The Journey
of Lukanga Mukara
into
The
Innermost of Germany
by
Hans Paasche
Hans
Paasche
Translation
by
Chaos
Production Unlimited 1992.
Introduction
by
Alan
Nothnagle added 1st September 1998
Translation
of
Preface
by Alan Nothnagle added 3rd September 1998
University
College
London
INDEX
Introduction
by
Alan
Nothnagle
| PREFACE
|
|
| GLOSSARY |
|
| FIRST
LETTER |
About
coins, “culture” and letters |
| SECOND
LETTER |
From
smoke, work and the indecency of wearing clothes |
| THIRD
LETTER |
The
craft of writing and reading; The rich and the poor |
| FOURTH
LETTER |
The
Wasungu run and drive to and fro |
| FIFTH
LETTER |
What
and how the Wasungu eat |
| SIXTH
LETTER |
About
the tomfoolery that the Wasungu call “National Economy” |
| SEVENTH
LETTER |
How
the Germans celebrate their King |
| EIGHTH
LETTER |
From
the smoke stinking of the Wasungu |
| NINTH
LETTER |
Lukanga
on the “Hohen Meissner” |
INTRODUCTION by
Alan Nothnagle,
University of
Frankfurt on the Oder, Germany.
Although a public figure
during
his lifetime, the writer, pacifist, social reformer, and African
explorer Hans
Paasche is largely forgotten today and is virtually unknown outside of
his
native Germany. Hans Paasche was born to a wealthy family in the German
Baltic
port of Rostock in 1881. He later moved to Berlin when his father, an
economics
professor, became vice-president of the German Reichstag. In 1899 he
joined the
German Navy and served for several years as a navigation officer.
Between 1905
and 1906 he did a tour of duty in German East Africa (modern-day
Tanzania),
where, after being placed in charge of a German combat unit, he helped
crush a
brief but bloody colonial uprising. His experiences in East Africa and
his
guilt feelings over his own actions in the fighting ended a promising
military
career and changed his life forever. Soon after his return to Germany
he
resigned his commission and embarked on a “wedding trip to the sources
of the
Nile” with his young wife, an eleven month voyage of exploration which
took the
couple from the Kilimanjaro region all the way to the then still
largely
uncharted hinterland of modern-day Rwanda, known as Kitara in “The
Journey of
Lukanga Mukara”.
Back in Germany, Paasche
became an
active member of the “Lebensreform” or “life reform movement”. Life
reform, an
ancestor of today’s “green” or “Robin Wood” sensibility, was a potent
brew of
clean living, loose clothing, land reform, and environmentalism, whose
proponents sought to change society by reforming lifestyles and
attitudes.
Together with other activists he founded a life reform journal called
the “Vortrupp”
or “Vanguard”, in which he published articles on topics ranging from
vegetarianism, feminism, environmental protection in the German
colonies in
Africa, all the way to the moral lessons of the Titanic disaster. One
of the
most colourful and charismatic personalities of the Wilhelmine era,
Paasche
played a brief but memorable role in the German youth movement and took
part in
the celebrated Hohe Meissner Meeting of 1913, an event described in the
final “Letter
of Lukanga Mukara”. Paasche briefly returned to active duty during
World War I,
but immediately clashed with his superiors over his pacifistic views
and his
utter disregard for class distinctions. Disappointed and deeply
depressed over
the catastrophic death toll of the war, he left the navy in 1916 and
plunged
himself into the growing anti-war movement. After his arrest for
treason in
1917, he pleaded insanity and was confined to a Berlin sanatorium, only
to be
liberated by rebelling soldiers and sailors in the German November
Revolution
of 1918. Paasche served a brief term in the Berlin Workers’ and
Soldiers’
Council before being forced out by more moderate forces in late
December. But
Paasche remained politically active until, as “a known pacifist and
antimilitarist”, he was anonymously denounced to the authorities as a
threat to
German society. During a search for weapons he was finally shot to
death under
mysterious circumstances on his country estate in May of 1920.
