. in the same way. Membe tried again without success in 1937, and a third time in 1944. Third time lucky, he now obtained permission from the District Commissioner, G. Mitchell, to open a mission in September 1944 - just eleven years after his first visits there. He revisited it in October and left a pastor at Kasanga. The whole story is a remarkable example of perseverance, but a year later, in October 1945, Membe was appointed Presiding Elder of Nyasaland and thereafter his work in Ufipa was never followed up 'until the land that was granted to us at Kasanga was given to other people which is a very discouraging thing indeed'.39 When one remembers that in January 1925 Hanock Phiri was ordained deacon in Bloemfontein to begin work in Nyasaland as the only A.M.E. minister north of Bulawayo, it is surely a remarkable thing that just ten years later, in January 1935, Phiri was established as Presiding Elder in Ndola over a wide network of north Zambian churches, and that Membe had penetrated as far as Sumbawanga. This was, however, to prove the end of the advance northwards. Kasanga, his immediate object, is of course only slightly over the border, and even this proved virtually unattainable. The failure of A.M.E. to penetrate effectively into Tanganyika cannot, I think, be simply related to an unfavourable initial attitude of government. This, after all, was overcome in Northern Rhodesia and could have been overcome here too, but the circumstances were widely different. Tanganyika has, in fact, steadily proved stony ground for independent African churches.40 A.M.E. has tried to enter both Ufipa and - a few years later and with somewhat more success - the Mbeya District, but it has never spread far. My feeling is that the hold of the mission churches by the 1930s 189

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was far stronger in rural Tanganyika than it was in rural Zambia. In Zambia indeed, if a fair number of people left them at the time we speak of to join the A.M.E., that is little in comparison with the mass movement of Presbyterians and Catholics crowding into the Lumpa Church in the 1950s. Nothing similar has happened in Tanzania. Again, the positive conditions which favoured A.M.E.'s spread in Zambia were absent here. The advance had been initially an urban one. The lightning thrust across central Zambia, so different from its far slower progress in Malawi, is proof of this; but the people themselves were going to and fro between town and country. There was at that time no really distinct town population. Once A.M.E. congregations had developed in the town, they were bound to spring up too in the rural hinterland. There was nothing comparable in Tanzania whose population did not travel on any large scale to the Copperbelt or line of rail. Finally, A.M.E. was doubtless overstretched by the time it had reached Abercorn and Membe was apparently actually blamed at Annual Conference for entering Tanganyika 'at such a speed'.41 For one reason or another the church authorities had more or less decided to call a halt for the time being. It was Membe's personal zeal that took the work further, but the conditions - both social and governmental - proved too unfavourable. As regards the third issue, relations with the London Missionary Society, it is pleasant to find that these steadily improved. There was some difficulty in 1938 over A.M.E. members joining the L.M.S. Church while Membe was away and there was no adequate pastorate, but his papers include a series of letters with Kenneth Francis of the L.M.S. at Kawimbe which grew more and more friendly as the years passed. Francis indeed invited Membe to conduct a service at Kawimbe in 1940. In 1945 John Membe was moved to be a pastor at Blantyre and Presiding Elder of Nyasaland. Hanock Phiri had returned to Nyasaland from Ndola in 1937 and continued there as Presiding Elder, but he now wished to retire and Membe was sent to replace him. He was himself replaced in Abercorn by Johannes Mabombo, coming from Kawambwa in northern Luapula. Mabombo was a Xhosa from South Africa, had been for long a preacher in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in South Africa, and was ordained a deacon in 1923. He later joined the A.M.E. and became an Elder at Bulawayo in 1935. He had already worked for years in Northern Rhodesia when he arrived at Abercorn in 1945. After fourteen years there he was transferred to Mporokoso, between Kawambwa and Abercorn in the far north-west, where he died. He was apparently a much-loved man, and a Xhosa missionary who thus worked for some twenty-five years in Zambia is worthy of remembrance. Membe was in Nyasaland from 1945 until 1950. With characteristic vigour he considerably extended the church in those years and again engineered an advance into Tanganyika. He got together congregations at Mbeya, Tukuyu, and Kyela, on his way through from Abercorn in December 1945 and revisited them in 1946 and 1948 when he obtained a plot in Mbeya township.42 So much had the church grown in these years that when he left for Lusaka in 1950 his Presiding Elder's District was divided into five - three for Malawi, one for the eastern province of Zambia, and a fifth for Tanganyika. Yet again, however, the 190

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Tanganyikan advance has hardly been maintained. Today it has no separate district but is included within that of Karonga, Malawi.43 Two incidents in the Malawi period are worth recording. He invited the District Commissioner of Fort Jameson to attend the annual local conference in June 1946; in thanking him for agreeing to come an appeal was made for more education for Africans: 'We as Africans are trying to exercise the selfhelp and worship God under our own Vine Tree.' Membe had now had a great deal of contact with local colonial government and was fully aware of the need to approach it in the right way. He had also grown adroit in the field of interchurch relations. In 1947 trouble cropped up over the practice of local African ministers of the Livingstonia mission re-baptizing A.M.E. members on admitting them into the Presbyterian Church. Membe wrote to the missionary in charge at Livingstonia to complain of this: 'I have written this letter not because we are against our Christians for joining your church, they have the right to do so. But what we would like to know chiefly is the re-baptism that is being exercised upon our Christians who are joining your church in Karonga.' 44 At the end of 1949 Membe was transferred to Lusaka and in subsequent years he has worked chiefly there and on the Copperbelt, having been stationed also at Ndola, Mufulira, and Kitwe. In these years he has been much involved in the higher work of church administration, being at one and the same time pastor of his local church, Presiding Elder for the district, General Secretary for the country (from 1936 until the mid-1950s), then President of the church in Zambia. At the same time Solomon Sangweni was General Superintendent for the whole 17th Episcopal District. In 1966, however, Sangweni died and Membe himself was given for a couple of years the post of General Superintendent. For these more recent years, in which a mass of business of all kinds - much of it still current - has passed through his hands, it is obviously impossible to provide a detailed account. A few things, however, may be singled out. The first is that a number of the churches now existing in Lusaka, on the Copperbelt and elsewhere were actually built by him personally. He learnt bricklaying when a boy at Mwenzo and is in part physically responsible for many of the churches now in use, including Chilenje and Matero in Lusaka, Wusakili and Kamitondo in Kitwe. He did not work alone but began and knocked off with the other bricklayers; equally he taught himself to work with the carpenters, making rafters for the roof. Secondly, he has been involved to a quite considerable extent in the municipal affairs of Lusaka, Ndola, and Kitwe, particularly during the 1950s. He was chairman of the African Hospital Advisory Committee both in Lusaka and in Ndola. Thirdly, in the early 1950s he renewed his friendship with Kenneth Kaunda and received him into the A.M.E. Church, in which Kaunda remained for many years, holding a preaching licence and conducting the choir.45 In these years Membe has also produced a number of books in Bemba - an A.M.E. hymnbook, a catechism, a ritual book. In January 1968 he left the fulltime ministry of the church to devote himself to Bible translation within an ecumenical team entrusted with a new translation into Bemba - the very work which McMinn was first doing when the young Membe arrived at Lubwa over fifty years earlier. In this he has been co-operating with Father John Lyamibaba, 191

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a Catholic priest, and the Rev. Vernon Stone, a Presbyterian missionary. Having finished the New Testament, they are now working on the Old. It may be remarked in conclusion that Membe's career illustrates many things - the influence of Livingstonia and of Lubwa, the pull of the south, the ferment of the towns along the line of rail around 1930, the urban failure of the mission churches, but above all the immense achievement - despite very limited initial resources - of his own church in its missionary advance. If we had been able to study the more recent years in greater detail, we would have seen more of the characteristic problems of a second generation church, in particular as regards the training and payment of the clergy. We could have compared too the mood of Zambian society in the 1960s with that of the 1930s, and we could have asked whether the A.M.E. has been able to respond adequately to the change of mood. Again, if mission church members entered the A.M.E. in considerable numbers in the earlier years, we have seen also how later on the flow could be reversed. To evaluate A.M.E.'s role in Zambian society today, one has to remind oneself that its novelty has long worn away, that the mission-connected churches too have in part been Africanized, but that at the same time they continue to control large institutions and considerable foreign funds which the A.M.E. are unable to attain to. Nevertheless the A.M.E. has continued quietly to prosper and to grow. John Membe himself is very conscious of having had a limited education unlike his children who have had full secondary schooling and more: one is an engineer, another a diplomat, a third a librarian. He has an extremely clear mind, immense linguistic ability - he lists twelve African languages in which he is very fluent - and a warm sense of humour. His deep Christian faith has been the force behind his whole life; it has been linked with endless energy and considerable administrative capacity. He has also a strong view of the position and dignity of a minister. It has not been easy. He has never earned his living in any other way between 1933 and his taking on the work of Bible translation, but church funds are limited and the laity may often be obviously better off. In one letter he had hard things to say of ministers 'who sell their collars to the laymen with just a cup of tea and a slice of bread. I shall never sell my ministry to a layman, no not at all.' 46 Membe has never been very interested in politics but he has had a continuing concern for the general work of human improvement - religious, moral, educational, medical. But it is the improvement of society that concerns him, certainly not his own material advancement. One might, I suppose, claim him as the most distinguished Zambian of his generation, but he still has no more than a bicycle and rides it vigorously to work. He remains proud of his family, proud of his church, and proud of his ministry - trained at Lubwa and Livingstonia, ordained in Bloemfontein, the first Zambian member and minister of the A.M.E., a missionary in three countries, General Superintendent of his church, and now a much respected translator of the Bible, he has indeed enough to be proud of.

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For an excellent account of the impression it made in 1958, both in the Copperbelt and in Luapula, see Dorothea Lehmann in J . Taylor and D. Lehmann Christians of the Copperbelt (London 1961) pp. 216-26. 2 See B. Sundkler Bantu Prophets in South Africa (Oxford 1961) pp. 40-42. 3 The A.M.E. Church in Africa has today four episcopal districts: the 14th for West Africa; the 15th, the Republic of South Africa; the 17th, Rhodesia, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, and the Congo; the 18th, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland. The 17th District had five annual conferences in 1965 as follows: (1) North Zambia, consisting of forty-six churches in five Presiding Elders' Districts (Luapula, Abercorn, Isoka, Katanga, Mporokoso); (2) South Zambia, forty churches in six districts (Copperbelt, Balovale, Barotseland, Livingstone, Fort Jameson, and Lusaka); (3) Malawi, forty-one churches in five districts (Lilongwe, Kasungu, Karonga, Blantyre, and Chirwa); North East Rhodesia, thirty-four churches in three districts (Mashonaland, Fort Victoria, and Eastern); Southern Rhodesia, twenty-two churches in three districts (Midlands, Bulawayo, Matabeleland). 4 The present study is based chiefly upon the following sources: (1) The personal papers of John Membe, subsequently referred to as Membe Papers. (2) Rev. J . L. C. Membe A Short History of the A.M.E. Church in Central Africa igoo-ig62. A duplicated book of 98 pages, my copy is marked no. 139 and is dated 9 May 1969 (referred to subsequently as Short History). (3) A history of John Membe and his family written for me by John Membe late in 1969, 1 1 typed pages, subsequently referred to as Family History. (4) Several interviews I have had with John Membe and with some other people. 5 Family History p. 4. In quoting I have made occasional minor amendments in punctuation or wording. 6 Family History p. 1. cf. Ann Tweedie, 'History of the Bemba from Oral tradition' in E. Stokes and R. Brown (eds) The Zambezian Past: Studies in Central Africa (Manchester 1966) pp. 197-224. Note especially pp. 203-206. 7 Family History p. 1. 8 ibid., p. 4. 9 ibid., p. 5. 10 ibid., p. 6. 11 Membe, personal Interview, 5 February 1970. 12 See W. Vernon Stone, 'The Livingstonia Mission and the Bemba' The Bulletin of the Society for African Church History, 1968, pp. 311-22. 13 Family History pp. 6-7. 14 This paragraph is based upon a personal conversation with Membe, 6 September 1971. 16 Family History p. 7. 16 Membe, Personal Interview, 6 September 1971. 17 Membe is in fact a particularly tall person. His preaching in the villages near Mwenzo would have been about 1925. If he was born in 1910, he would have been fifteen at this time. If he was born in 1904, he would have been twenty-one and hardly likely to be nicknamed a small preacher. 18 Family History pp. 7-8. 19 Short History p. 9. For Hanock Phiri see Roderick J . Macdonald, 'Reverend Hanock Msokera Phiri' African Historical Studies 1970, III, 1 . 20 The following paragraphs are based mostly upon the Short History.

