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Xhosa Missionaries to Malawi: Black Europeans Or African Christians? T Xhosa Missionaries to Malawi: 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 Lovedale Institution in the Livingstonia mission, which he Eastern Cape 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 Robert Laws . Laws had recently R. H.W.Shepherd'sbook Louedale, arrived on the shores of Lake South Africa,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 Scotland, 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 David Livingstone. 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 Church of Scotland 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 Edinburgh.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 Lake Malawi, 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.
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