Xhosa Missionaries to : Black Europeans or African Christians? T. Jack Thompson

ttheend of May1876Dr. temporary period, while he A James Stewart, principal checked on the progress of the of the Institution in the Livingstonia mission, which he region of South Af­ had helped to establish. No con­ rica, called together his senior temporary print of this second pupils and read to them a letter photograph appears to have sur­ from the Scottish missionary Dr. vived, though a copy appears in . Laws had recently R. H.W.Shepherd'sbook Louedale, arrived on the shores of Lake ,1824-1955.5 Both pho­ Malawi in the pioneer party of the tographs are typical of their Livingstonia mission of the Free genre--the Victorian African stu­ Church of , sent out to dio photograph. One function of

Central Africa in 1875 as a memo­ j this genre was to try to recreate in rial to . the studio-sometimesevenin the In the letter Laws described Europeanstudio-a feeling for and the conditions of the newly estab­ of Africa. This effort often in­ lished mission and continued, cluded adding palm fronds, ani­ "We have a splendid field here for mal skins, rocks, and sometimes native catechists or men from even painted scenery. One good Lovedale. In a short time we shall example of this genre from the be ready for them."! same period is a series of photos Stewart had a particular in­ taken of Henry Morton Stanley terest in what Laws was writing, and his younggun-bearerand per­ for, following Livingstone's fu­ sonal servantKalulu. In the twelve neral in April 1874,it had been he months after they returned, first who had first suggested to the to Britain, and then to the United Free that they States, after Stanley's meeting set up a mission in memory of Front, I to r: William Koyi and Isaac Williams Wauchope; with Livingstone at Ujiji in No­ Livingstone, and that they name it back, I to r:Mapassa Ntintilli and Shadrach Mngunana. vember 1871, Stanley had many Livingstonia.! He would gladly studio photographs taken of him­ have accompanied the pioneer party in 1875, except that he felt self and Kalulu." In these photographs Stanley appears dressed his responsibilities at Lovedale precluded it. Nevertheless, he as an African explorer, complete with gun and tropical helmet, retained a lively interest in the undertaking. Thus, when Laws's while Kalulu appears in a variety of poses, all aimed at empha­ letter arrived, he immediately called together the senior male sizing his otherness. Sometimes this effect is achieved by show­ pupils at Lovedale and asked for volunteers to join the mission ing him only in his waistcloth, naked from the waist up. In in Central Africa. another version he is carrying an African spear and shield.

The Victorian 1/African" Photograph An Implicit Paradox

Of the fourteen who initially volunteered, four were chosen to However, in the accompanying photograph of the Xhosa mis­ become missionaries to Malawi. They were William Koyi, sionaries to Malawi, there is a major paradox. In some ways it is Shadrach Mngunana, Isaac Williams Wauchope, and Mapassa typical of the African studio photograph: there is the tropical Ntintili.' Within a few weeks of their volunteering, they were on vegetation (just visible in the top right-hand corner), the leopard their way to Malawi. To begin with, they traveled by train to Port skin, the rustic fencing, and the grass beneath their feet. But in Elizabeth. Here, in July 1876, before boarding ship for East other ways the photograph is very untypical, for, far from Africa, they went to the photography studio of A. H. Board, showing the four Xhosa as exotic others, it presents them in a very where they had at least two photographs taken." In addition to European mode: dressed in extremely fashionable clothes and the one reproduced here of the four Xhosa missionaries them­ looking very much like stylish young European gentlemen of the selves, another was taken of the larger mission party, made up of mid-Victorian period. the four Xhosa and six Europeans. The latter included James On the simple factual level there is a straightforward expla­ Stewart himself, who now felt able to leave Lovedale for a nation for their clothing. Immediately after their selection to go to Malawi, contributions toward an "outfit fund" for the new Jack Thompson is Senior Lecturerin theHistoryof World Christianity, in the missionaries were sought from staff and pupils at Lovedale. As Centrefor the Study ofChristianity in the Non-Western World, Universityof a result of the money raised, Koyi, Wauchope, Mngunana, and .He isauthorof therecentlypublishedTouching the Heart: Xhosa Ntintili were able to buy themselves new outfits for the exciting Missionaries to Malawi, 1876-1888. journey ahead. They appear in both photographs from Board's