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See John Taylor Christians of the Copperbelt pp. 33-37. Short History pp. 17-18. Membe himself offers this explanation. 23 Short History pp. 1 1 - 1 2 . The full text of the letter is given here. 24 Short History p. 10. Full text of permit located here. 25 Family History p. 9. 26 The Membe Papers, Special and Personal File, includes the two certificates of ordination, together with many later appointments. In another file is the permit of the Immigration Commission of Pretoria and a covering letter from the District Commissioner, Ndola, dated 6 November 1935, allowing the Rev. Lester Membe, the Rev. Groundfor Zimba, the Rev. H. M. Phiri and wife, to attend the Annual A.M.E. Conference at Bloemfontein that year. 27 Membe, Conversation with the author, 5 February 1970. 28 Membe Papers 'Correspondence from Presiding Elders and Superintendents'. 29 ibid. 30 ibid. 31 ibid. 32 The account of the visit given in Short History p. 32, is somewhat different and gives the impression of a more favourable reception. 33 Membe Papers 'Correspondence from Presiding Elders and Superintendents'. 34 ibid. 35 M. K. Wakunguma, Personal Interview, 3 September 1971. 36 Fr Lavertu, W.F., Conversation with author, 3 September 1971. 37 Short History p. 37. The full letter is given there. The original is in Membe Papers 'Special and Personal File'. 38 See T. O. Ranger The African Churches of Tanzania Historical Association of Tanzania Paper No. 5 (Nairobi n.d. [1969]) pp. 12-16. 39 Short History p. 46. The full story of the attempt to enter Ufipa, with many original documents, fills pages 30 to 46. 40 See T. O. Ranger, 'Christian Independency in Tanzania', pp. 122-45 D. Barrett (ed.) African Initiatives in Religion. 41 Short History p. 33. 42 Short History pp. 46-55. 43 Membe, Personal Interview, 6 September 1971. 44 Membe Papers 'Personal Correspondence', 26 August 1947. 45 Interview, 6 September 1971. 46 Membe Papers. Letter dated 6 January i960. 22

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The Influence on National Affairs of Alston May, Bishop of Northern Rhodesia, 1914-40 INTRODUCTION

Londoners, in the fateful summer days of 1940, had much to occupy their thoughts, as the war drew closer. Yet a distant event attracted the attention of some of them for a time - the death of a colonial bishop. A Requiem Mass was celebrated at St Matthew's, Westminster, at the end of July, for the soul of Alston May, who had been Bishop of Northern Rhodesia since some other dark days in 1914. The preacher at the Requiem was the Rev. C. H. Leeke, who had been a member of the Bishop's staff for many years; he said in his sermon: Many a question of European and African administration came to be discussed freely and frankly between him and the authorities . . . much of the Government's change in native policy during these last few years could be traced back to influence which he has exerted so quietly and firmly in Northern Rhodesia. 1 Writers of obituaries made similar claims. 'Over and over again,' wrote one, 'he was to stand up for the rights of those who needed defending.'2 'Governors came and went, and to each he gave loyal support and candid criticism,' declared another, adding, 'He did not hesitate to write "His Excellency must think again".' 3 In the Legislative Council, the Secretary for Native Affairs spoke particularly of the Bishop's services to education, while Col. Gore-Browne, who represented 'Native Interests', spoke of the fact that Bishop May was one of the few who had won the trust of both the white population and the Africans. 4 A group of Africans at Chipili Mission, where May had died, wrote: 'He stood against. . . bad laws.' 5 If these claims are true, May's episcopate provides an example of the successful application of Christian influence to the affairs of a Central African country an achievement that certainly deserves investigation. THE DIOCESE AND ITS BISHOP

It was in May 1910 that Bishop John Hine and a small staff began Anglican work in the new Diocese of Northern Rhodesia, serving the two large territories which the British South Africa Company administered to the north of the Zambesi, and which were shortly to be amalgamated. Other churches had for some time been at work in the area, and although the Bishop believed that in principle

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the Established Church could disregard arrangements made by other Christian bodies, in practice he took immense trouble to avoid overlapping. He was a man of great physical endurance, and at the age of fifty-three, he walked for immense distances on his preliminary reconnaissance. He thus brought to birth a diocese which had one mission station among the Tonga and another among the Ila in the south; one among the Nsenga and Kunda in the east (three weeks' walk from the nearest point on the railway), and one among the Ba-ushi near Lake Bangweulu in the north. He also stationed priests at the two capitals, Livingstone and Fort Jameson. In 1914, broken in health by his exertions, he resigned. There were casualties among the priests, too, so that the task of succeeding Bishop Hine was an unenviable one. The first six men to whom it was offered all refused. Serious consideration was given to the possibility of closing the whole diocese down, but it was decided first to make one more invitation. The person who was thus placed in the difficult position of being the recipient of this offer was the Vicar of Chertsey, near London. His name was Alston May. May was a forty-four-year-old bachelor, who had been educated at Leeds Grammar School, Oxford University (where he had been a Classical Scholar), and Cuddesdon Theological College. He had worked in parishes in Leeds, Portsmouth and, latterly, Chertsey. In short, his life, for almost two-thirds of its course, had been fairly typically that of a clergyman of the Established Church. Henceforth it would differ very greatly, for he accepted the invitation to go to Northern Rhodesia; he was consecrated to the episcopate on St Mark's Day, 1914, and in September, he entered his diocese at Livingstone. The Bishop was a short, sturdy man, whose courage had once earned him a medal for attempting to save the life of a drowning boy, and whose humility had concealed the fact of the award. He could be a strict disciplinarian when occasion demanded, but his kindness of heart won him a place in African affections that is rarely given. Inevitably, he became a Bishop without a home. Two rooms at Church House in the capital, Livingstone, were assigned to him, but he seldom occupied them for more than eight weeks of the year, when the rains made travelling impossible. For the rest of the time, he was moving around the country, visiting each mission station and its surrounding district in turn. His staff looked forward to these visits for many reasons, and not least because he always came with a fund of hilarious anecdotes to enliven their evenings. Until 1927, when he bought his first motor-car, all his travelling off the line of rail was done on foot, or occasionally on a rather unreliable motor-cycle. May's dealings with successive governments were conducted, therefore, under the handicap of long absences from the capital, but this was balanced by the opportunities which his work gave him to gain first-hand knowledge of the effect, in all parts of the country, of decisions which the authorities made.

UNDER CHARTERED RULE

1914-24

By 1917, May had made contact with a wide variety of people in the different areas of the territory. Among them was the Rev. A. Jalla, a veteran member of the Paris Mission, who was Secretary of the Missionary Conference. This Conference had so far only met once, and it represented the missions at work in the former North-Western Rhodesia; it was destined, as a nation-wide body, to 196

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play a very important part in the country's affairs, and May's association with it was of very great significance. During the third year of his episcopate, the Bishop exchanged a number of letters with Jalla. One was on the subject of marriage, which arose because some of the missionaries wanted to secure legislation making Christian standards binding upon the whole population. May, who unlike the other missionaries had come from an Established Church, wrote expressing a view which he was to reiterate continuously in future years: My own feeling is that the agitation is altogether ill-judged. Personally, I would prefer that the present arrangements should continue as long as possible, and that we should rely upon spiritual forces alone, without the aid of the State, for establishing and maintaining the Christian view of marriage. We have had enough in Europe of the mixing up of Church and State!6 So May had brought with him to Africa some definite ideas of the separate spheres of God and Caesar, and an awareness of the dangers of allowing the Church to become entangled in such a way that its freedom of manoeuvre is restricted. Another acquaintance whom May soon made was L. F. (later Sir Leopold) Moore, a chemist in the capital who owned and edited the country's newspaper, the Livingstone Mail. To the surprise of many, the two became lifelong friends, but their views on many subjects were poles apart. In his editorial on 21 September 1917 Moore maintained that to procure African girls of under sixteen years of age should not be regarded as a crime, because public opinion, white and black, considered it natural that such girls should be made available to men, who should not be expected to 'violate nature by practising continence'. This expectation was part of the 'cant and hypocrisy of the religious and gubernatorial classes of the British Empire'. This evoked a strong protest from May in the following week's issue, defending the views of the religious and secular establishment. Soon afterwards, he received a letter from Jalla,7 congratulating him on his stand, particularly in view of the racial discrimination implicit in Moore's plea for less legal protection for black girls than for white ones. The incident is small in itself, but it constitutes the first public protest by the Bishop, and shows him being drawn more closely into association with the Missionary Conference. It was not long before the Bishop and the Conference collaborated for the first time. This occurred because the Administration, on 16 April 1918, published a 'Native Schools Proclamation', which would greatly affect the educational work of the missions, but which had been drawn up without consulting those who were responsible for this work. Hitherto, education had been entirely in the hands of the missions, carried on at their expense, and the Proclamation, and the 'Draft Regulations' which accompanied it, were the first attempt by the Administration to impose any sort of control. They proposed to take authority to determine the qualifications necessary for a teacher, and to make it necessary for a headman to apply personally at the Boma if he wanted a school in his village, which might entail a walk of sixty miles each way.8 Nobody was more strongly in favour of insisting on well-qualified teachers than May himself, who had recently taken drastic action at his strongest mission station 197

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to raise the teaching standards there. Nevertheless, he was not happy about the methods which the Administration was proposing to use, or about the way in which it was introducing them. He expressed his feelings in a circular to other missionaries: I have been in constant communication with the Administrator on the subject, and have represented in somewhat strong terms to him and the High Commissioner my objection both to the publication of the Proclamation without previous reference to the Missions, and also to certain provisions of the Proclamation itself and of the Regulations. The Administrator had shown the Bishop some of the complaints that had come in from various missionaries, and these had revealed 'a striking consensus of opinion'. May concluded his letter by saying that he was satisfied that 'what we have to complain of is traceable to thoughtlessness and lack of consideration, and not at all to antagonism or even want of sympathy'. 9 May now produced his own suggested set of regulations, and sent it to various missionaries for comment. Among the replies he received was one from John Fell, a Primitive Methodist at Kafue, who raised the wider issue whether the Administration should be asked to give financial support to educational work. May, as aware as ever of the dangers of entanglement with the State, declined, adding that even if such help were offered, he would quite possibly not take it. 10 In July 1919 the Missionary Conference met at Livingstone, and discussed the Administration's educational policy; a well-known Southern Rhodesian Methodist, John White, 'spoke at length in condemning the attitude and spirit of intolerance in the regulations'. Bishop May was away in Barotseland, but his counter-proposals were approved and forwarded to the Administration. They met the objections which the missionaries had raised, and were accepted by the Administration, though, to May's amusement, the Secretary for Native Affairs took the credit for them - 'insisting on calling them "the product of his feeble brain" (a bit hard on me, I thought!)'. 11 This whole sequence of events is important as being one of the first instances when the Missionary Conference succeeded in securing a change in official policy. This success obviously owed a good deal, not only to May's ability in drafting but also to his good personal relationship with members of the Administration - a relationship which was made possible because he treated them with courtesy and resisted the temptation to question their good faith. The Bishop's next incursion into national affairs occurred in 1921, after the perennial question of the relationship of the two Rhodesias had been brought to the fore by the resignation of L . A. Wallace, who had been the Administrator of Northern Rhodesia since its formation; the B.S.A. Company proposed to make Sir Drummond Chaplin, already Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, responsible for both territories. News of the Company's intention leaked out, and this was seen as a first move towards amalgamation. Not only were the missionaries opposed to such a move, but so were the majority of the settlers, who felt that their economic interests would be subordinated to those of the Southern Rhodesians. May was in the chair at a big public meeting in Livingstone on 10 February, and thus expressed, for the first time, his inflexible opposition to any form of political arrangement which might extend Southern Rhodesian racial 198

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policies across the Zambesi. 12 The opposition failed to prevent the two territories from coming for the next two years under a single Administrator, but the main object was achieved; the territories remained separate when new arrangements came into force in 1924. Soon after Sir Drummond's appointment, the Bishop and his fellow-missionaries embarked on two further campaigns against the Administration's policy. The first was directed at the Poll Tax, which had been instituted in 1920. In preparation for the 1922 Missionary Conference, May drew up a memorandum setting out the facts. A Hut Tax had first been imposed in 1901, fixed at 35; in 1914, it had been increased to 55, and now it had been transformed into a Poll Tax of 10s. The main object was to force the African population to work for cash wages, but since there was no large-scale European employment available in most rural areas, men had to walk great distances in order to earn the money: ' T o tax him in order to force him to work is to exploit him for the commercial benefit of the white man. This is unjust and oppressive, and when work can only be obtained in a foreign country hundreds of miles away, the injustice and oppression become intolerable.' May went on to describe the effects of the tax, which, together with other factors, led to an exodus of men from the villages. The ill-effects were of a moral nature (owing to the separation of husband and wife), of a social and economic nature (break-up of village life), as well as being, as far as the missions were concerned, 'a very serious handicap to our work, both from an educational and evangelistic point of view'. 1 3 When the Missionary Conference met, it soon became clear that May had the full support of the members, and a resolution was passed, bringing the notice of the Administration to the 'excessive and unjust' nature of the tax. T h e A d ministration ignored the resolution for the next seven months, after which May returned to the attack.14 The only reply that was received contained a forecast that, since more was already being spent on native administration than was being received in tax, 'what in effect would be grants-in-aid of the native population' were being unlikely to be made. It was, however, admitted that 'natives in some areas may experience some difficulty in finding the money required', 15 and with this remarkable understatement, the matter was deadlocked, and remained so until Chartered rule ended in 1924. The other major issue which brought the Bishop and the Missionary Conference into conflict with the Administration during the latter's last years was in connection with the allocation of land, particularly in the Eastern Province. May described how the dispute had arisen, in a letter to his sister: The whole of that part of the country - 10,000 square miles - belongs to a Company which rejoices in the name of the 'North Charterland Exploration Company'. Their title to it is very shady, being based on a concession given to a German named Wiese in the nineties (i.e. long before there was a European Government) by Mpezeni, the so-called paramount chief of the district, who had no power to part with the native rights over the land . . . However, the title was confirmed by the Chartered Company, when they took over the administration of the country - on condition they received a third of the shares in the North Charterland Co, 16 199