While Paasche wrote
several books
and dozens of articles on Africa, health, natural protection, and
pacifism, he
is best known for his satirical “Lukanga Mukara”, the purest expression
of the
life reform ethic and the only one of his books still in print today.
He
published the “letters” in instalments between 1912 and 1913 in the
“Vortrupp”,
where they gained immediate popularity. Because of wartime censorship
and paper
shortages, they only appeared in book form after Paasche’s death in
1921 and
have enjoyed a cult following ever since. Here, for the first time in
English,
we can view Wilhelmine society through Lukanga’s eyes — a society
which, by the
way, with its eating and drinking habits, its air pollution, its
consumerism,
and its infamous “stink sticks”, may not be so very different from our
own
today. This electronic version was translated and published in 1992 by
Chaos
Production Unlimited, World-wide and distributed as Freeware by
everybody.
PREFACE
On my last trip to inner
Africa I
visited an unexplored country with a unique and ancient culture far
different
from that of Europe. In its wondrous inaccessibility this country has
to this
day preserved conditions and customs which cry out to be compared with
our own
way of thinking, our own “culture”. Until now I could not decide
whether or not
to publish something about this country. It always seemed to me that a
journey
of scarcely five months’ duration to this country was not long enough
to form
an unbiased opinion. I returned home with the impression that
unexplored
countries and primal peoples are a blessing for us since through them —
who do
not know the triumphs of our culture and so do not miss them, who do
not have
our advantages, and yet who are free from our faults and habits — we
can learn
to understand ourselves better. This has been my point of view ever
since. It
never would have occurred to me to press such observations upon others
or to
criticise our own conditions. Then an unusual event occurred and now it
looks as
if this task has been taken out of my hands.
A black, whom I met at
the court
of King Ruoma, followed a suggestion of mine and arranged for the ruler
of the
land of Kitara to send him on a voyage to Germany. Lukanga Mukara is,
as his
name suggests, a man who comes from the island of Ukara in Lake
Victoria. Early
on he migrated from that overpopulated island to the neighbouring
island of
Ukerewe and was there taught reading and writing by the “White
Fathers”. Then
while travelling he ran away from the friar he was accompanying and
settled at
the court of Ruoma, the king of Kitara, where as an interpreter, story
teller,
and legal adviser he made good use of his rich knowledge. That is where
I came
to know him.
The letters of Lukanga
have a
special value. This foreigner laid his own measure to the conditions in
Germany. What seems normal to us attracts his notice. His powers of
observation
and the bluntness of his judgement make it possible for him to speak
with
authority about things which we ourselves cannot even look at without
taking
sides.
— Hans Paasche (1912)
GLOSSARY
Hutu:
|
Farmer
|
|
Matama:
|
Millet
|
|
Pombe:
|
Alcoholic
Drink |
|
Sungu:
|
European
|
|
Wahutu:
|
Kitara
citizen |
|
Watinku:
|
The race
of the Africans |
|
Wasungu:
|
The race
of the Europeans |
FIRST
LETTER
Berlin, 1 May 1912
Omukama! Mighty and Only King!
I write to you as your
faithful
servant, whom you sent out to see if there is a King who is equal to
you, and
if there is a Country that offers more to the people who live there
than does
your Country, Kitara, the Country of the Long Horned Cattle.
Let me answer you: there
is no
such Country; there is no such King.
What I have seen during
my journey
is worthy of your attention and when I will return home healthy, I can
tell you
myself, so that you hear it more exactly than if Ibrahim, the Man from
the
Coast, is reading my letters to you.
When you ordered me to
travel and
gave me twelve hundred cattle and two thousand goats, so that I could
pay
whatever my journey into the strange country might cost, nobody knew
that
already, after only two moons, I would not have one of your cattle with
me any
more but, that thanks to your Might and Wealth, I should not suffer
poverty.
I exchanged your cattle
for metal
pieces as soon as I came to the Sea of Wasukuma. These “coins” I then
exchanged
for paper with writing. With only this I continued to travel, and
wherever I
show the paper, I get the coins that I need to buy food.
So mighty is your name.
