Ruaha: Not a new source...

Many historians before me have worked on this file, and Lorne Larson has even cited it. Still it is an interesting document: A.T.Culwick the District Officer at Mahenge commented to the Provincial Commissioner on a letter by Archbishop Edgar Maranta on the Ngope movement in Ruaha.
Culwick writes: "I note that the Mission 'absolutely forbids any kind of magic practices', to quote Bishop Edgar, but what is religion and faith to one is a magic and superstition to another, a situation raising questions of value on which it is undesirable that Government should pronounce."

I decided to blog this source as a comment to some of the things i heard in the past days at my guesthouse in Dar es Salaam, from other guests nota bene. It had taken a slightly too missionary lean in the sense of religious superiority feelings (nicely packed in a development discourse). Very oldfashioned, indeed! And quite unlike much of what I heard from long-serving missionaries who had learned much about religious tolerance in this country.

catch of the day...

...1935 and the first petition in Ifakara by the Indian merchants for better health services! Later they would repeat this petition together with the African Association (click on the images to blow them up).

Another day in the archive: the beauty of the source

For today I give you two snapshots from my research at the Tanzanian National Archives. The first one reflects the sheer beauty of an archival collection. The second one a testimony to the fact that it the mission was also the most able and powerful building company in Ulanga. Not more than 500 meters from the small hospital of Sr. Arnolda, the mission was employed to build another 'hospital' which was in fact a dispensary of the "Native Authorities".

Dar es Salaam and sources on Ifakara 'hospital' in the 1950s

I am back in Dar es Salaam and have already spent a couple of hours in traffic jams. The reward for this is the time I can spend in the National Archives. I found some new documentes on the government support to Capuchin medical work in the 1950s. These documents prove the case that - especially if compared to the other mission societies - the Capuchins were, at that time, really a small outfit in the medical dimension. Furthermore their services were not considered to be of a particularly high quality by the administration - rather the contrary. For example this document shows that the old Ifakara hospital in 1953 "was not a good unit as regards building and accommodation". At that time, Ifakara hospital really was more like an old stable than like a modern hospital building.

Among other things I found this interesting map from the end of the 1920s (which includes leprosy care centres in the area - click the image to enlarge).

Ifakara, goodbye and thank you!

Tomorrow I will be leaving Ifakara and travel to Dar es Salaam. I hope to be back here in Ifakara in November.
I thank all the people who have made this fieldresearch phase a very productive one.

still a mystery: the expression "giving birth the European way"

For two years now i am vexed by the expression used by Sister Arnolda in the mid 1940s (in Ifakara 1927-1962) that women in Ifakara now said, they "wished to give birth the European way". I have been asking around whether people remember this or similar expressions that were in common use that time. There is as yet no conclusive answer, 'modern', 'mission'/'at the mission', 'new' all seem to fall into the same category, but there seems to have been no 'trademark' naming. If anybody has a suggestion, I would be very happy to hear it.