Here is the trailer to the movie celebrating the life of King Mkwawa, the Hehe leader who inflicted the German Schutztruppe their first defeat on African soil. I salute King Mkwawa and the Hehe people who fought for their freedom and resisted the Germans for over 7 years. 17th August 1891 marks the first defeat of Germans colonial forces, and also the victory of King Mkwawa and the Hehe people. A lot can be said about a king whose people loved him dearly to the point that no one within his ranks were willing to betray him for money. The fact that the return of his skull was part of the Treaty of Versailles also denotes his great aura. This, however, makes us wonder how many more of our treasures, statues, and even skulls of our great warriors and kings may still be exposed or hidden in Western museums and galleries. We demand their return; these belonged to our ancestors, thus they belong to us and are a part of identity! Enjoy!
Have you ever heard about the German Schutztruppe‘s first stinging defeat in Africa? Have you ever heard about the African Chief whose skull was part of the Treaty of Versailles’ negotiation? Have you ever heard of the Hehe Rebellion of 1891 and the German defeat at the hand of the fierce Hehe King Mkwawa in Lugalo?
King Mkwavinyika Munyigumba Mwamuyinga (known as Mkwawa) was born in Luhota in Iringa in the south of modern-day Tanzania, and was the son of Chief Munyigumba, who died in 1879. He was the leader of the Hehe people in German East Africa (now mostly the mainland part of Tanzania) who opposed the German colonization. The name “Mkwawa” is derived from Mukwava, itself a shortened form of Mukwavinyika, meaning “conqueror of many lands“.
A Hehe warrior
Mkwawa was the chief of the Uhehe who won fame by defeating Germans at Lugalo on August 17th 1891 and maintaining the resistance for seven years. August 17th 1891 marks the first defeat of the German colonial troops or ‘Schutztruppe’ in Africa, at Africans’ hands. The devotion of the Hehe people to their King was unconditional to the point that when the German governor offered 5,000 rupees for his capture in 1898, no Hehe accepted it!
Emil von Zelewski
After the Germans had managed to colonize the coastal area of Tanganyika (modern-day Tanzania), they started to move further inland. At that time the Hehe were also expanding towards the coast. Both sides tried some diplomacy to avoid war. However, all hopes were dashed, so the Germans decided the best way was to fight against Chief Mkwawa. In July 1891, the German commissioner, Emil von Zelewski, led a battalion of soldiers (320askaris with officers and porters) to suppress the Hehe. On 17 August, they were attacked by Mkwawa’s 3,000-strong army at Lugalo, who, despite only being equipped with spears and a few guns, quickly overpowered the German force and killed Zelewski.
On 28 October 1894, the Germans, under the new commissioner Colonel Freiherr Friedrich von Schele, attacked Mkwawa’s fortress at Kalenga. Although they took the fort, Mkwawa managed to escape. Subsequently, Mkwawa conducted a campaign of guerrilla warfare, harassing the Germans until 1898 when, on 19 July, he was surrounded and he shot himself to avoid capture.
Sir Edward Twining returning King Mkwawa’s skull in 1954
After his death, German soldiers removed Mkwawa’s head. The skull was sent to Berlin and ended up in the Übersee-Museum Bremen. In 1918 the then British Administrator of German East AfricaH.A. Byatt proposed to his government that it should demand a return of the skull to Tanganyika in order to reward the Wahehe for their cooperation with the British during the war and in order to have a symbol assuring the locals of the definitive end of German power. The skull’s return was stipulated in the 1919Treaty of Versailles:
“ARTICLE 246. Within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, … Germany will hand over to His Britannic Majesty’s Government the skull of the Sultan Mkwawa which was removed from the Protectorate of German East Africa and taken to Germany.”
The Germans disputed the removal of the said skull from East Africa and the British government took the position that the whereabouts could not be traced. However, after World War II, the Governor of Tanganyika, Sir Edward Twining, took up the issue again. After inquiries he was directed to the Bremen Museum which he visited himself in 1953. The Museum had a collection of 2000 skulls, 84 of which originated from the former German East Africa . He short-listed the ones which showed measurements similar to surviving relatives of Chief Mkwawa; from this selection he picked the only skull with a bullet-hole as the skull of chief Mkwawa.
King Mkwawa’s skull in exposition at the Mkwawa Memorial Museum in Kalenga
The skull was finally returned on 9 July 1954, and now resides at the Mkwawa Memorial Museum in Kalenga, near the town of Iringa. Many believe that it is not King Mkwawa’ skull.
Here I salute King Mkwawa and the Hehe people who fought for their freedom and resisted for over 7 years. The defeat of the German colonial forces on 17th August 1891 in Lugalo, the destruction of the Hehe fort at Kalenga on the 30th of October 1894 and the death of Chief Mkwawa on the 19th of June 1898 were key events in the German colonization in East Africa. To learn more about this page of history, check out the website by King Mkwawa’s great-grandson, The colonial wars of imperial Germany , and this article on King Mkwawa’s skull.