Hear: the Country in
which I am
travelling is called Wasunga. The natives do not pay with cattle and
goats, nor
with cotton or cowry shells; little metal pieces and coloured paper is
their
currency, and the paper is more precious than the metal. There is a
paper that
is brown which is worth more than a good number of your cattle. It is
as if one
could buy four carrying cows for a plaited grass bracelet. Every Hutu
knows
that one wouldn’t get enough firewood for a cold rainy night even for
twenty
grass bracelets. I can imagine your face as you hear this and how you
laugh at
this utter nonsense that I report from Wasunga, but, Mighty King, I
must tell
you: the natives take this, and even bigger nonsense, as something
normal. When
I tell them (I already speak the native tongue quite well)that we in
Kitara pay
in different currency, they say that what they have is much better, and
ask if
they should come and give you a better system?
They call everything
they would
like to bring us by one word — “Culture”.
But because nobody can
bring a
better thing than their best and because I do not like their best, I
always
thank them warmly and say that I will think about it.
This is their way of
saying what
means in our language, “No, I don’t want to!”
Master of the Mountains,
maybe you
are angry that I left the hundred messengers and their hundred guards
behind at
the border. I had to desist from the plan to send a messenger and a
guard with
every letter I send to you. The meaning of a letter here is entirely
different.
You have a law that
everyone
knows: only one letter a day is allowed to arrive in your town. This
letter is
brought by a messenger who is accompanied by a letter guard because one
man
alone cannot be a messenger.
As soon as the two have
crossed
the River Ruhiga the news of their coming travels ahead of them and
soon
afterwards it is known in your residence. And when, after days, they
finally
come down over the Pass of Kibata, a crowd of young people and drummers
come to
meet them.
What is the meaning of a
letter in
this country? Nothing!!
And this is nothing
strange,
because in Wasunga there are so many letters, as many as there are
blades of
grass on the pastures of Mpororo. One single messenger carries a
hundred
letters at once; every single man is allowed to receive letters, and
some get
many letters in one day.
I seldom see that the
letters make
anyone more satisfied or sad, and if one letter makes the Wasungu sad,
he just
goes on to the next one, which makes him happy. And after he has read
all the
letters, he doesn’t know whether he should be sad or happy, only that
he is too
tired and too weary to plough his field or to tend his cattle, if he
has field
or cattle.
You can already see that
this
Country is unhappy, but don’t ask me yet for the reasons why.
In my next letters I
will write
only what I see and make conclusions later. There is much more that I
have to
write to you.
Riangombe, who dwells
above the
Fire Mountain and cools his feet with snow, Your Servant,
Lukanga Mukara
SECOND
LETTER
Birkenhain 20th May 1912
Shining Kigeri!
I am at a place that is
lonely.
Hills with bushes surround me. A lake lies between high trees and in
the reeds
of its shore, ducks are swimming. In the shallow water, two cranes are
standing
and high up in the air two storks are flying, who have just returned
from Kitara,
where they spend the time in which Wasunga is bitter cold and ice and
snow are
lying man high on the land, as you know it from the peak of the
Karrisimbi. The
wild bustle of the cities does not reach this place and I could think
that I am
in Kitara, at the shore of the Ruhiga, at the wide bay of the Urigi
where the
cry of the Crown crane echoes near and far as they fly on slow wings
over the
ripe wheat fields. It is the same cry that I can hear here, but the
bird looks
different: he misses the crown and the white chest, but the back of his
head
shimmers bronze red. I came here because I became confused about the
new and
contrary and because I wanted to have peace from the noise.
Shining Sovereign! When
I walked
amongst the many thousands of Wasungu or woke out of my dreams, I often
felt as
if I had drunk Pombe (like once, when Ibrahim hadn’t told me yet of his
teaching that deems the drunkenness of Man as unworthy.)
Above this country lies
a
something, something like a big swindle. One says in Kitara: Where
smoke rises
between the mountains, there should be the destiny of the wanderer, for
there
is warmth and food. A crafts man burns a hollow into the wood, the
iron-melters
sit in the open air at the bellows or a smith forges spearheads, hoes
or needles.