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By 1922, it was clear that two important questions would shortly have to be settled. The first was whether, when Northern Rhodesia came under Colonial Office rule, the North Charterland Company's claim to the land would be recognized. Secondly, there was a strong desire by the Company to make more land available to European farmers, since there were believed to be good prospects for tobacco and cotton in the area; this could easily lead to the removal of large numbers of the African population from the land upon which they depended for their livelihood, unless Reserves were delimited in such a way as to prevent this. In February 1922 the Bishop wrote a letter to the Administrator, expressing his concern that there should be 'fair and adequate representation of native interests at the Privy Council enquiry into the claims of the B.S.A. Co. in this territory', and stating his view that the Imperial authorities should engage counsel for the purpose.17 This letter was tabled at the Missionary Conference in July, when that body passed a motion that it 'heartily endorses' the views expressed.18 At the same time, the Bishop was bringing pressure to bear in London. The Under-Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs granted an interview, 'satisfactory in its results so far', to the Secretary of the Universities Mission to Central Africa, whom May had briefed. 19 Less well briefed was an M.P. who asked a question in the House, which gave the impression that Africans had already been moved to make way for European farmers. The Bishop, who was extremely sensitive to the damage that can be done to a case by inaccurate statements, especially when they are made in the process of applying pressure outside the Territory, was quick to publish a correction.20 In spite of the efforts of the Bishop and those who assisted him, the decision went in favour of the North Charterland Company, who 'will be anxious to pick out the remaining eyes of the country for sale to Europeans', as May wrote in September 1923. 21 However, the transfer to Colonial Office rule was now only six months away, so the Bishop concentrated on making sure that no decisions about the delimitation of Reserves would be made before the political changes took place. The most likely method of fixing Reserve boundaries was by means of a Commission, so the immediate objective was to ensure that no Commission was appointed until after the transfer, and this objective was achieved.22 The change itself was one which the Bishop welcomed, 'provided always that the Imperial Government is to be relied upon to play the game where the Natives are concerned. Personally I have confidence in the present lot.' 23 He also had confidence in the Governor-designate, Sir Herbert Stanley, a good Churchman whom he had known for years.24 So he hoped for the 'more positive and constructive native policy' whose absence he had regretted during the years of Chartered rule. 25 COLONIAL HONEYMOON

1924-33

Northern Rhodesia came under Colonial Office rule on 1 April 1924, with two of the problems raised by May and the other missionaries still outstanding taxation and the Reserves. Both subjects were discussed when the Missionary Conference met in June (the Bishop was absent on leave at the time), and mo200

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tions were passed re-affirming those of the 1922 Conference, and expressing the hope that favourable decisions would soon be made by the new administration.26 The decision about taxation did not take long. E. S. B. Tagart, Acting Secretary for Native Affairs, was present at the Conference, and he made a speech claiming that tax money was needed to provide district administration. The missionaries were not impressed, and their Secretary, Fell, 'went for him Tyke style'. By September, Tagart was composing a memorandum recommending a reduction in some areas; he supported his suggestion with all the arguments which had appeared in May's memorandum two years previously.27 The Governor forwarded Tagart's paper to the Colonial Office, adding that he agreed with the suggestions: 'In coming to this conclusion, I am in accord with the considered opinion of the Missionary Conferences of the Territory of 1922 and of this present year . . . and with those of the District Officials.' 28 The Secretary of State sent a telegram at the end of the year agreeing to the reduction of the tax from ios. to 7s. 6d. in some areas,29 and this came into effect on 1 July 1925. The Reserves problem was less tractable. The Governor lost no time in appointing a Commission, consisting of a Judge (MacDonnell), a Native Commissioner (Lane-Poole), and a settler (Phipps). The Bishop supported these appointments,30 and left the presentation of evidence about the needs of the people around Msoro, where his diocese was at work, to an experienced missionary, the Rev. A. S. B. Ranger. 31 He was glad in due course to receive Ranger's report that the Commission had decided in his presence, after hearing his evidence, to abandon the idea which had been canvassed for years, of removing 2,500 people from many of Chief Msoro's villages to a less fertile area further south.32 Roman Catholic and Dutch Reformed missionaries had given evidence about the position in their own areas,33 and the situation seemed satisfactory. In March 1925 the Commission presented its eighty-two-page Report to the Governor.34 Strictly, it should have remained confidential until forwarded to the Colonial Office, but the Governor allowed May to see it. On reading it, the Bishop was shocked to find that the Commission had again changed its mind, and was recommending after all that the Msoro people should be moved.36 A visit to the area confirmed the Bishop's conviction of the injustice of this, and on his return to Livingstone in July, he tackled the Governor and Tagart on the subject. After a long interview, he set out his arguments in the form of a memorandum.36 The Governor was in a difficult position. In many respects, the Commission's proposals were unwelcome to the North Charterland Company, which meant that if he made an exception about the proposal to move the Msoro people, he would greatly weaken his position when he attempted to implement the remainder of the Report. 37 His first step was to visit the area himself, in company with the Bishop and Lane-Poole, and this convinced him that the Msoro people should not be moved.38 On 5 September he forwarded the Bishop's July memorandum to the Colonial Office, saying that other missionaries agreed with the arguments, and so to a large extent did Tagart. 39 In the end it was Judge MacDonnell who solved the problem. He revisited the area, saw the local 201

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missionaries, and revised his Commission's recommendation, claiming that new information had been made available to him.40 When the Bishop arrived in Livingstone in January 1926, he was summoned by the Governor who told him, to his great joy, that the Msoro people were not to be moved after all.41 While taxation and the Reserves question were two matters in which the missionaries hoped for new policies after the change of administration, the whole subject of education was becoming an increasingly important issue. The Phelps-Stokes Commission, whose work was destined to mark a turning-point in the educational history of so many African countries, visited Northern Rhodesia during the first weeks of Colonial rule, and its presence caused the missionaries to bring their Conference forward by a year so that the Commissioners could be present for the debate on education. There was soon found to be plenty of common ground between the parties concerned, and agreement was reached on the necessity for appointing a Director of Native Education and an Advisory Committee on which the missionaries would be strongly represented. Government financial help was available at last, and it was noted with pleasure that the Governor had been instructed by Order in Council to promote native education.42 Implementation followed. The first Director of Native Education was G. C. Latham, who was one of the Churchwardens of St Andrew's, Livingstone; he was very sympathetic to the missions. The first meeting of the Advisory Board was held in July 1925, and the Bishop accepted membership 'at the Governor's urgent request'.43 He had hesitated about this, for he was as determined as ever to avoid entanglement with the State. The Governor had, however, consulted him about the proposed scheme of grants for education, before the Board met. The Bishop could see no objection to it, and wrote to Mission Headquarters. 'The Committee need have no fear that I am committing the Mission to anything disastrous.'44 Three months later, the first offer of funds which would assist one of May's own missions was made; this was for a bridge making Fiwila Mission, in Lala country, more accessible from the outside world. The Bishop suggested to Mission Headquarters that he should accept 1 without prejudice such grants as do not in themselves commit us to any questionable line of action'; this would leave him free to withdraw later from participation in the Government's educational scheme if the course seemed right.45 The Committee in London agreed to this suggestion, and the Fiwila grant was accepted.46 This began the process by which the Anglican diocese became, like the other main missions, a full partner with the Government in educational work. The developments since the transfer to Colonial Office rule had by 1928 convinced May that the Africans of the Territory were being treated more fairly than they had been under the Chartered Company, and more fairly than they could expect to be treated under settler rule, whether this was exerted by Northern Rhodesia's own settlers, or by those of Southern Rhodesia if amalgamation took place. The Hilton Young Commission of that year investigated the political arrangements, and the settlers saw this as an opportunity to increase their political power; meetings in Lusaka and Mazabuka decided unanimously to press for amalgamation.47 The Executive of the Missionary Conference presented a memorandum expressing the view that 'the spread of S. Africa's Native prob202

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lems in Southern Rhodesia makes us anxious that the Zambesi should remain our Southern boundary', and looking forward to the day when the Northern Rhodesian Africans would be able to share in administering their own affairs.48 The Bishop submitted his own, separate memorandum. His views were similar to those of his fellow-missionaries, and he made them abundantly clear: I know well many of the Europeans in Northern Rhodesia and have the highest respect for their character and ability . . . But I venture to urge nevertheless most emphatically, that the Commission should advise His Majesty's Government to look long and carefully before they venture to transfer any substantial measure of their responsibilities for the native population to the shoulders of the miners, settlers and railwaymen of Northern Rhodesia. To do so, he added, would be 'to establish an oligarchy in which the members of the governing caste have the strongest possible temptation to exploit the governed for the purpose of personal gain'. Furthermore, as far as the average settler is concerned, the African is neither fellow-worker, fellow-citizen nor even (in the full meaning of the word) fellow-man; and the idea of any sort of trusteeship or responsibility is either foreign to him or laughable . . . the control of the Home Government cannot be withdrawn until the natives are sufficiently developed to take their place as fully-grown members of the Commonwealth and to hold their own against oppression.49 Relationships between the missionaries and the administration had improved very greatly during the first years of Colonial Office rule, and this was commented upon from both sides. After the Missionary Conference of 1927, the Acting Governor (Richard Goode) forwarded its resolutions to the Colonial Office with the comment 'The critical attitude sometimes manifested has given place to a cordial appreciation of what the Government has already been able to do,' 5 0 and at the next Conference, in 1931, it was May's task to reply to the address of the Governor (Sir Robert Maxwell), and he, too, drew the contrast between present co-operation and the days when 'we had a sort of feeling that the Government tolerated us . . . they considered that we were rather harmless faddists'. 51 This latter Conference accepted an invitation from the Native Education Department to be its guests in Mazabuka for the next meeting, due in 1934. 52 This, however, was not to be, for the harmony was soon to be shattered, and the next Conference took a very different form from anything that was envisaged in 1931. COLLISION

1933-35

In 1931, Latham's period of service as Director of Native Education came to an end. His successor, Caldwell, had the reputation of being 'a difficult person from the missionary point of view'. 53 This change might not have mattered, if it had not soon been followed by the world-wide slump. The Administration had been increasing its education grants year by year, as the numbers of teachers increased, but the authorities became alarmed as economic problems 203

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became more pressing; furthermore, plans were being made to move the capital to Lusaka, the implementation of which would be costly. So a reduction in educational grants-in-aid was planned. The Missionary Conference had an Executive which met in years when the full Conference was not convened. At its 1933 meeting, the Executive passed one motion strongly opposing any reduction in educational grants, and another changing the date and place of the next Conference; one of the reasons given was that the decision to accept the hospitality of the Education Department might have to be reconsidered in the new situation. In November 1934 the Government took action, and it did so in a way that was hardly likely to improve its relationship with the missionaries. Instead of discussing its problems with the Advisory Board on Native Education, on which the missionaries were fully represented, it convened a 'Committee on Education Grants-in-aid', which included no representative from the Free Churches, who were responsible for two-thirds of all African education. The Committee's purpose was 'to investigate the working of the system of grantsin-aid of native education and to make recommendations'. ('In other words,' commented May, 'to consider what was to be done in view of a 10 per cent reduction of grants.') 54 May himself was one of the two missionaries appointed to the Committee, and his first impulse was to refuse to serve. In the end, however, he decided that it would be more useful to go to the meetings, make a 'vigorous protest' at the outset, and keep the Secretary of the Missionary Conference (the Rev. A. J . Cross) fully informed about events. 'We tried to make the best of a bad job,' he reported later, adding, 'Moral: put not your trust in Governments.' 55 The grant reductions came into operation on 1 April 1935, and a few days later the Bishop wrote from Livingstone that the Government was contemplating a further unwelcome economy in its spending on education: 'Caldwell is in hospital here. Clark, the Director of European Education, is acting D.N.E. It is safe to say that Caldwell will be invalided out of the Service and the amalgamation of the two departments will be permanent. Which is what the Governor wanted for reasons of economy. The money is wanted for the new Capital! I have less and less use for Colonial Office government.'56 By this time, the Missionary Conference was due to meet. It did so at Ndola, and gave a good deal of its attention to the Government's educational policy. A whole series of critical motions was passed, and these bear signs of May's draftsmanship. The ten per cent cut was condemned, 'emphatic protest' was made at the piocedure adopted for imposing it, a new consideration of the whole system of grants-in-aid was requested, and the Government was asked to give statutory recognition to the Advisory Board on Native Education. The President of the Conference, the Rev. J . G. Soulsby, spoke in his address of the unsatisfactory way in which African education had been administered since Latham's departure, and expressed the fear that the amalgamation of the Departments of European and Native Education would mean that the latter would remain 'secondary and subsidiary', directed by men who neither knew nor cared about Africans. 57 The protests were successful. During the week after the Conference, May and other missionaries met Government representatives in Lusaka. Soulsby, re204