“In the West the past is like a dead animal. It is a carcass picked at by the flies that call themselves historians and biographers. But in my culture the past lives. My people feel this way in part because death does not separate us from our ancestors.” Miriam Makeba
A Ugandan author based in Great Britain whose debut novel was initially rejected by British publishers for being ‘too African‘, has won one of the world’s richest literary prizes.
She will receive $165,000 (£119,000). The prize money is more than double the amount that the Booker Prize winner gets, and organizers say it’s the richest award dedicated to literature after the Nobel Prize. Makumbi’s debut novel Kintu was first published in Kenya four years ago after British publishers rejected it for being “too African”. It was finally released in the UK this January. In Ugandan culture, Kintu is a mythological figure who appears in a legend of the Baganda of Uganda as a creation myth. According to this legend, Kintu was the first person on earth, the father of all people. Although her book is not about this Kintu, it follows a family who believes that there is a curse on them which has followed them over several generations, spanning more than 250 years.
I loved Makumbi’s Commonwealth short story, and lived through the pain of her main character. Now I cannot wait to read her first book and regal in Ugandan history and culture.
Tutu is what people have recently termed the African Mona Lisa. It is the portrait of a Yoruba princess made by the renowned Nigerian painter Ben Enwonwu. The brainchild of Enwonu, who created it during the aftermath of Nigeria’s bloody civil war, “Tutu” is the painting of an Ile Ife princess Adetutu Ademiluyi (“Tutu”); it is said that he met her as he was driving . It had disappeared right after being painted in 1974, and resurfaced over 40 years later in a flat in London. On March 1st 2018, it fetched $1.6M in auction and has been celebrated by Nigerians around the world. The London auction house initially predicted a price tag of between £200,000 and £300,000 ($275,000 to $413,000), less than a quarter of the final bid. It sold for $1.6 million (£1,205,000), and has been dubbed the “African Mona Lisa.” So good to know that the princess whose painting it is, is still alive in Nigeria today, so maybe Mona Lisa may not be the appropriate name after all.
A few weeks ago, we woke up to the face of Cheddar man, the ancestor of the modern-day Briton: he was a Black man with curly hair, and blue eyes! If this was a shock to many, to us who had long espoused the ideas of Cheikh Anta Diop with the African Origin of Civilization, this came as no surprise. Africa is the cradle of humanity, so it is only normal that the ancestors of anybody out there should be black, and that in reality, the idea of race as we know it today should be abolished, since in reality we are all brothers and sisters, with the same blood flowing through our veins, and now (officially) the same ancestors.
‘The African Origin of Civilization’ by Cheikh Anta Diop
O Cheikh Anta Diop, you, so despised by Western researchers who hated your work, because you said that Africa was the cradle of humanity; that everything started in Africa, and that Egypt and modern day Africans descended from the same ancestors, in other words, were the same people, you have now been vindicated many many years after!
“When you have chosen the struggle, the path of struggle, for a true independence, you must necessarily expect to receive anytime the hard knocks that the imperialists will give you. But we are used to say that it is because the imperialists are beating us so much that we have become and are becoming stronger in our daily struggle.” [“Lorsque vous avez choisi la lutte, la voix de la lutte, pour une indépendance véritable, vous devez nécessairement vous attendre à tout moment aux coups durs que vous portent les impérialistes. Mais nous avons l’habitude de dire que c’est parce que les impérialistes nous portent beaucoup de coups que nous sommes devenus et nous devenons chaque jour un peu plus aguerris pour la lutte.”] Ernest Ouandié.
The president of Ghana has recently announced that Ghana will be getting off from the IMF. Based on the progress of the Ghanaian economy, Ghana expects to be able to pay all its loan, and get off from the 3-year IMF financial aid program. This is very good, as any country in this world, when they are well, need not be on financial aid forever, but should aspire to become more independent. I raise my hat to them, and hope that other African countries will aspire to work on being more financially independent! Now, let’s pray for President Nana Akufo Addo’s well-being, and pray for his vision to be completed.
The president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, has delivered yet another good speech on Africa’s independence or rather on Africa taking its own future in hands. This is the second speech he delivers, in front of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, where he clearly states that Africa does not need his charity, but rather him [France] leaving Africa to its own hands [and its own money]. The first speech he delivered was in Accra, Ghana, during Macron’s visit to Ghana last December. There he had asked Africans to take their future in their own hands, and had almost humiliated the French president in public! So, enjoy!
To wish you all a happy Valentine’s day, I decided to share with you a classic love song by two outstanding African singers: the late Cesaria Evora: the Barefoot Diva– the Love of Cape Verde, and the great Malian singer Salif Keita. It was shared with me this morning. I love you mi Amore… too much! Enjoy! and do share with those special ones, even if it is not love the Valentine way, share it with the precious ones in your life.
African Heritage 