This is why there is bustling life and many people come and enjoy the
art and
power that lives within the nation. When a smith gets up from his work,
one
nearly praises their broad shoulders above they skilful hands.
In Wasunga is very much
smoke. But
it is no smoke that makes the heart of the wanderer beat or makes his
steps
faster. It is no smoke in fresh air; it is smoke in dust — yes, smoke
in smoke.
It comes out of long stone tubes, that lead it into the sky. But the
sky doesn’t
want the smoke and so it lies like a morning fog above the earth. And
when it
flows everywhere as a thick suffocating mass, how can you go anywhere
and
cherish your being?
On the contrary: those
who don’t
want to have their lungs filled with smoke escape those places where
many
natives live close together and flee to the countryside where the air
is still
fresh and pure. Unbearable is the air that the Wasungu are accustomed
to
breathe. They love to be together in closed rooms for work, for fun,
for
education, even for God’s service, for hours on end. Everybody breathes
the air
that someone else has already breathed. In it mixes smoke, dust and
food
smells. A lot of Wasungu must be ill. I don’t know for sure, because I
only see
healthy people in the streets and I think that they move the sick ones
to
another place.
I followed the big smoke
and got
in amongst a group of people who all walked the same way.
Those men and women
didn’t look
very happy. I asked a young Sungu where he is going in such a hurry and
if
there, where he is going, is something beautiful to see?
He laughed mockingly and unfriendly
en said
that he was going to work and if he would be scolded if he was late. And
that hasty person did
not have time to talk with me.
There is no Sungu
existing who isn’t
in a hurry. Everybody always has plans and now I know why the Sungu who
travelled in Kitara asked the men so often, “What is your work?” and
why he
became excited when he got the answer, “Tinkora mlimo mingihala. “ — “I
do not
work; I am existing. “ That made him angry because there is no man in
Wasunga
who is allowed to be satisfied without having to work, unless he has a
lot of
money. They all work because they want money. And if they have money,
they don’t
use it to have happiness, which would cost nothing; they let others who
want to
have their money talk them into buying all sorts of things, by saying
that, if
they want to be happy they must buy all those unnecessary things that
are made
where the smoke climbs into the sky.
I think that a man who
gets by
with very few things and doesn’t buy anything isn’t respected in
Wasunga. But a
man who surrounds himself with thousands of things which he must lock
away,
look after, clean and look at every day, such a man counts.
And such a man can
hardly do
anything useful, because he won’t have the time. He will always have to
sit on
top of his belongings instead of being able to go out into this world
and learn
new songs. All that you need to do this in Kitara is a stick, a plaited
bag
with firewood, and a fiddle. One who takes these things with him can
travel and
when he comes back home after months he can tell of the dances and
songs of
other nations and how they are hunting elephants and how their women
look.
This is the fallacy that
lies
above this country: even in Wasunga, once upon a time, smoke showed a
place of
happy creating, but these days are gone. The power that made the fire
became a
curse; wretched slaves are those natives who work with the power of the
fire.
This is what I saw when I followed the smoke: Amidst a terrible noise,
louder
than a thunderstorm in Spring, men and women are standing and moving
their
hands on machines. They stand there in bad air, in a closed room, and
their
bodies are fully dressed. They do work that is never ending; they do
the same
things for years. How much better it is in Kitara! There, every season
has its
special work, and nobody has to work the bellows or fetch water the
whole year
long. For the cultivation of the land, the hoes must be ready. The
smith
hammers and before he can forge, the iron has to be melted. The smoke
vanishes
again and the most delicate flowers grow around the furnace, and the
lungs of
the people become clean again.
I said the natives wear
clothe
even when they work. It’s like that and I wonder about it again and
again. All
the natives walk about dressed and even when they bathe they wear a
thin dress.
Nobody has the right to walk nude. Nobody thinks it is revolting and
offensive
to wear clothes. Even the King of the Nation submits himself to the
compulsory
clothes. On his body he wears thick sewed material. He covers his head
and he
wraps his feet in sewed calfskin. How beautiful and elevated you are, O
Mukama,
compared to him. Your dress is straw string on which two carved horns
of an
antelope hang, and a striped goat skin covers the left side of your
hip. Free
breathes your breast, the sun shines upon your smooth skin, and your
naked foot
touches the fertile soil.