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porting to Cross, wrote of 'the complete restoration of good and permanent relationships with the Government, and their recognition of the right both of the Missionary Conference and of the Board [on Native Education] to be consulted on all matters affecting education'. 58 The ten per cent cut was to be restored, and a committee of three, consisting of May, Wolnik (a Jesuit Bishop), and Soulsby himself, was to remain constantly in being, and was even to have the estimates referred to it before they were passed. This clash between the Missionary Conference and the Government occurred at the same time as another, much more spectacular one. A fortnight before the Conference met, there were strikes at Mufulira, Nkana, and Luanshya; at the last place, the police opened fire on a crowd, killing six people and injuring seventeen. One of the causes of the trouble was the introduction of a new tax system; the way in which it had been imposed, without consultation or explanation, seemed to May and the other missionaries to mean that the Government was largely responsible for the tragedy. 59 The Governor, Sir Hubert Young, acted promptly in appointing a Commission of Enquiry, but its Chairman was to be the Chief Secretary, and its members were another senior government official and a former member of the Legislative Council. The Missionary Conference therefore met in a critical mood. May moved a motion urging 'respectfully upon His Excellency the Governor the necessity of the appointment of a strong, impartial Commission', and in his speech, he said, 'What concerns the Natives concerns ourselves. If we have good reason to think that the Natives are suffering injustice or hardship, we are bound to speak out, or forfeit our claim to be their friends . . . I cannot think that the Commission is a suitable one.' 60 The motion was carried unanimously. The Governor had originally intended to address the Conference himself, but while the missionaries were meeting, they received a telegram to say that he had decided to send the Chief Secretary instead. The Conference resolved to send a telegram in reply, the peremptory tone of which can seldom have been equalled in communications from Church to State since the days of Hildebrand. It declared that the Conference members 'deplore the failure of His Excellency the Governor to attend the meeting of the General Missionary Conference', and it succeeded in bringing Sir Hubert to Ndola. Even the expurgated Conference Report 61 makes it possible to picture vividly the confrontation between the bristling ex-soldier and the seventy missionaries. 'I am myself the Government of Northern Rhodesia,' declared the Governor. 'Every possible attempt appears to have been made in certain quarters to discredit the Government in advance, and to spread the idea that having first been guilty of some criminal blunder they are now doing their best to cover it up. I warn you most solemnly, Ladies and Gentlemen, and not only you but all others concerned, that anyone who makes these suggestions at this time will be taking a very grave responsibility . . . in view of the possible effect upon the Natives and consequent danger to lives and property.' The missionaries had previously held a devotional service, in which they had been reminded that the Holy Spirit would give them the words to say before secular rulers. It was Soulsby, as President, whose task it was to reply on be205

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half of the missionaries, who, as May commented later, were 'unrepentant'. He made the position very clear: In our Conference we claim the right to criticize when criticism is offered in kindness and with a desire to help both Europeans and Natives and also the Government. In the end, the Governor invited the Conference to elect five representatives with whom he would discuss further the composition of the Commission of Enquiry. These were Soulsby, Cross, May ('who has been surprisingly "red" recently' remarked Cross in describing these events),62 Fr Etienne of the White Fathers, and Malcolm Moffatt, a veteran Presbyterian missionary. The discussion took place immediately, and the delegates were able to return to the Conference and report that the Governor had made two major concessions. One of His Majesty's Judges was to be the Chairman of the Commission, and Malcolm Moffatt was to be one of its members. In due course, the Russell Commission reported. Cross, at least, was not satisfied: 'The Government was very much more to blame than the Commission would admit.'63 Nor was further trouble avoided, for there were riots again in 1940. Yet it seems reasonable to assume, though it cannot be proved, that this was in spite of, and not because of, the changes in the Commission's membership which the Missionary Conference did much to secure. THE LAST YEARS

1935-40

After the eventful months in the middle of 1935, the relationship of May and the other missionaries on the one hand, and the Government on the other, settled down at a much more cordial level. The economic recovery meant that more funds were available for educational work, thus reducing one of the chief causes of friction. The most important political debate of the second half of the decade occurred in 1938, when the Bledisloe Commission came to examine, once again, the question of the political relationship of Northern Rhodesia with the neighbouring territories. May and the other members of the Missionary Conference Executive produced a forty-paragraph memorandum for the Commission.64 It is a masterly document. There was not much to be said that was new, for May had been opposing the extension of Southern Rhodesian racial policies across the Zambesi for twenty years, but there was a note of originality in the Preamble. Reference was made to the fact that some Africans were now able to speak for themselves, especially those who had come to live in the urban areas; the missionaries' task was to speak for those who were not yet articulate. The section on African education described the provision which had so far been made as 'lamentably inadequate'. Some discriminatory Acts of the Southern Rhodesian Government were listed to emphasize the point that the northwards extension of its authority would be 'inimical to the best interests of the Native of this country'; they were equally opposed to rule by Northern Rhodesia's own settlers, concluding: 'control of such a vast and important unit of the British Empire by its Immigrant population does not commend itself to our judgement'. May gave personal evidence before the Commission, telling them 'how, while 206

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he was on trek he would hear "night after night", embittered discussions based on the experiences of humble, unlettered Africans, of life in Southern Rhodesia'.65 Evidence was also given by a leading African layman, Mr James Mwela, who successfully dealt with the accusation that what he said 'must have been dictated or inspired by his Bishop'. Mwela suggested that, if amalgamation took place, there should be an Upper House with heads of missions safeguarding African interests, like bishops in the House of Lords.66 A few months later, the Missionary Conference met, but May was unable through ill health to take his place as President. The Executive's Memorandum to the Bledisloe Commission was approved, and a motion opposing amalgamation was passed. The debate on this motion, however, produced, for the first time in Conference history, a disagreement on an important matter of political principle. The Rev. J . M. Cronje expressed the view of the Dutch Reformed Church, which had already been conveyed to the Bledisloe Commission, that 'they stood for principles of Guardianship, of Segregation as the soundest basis for the true development of both races'. So his deputation favoured amalgamation, and the Conference's motion opposing it was therefore only carried by forty-four votes to four.67 The unity of political outlook, which had been such a source of strength to the missionaries in the past, was beginning to show ominous cracks. May was now seventy years old. He recovered sufficiently from a painful ear operation to resume his work, and it was while he was making a long tour on foot of villages in Luapula Province that he succumbed to a knee infection. He was brought to the mission centre at Chipili, and died there on 17 July 1940. He was buried the same day, wrapped in a mat in the African style. CONCLUSION

Two rival accounts of the political influence of missionaries during the Colonial period are current in Zambia. P. Bolink, in his Towards Church Union in Zambia, quotes with approval Colin Morris's remark that missions were 'the voice of the voiceless' at a time when Africans had no direct representation in the Government.68 Robert Rotberg, on the other hand, in the Epilogue of Christian Missionaries and the Creation of Northern Rhodesia, writes: by and large, missionaries sided with their fellow-whites. Few championed African interests and, during the long eventually unsuccessful African battle against the amalgamation or association of Northern Rhodesia with Southern Rhodesia, the voice of the Church was rarely heard in support of Africans. 69 The study of Bishop May's life leaves little room for doubt that the former of these views corresponds more closely with the facts, as far as the period up to 1940 is concerned. In fairness to Rotberg, it should be mentioned that he excepts May and Fell from his general condemnation,70 but, as Bolink rightly points out, this attempt to distinguish the President and Secretary of the Missionary Conference from their colleagues is unconvincing.71 There is no record of any significant difference of opinion among the missionaries, as far as their Conference's approaches to the Government on political matters were concerned, 207

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until the representatives of the Dutch Reformed Church voted against the motion opposing amalgamation at the 1939 Conference. By the time May died, however, a change was taking place. In Taylor and Lehmann's Christians of the Copperbelt, there is a perceptive chapter on 'The Church and Polities'. The authors remark that, by 1943, the 'quality of outspokenness' that had characterized earlier Missionary Conferences was being replaced by 'a more equivocal note', which they attribute to 'the growing influence of the European congregations along the railway line'; by now there were 'missionaries living in the white milieu'. 72 It is an interesting if unprofitable exercise to speculate on what would have happened if May had still been alive and in office when this trend became apparent. Besides the charge that 'the voice of the Church was rarely heard', it is also sometimes claimed that when the missionaries did criticize the Government, they did so only from selfish motives. They demanded more money for education, for example, in order to 'indoctrinate the children'; 73 they opposed labour migration and the taxes which caused it, because the absence of males in the villages hampered their evangelistic work. Attacks on motivation are of course very difficult either to disprove or to sustain, but the form in which some of May's protests were made throw a certain amount of light on his reasons for making them. He would, of course, like all missionaries, have strenuously denied that concern for a person's physical welfare, leading to political protest, is a 'higher' motive than concern for that person's spiritual welfare, leading to evangelism. In fact, the evidence suggests that both motives were present. For example, his memorandum about taxation, presented to the 1922 Missionary Conference, includes a list of the 'effects of the exodus'. 'Moral effects' come first, 'social and economic effects' second, and 'effect on Mission work' third. So the onus seems to lie with the critics, if they wish to claim that the third consideration was the only one that mattered to the missionaries, to produce evidence in support of their contention. The final task must now be faced of considering whether the methods which May used, in order to make his influence felt, yield any lessons of permanent value to those who, like him, find themselves at the points at which Church and State interact. Some of the principles by which the Bishop worked are self-evident, and need only to be stated briefly. He was in close touch with those whose interests he represented; if he gave evidence before a Commission, his words carried a good deal of weight when he began by telling of the 'embittered discussions' which he had heard, night after night, while he was on trek. Secondly, any memorandum he drew up was a model of factual accuracy and unimpeachable logic, expressed with all the lucidity of a former classical scholar. Thirdly, his courage, physical and moral, was proverbial; it was not for nothing that a praise-song in Tonga, composed in honour of his twenty-fifth anniversary as Bishop, compared him with the bravest of the beasts: 'As-the-warthog - indomitable.'74 Another feature of the Bishop's methods, and one which requires a more extended comment, is the way in which he almost always made his protests as a member of a team - the Missionary Conference and its Executive. In this he was more fortunate than his opposite numbers in Southern Rhodesia, where on important occasions the Missionary Conference was divided on political issues. 208

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Until 1939, there was no such division in Northern Rhodesia, and this meant that resolutions of the Missionary Conference, being unanimous, carried a great deal of weight. Behind this unanimity lay close bonds of friendship which joined the Conference leaders together; when the Bishop died, Cross, the Secretary of the Conference, wrote o f ' a friendship of rare quality which lost nothing by our differences in age and temperament and religious outlook - rather I think it gained because of these'.78 In the Old Testament, the prophet was usually a lonely figure. The Christian church has exercised a prophetic ministry most effectively when it has done so as a body, and May's gift for friendship was a major factor in making this possible in Northern Rhodesia. While friendship with his fellow-missionaries was one factor contributing to May's political influence, his ability at the same time to establish good relationships with Governors, and others responsible for administration, was another. He had the advantage that many of the men with whom he had to deal came from a similar background and, as Churchmen, shared his values. The first Governor, Stanley, was a devout member of the church; the first Director of Native Education, Latham, was a Churchwarden; Sir Ronald Storrs, who was Governor from 1932 to 1934, took an active part in church life at Livingstone, and was the son of a Dean of Rochester. In these circumstances, the establishment of good relationships with the authorities was easier than it would otherwise have been, but the Bishop's unfailing courtesy and fairmindedness were also an important factor. This is well illustrated by a letter which he wrote to Sir Drummond Chaplin after the 1922 Missionary Conference: I write to repair an omission. As President of the Missionary Conference I fully intended, when we met you this week, to thank you for the help we received, both from yourself and from various members of the Administration . . . I am all the more sorry not to have acknowledged it at the right time because in some respects we felt bound at the Conference to take up an attitude of adverse criticism.76 This courtesy marks another departure from the methods of the more rugged of the Old Testament prophets, which some Churchmen have sought to emulate; yet it increased the Bishop's effectiveness, and sprang from a deep charity which is nothing if not biblical. One essential for good relationships with the Government was that the device of seeking to exert pressure from outside the country should be used as sparingly as possible, and only as a last resort. Questions in the House of Commons in London would only produce antagonism in Livingstone, and this would be the case particularly if the question revealed a misconception of the facts. This actually happened in connection with the dispute over the rights of the North Charterland Company, and the Bishop lost no time in publishing a correction of the statement which the questioner had made. Once good relationships with the Administration had been built up, a great deal of May's influence could be exerted, not through memoranda or resolutions but through informal discussions with the Governor or with the officials concerned. It will not have escaped notice how often this happened during May's episcopate. 'The Governor had previously taken me very fully into consultation in regard to the proposals that should be submitted to the Board,' 209

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wrote the Bishop when educational grants were first being considered, and such consultations took place very frequently. T h e advantage of this sort of discussion was that it is always comparatively easy for an official to change his mind privately, and then to claim that the new policy is a product of his own 'feeble brain'. It is much harder to change policy after a public protest, giving the impression of a surrender to pressure. Much of the Bishop's influence was exerted in this informal way, and this can sometimes be frustrating for the historian, since memoranda and minutes do not emerge from such meetings. Yet the results can be seen, in the form of the juster and more humane Government policies which were so often the consequence of Bishop May's influence. NOTES 1

C. H. Leeke, typescript sermon, Anglican Archives Lusaka (hereafter AAL). G. Hewitt, article Central Africa (September 1940). 3 W. F. P. Ellis, article Central Africa (September 1940). 4 Legislative Council Debate, typescript copy, AAL. 5 Address of Chipili Christians to Bishop Taylor, AAL. 6 May to Jalla, 18 May 1917. HM 4 CC 1/1/2, National Archives of Zambia, Lusaka (hereafter NAZ). 7 Jalla to May, n.d., HM 4 CC 1/1/2, NAZ. 8 Rev. R. Moffatt, article describing the effects of these proposals at Mapanza Central Africa (February 1919). 9 11 July 1918. HM 4 CC 1/1/1, NAZ. 10 May to Fell 19 September 1918. HM4 CC 1/1/1, NAZ. 11 May to Travers 25 September 1919 (copy), AAL. 12 L. H. Gan The Birth of a Plural Society (Manchester 1958) p. 172. 13 Report of the Third Missionary Conference Kafue, 1922, printed at Livingstonia. 14 May to Gray 27 February 1923 HM 4 CC 1/1/4, NAZ. 15 Report of the Third Missionary Conference - Appendix giving Administration's replies. 16 May to Miss L. May 19 February 1926, NAZ. 17 Report of the Third Missionary Conference. 18 ibid. 19 Travers to Fell 5 September 1922 H M 4 CC 1/1/4, NAZ. 20 Central Africa (November 1922). 21 May to Travers, 24 September 1923 (copy), AAL. 22 May to Spanton, 5 October 1923 (copy), AAL. 23 May to Travers, 24 September 1923 (copy), AAL. 24 UMCA Annual Review 1924. 25 UMCA Annual Review 1923. 26 Proceedings of the General Missionary Conference of N. Rhodesia (Lovedale 1924). 27 B/1/1 A 1060, NAZ. 28 ibid. 29 ibid. 30 May to Spanton 5 October 1925 (copy), AAL. 31 ZP 1/1/5, NAZ. 32 May to Spanton 5 October 1925 (copy), A A L . 33 ZP 1/1/5, NAZ. For MacDonnell's comments, see ZP 1/1/2, NAZ. 34 ZP 1/1/1, NAZ. 2