168 INTERNATIONAL B ULLETIN OF MISSIONARY R ESEARCH studio then, dressed, if not in their Sunday best, then certainly in sumptions. This tension can be seen in the black press of the their missionary best. period. One good example is the periodical Imvo ZabanisunduF In some respects this photograph may be seen as a composite edited by John Tengo Jabavu (himself a graduate of Lovedale). before-and-after image of African missions. Such images were The fact that it was a bilingual production (Xhosa and English) popular at the time. Indeed, one such appears both in an illus­ itselfillustrates the hybrid nature of the new black educated elite. trated history of Lovedale itself and in the autobiography of Beyond that feature, however, Imvo Zabantsundu was often at the James Stewart, where, on the same page, two contrasting images forefront of debateover whatwe mayherecall African issues.We are titled "the natives as they are at home" and "the natives when can see similar African concerns and priorities in contemporary civilized.V'The first image is an African village scene; the second Xhosa literature--both oral and written-for example, in the is taken on the lawns of the Lovedale institution itself, with the poetry of people such as Isaac Wauchope after his return from impressive building in the background, and a group of female Malawi," and the music of John Knox Bokwe, another of the pupilsin the foreground, dressed in fashionable Europeanclothes. fourteen original volunteers for Livingstonia in 1876. Such before-and-after photographs were not, of course, confined The paradox and tension that are inherent in the photograph to African missions. They were also used in Native American of the four Xhosa missionaries to Malawi maybe seen also in their contexts, and in the context of Christian orphanages. missionary careers in Malawi. Possibly the most academically In our present photograph the contrastis implied rather than able of the four was Shadrach Mngunana, who was sent to explicit. What is also implied, of course, is the close connection Malawi as a teacher. He began teaching in the school at Cape between religious conversion and cultural transformation. To Maclear, atthesouthend of , where the Livingstonia become Christian in the late nineteenth-century Cape meant not mission had established its base when it first arrived in 1875. simply a conversion to a new religious faith but also adoption of Early missionary reports of his work were very encouraging. 13 many of the trappings of European civilization, not least the Within nine months, however, he was dead, a victim of fever and European sartorial fashions of the day. a blow to the European hope that black Africans would be better able to withstand the rigors of a Central African climate than A Transformation Willingly Embraced would the Scots. Isaac WilliamsWauchopelasted an evenshorter time, though This cultural transformation was undoubtedly something at his illness was not fatal. Before he even reached Lake Malawi, he which the Scottish missionaries were aiming, but it was also suffered recurrent bouts of fever, which led to hallucinations and enthusiastically embraced by most of the Xhosa pupils them­ occasional violent outbursts. Stewart decided to send him back to selves at Lovedale. This transformation may be seen in many of South Africa. Though his missionary career in Malawi was over the photographs taken at Lovedale during this period, when almost before it had begun, he recovered and went on to make both men and women were not simply dressed in European important contributions in several fields, as Xhosa poet, local fashions butelegantly and fashionably dressed,"It may be sensed historian, Christian minister, temperance activist, and campaigner also in the pages of the Christian Express, the newspaper pro­ for African higher education." duced monthly by Lovedale (though admittedly largely con­ Mapassa Ntintili, a wagon makerby trade, spent almost four trolled by the missionaries themselves at this period). Here are years in Malawi before returning to the Eastern Cape, where he reports of the Literary and Debating Society, the Independent became a teacher and an evangelist, eventually dying in 1897.15 Orderof True Templars (the "native" version of the International During his time in Mala wi he worked not only at the Free Church Orderof Good Templars, a leading temperance movement of the of Scotland Livingstonia mission at Cape Maclear but also at the day), the Lovedale cricket team, and so on.ThatLeon deKock has Blantyremissionof the ChurchofScotland, playingan important titled a recent book on education at Lovedale Civilising Barbarians part in its survival at a critical time in its early history. is startling enough." what is even more startling is that the title is In Malawi, by far the best remembered of the four was based on a phrase from a letter written, not by the Scottish William Koyi, the only one of the group to return for a second missionaries, but by a group of leading Lovedale pupils them­ period of service after a leave in South Africa in 1880-81. During selves,'? including Isaac Wauchope, one of the four missionaries his first period of service, 1876-80, Koyi established a reputation to go to Malawi, and including the signatures of several others as an indispensable part of the mission. He was particularly who volunteered for Livingstonia in 1876. useful as an interpreter, especially when the mission made Yet it would be wrong to accept this stereotype simply at its contact with the Ngoni people.The Ngoni had migrated from the face value and to assume that the products of Lovedale in the KwaZulu region of South Africa in the 1820s, and their language 1870s abandoned their African culture in favor of a European was similar to Koyi's own Xhosa tongue. Both before and after his version. Rather, in postcolonial terms our photograph represents return, Koyi worked as a pioneer missionary among the Ngoni, the hybridity of educated Christian Xhosa identity in the 1870s. especially among the northern Ngoni of paramount chief We must be careful not to imply that the European culture, M'mbelwa. Koyi died among the Ngoni in 1886, and his grave is seemingly adopted so enthusiastically, was simply a superficial still marked and revered today, more than 110 years later." surface gloss, covering the old African "heathen" reality. This One of the first points to make about the hybridity of Xhosa was the argumentof many of those racially motivated opponents Christian identity is that the Lovedale graduates were almost of missionary education in Africa, especially opponents of the never called missionaries at the time. They were almost always higher education that an institution such as Lovedale offered. referred to as evangelists or volunteersand wereseen as fulfilling Rather, the reality was that the Xhosa converts of Lovedale a role clearly inferior to that of the Scots. Yet the Scots missionar­ had genuinely adopted certain aspects of the European tradition, ies expected them to behave like black Europeans rather than like while at the same time they retained many of the deeply held African Christians. Onesmall example of this assumption was an values of their own African culture. Though we do not have time early criticism made by Stewart of Isaac Wauchope on the to deal with them here, these values may be seen regularly journey up to Lake Malawi. In his youthful enthusiasm (he and contesting the dominant discourse of Scottish missionary as­ Mngunana were both in their mid-twenties when they set out for