Now I am walking in the
sand,
undressed as well, where no natives can see me. If they could see me
nude they
would hunt me. I have to wear cloth all the time if I do not want to
incite the
people. It is a torture for your free servant, a pain and a danger,
that he
only takes upon him to advance the research and the science of Kitara.
I am sure you believe
that the
people of the country outside the big cities walk naked. No, they also
cover
themselves from head to foot and by no means will you ever see a man
who does
not wear a hat on his head. If someone should walk without a hat in a
city, the
natives would form a mob, follow him and make jokes about him. The hat
is a
sign of dignity; even if it is only a sweat-soaked, dirty bundle of
material,
it counts as distinguished to wear it. and air, it decays and their
heads
become bald. This is a big worry amongst the men and they spend lots of
money
on people who want to earn money by cleaning other people’s hair.
There, they
let the shopkeepers recommend a variety of liquids and then buy them.
The only
thing that is free in Wasunga as well as in Kitara they do not do —
wear no
hat.
The Wasungu say that one
needs a
hat to protect and warm the head, and to greet with. Their greeting is
simple:
they lift the hat off their head once and then they put it back on. To
kneel
and clap their hands is unknown as a greeting.
What kind of dress they
wear is
dictated by the craftsmen who sew the cloth, and the wealthy natives
especially
follow their ideas absolutely.
If you think a strong,
beautiful
and smooth body comes to be enhanced by such a dress, you are mistaken.
The
dresses of the men are made in such a way that every weak man looks the
same as
a strong man, so that no man has the wish to improve his body or to
take care
not to disfigure it, the dresses cover every weak point. Even the women
do not
look at the beauty and strengths of a man’s body: they look at the
design and
value of the dress and the hat. These women don’t know how a
beautifully built
body looks. They marry the suit and at the same time the man who is
stuck in
it. The immorality of wearing clothes also means that the men and women
of the
Wasungu marry without knowing how they look naked. Such a thing would
be
condemned in Kitara as a shame and low infamy, if it ever happened. It
would be
a crime against the future of the people. But in Wasunga it is taken to
be
decent.
You wish to know, Mighty
King,
what I wear on my body to walk the streets unmolested amongst the
natives, and
how I cope with the dirt of the clothes?
In the morning after my
bath, I
oil my skin and put on the underwear, and the clothes that are worn on
top. The
underwear is held by strings tied over my shoulders. This is painful
because
the pressure of the strings compresses my torso. Many of the Wasungu
are bent
forward because of this and their backs stick out. Round my neck I lay
a stiff
ring made from plant fibre, a horrible invention that is even more
mystifying
as the Wasungu are masters in the art of making soft materials.
Over their feet the
Wasungu pull a
tight fabric made of sheep’s wool, whereby they press their toes
together so
violently that it is made impossible to walk safely. I could not stand
the pain
when I tried them on, so I cut off the lower half of these things, and
no-one
can see it because the whole foot sticks into a leather shell that is
closed
tightly. These ‘shoes’ play an important part in the whole affair of
dressing.
It sounds unbelievable: the form of these shoes changes at the whim of
the
craftsmen and the feet of the natives have to take on impossible shapes
so that
they can be pressed into the shoes. I myself have had made a pair of
shoes that
are big enough for my toes to move freely.
The Wasungu do not take
their
shoes off when they enter a house and they don’t bathe their feet
before they
step in, but they make sure that the outside of those shoes is well
polished
and shiny. More effort is put into making liquids to clean those shoes
and to
make them shine than into inventions to keep their feet looking good
and
healthy.
After I have walked in
my shoes
for a while, I always feel like taking them off, finding a foot-bath in
front
of the door and a servant who washes my feet and oils them. There is
none of
this. There are places where there are special rooms to wait in, where
you find
books to read and one can buy many strange things that no wanderer
needs and
Kitara can still do without, but there is no possibility to take a
foot-bath.