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35

May to Spanton 5 October 1925 (copy), A A L . ibid. 37 ibid. 38 ibid. 39 Stanley to Amery, 5 September 1925, B/1/1/A 707, Vol. I, NAZ. 40 Memo, by Sir P. J . MacDonnell 30 October 1925, B/1/1/A 707, Vol. II, NAZ. 41 May to Spanton, 5 January 1926 (copy), A A L . 42 Proceedings of the General Missionary Conference (Lovedale, 1924). 43 May to Spanton, 5 October 1925 (copy), A A L . The Minutes of the Advisory Board are in file B1/1/A 1570, NAZ. 44 ibid. 46 May to Spanton, 19 January 1926 (copy ), A A L . 46 Fiwila Logbook, 8 April 1926 and 16 April 1926 (photocopy), NAZ. 47 May's Memorandum, B/1/3/36, NAZ. 48 H M 4 C C 1 / 1 / 1 1 , NAZ. 4 » Bi/1/3/36, NAZ. 50 Goode to Amery, 30 August 1927, B1/1/A 1609, NAZ. 51 A Report of the General Missionary Conference of Northern Rhodesia (Lovedale, I 93 1 )" ibid. 53 Spanton to May, 14 October 1931 (copy), A A L . 54 UMCA Annual Review (1934). 55 ibid. 56 May to Spanton, 9 April 1935 (copy), A A L . 57 Proceedings of the Seventh Missionary Conference (Lovedale 1935). 58 Soulsby to Cross, 22 June 1935, HM4 C C 1/1/26, NAZ. 59 May to Cross, 1 June 1935, H M 4 1/1/25, NAZ. 60 Proceedings of the Seventh Missionary Conference (Lovedale 1935). 61 There is correspondence about the expurgations in the Missionary Conference files (HM4 C C 1/1/26, NAZ) and those of Sir Hubert Young (P 3/2/3, NAZ). 62 Cross to Gray, 7 August 1935, H M 4 C C 1/1/26, NAZ. 83 Cross to Springer, n May 1936, H M 4 C C 1/1/26, NAZ. 64 Printed as part of the 1939 Missionary Conference Proceedings. There is a typescript copy, together with correspondence about its composition, in H M 4 C C 1/1 /27, NAZ. 85 Evidence C X X V I I and C X V I I Col. Office Lit., cit. R. Gray The Two Nations (Oxford i960) p. 190. 66 UMCA Annual Review (1938). 87 Proceedings of the 1939 Missionary Conference. 68 P. Bolink Towards Church Union in Zambia (Wever Franaker 1967) p. 136. 69 R. Rotberg Christian Missionaries and the Creation of Northern Rhodesia (Princeton 1965) p. 146. 70 op. cit., p. 106. 71 op. cit., p. i37n. 72 J . Taylor and D. Lehmann Christians of the Copperbelt (London 1961) p. 160 f. 73 See, for example, the article by D. Kunene on 'Missionary Education and our Writers' in Times of Zambia 24 April 1969. 74 The text of the songs is reproduced in Central Africa (July 1939). 75 Cross to Broomfield, 22 July 1940, H M 4 CC 1/1/30, NAZ. 76 May to Chaplin 29 July 1922, B1/1/A 497, NAZ. 36

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Introduction The papers in this section speak very clearly for themselves. They make a neatly contrasting set, one dealing with Christian contemplation, the next dealing with Christian action, and the last dealing with an organization which has increasingly moved from non-involvement to involvement in social and political concerns. There are only three introductory points to make. The first is that the papers in this section reach back to earlier papers in this book. They should be read in conjunction with Father Madziyire's account of the revival of Shona spirit belief and practice in contemporary Rhodesia, which we have grouped in Part One. They also illuminate the Rhodesian papers in Part Two. Epworth Mission and farm have been at the centre of recent Christian action in Rhodesia. Prior to the projected settlement between Rhodesia and Britain, the Rhodesian government was moving to evict Africans from Epworth, as also from the great Jesuit station near Salisbury, Chishawasha. In this way the long history of interaction between Epworth and Salisbury, which Roger Peaden outlines in his paper, would have been brought to an end. The evictions were postponed during the settlement negotiations, but Epworth community as a whole came out against the settlement and played a role of some significance in disseminating information about it. And the current representative of the Chinamanos, whom Peaden's paper shows as one of the great Epworth families, was detained by the Rhodesian government, together with his wife, at an early stage of the African protestations against the settlement. As for Sister Mary Aquina's consideration of the case for the contemplative life in Rhodesia, this speaks once again to the importance of the dimension of myth and imagination which appealed to Cripps and in which his career found its ultimate justification. The second introductory point must take the form of a caution. The three papers presented here describe one form or another of Christian repudiation of the Rhodesian establishment and of the injustices of minority rule. It would be strange, though, if this repudiation summed up the Christian or church response in Rhodesia. Readers might indeed wonder how they had got from the context in which Cripps worked and in which the mission churches had such compromising links with the establishment to a contemporary context of total protest and repudiation. There has almost certainly been a great change. But a complete record of Christian responses to the current situation would have to include the white right-wing rebels who have seceded to form their own version of Anglicanism and the clergy who have remained within the church as outspoken supporters of Ian Smith and outspoken critics of their own bishops. Nor has the situation been simple so far as the African independent churches 215

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have been concerned. The movement back towards Shona 'traditional' ideas - or more accurately the latest developments of the constantly changing Shona ideas of spirit - have combined with a general hostility towards Christianity to make the situation of the African pastor, whether of the mission or the independent churches, often very difficult. There comes out of Father Madziyire's paper his memory of the days of the fighting between the Zimbabwe African Peoples' Union and the Zimbabwe African National Union in which the African clergy and their churches and schools were often in a dangerously exposed position. These memories produce an ambiguity towards nationalism. Still, the confrontation of the Rhodesian government with so many elements of Rhodesian Christianity is an important theme - as are also the Christian elements in nationalism. It was not surprising that these should have been stressed in the papers given at Chilema. And this brings me to the third point, which is another caution. The three papers in this section - and also Madziyere's paper - all relate to only one of the Central African territories. It turned out to be much easier to talk in concrete terms at Chilema about the contemporary Christian situation in Rhodesia than it was to talk about the contemporary Christian situation in Malawi or Zambia. There were papers given at Chilema on the contemporary Zambian scene but none of these had the kind of specificity which has made the Rhodesian papers suitable for inclusion in this largely historical book. The papers on Zambia dealt mostly with the Christian elements in, or the Christian response towards, Zambian Humanism. And so far as I recall there were no papers on contemporary Malawi at all. Obviously it is much more difficult even to say what the role of the churches should be in Zambia and Malawi than it is in Rhodesia, and more difficult still to say in any simple way what the role of the churches is. I am not going to write at length about the contemporary Christian history of Zambia and Malawi, which would require another book. Indeed, all I wish to do is to duck the issue myself by calling upon those who live and work in the two territories to face up to it. It is a historians' prejudice to say that the papers on Zambian Humanism were at too general a level of abstraction to tell us much of existential reality. Still, most people would wish to have some more concrete answers to the questions which arise even from the earlier sections of this book, let alone from the total situation. How would a Malawian Madziyire write about the contemporary interaction of African religion and Christianity in that territory ? We can guess something of the answer from Matthew Schoffeleers's and Ian Linden's papers in Part One of this book but it would be valuable to know more. What has been the fate of the Livingstonia tradition in Zambia or in Malawi ? Is Channock's critique of John Cook's approach a reflection of current Malawian realities in which a total reshaping of our impressions of that country's Christian experience is called for ? What has happened to the African Methodist Episcopal Church in independent Zambia ? How far did the Catholic and Protestant missions in Zambia catch up from the late start which is described in my own paper on the Mwana Lesa movement ? Or did this belatedness continue to affect the Christian history of Zambia right up to the present moment ? Of course, and fortunately, this book is by no means the only place to go for answers to these questions. There have been valuable surveys of the state of the Catholic church in Zambia. A good deal of work is currently under way on the 216

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African Methodist Episcopal Church. But much remains to be done. It seems right to end this last Introduction by making again the point which the Chilema conference itself was designed to make. The Chilema conference was about the interaction not only of Christianity and Central Africa but of past and present. It was about the interest and significance of the past not only to the academic historian but to the aspirant members and makers of the living church. It was about their capacity - and their obligation - to do the job of research and description for themselves and for other people. It was about the need to see the past as alive and to see the present as concretely describable in the same way as the past. I think that the conference itself achieved its aim of stimulating research and of depriving the word 'research' of its intimidating connotations. I hope that this book has not been too swaddled in academic wrappings to have failed of the same purpose. At any rate it seems a good thing to end with a series of questions for which the book has no answers and with a challenge to its readers to answer them or to pose new and more searching questions for themselves.

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MARY

AQUINA

WEINRICH,

O.P.

An Aspect of the Development of the Religious Life in Rhodesia INTRODUCTION

When, at the end of the nineteenth century, European pioneers from South Africa occupied the country now known as Rhodesia, they were accompanied by Christian missionaries, some of whom were Dominican sisters. Though Christian missionaries had taken up contacts with African chiefs north of the Limpopo river several decades before the pioneer column arrived, no Catholic sisters had settled in the new country before the 1890s. The Dominican sisters who had come with the pioneers had volunteered to work as nurses, and hoped that after their arrival in Rhodesia they would be able to teach the Christian faith to local Africans. During subsequent decades, when the colony of Southern Rhodesia was established, the Central African Federation formed and dissolved, and when finally in 1965 Rhodesia declared herself unilaterally independent from Britain, the work of the missionaries increased in scope, and the relationship between church and state changed with the ups and downs of politics. Not only did secular politics affect church-state relations, but also the review by theologians of the position of the Catholic church in society, especially since the Second Vatican Council, created a new awareness among Catholic missionaries of the many social injustices which marred Rhodesian life. Consequently church-state relations became ever more problematic and at times erupted in open confrontation. These developments also led the sisters to re-examine their missionary apostolate, to re-evaluate their role in Rhodesian society, and to question many of their traditionally accepted assumptions. The purpose of this article is to trace the development of some religious congregations in Rhodesia and to try to point the direction which future development might take. But before the particular Rhodesian situation is examined, it is necessary to look briefly at the general development of the life of women religious in the Catholic church. C H A N G E S I N T H E L I F E OF W O M E N R E L I G I O U S I N T H E C A T H O L I C C H U R C H

The word 'religious' is used in this paper to describe Catholic women who have taken the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and who live in communities whose main purpose is 'to give glory to God'. The concrete outward form which their life may take varies from one order or congregation to another. Some lay 218

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Map of the Catholic dioceses of Rhodesia. Driefontein and Makumbi are mission stations at which an African congregation of sisters originated.

greater emphasis on serving the people in schools and hospitals, others on living lives totally devoted to prayer. Throughout the history of the Catholic church, women have dedicated themselves to both the active and the contemplative life. There is abundant evidence of deaconesses in the early church, and through the centuries there existed women who bound themselves in a special way to live lives of prayer, while others served their neighbours through various works of charity. Yet it was only during the last centuries that active congregations of women religious became important in the Catholic church. I think that this development was stimulated by two historical events: the industrial revolution in Europe, and colonialism. When the industrial revolution gave rise to great urban poverty and hardships, women founded a new type of religious congregation and opened houses and schools to care for the poor. Active religious congregations may therefore be seen as a response of capitalist society to the problems its new mode of production created. T h e first community of religious women who dedicated themselves to teaching the young was founded by Mary Ward as early as 1611. Yet Mary Ward was too far ahead of her time and her contemporaries denounced her in Rome. In 1631 her foundation was abolished by a Papal Bull and only in 1749 did her congregation receive papal approval. 1 Because of the opposition by church authorities, the development of active congregations for women was at first slow. 219

