Mission Station Christianity Studies in Christian Mission
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Mission Station Christianity Studies in Christian Mission General Editor Heleen L. Murre-van den Berg, Leiden University Editorial Board Peggy Brock, Edith Cowan University James Grayson, University of Sheffield David Maxwell, Keele University Mark R. Spindler, Leiden University VOLUME 44 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/scm Mission Station Christianity Norwegian Missionaries in Colonial Natal and Zululand, Southern Africa 1850–1890 By Ingie Hovland LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Cover illustration: Woodcut of Umphumulo mission station, c. 1880. Printed in Norsk Missions- Tidende 1880:49. Reproduced with kind permission. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hovland, Ingie. Mission station Christianity : Norwegian missionaries in colonial Natal and Zululand, Southern Africa 1850-1890 / by Ingie Hovland. pages cm. -- (Studies in Christian mission, ISSN 0924-9389 ; VOLUME 44) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-25488-6 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Missions, Norwegian--South Africa--KwaZulu- Natal--History--19th century. 2. Missions, Norwegian--South Africa--Zululand--History-- 19th century. I. Title. BV3625.S67H68 2013 266’.0234810684--dc23 2013026475 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0924-9389 ISBN 978-90-04-25488-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25740-5 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. <UN> <UN> For Wayne <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> CONTENTS List of Illustrations .....................................................................................................ix Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................xi PART ONE INTRODUCTION 1. Theorizing the Missionary Experience: Christianity, Colonialism, and Spaces ......................................................................................3 PART TWO ON THE MISSION STATIONS 2. The First Mission Station: The Problem of Presence ................................ 29 3. The Missionary Body: The Problem of Physicality .................................... 60 4. The Converts: The Problem of New Members ............................................ 85 5. Zulu Perceptions of the Mission Stations: The Problem of Intentions and Results .....................................................................................131 6. The Missionary Imagination: Spatial Christianization...........................167 PART THREE CONCLUSION 7. The Anglo-Zulu War: Courting Empire .......................................................201 8. Living Christianity: How Christianity Shaped Spaces and Spaces Shaped Christianity ............................................................................226 Bibliography .............................................................................................................237 Index ...........................................................................................................................251 <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Nils Landmark’s “Mission map of Zululand and Natal,” 1890. (NMS Archives) .........................................................................................176 2. Woodcut of Entumeni mission station, c. 1865. (Printed in Sommerfelt 1865:329.) ..................................................................183 3. Watercolor of Umphumulo mission station, by Hans Christian Leisegang, 1866. (NMS Archives) ................................................................... 184 4. Woodcut of Inhlazatshe mission station, c. 1884. (Printed in Norsk Missions-Tidende 1884:367.) ................................................................. 184 5. Woodcut of Eshowe mission station, c. 1886. (Printed in Norsk Missions-Tidende 1886:72.) ................................................................... 185 <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book has taken on a life of its own and become something quite differ- ent from the original dissertation that I wrote under the supervision of J.D.Y. Peel. I would like to thank John, therefore, not only for our many long conversations at SOAS, but also for his friendly support and encourage- ment since then, which have been much appreciated. Thanks also to David Mosse, Richard Fardon, Harry West and Lola Martinez at SOAS for help and comments at various stages during the PhD years, and to my PhD examin- ers, Fenella Cannell and Peter Pels, for envisaging future directions for my work. I am particularly grateful to Fenella for introducing me to the anthro- pology of Christianity, seven years ago – a field that has exploded since then, and which I continue to find fascinating. Several other planned and unplanned encounters have provided oppor- tunities to discuss the nineteenth-century world of the missionaries and to share my enthusiasm for the archives. Torstein Jørgensen first pointed out to me the humanity of the early Norwegian missionary group of the 1850s. Karina Hestad Skeie thoughtfully read and commented (a long time ago) on a research paper on mission metaphors, even though she had never met me; then and since I have benefited from her insights on the genres at play in missionary accounts. An unexpected and pleasant meeting with Jeff Guy helped to clarify the missionaries’ roles during the Anglo-Zulu War. Kristin Fjelde Tjelle invited me to present a draft chapter from this manu- script at a research seminar at the School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger, and we discussed the missionary reorientations of the 1880s. In addition to Kristin, I would like to thank Roald Berg, Odd Magne Bakke, Gerd Marie Ådna and the other participants at the seminar for their con- structive questions. Kristin and Odd Magne also generously took the time to read another chapter each and send written comments, as did Tomas Sundnes Drønen. I would like to extend warm thanks to the staff at the wonderful NMS Archives, which are housed in the Mission Archives at the School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger. Special thanks to Bjørg Bergøy Johansen, Nils Kristian Høimyr, and Gustav Steensland. The images in this book are all used with permission from the Mission Archives, and were kindly provided in electronic form by Bjørg. The Center for Intercultural Communication and the School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger have both been very <UN> <UN> xii acknowledgments helpful in setting up workspaces for me. An Overseas Research Student Award from Universities UK helped to fund some of the research that has made its way into this book, as did an Additional Award for Fieldwork from the SOAS Scholarships Committee. Parts of chapters 1, 2, 3 and 5 were published, in earlier form, as the article “Umpumulo, place of rest: A nineteenth-century Christian mission station among the Zulus” in Radical History Review 2007: 140–57. (Copyright, 2007, MARHO: The Radical Historians’ Organization, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the present publisher, Duke University Press.) I am grateful for the encouragement and interest of friends, family, and colleagues along the way. Many have served as sounding boards at various points, including Giovanna Maiola, Nicola Schmidt, Barbara Brank, Liz Webber, my sister Kristine Hovland, Eirin Næss-Sørensen, Kristin Ådnøy Eriksen and Tor Egil Eriksen Ingeborg Mongstad-Kvammen, Marianne Skjortnes and Kjetil Aano, Kristin Aalen and Ola Hunsager, as well as several others. But most of all, of course, more thanks than I can express go to my husband, Wayne Coppins, who has read the whole manu- script twice, helped to detect the missionaries’ biblical allusions, and thrown wooden blocks around with our youngest daughter during some of those late evening work hours. And last, but in no way least, I am deeply grateful to our two little girls, Sophia and Simone, for their lively presence and the way they have transformed our space. <UN> <UN> PART ONE INTRODUCTION <UN> <UN> <UN> <UN> CHAPTER ONE THEORIZING THE MISSIONARY EXPERIENCE: CHRISTIANITY, COLONIALISM, AND SPACES Umphumulo is the most beautiful place I know. Not because of any par- ticular splendor, though the warm, hard-packed red earth, the hundreds of shades of encapsulating green, and the tall blue sky do something to your senses. I lived at Umphumulo in the late 1980s because my parents were missionaries for the Norwegian Mission Society (NMS),1 working at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Umphumulo in KwaZulu, one of the infamous “homelands” of apartheid South Africa. The Seminary was run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa, and the students, most of them black, were