There is no native who wishes to bathe his feet and so they walk from
dawn to
dusk in the same dress and shoes, with the same hat on their heads, and
because
they want to wear the same things the next day, they take care that
they don’t
sweat too much. Because of that, and to spare the clothes, they must
walk
slowly. Only children are allowed to run. they drive.
Because of lack of
movement, their
bodies change so much that they could not let themselves be seen nude,
even if
it was the custom to walk without clothes, and many men look like
fattened dogs
or hippopotami from the river Ukonse.
You asked about the
warriors and
the women of this country? I shall tell you about them later.
These are enormous
deprivations I
take upon me to carry out your order to research into this country. The
manners
of this nation are threatening me and my health. What my body
experiences from
the outside, and what I am forced to take inside while I am here — that
harms
me.
Only two things followed
me here
from home: the sun that warms my back with her rays and this big bird,
who
returns to Kitara earlier than I and who will bring greetings to my
King from
His Servant
Lukanga Mukara
THIRD
LETTER
Berlin,
16th
August
1912
Kamere Rugawa, Father of the
Cattle!
This is the third time
that I
write to you and you may be already saying: Lukanga should come home
and tell
us, instead of sending messengers with written paper. Don’t be
impatient! If I
come soon, then I haven’t seen very much, but if I stay long, then you
can
expect me to know the country of the Wasungu very well and to have
taken in so
much that I can tell you about it for years and you can listen for
ages.
As far as the craft of
writing is
concerned, it is unintelligible that I haven’t yet met one Sungu who
can’t
write. Even the children of the farmers know how to use colour juice
and
feather and can read the signs of others, and those who teach the craft
of
writing believe that the farmers reap bigger crops and own more cattle
because
of it.
It is certain that some
Wasungu
gain an advantage from reading and writing, but some of the people lose
through
this art and many sign experts aren’t better off, then see, although
there are
laws in this country that order everybody to learn reading and writing,
there
is no law that forbids to read or write bad things. And so it comes
that many
bad things are written about a nation that can read and write. There
can be no
law that forbids to write bad things! Who can measure where the border
of the
good lies? And especially the bad which is hidden under the appearance
of the
good, is most dangerous to men. The Wasungu have written things, that
are as
good and pure as the air in the mountains of Bugoie in the monsoon
season, but
only a few breathe this clean air. The majority is trapped in the
gloomy fog of
the swamps and amongst those who write and sell the writings, there are
far too
many who do not write to tell their readers important things, but to
make lots
of money. That is why they charm and allure the readers and tell them
of a
world in which even the most stupid and idlest person is satisfied, so
that the
will to achieve improvement does not arise within them. How can anybody
want
something better if the bad is shown as the best! That’s how it is with
the
writing that is circulated amongst the sign experts. But also in daily
life
writing represents a danger.
The hutu in Kitara can
not read
and is not allowed to learn it. He looks at the man who speaks, asks
after his
origin and past, and judges his speech farmer in Wasunga has difficulty
in
recognising the man he should trust behind the writing. I am sure you
ask “How
can the Wasungu farmer harvest fruit, despite his ability to read and
write?”
Mukama, how he can do it became clear to me whilst on a journey through
the
countryside. The Wasungu farmer knows how to arrange himself: he makes
little
use of reading and writing and soon forgets it. If he has something to
tell to
someone, he does not write, but like the Hutu, he walks five hours
across the
land. He then brings the answer, which is much better than a written
one, back
home immediately. That is why, although there are laws which order
everybody to
read and write, the Wasungu countryside billows in high wheat and the
grass
joins over the backs of the roebucks.