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By the late eighteenth century, however, teaching congregations had become well established, and the nineteenth century saw the foundation of important nursing congregations. During these centuries few contemplative orders were founded in the Catholic church. These developments in Europe soon had their effects on other continents. For when European explorers and settlers set out to establish colonial empires, many women of these teaching and nursing congregations volunteered their services to accompany the men and to establish the church in the new countries. In the present century, in which the value of capitalism is seriously questioned and in which Europe and America have, to a large extent, become secularized, two new forms of religious life are evolving: on the one hand secular institutions have arisen in which young women dedicate their lives to God and the service of the world without, however, taking vows and without necessarily living in religious communities, and on the other a 'house of prayer movement' has come into being. The house of prayer movement started about 1967 in the United States. In March of that year several priests, sisters, and lay people met at Lewis Hall, Notre Dame, Indiana, to discuss the need for spiritual centres to which active people could withdraw to deepen their religious life. 2 That year a priest, Father Haring, published an article entitled 'A Contemplative House', 3 in which he outlined various forms which such a centre of prayer and recollection could take.4 By 1971 many such houses had been established in the United States, Canada, and Europe. 5 The success of the movement seems to be due to the need deeply felt by many sisters, who are engaged in the active apostolate, to find a place where in silence and peace they can reorientate themselves towards God. I do not know whether it was by accident that this religious revival coincided with student revolts and other movements which questioned the values of the modern competitive society, for like their contemporaries in American colleges6 many sisters had become very disillusioned. Yet while many sisters left their congregations, others, instead of 'opting out', opted further into the religious life by taking an active part in the new prayer movement. One writer, Sister Benedicta, stressed that a house of prayer is definitely 'not a cloister',7 but a place which remains orientated towards the active apostolate; people who retire to it for some time are expected to return to their active work in the church. The house of prayer movement, however, has not yet spread far beyond America and Europe. It is also doubtful whether it will ever meet the spiritual needs of all the indigenous sisters in the Third World. In Brazil, for example, many young women who joined missionary orders and congregations are unhappy in the active religious life and have accused European and American missionaries of having brought their people schools and hospitals, but of not having offered them a deep spirituality. Hence they asked for houses of contemplation. In response to their demands, two communities were set up where members of various religious congregations could live together to lead a contemplative life. In India, too, the people missed the deep spiritual atmosphere in Christian religion to which Hinduism had accustomed them. They came to see the Catholic church as an important social welfare institution, rather than as a religious reality. Being much more passive and receptive by temperament than 220

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the European missionaries, Orientals felt more overawed than attracted by activism. Only slowly did the Christian missionaries realize the importance of 'ashrams', Hindu monasteries, in the lives of the people, and only in 1950 did one Benedictine, Abbé Jules Monchanin (1895-1957) start a Christian ashram at Saccidananda. This monastery, 'dedicated to a life of pure contemplation in the simplicity and complete poverty of Indian life' 8 attracted many visitors and inquirers, and soon further foundations were made for both men and women. Many Africans also, like the Indians, longed for a more contemplative life, but had to wait for many years before contemplative orders founded their monasteries in Africa. This is especially true in relation to the former English colonies, for few English monasteries made foundations in Africa. Most monasteries, even in English-speaking countries like Malawi, have been founded by French religious. This has been due to the well-developed theology of the missions in France and to the vital contemplative life of that country. French religious seem to have a special sensitivity for the religious needs of African women. In 1967, Sœur Marie de Jésus, who in 1958 had come to Cameroon in West Africa to found a contemplative convent of the Poor Clares, wrote: 'I believe that Africans are by nature ideally suited for the contemplative life. They stand in a constant dialogue with the invisible and are deeply sensitive, like a harp, to the touch of the supernatural.'9 The two best-documented foundations in Africa are the monastery of the Poor Clares in Cameroon 10 and the Carmelite monastery of Zaza in Rwanda. 11 In both instances the foundresses completely stripped themselves of their own culture and allowed the African sisters to find their own religious expression. Thus African customs, even dancing, have been introduced into liturgical celebrations. T o be authentically African, the sisters in Zaza went so far in 1967 as to abandon their monastery, leaving it to the poor, and built themselves huts in the same style as those of their African neighbours. This renunciation of the European way of life brought the sisters close to the people and one peasant farmer commented: 'Now the sisters really live as we do.' 12 These sisters do not engage in any active apostolate, but they cultivate their own fields and so grow their own food in order to be self-supporting. Both the monastery of the Carmelites at Zaza in Rwanda and the monastery of the Poor Clares in the Cameroon received so many applications from young women who wanted to join them that they had to start daughter foundations. At present there are seventeen monasteries of Benedictine nuns in Africa, six of Poor Clares, at least three of Carmelites, and one of Dominicans. Most of these have been founded by French-speaking missionaries. It is interesting to note that in independent African states, most of which have turned away from the capitalism of their former colonial rulers to an as yet ill-defined form of African socialism, the contemplative life is eagerly accepted by Catholic women. One may wonder, therefore, what the future of active religious congregations will be. It is possible that, although they are still numerically stronger than contemplative communities, their numerical strength may decline. As yet no contemplative community exists in Rhodesia, which is still upholding capitalist principles, and even generally contemplative orders, like the Carmelites who undertook mission work in Rhodesia, are now engaged in the active apostolate. Yet the longing for a more contemplative life is widespread in 221

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this country among both African and European sisters and frequent requests are made for houses of prayer and contemplation. To attempt an explanation of the cause for this need, I shall first trace the history of some religious congregations, then analyse the social background of the sisters, their motives for joining their particular congregations, their attitudes towards a contemplative life, and finally make some suggestions of possible future developments in Rhodesia. T H E H I S T O R Y OF SOME R E L I G I O U S C O N G R E G A T I O N S I N

RHODESIA

Of all religious congregations in Rhodesia, the Dominican missionary sisters arrived first. Their congregation has its remoter origin in the convent of contemplative Dominicans in Augsburg, Germany. In 1876 a Catholic priest in King William's Town, South Africa, desired a convent school for his parishioners and built a convent without knowing of any sisters who might occupy it. When his bishop heard that a convent of Dominican sisters in Augsburg was willing to send some sisters as missionaries to Africa, he invited them, and in 1877 six contemplative nuns arrived in King William's Town. Their convent soon attracted many young women from both South Africa and Europe, and when in 1889 a Jesuit missionary appealed to their superior for volunteers to accompany Cecil Rhodes's pioneer column to the country north of the Limpopo river, five sisters came forward. These were the first group of Catholic sisters who ever crossed the Limpopo, and from them derives the present congregation of Dominican missionary sisters in Rhodesia. Today, in 1971, this congregation numbers 576 members, living in forty-eight houses in Rhodesia, Zambia, Mozambique, Germany, and England. Of these sisters 375, or 65-1 per cent, live in Rhodesia, and 89 or 15-4 per cent in Zambia. The houses outside Central Africa serve mainly to recruit new sisters for the missionary work. The sisters who accompanied the pioneers into the country later known as Rhodesia served them as nurses, though most of them had previously been teachers. Soon after they had settled down in the new country, they reverted to teaching, and today the congregation is predominantly a teaching one: 49 per cent of all the sisters are teachers, 7 per cent are nurses, and 37 per cent are engaged in domestic work; the rest have retired. Many of the retired sisters live in a house where they can spend their time in light activities and prayer. An initial rapid expansion of missionary activity was due to 373 new recruits who joined the congregation from Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. These years, which saw the rise of the Third Reich, were difficult years for German Catholics and gave rise to a deepened Christian awareness. Then, during the years of World War 2, practically no young women entered, but after the war a new religious revival occurred in Germany, the Catholic youth movement flourished, and during the 1950s and early 1960s a new group of 220 sisters joined the congregation. But since the mid-1960s hardly any young women have joined. The reasons for this drop in applicants are manifold. Some attribute it to the crisis within the Catholic church itself, and the great uncertainty which many people experience about the future of active religious congregations. Many young women, who long for a deeper religious life, feel that they cannot 222

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identify themselves with institutions that were meaningful in recent centuries, but are ill-adjusted to modern life. Because of this uneven recruitment, the age structure of the Dominican sisters is very unbalanced. There is a large number of ageing sisters and a smaller number of sisters in their late twenties and early thirties. Moreover, since the mid 1960s twenty-four sisters, mostly younger and well-educated teachers, have left the congregation, and thirty-five older sisters have died, so that today the congregation experiences an acute staff shortage. All who are still healthy are engaged in the active apostolate, and because both the local bishops and a large number of sisters are reluctant to close mission stations and schools, many sisters are over-burdened. The renewal and adaptation to the modern world, therefore, which has been requested by the Second Vatican Council, often takes the form of reducing the time for prayer and silence, and those who express the wish for a more contemplative life are told that their services are indispensable and that their decision to opt out of the active apostolate would increase the burden of the remaining sisters. This pressure of work strains the spiritual resources of many so that different groups of sisters suggest different solutions. A large majority, especially of the older sisters, are conservative and hope to continue the present missionary apostolate with only minor changes dictated by new circumstances. A small group of predominantly young sisters feels so disillusioned with the impasse in which the church finds itself in Rhodesia that they would like to give up most of their schools to the state, break up into small communities, and seek employment in government schools or other secular institutions and there bear witness to their faith. A larger group considers such a radical break with their past tradition impracticable and dangerous, but is convinced that a continuation of the present situation will lead to the dying out of the congregation. They therefore would welcome the closing of some houses to relieve the strain on the teachers and the opening of some centres of prayer where they could deepen their spiritual life. They believe that only in this way can the élan of their congregation be revived and young women be attracted to their communities. They stress that only when the Dominican motto : 'To contemplate, and to pass on to others the fruits of contemplation', has again been realized, will their congregation revive. The Dominican sisters are not the only congregation engaged in mission work in Rhodesia. Beside them work some African, and several predominantly European, congregations. In the 1920s the Dominican sisters had accepted the first five African women into their congregation, but shortly afterwards the Catholic Bishop of Salisbury ordered them to start a separate congregation for African women in the diocese, which would be directly responsible to him. This decision displeased the Dominican sisters, but was in agreement with the prevailing attitude of Europeans in southern Rhodesia, who disliked a close association between members of the different races. In 1932, therefore, the Dominicans started at their bishop's request a noviciate for African sisters at Makumbi mission in the Chinamora chieftainship not far from Salisbury. Some of the young women who had first joined the Dominican sisters became the founder members of the new congregation, some of them left and married.13 At first the Dominican sisters provided the superiors for the African sisters, but after some years each local community had its own African superior and in 1965 the congregation 223

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elected its own Superior General. Since then the congregation is fully independent, though a Dominican sister still serves as novice mistress. Today, in 1971, the congregation has 199 members who live in twenty-two houses. In 1947 the Dominican sisters assisted a further group of young African women to form their own congregation. This second congregation was founded in the diocese of Gwelo and serves a different tribal group. In 19621 interviewed every single sister of this congregation and in 1967 I published my findings in the journal Social Compass.u By 1971 the congregation had eighty-seven members who lived in sixteen different houses. That year they elected their own Superior General and so became independent of the Dominican sisters. Because in Rhodesia public opinion has always favoured a residential segregation of the races, religious communities tended to be either African or European. The two African congregations accepted only African members and a few Coloureds, that is, persons of racially mixed parentage. The Dominican sisters are predominantly European, though for several decades some Coloureds have joined, and in recent years the first Africans were admitted since the abortive attempt in the 1920s. The first two African sisters took their vows in October i97iOnly in 1969 did government legislation, through the Land Tenure Act, prohibit Africans and Europeans from freely living in the same houses.16 Yet it is only since the late 1960s that the Dominican sisters admitted Africans into their congregation. This was a significant step, for it indicated that for the first time since the 1920s they had freed themselves from prejudices which many of them had shared with the European minority towards Africans, and in their newfound awareness of racial equality they were even prepared to ignore government legislation. In reaction to the common Rhodesian opinion that Africans should perform only unskilled work, the Dominican sisters insisted that the first African women in their congregation were academically trained, so that as teachers and nurses they would in every respect be equals of their fellow-sisters. Hence African applicants were first sent to secondary schools and teacher-training colleges before they were accepted for full religious training. In addition to these three congregations, several other congregations of religious women from Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Ireland, and America have established houses in Rhodesia. These missionary sisters have been less affected by the racial attitude of the Rhodesian public than the Dominican sisters and they accepted African members more readily into their communities.16 All these congregations are 'modern' and 'active' ones, that is, their history is much shorter than that of the Dominican sisters, whose order was founded at the end of the twelfth century, and their spiritual heritage lays less emphasis on the contemplative life than does Dominican spirituality. All these congregations engage in the apostolates of teaching, nursing, or social work, and try to achieve, as one of them puts it, 'contemplation in, or through, action'.