October 2000 169 Malawi}, Wauchope wanted to be of as much help as possible. except by skin color, from their Scottish colleagues. The boat in which they were traveling up the Shire River fre­ The last known photographof William Koyi taken in Malawi quently ran aground on rocks, and Wauchope was one of the first is a moreaccuratereflection,bothof thecultural reality and of the to jump into the water to push it off again. Rather than praising missiological importance of the Xhosa missionaries. It shows a him for his enthusiasm and strenuous effort, Stewart criticized group of Ngoni warriors, led by Chiputula Nhlane, making what him for "working in the boats like a raw native."17 Once the is probably their first visit to the newly opened mission station of Xhosa missionaries were settled in Malawi, however, theybegan Bandawe on the shores of Lake Malawi. Seated among them are to complain that they were being forced to do too much manual Robert Laws and William Koyi." The famous Scottish mission­ work and were not given enough opportunity for evangelistic ary appears nervous and ill at ease-perhaps because of his outreach. That there was substance in their complaints seems to awareness of the Ngoni reputation as fearsome warriors. Koyi, be indicated by the fact that in July 1880 the Livingstonia commit­ dressed in a loosely fitting jacket, seems to merge with the Ngoni. tee in Glasgow ruled that "the evangelists should not work more Only a knowledge of Koyi's features, or a close examination of than three days a week at manual exercise."IB the photograph, would serve to distinguish him from his fellow In later years the Scottish missionary Angus Elmslie criti­ Africans. Itis not simply that his elegant new clothes, bought just cized both William Koyi and George Williams (a fifth, later Xhosa before Board's portrait in July 1876, have grown old and shabby; missionary) for getting too close to the Ngoni. He wrote, "There it is rather that Koyi has begun to find his vocation:identification is a danger in knowing the people too well, and while Koyi is with the Ngoni among whom he lived and worked. It was in this invaluable here, there is not that respect shown to him which identification that the real missionary significance of the Xhosa should be, and which is a factor in raising the people from their missionaries lay, rather than in the gentrified poses of Board's low condition."!" studio photograph. Yet Board's photograph is not totally misleading either. In its The Scots vs. the Xhosa Ideal way, it shows a group of young men caught between two worlds and struggling to find an identity that would retain the best of Elmslie's ideal for the Xhosa missionaries was perhaps what both. In that sense, at least, this photograph of the Xhosa mission­ appears on the surface of the photograph taken by A. H. Board in aries to Malawi, taken almost 125 years ago , remains relevant as July 1876: a group of four black Europeans, indistinguishable, we enter a new century of African Christianity. Notes 1. Christian Express, June 1, 1876, p. 1. 14. For details of Wauchope's later career, see T. Jack Thompson, 2. James Stewart, Livingstonia: Its Origin (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, Touching the Heart: Xhosa Missionaries to Malawi, 1876- 88 (Pretoria: 1894), pp . 46-48 . Univ. of South Africa Press, 2000), chap. 8, "Redeeming Failure: A 3. Lovedale News, June 16, 1876, p. 2. Postscript on Isaac Wauchope." 4. A contemporary print from the original negative still exists as 15. An obituaryappeared in the Livingstonia mission periodical Aurora number 1047 in the Lovedale Papers held at the Cory Library for 2 (1898). Historical Research, Rhodes Univ. , Grahamstown, South Africa . 