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SOCIETY

To gain a deeper understanding of religious women in Rhodesia, I shall now present a brief analysis of the social characteristics and home backgrounds of the Dominican sisters and of the 'Sisters of the Child Jesus', that is, the sisters of the African congregation in the Gwelo diocese. In both congregations, the majority of sisters come from the same home areas. Most Dominican sisters are German, and among the German sisters those from the south of Germany predominate. Very many of the older sisters come from a rural background, from large families, and grew up in an almost completely Catholic environment. The younger sisters come from both the north and south of Germany; many come from towns, grew up in small families and, though their parents were almost always Catholics, most of them lived with Protestant neighbours. These younger sisters had often received a higher education before they joined their congregations; but the majority of all sisters received further education in the convent. The great majority of sisters in the African congregation also comes from the same home area. Of the seventy-one sisters I interviewed, sixty-three come from the diocese in which their congregation is working, and the remaining eight come from adjoining areas. Only four sisters come from the towns, the rest from rural areas. Most sisters are children of large families, and the fathers of fifteen sisters are polygamists. In a Shona family special importance is attached to the eldest child, who is distinguished from the rest by a special term, dangwe. This child is expected to become the leader of his brothers and sisters and special responsibilities are entrusted to him or her. When, therefore, a first-born decides to enter religious life, special obstacles are raised by her family. In spite of this twenty-four or 33*8 per cent of all the sisters in this congregation are first-born children. In addition another nine, or 1 2 7 per cent, were the eldest girls in their families, and these too are entrusted with special responsibilities. All had taken these responsibilities seriously, and maintained a lively interest in their families; they did not try to escape from burdensome duties by entering a convent. It may therefore be suggested that the religious life has a special attraction for those who in their childhood and youth have developed qualities of leadership. Most of the other sisters, too, occupied special positions in their families. Three sisters were the only girls in their families, and one was an only child. Since brothers hope to marry with the bridewealth paid for their sisters, only girls with several brothers experience special difficulties when they want to enter the convent. A further nine were the youngest children in their families, and six were the youngest girls. These fifteen, or 21-i per cent, also occupied a special family position, because the youngest children are generally expected to look after their parents in old age. Only nineteen out of seventy-one sisters, or 26-9 per cent, occupied middle positions among their brothers and sisters. Of these nineteen, two were orphans, two were requested by their fathers to earn bridewealth to repay their parents for their upbringing; one was taken by her father to the District Commissioner's court because at the age of twenty-one she claimed the right to determine her own life; one had been pledged in marriage 225

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as a child of four and refused to marry the husband her parents had chosen; and three followed their eldest sisters into the convent. Though placed in crucial positions in their families, which normally tie African women especially closely to their brothers and sisters, as well as to their parents, these young women showed a remarkable independence by claiming to live their own lives. At the time these seventy-one young women entered religious life, only twenty-six of their fathers and forty-two of their mothers were Catholics, some of their parents were Protestants, and thirty-six of their fathers and twenty-one of their mothers still adhered to the traditional African religion. Hence, only a few of them grew up in completely Catholic families, and their vocations were seldom influenced by their home atmosphere. Yet most of them come from areas in which Catholic missionaries have been active for many years, and in which a high percentage of the total population are Catholics. All but one had attended Catholic schools. The families from which the African sisters come are slightly more affluent than is the average African family in Rhodesia. Their fathers, more often than other African men, are white-collar workers, businessmen, and skilled workers, and so are members of an emergent African middle class. Since in Rhodesia higher income is related to higher education, and since higher education is mostly provided by missionaries, it is these close ties with mission stations which account for the greater economic well-being of these families. Since in Europe the church has for many centuries been a middle-class institution, and missionaries brought with them middle-class values to Africa, some African fathers see it as a means through which their daughters can make a career. Hence several Africans welcomed their daughters' desire to become sisters. One sister stated explicitly that she obtained her father's permission to become a sister by telling him that she could become a nurse. 17 In letting their daughters become sisters, Africans can reaffirm their own position in the new middle class. One nationalist, a carpenter by occupation, stressed how he gained status in the community through his daughter's religious vocation. As daughters of more educated fathers, many of the sisters received a better education in their youth than did their neighbours. Also, as first-born children they had a better chance of being sent to school than their younger sisters. For example, in the wider African population I took a sample census including 849 African women; 328, or 38-6 per cent, had never been to school, yet only one sister, or 1-4 per cent, had never done so. A fair number of the sisters had already studied in secondary schools before they entered, and eight were already trained teachers and nurses when they applied for admission to their congregation. In the wider population only eighteen, or 2-1 per cent, of all women included in my census had received a secondary education, and only a few of these had completed a professional training. Most sisters continued their education in the convent and in 1962 twentythree, or 32-4 per cent, of the seventy-one sisters were trained teachers; twentyone, or 29-6 per cent, trained nurses, and the other twenty-seven, or 38 per cent, were domestic workers or mistresses in boarding schools. With 62 per cent of all members engaged in professional work, the African sisters form an educational élite among Rhodesian Africans. Their élite position is especially emphasized because they have a great ad226

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vantage over other African women in the teaching and nursing professions. For whereas other African women have to give up their profession when they marry and so lose status in the community, the sisters can follow their occupation throughout their lives. T h e sisters' élite status, then, is due both to their home background and to their religious environment. It can thus be argued that the African sisters enjoy a high prestige among the African people of Rhodesia because Africans greatly admire teachers and nurses. But sisters stress that the great respect they receive, especially from their elders, is due rather to their religious status, for they claim to be the modern equivalent of the traditional mbonga, virgins who served, and still serve, as cult attendants at the shrine of Mtpari, the Karanga High God. T h i s interpretation of their position, however, is slightly far-fetched, for their role in society is very different from that of the traditional mbonga.1* T h e sisters' self-identification with the mbonga may, in fact, be due to a certain insecurity, for at the time the research took place African nationalism was challenging the values by which Europeans, and even missionaries, in Rhodesia lived. European missionaries are also convinced that African sisters are highly respected by their own people. One missionary related to me the following episode. A sister was notified of her mother's death. When she arrived at her home the people were crying and her sisters were throwing themselves on the ground with grief. T h e sister went quietly up to her father and brothers, and the people ran to fetch chairs. T h e sister sat on a chair next to her father and some elders, and her brothers sat around her on the ground. There was a hushed silence when the mourners saw the sister sitting next to her father. T h e missionary who related the story stressed that in traditional Karanga society no African woman would ever sit on a chair while men were sitting on the ground. Y e t it can also be argued that the sister was offered a chair in preference to her brothers because she came from an environment - the mission station where everybody sits on chairs, so that this incident does not reflect special prestige given to the sister but a simple recognition of her way of life. Such a cautious interpretation is necessary as the African sisters' position does not lack ambiguities. In 1962, when African nationalism had many active followers in Rhodesia, the African sisters were often challenged by fellowAfricans. T h e y lived together with European missionaries on mission stations. O n the one hand, they felt one with their people's aspirations for political independence, on the other they felt bound by strong bonds to the local missionaries who had educated them and looked after their economic well-being. O n one occasion when an African teacher visited a sister in her classroom and asked w h y she had not taken down a picture of Cecil Rhodes, the sister answered : 'But why ? This man brought us civilization, peace and justice.' T h e teacher grew angry. 'Sister, you are bad,' he exclaimed. 'We do not want any European here. W e want to stay alone with you sisters. W h y do you speak like a European ? W e do not forbid you to be a sister, but we do expect you to stand on our side.' T h e position of European sisters in Rhodesia has only recently become ambiguous since many of them have come to regard the segregation policy of the European government as morally wrong. Some identify themselves more closely with the African people than others, but most consider racial segregation as incompatible with Christian teaching. Few, however, seem willing to approve 227

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of a possible violent overthrow of the government. Because of their opposition to government's racial policies, they have become marginal to a large section of the European population. Recent government legislation, which progressively restricts their apostolic activities, has heightened their awareness of social injustices. This has brought about a closer identification between them and the African people, especially with the African sisters. By 1971 the traditional racial segregation in some religious congregations had disappeared, and African and European sisters freely live in each other's convents and share each other's lives. T H E M O T I V E S OF S I S T E R S FOR J O I N I N G T H E I R

CONGREGATIONS

The majority of European sisters joined the Dominican congregation because they wanted to be missionaries and to convert many people to the Christian religion. Since in Europe they all had a large variety of congregations from which to choose, their choice of an active missionary congregation was mostly deliberate. Only a few came into the congregation because they knew the sisters or because the congregation had been recommended to them by a priest whom they had consulted about their religious vocation. One sister chose the Dominican congregation because she had studied church history and found that the Dominican order aims at combining the active with the contemplative life. This sister, however, found that in a mission country the active life constantly takes precedence over the contemplative life. Several Dominican sisters in their youth seriously considered joining a contemplative order. One had actually done so and only transferred to her present congregation when she heard of the urgent need for missionaries in Rhodesia. Another had corresponded for two years with the prioress of a contemplative Dominican house - with the intention of joining it one day. The African sisters did not have a wide choice of religious congregations open to them. To many their local African congregation seemed the only possibility of leading a religious life. Hence their motives for joining their particular congregation are different from those of the Dominican sisters. Sixteen of the seventy-one sisters stated that they became sisters in order to convert their own people to Christ. Several stressed in particular that they joined their congregation in order to obtain for their parents 'the grace of baptism'. In fact, eighteen of the sisters' fathers and sixteen of their mothers became Catholics after their daughters had entered the convent. They therefore saw their apostolate as starting within their own families. Kinship ties always remain very important to African sisters. A further twenty-eight sisters said that they felt they could serve God better in religious life than in marriage. Twelve of these stated that they had never thought of marriage since from early childhood they had been impressed by the sisters at their mission station and desired to become like them. All the sisters in this group stressed that they esteemed married life highly, but added that a married woman in a village found little time for prayer. One sister summarized the attitude of this group as follows: 'When we go to the convent we reject the greatest value of our society: to have children of our own. An African woman wants nothing more in life than children. Our whole family upbringing is geared 228

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towards it. It is our highest ideal. A woman wants not so much a husband as children; she only wants a husband to give her children. When we enter the convent we know all this very well. We also know what married life entails. We do not feel much of poverty in the convent, nor do we find obedience hard, since married women too must obey their husbands and mothers-in-law. But perpetual chastity is extremely difficult. It is the complete reversal of our traditional values.' Religious life must therefore offer high compensations to African women, since they are willing to sacrifice so much for it. A further twenty-seven sisters expressed the same underlying motive more clearly. Several said: 'The religious life is the only possible life I could lead. I just had to become a sister.' Another sister, whose parents strongly opposed her religious vocation and even used force to restrain her, said: 'If you have a vocation you are like a mad person; you just have to go ahead and become a sister.' Two of these sisters followed a dream or a vision. One said that as a child she had dreamed she would become a sister, and ever since she could think of nothing else. The second said that at her birth her mother had had a vision of her daughter becoming a sister; her mother had told her of this vision and she herself had grown so fond of it that she considered no other future than that of becoming a sister. It is very likely that dreams played a role in the vocation of many more sisters, but since Catholic missionaries do not believe that dreams are revelations of God's will or guides to future action, the sisters did not mention them. Several of these sisters were not even baptized when the desire awoke in them to enter a convent. These went to their local missionaries to ask admission to baptism classes and immediately stated that they wanted to become sisters. When the missionaries asked them whether their parents or other relatives were Catholics, they often said 'no', but added that their hearts told them that they had to become sisters. In spite of great parental opposition, they persevered in their intention. 19 Since only sixteen of the seventy-one sisters stressed a predominantly apostolic motive, and since the rest expressed more or less clearly a longing for a deeper religious life, the question might be asked whether this motivation has some roots in traditional African religion, that is, whether traditional African religion provided special outlets for contemplatively inclined persons, and whether the traditional religion fostered such inclinations. African religion in Rhodesia certainly had no institutions equivalent to Hindu ashrams or Christian monasteries, yet there existed some positions in the spirit cults which appealed to a certain type of religious person. Some sisters grew up in this environment. One sister is the daughter of a diviner. Her grandmother was a spirit medium possessed by a shave, or alien spirit, and when the girl was still very young a special ceremony was held in which she inherited her grandmother's spirit. After her father's death, her elder brother became a diviner. This sister encountered the greatest difficulties, even physical violence, when she informed her family of her desire to become a religious. Now, in the convent, she is one of those who, more strongly than their fellow-sisters, long for a more contemplative life. When spirit mediums in the traditional religion are asked to prophesy or to reveal the wishes of the ancestors they withdraw into the forest to call their 229

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spirits to possess them; they also frequently retire to the forest in order to commune with their spirits. This search for solitude may indicate a predisposition for a more contemplative life. Traditional Shona religion not only recognized the desire of the people to commune with the supernatural, it also occasionally demanded sexual abstinence. The role of the mbonga in the Mwari cult has already been mentioned. Spirit mediums, too, are at times required to abstain from sexual intercourse before they invoke their spirits. This aspect of traditional religion has helped the sisters to evolve further African attitudes towards celibacy. The sisters' contribution is that whereas in the past sexual continence was confined to certain periods preceding religions ceremonies, it has now become extended to a whole lifetime. But now, as in the past, it is only accepted as meaningful and significant within a religious context. Within such a context, however, it may even assume magical qualities,20 for, as in many cultures, celibate religious are seen as standing within the realm of the holy or the sacred.21 Some sisters feel that this realm of the sacred consists of several concentric regions. Those regions closest to the periphery are closest to the profane life and involve much contact with the world; those closest to the centre are most removed from worldly activities. The further a person penetrates towards the centre, the more she becomes suffused with spiritual power and the more, too, she has to separate herself from the external world in order to be free for a life of recollection, silence, and prayer. Perhaps it may be concluded from this that if such sisters had originally had the choice between an active and a contemplative religious life, several of them might have chosen the latter. T H E S I S T E R S ' A T T I T U D E S T O W A R D S A HOUSE OF

CONTEMPLATION

To test this hypothesis I had intended to send out a questionnaire to all the sisters in Rhodesia, asking them what they knew about the contemplative religious life, whether they would welcome the foundation of a contemplative religious house in Rhodesia, what qualities sisters should possess who want to join such a community, and whether they themselves would like to join for longer or shorter periods. Unfortunately the questionnaire was prepared at a most unsuitable time: the congregation of the African sisters of the Gwelo diocese had just elected their first Superior General, and this Superior, new in her office and overwhelmed with many demands, found no way of co-operating. Administrative difficulties also arose in the congregation of Dominican sisters so that the questionnaire could not be circulated to the sisters of either congregation. The questionnaire was therefore sent to the other congregations in Rhodesia. But of the 230 forms sent to African sisters only fifteen, or 6-5 per cent, were returned; of the 198 forms sent to European sisters only sixty-two, or 31-3 per cent, were returned. The low response rate among African sisters is to a large extent due to their unfamiliarity with questionnaires and to their relatively low education. It was the first time that I used a postal questionnaire, which is not a very suitable technique in Africa; but limited financial resources and shortage of time forced me to resort to this expedient. The low response of the sisters 230

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makes a statistical evaluation impossible, and in the following pages I shall merely give a broad summary of the sisters' answers. All African sisters who replied expressed great interest in a house of prayer and contemplation and all expressed an eagerness to join it for limited periods. One sister wrote that she would like to join such a community for the rest of her life since 'the contemplative life is a life I have longed for for ages; it is a life of more prayer and less activity than we lead now. It is a life which aims at a very close union with God.' All the sisters had heard about contemplative monasteries. One summarized her knowledge as follows: 'Contemplative nuns live in monasteries, that is, enclosed convents. They pray much, they fast often, and do much penance for other people. They seldom speak and try to be holy.' Practically all African sisters stressed that a contemplative life is a life of prayer, silence, and penance, a life alone with God. Four wished that such a contemplative house be established in Rhodesia and the rest suggested that a semi-contemplative house be established which would enable a gradual transition for those used to the active life. They stressed that the purpose of such a house, whether fully or semi-contemplative, would be to deepen the sisters' prayer life and to enable them to live in silence with God. T o the question whether such a house should be started by contemplative nuns from overseas or whether sisters already in Rhodesia should evolve it themselves, all African sisters pleaded that local sisters start such a house since they know the conditions and the people who would want to join such a community. They were emphatic on this point. Asked what form the daily life in such a community should take, the sisters suggested a time-table which allocated much time for prayer, made silence the rule, and restricted work to necessary house and garden work, as well as to some light manual work through which the needs of the community might be covered. All asked that the life be ascetic, but made no specific suggestions as to what form such asceticism should take. One African sister who had joined a predominantly European congregation asked that discussion groups should sometimes take place among the sisters and that lay people be admitted into the house of prayer. Most suggested that sisters who wanted to join such a community for a limited period should be between the ages of thirty and sixty, that is, neither too young to have a full experience of the life in their congregation, nor so old as to regard it as a place of retirement. Most suggested that applicants should have at least ten years' schooling, though some thought that primary education was adequate. Most sisters felt that without a reasonable education, which enables them to study religious writings on their own, the full aims of a contemplative life could not easily be achieved. They stressed further that applicants should be prayerful, of quiet disposition, and possess self-discipline. The responses of the European sisters were more diversified. Five were not at all interested in a house of contemplation. One wrote: 'A contemplative life is a very self-centred life, very introspective and far removed from the burning issues of real life, from racialism, strife, and war.' Another stated: 'I think a contemplative life is a very difficult life and very demanding, but very rewarding if lived up to the hilt.' The other fifty-nine European sisters, however, showed a very positive 231

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attitude towards it. One wrote: 'In a contemplative life a sister can give her undivided attention to God and achieve a more perfect union with him. She chooses such a life, however, not from selfish motives but for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.' Another added: 'Contemplatives are looked at with suspicion, but their lives have true value.' One sister, who would like to join a contemplative house for a longer period, wrote: 'A life of contemplation is a life in which the Christian ideal is practised to its fullest extent, although it is lived in seclusion and the apostolate is merely passive.' All the other sisters concurred with the African sisters who stressed that it is a life of silence, prayer, and asceticism. Some added that in the modern world a contemplative community had the special function of bearing witness to the invisible God. Many saw the purpose of a house of contemplation in Rhodesia in these essential qualities they outlined. They stressed that Rhodesia needs this sign value of contemplative religious, this continual prayer for the people of God and their atonement for the social injustices committed against people of different races. A majority mentioned that the prime purpose of such a house should be to provide active religious with a spiritual centre where prayer would be taken seriously and where they could re-orientate their lives so that, when after some weeks or months they would return to the active apostolate, their own deepened spiritual life would make their apostolate more fruitful. One sister suggested that some sensitivity training during this time of withdrawal from active life would greatly enrich the future work of the sisters. Twenty of the sixty-two sisters thought that a house of contemplation in Rhodesia would have the best chance if it were started by contemplative sisters from overseas who had grown up in such a spiritual tradition. One sister suggested that contemplative nuns be invited from a multi-racial country, for example, Poor Clares from Malawi. The others, however, concurred with the African sisters that it would be much better if local sisters with a special charisma could start such a house. One wrote: 'We should start such a house among ourselves. Sisters from Europe, who do not know the Africans, would make too many mistakes.' Many thought that it would be best to start with a house of prayer, which could also be used as a retreat house, and then give the sisters there some guidance so that a house of contemplation might in time evolve from it. Some European sisters suggested that two different types of houses might be required, one merely a house of prayer where sisters could stay for some weeks to make their annual retreats, and the other a strictly contemplative house. In the first type there could be either private or shared prayer, discussion groups, sensitivity training, and conversation at meals. In the second there would be absolute silence, a great emphasis on the liturgy, and work confined to the house so that the sisters would just be able to feed themselves and earn a bare minimum to pay for necessary expenses. Two sisters suggested that in order to foster meditation and contemplation, use be made of Asiatic traditions of prayer, for example Yoga or Zen, 'since they have very much to offer to over-worked and seriously striving religious'. 22 Like the African sisters, so the European sisters thought that such houses of prayer or contemplation should cater especially for sisters in their thirties and forties who stand in active life. Most considered it desirable that applicants have a reasonably good academic education and at least ten years' of schooling; 232

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some asked for more. One stressed that only those European sisters should be admitted who would be willing and able to live together with Africans, since such a house should from the beginning be multi-racial. Some stressed that no sister should be admitted who would use the house as an escape from burdensome duties. POSSIBLE FUTURE

DEVELOPMENTS

Although a relatively small percentage of the sisters in Rhodesia answered the questionnaire, their responses show a high degree of consensus. Almost all are aware of the need for some centres of prayer. Of the seventy-seven sisters who responded, ten, or 13.0 per cent, expressed the wish to spend a term or longer in a house of semi-contemplation; sixty-two, or 8o-6 per cent, would welcome a stay in a house of prayer for shorter periods of up to a month. Among the Dominican sisters, to whom the questionnaire could not be circulated, the percentage of those interested in a semi-contemplative house is likely to be larger, an impression I gained from informally asking a large number of sisters. The reason for this is twofold: first of all, Dominicans have in their own order a strong contemplative tradition which many of the more modern congregations lack and, as stated above, several Dominicans had in their youth seriously considered joining a contemplative community. Secondly, most Dominican sisters in Rhodesia are German and inclined to be over-active. Many of them are aware of their need for prolonged periods of prayer. Taking into account the past history of religious congregations in Rhodesia, the situation in which the Catholic church finds herself, and the wish of the sisters, the following proposals can therefore be made. First, it may be advisable to start in the near future a house of prayer, open to all religious congregations in Rhodesia - perhaps even to some lay people which would serve as a retreat house as well as a spiritual centre, where women could spend several weeks at a time in a more profound prayer life. In this house religious conferences could be held, and sensitivity training and discussion groups could take place. Since the stay of sisters in this house would be short, little, if any, work should occupy their day. Practically any sister could be admitted to this house. The house could be financed by fees from the individual sisters coming for courses. The house could be run along similar lines to those in America, to which reference was made at the beginning of this article. Second, for those who desire a more contemplative atmosphere for a prolonged period of time, a very different environment is required. Only those should be admitted to such a centre who are convinced that action alone will not deepen Christianity in Rhodesia, nor abolish the social injustices from which the country suffers. Applicants should be convinced of the essential role in the church of some people who live lives of prayer and asceticism for no other purpose than to make an unconditional offering of themselves to God. Since a truly contemplative vocation is a charisma and seldom given to sisters in an active congregation, no purely contemplative house can be established, but a semi-contemplative house could be attempted. Since the Dominican sisters in Rhodesia are numerically in the majority and most likely to make the greatest use of such a house, it should be based on Dominican spirituality since this is the

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best known among the largest number of sisters in Rhodesia. Also members of the two largest African congregations have been trained by Dominican sisters.23 Such a house of semi-contemplation should from the beginning be open to African and European sisters, since both races have much to give to each other in the spiritual life. The more contemplative the community becomes, and the greater the number of African sisters, the more the liturgy and way of life of such a community should be Africanized. To evolve such a community, the following steps might be followed: at first a small group of sisters could meet together for a month's silent retreat during which they speak only on Sundays for a limited period to exchange their spiritual experiences. Then a core of four sisters should begin living together to find out by experiment the way of life most suitable for a semi-contemplative community. Ideally this core group should stay permanently together and include two European and two African sisters, and one should be a trained theologian, one a trained social scientist, one an artist, and one knowledgeable in domestic work. One of these sisters ought to be sent beforehand to spend a year in a fully contemplative community to learn its way of life. During this time of experiment members of the core group might engage in part-time external activities, but they would frequently have to spend longer periods of several weeks or months in complete withdrawal to preserve the spirit of contemplation. If after two or three years this core group is satisfied that it has found a way of life suitable for a semi-contemplative community in Rhodesia, invitations should be extended to sisters who wish to spend a longer period - at least a month - together with them. Applicants who want to spend prolonged periods in this community should be carefully selected. They should be neither too young, that is, they ought to have experience of religious life in their own congregation, nor should they be too old, since the house is meant for a deepening of the spiritual life of those engaged in active work. All should have a minimum of ten years' schooling. In this house of contemplation, which derives its justification from silence and recollection, contemplative prayer and asceticism, rules should be strict, and those unwilling or unable to follow them should be dismissed, for without a strict and regular observance a deep life of prayer is impossible. The time-table should set aside much time for prayer. The full divine office should be sung and the whole liturgy should be suitably transformed to meet the needs of the community. Silent prayer, theological study, art, or other creative activities, as well as physical exercises, for example yoga or swimming, should also be allowed for. Work should be confined to a minimum and just be adequate to cover the running costs of the house. Such a group of sisters should be given a lofty ideal. Asceticism should be shown as an essential precondition for mystic prayer. Beyond this much room should be left for improvisation, since the life in such a semi-contemplative community must evolve according to the needs of the sisters. Third, if a sufficiently large number of African sisters should join this community on a more permanent basis, consideration could be given to the foundation of a contemplative community in an African area, perhaps on the pattern of the Carmelite village community in Zaza, Rwanda. Some European sisters who feel called to this form of life and have a full command of the African 234

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language, could join it. Such a village of contemplative religious in an African area could have a great sign value to the African people.24 Apart from growing their own food the sisters in such a village community should abstain from work, even from giving catechetical instruction. At the most they should be available to their neighbours at fixed times to give spiritual advice to those who ask for it. 25 For their purpose would be to bear witness to the people of God, and of spiritual values, and that through their lives, not through their work. Such a village of contemplative religious would both increase and decrease some of the problems of African sisters. New problems might arise from the type of questions the villagers might ask the sisters, for some will see such religious women as being similar to traditional spirit mediums. Many are likely to ask the sisters to interpret their dreams. To avoid dangers arising from such questions the sisters must be well trained in theology and psychology, and they must also know much about their own culture. On the other hand, such a village community would remove the African sisters from the ambiguous political situation in which they at present still find themselves in Rhodesia. By living then as poor as their African neighbours they will not scandalize people by 'making a vow of poverty and then living like rich Europeans'. CONCLUSION

In an earlier part of this paper it has been stressed that the congregation of Dominican sisters in Rhodesia finds itself in a crisis. Many of the sisters are ageing, several have left, and few are joining. Moreover, the strain caused by staff shortage in the schools and the moral implications of political events have lowered the vitality of their missionary apostolate and was threatening a split between the older and more conservative and the younger and more radical sisters. The Dominican sisters who plead for a house of semi-contemplative prayer believe that through such a centre of deep spirituality the present crisis can be overcome. They argue that if all sisters were to live in an atmosphere of silence, prayer, and asceticism for longer periods, their spiritual life would be greatly strengthened so that, when they returned to their active apostolate, contemplation would again overflow into action. They believe, moreover, that a life which lays a major emphasis on prayer would offer to young people that inner unity and fulfilment which they no longer see realized in the present-day overworked religious. They also argue that such a spiritual renewal would make the sisters more sensitive to the social, economic, and political needs of their neighbours and alert them to find new means of giving assistance. Their arguments, of course, are based on their belief in the efficacy of prayer and asceticism. Yet since their whole lives are supposed to be based on faith, such reasoning is consistent with their profession. Their proposal seems to be a reasonable adjustment to the imminent period of social and political transition which Rhodesian society is facing. For the African sisters such centres of prayer would fill a deeply felt need. Since African society is only beginning to evolve a class structure and to open itself to capitalism, active African congregations are still experiencing a steady 235

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growth. Y e t the number of African sisters who desire a more contemplative life is great, and to enable them to join a contemplative or semi-contemplative community would enrich their lives. It seems to me that only if such centres are established will Christianity take deeper roots among the African people of Rhodesia. T h i s would be the main contribution of contemplative communities to Rhodesian society.

NOTES 1

J . Grisar, 'Mary Ward, 1585-1645' The Month (reprint n.d.) pp. 1 1 - 1 3 . Sr Marie Goldstein, 'Centers of Prayer' Review for Religious 1971, 30, 4, 647. 3 B. Häring, 'A Contemplative House' Review for Religious, 1967, 2 6 , 5 , 771-78. 4 See also T . H. Green, 'The House of Prayer: Some Reflections based on an Experiment' Review for Religious 1971, 30, 3, 292-401. 5 Goldstein, 'Centers', p. 647. One successful prayer centre has been established in the Philippines. 6 It is only since the 1950s, when the Sister Formation Program urged superiors in the United States to send young religious to non-Catholic universities and to study the social sciences, that real changes in the lives of women religious in America took place. M . A. Neal, 'A Theoretical Analysis of Renewal in Religious Orders in the U.S.' Social Compass 1 9 7 1 , 1 . In preparation. 7 Mary Benedicta, 'What is a House of Prayer?' Catholic Gazette 1976, 62,