16. In June 1996 a mem orial service wa s held at the grave, at which 5. This much smaller book, published in 1955, should not be confused M'mbelwa IV, paramount chief of the northern Ngoni, was present. with Shepherd's centenary history Lovedale:SouthAfrica, 1841-1941 17. James Stewart to Alexander Duff, December 4, 1876, ms . 7876, (Loved ale: Lovedale Press, n.d. [1941]),which contains a good copy Livingstonia Papers, National Library of Scotland. of the ph otograph of the four Xhosa missionaries. 18. Minutes of the Livingstonia subcommittee, July 22,1880, ms. 7912, 6. Two such photographs are reproduced in Frank McLynn, Stanley: Livingstonia Papers, National Library of Scotland. The Making of an African Explorer (Chelsea, Mich.: Scarborough 19. Elmslie to Laws, June 9,1885, Shepperson Collection, University of House, 1990). Edinburgh. 7. James Wells, Stewart of Lovedale (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 20. A cop y of this photograph appears in W. P. Livingstone, Laws of 1909), opposite p. 364. Livingstonia (London:Hodder & Stoughton, n.d . [1921]), opposite p. 8. Many of these photographs may be found in the Lovedale Papers of 113, and also in Thompson, Touching the Heart, p. 110. th e Cory Library for Historical Research, Rhodes Univ., Grahamstown. Several of them hav e been published in such books as Shepherd's LovedaleandStewart's Lovedale,SouthAfrica:Illustrated Select Bibliography by Fifty Views from Photographs. De Kock, Leon. Civilising Barbarians: Missionary Narrative and African 9. Leon de Kock, Civilising Barbarians:Missionary Narrative andAfrican Textual Response in Nineteenth Century South Africa. Johannesburg: Textual Response in Nineteenth Century South Africa (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand Univ. Press, 1996. Witwatersrand Univ . Press, 1996). Livingstone, W. P. Laws of Livingstonia. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 10. Ibid ., pp . 97-99. n.d. [1921]. 11. lmvo Zabantsundu (Black opinion; or, The views of the black people) McLynn, Frank.Stanley:TheMakingofanAfrican Explorer.Chelsea,Mich.: was founded by John Tengo [abavu in 1884.[abavu had previously Scarborough House, 1990. been editor of lsigidimi sama Xosa, a Lovedale publication, but he Shepherd, R. H.W. LovedaleSouthAfrica,1841-1 941. Lovedale: Lovedale wanted more editorial freedom than the mission periodical allowed. Press , n.d. [1941]. 12. Among the most famous of Wau chope's poems was "Yilwani _ _ . Lovedale South Africa , 1824-1955. Lovedale: Lovedale Press, 1955. ngosiba" (Fight with the pen) , whi ch uses African idiom to urge the Stewart, James. Livingstonia:Its Origin. Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1894. Xhosa to fight for their rights by education rather than in battle. _ _ . Lovedale SouthAfrica: Illustratedwith Fifty Viewsfrom Photographs. Similar views are expressed in his poem "Imbumba yama Nyama" Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1894. (an idiomatic Xhosa phrase very difficult to translate literally, but Thompson, T. Jack. Christianity in Northern Malawi: Donald Fraser's which here might be rendered "complete unity"). Wauchope wa s a Missionary Methods and Ngoni Culture. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995. leading founder of one of the earliest black political organizations in __. Touching the Heart: Xhosa Missionaries to Malawi, 1876-1888. the Cape, also called Imbumba yama Nyama, founded in 1882. Pretoria: Univ . of South Africa Press, 2000. 13. Dr. Black to Dr. Smith, March 3,1877, Livingstonia Papers, National Wells, James. Stewart of Lovedale: The Life of Jam es Stewart. London: Library of Scotland. Hodder & Stou ghton, 1909.

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