I already told you that
the
Wasungu call themselves human, and I know why they do it. They are
inspired by
Riangombe the Ever Awake to feel as if they are human. If you want to
grasp
this, O Ever Shining, then unroll the skin of an otter at the grove of
your
god-like ancestors, sit down quietly, and watch the termites who live
in their
earth house. What are you to those little creatures? Your shadow
brushes them
as the shadow of a large cloud brushes us. Nothing bigger under the sun
do they
know but themselves. “We are the humans,” they say, “we are the
thinking
creatures for whom alone this world is made. The whole world revolves
around
us.” The wandering ants and all other ants are “barbarians” in their
view and
about the caterpillars and beetles they drag into their den they say,
those are
inferior creatures without feelings, without intellect, and only gifted
with
instincts. They also say of themselves, that only they have the right
Weltanschauung. This how Riangombe inspired every being to feel itself
as the
centre of the world and to look upon the earth as beneath their feet.
It is not any different
with the
Wasungu. They too, believe that the world is made for their sake and
think of
themselves as the best thing that ever happened to this world.
Shining Lord, did the
Creator not
arrange it wisely, that every being can be satisfied with its lot?
Satisfied is
the being which does the one thing: fulfil itself. Even the poor can be
content, and only those who have to watch how others waste food are
bitter with
hunger. If someone is alone he can even endure hunger; where there is
not the
most unbearable hunger even the poorest and most miserable can be
content;
because if someone is rich and surrounds himself with more spectacle
than the
poor, then the poor man thinks that the rich is only there for him and
that he
entertains him with his glamour and the many colourful things he has to
dress
in, one after the other, and he feels sorry for the rich man who does
not have
the joy of watching, because no-one is richer than him, and the rich
and
powerful man forgets that he is only an actor who has to dress and
paint
himself on time, to appear from the left or the right so that the poor
man has
something to look at. He forgets this, and he even believes that the
poor are
only there for his sake, and feels sorry for them.
Here I would like to
tell you
about an experience I had. A famous general of the nation wanted to
show himself
off in front of the assembled warriors to incite their weapon lust in
peacetime. He also wanted to show himself to the ordinary folk, who
stood
packed on a square and watched. I also was there to observe, mingling
with the
humble folk. It was a very hot day. The general arrived. He sat on a
beautiful
horse and had thick, heavy materials tied around his body, and was
decorated
all over with coloured metal pieces and chains. Like all the warriors,
on his
head he had an upturned vessel with the tail feathers of white chickens
fastened to it. Wherever he passed, people screamed, and the general
had to
touch his head with his hand, whereby he became very hot. Many
colourfully
decorated nobles followed him on horses and everybody was very hot.
There I realised that
even the
lowest of the onlookers related this laborious entourage. Next to me a
man said
to his friend, “`ere mate, let’s go for a pint and let this lot sweat
it out on
their own.”
Out of those words,
which also
represent the dialect of a certain area, I became conscious of what I
have
written to you today: everyone sees the world and his position in it
out of the
centre of his own circle.
And this is also the
reason how
the Wasungu come to call themselves “human”. They do it deliberately
and
consciously: they really do believe themselves to be human. Riangombe
infused
it into them to feel themselves as humans.
Surely, Mukama, the
Wasungu are
not humans, because they are heathens and do not know anything about
Riangombe
and the flower sacrifices. But still we should try to understand them
and
should not believe that only we are enlightened. Riangombe created a
different
picture of himself in each of his beings and wanted each of his beings
to be
great in its own way. Especially in this, I recognise his greatness and
omnipotence. And even if I depict many aspects of their customs and
thinking
that seem nonsense to me, I already see, that we cannot change the
Wasungu to
the better, even if we try. Because if we would want to bring them
something,
our language, our dancers or even our customs and our thinking, we
would bring
them something alien, that did not develop within them. They would take
it, but
even if they then do have something that is seen as good for us, it
would not
be good for them. I mock them; but if there was nothing good in them at
all, it
would not lure me to examine them so long and thoroughly. At this place
I
remembered the words Rugaba, the wise man from the mountain Sabinjo
spoke so
often; “In every being is God and everything that is, is great. Only
that which
God did not grant you to understand, you see as small in nature. He
wants you
to see it as small; but you are not allowed to want to change it: it is
as
equally great as you.” God gave the tribe of the Watinku the ability to
see
greatness in other beings. This is why the Watinku are humans; the wise
man
often told the story of the dog which has one more sense than a human
being:
you walk with the dog on a lead. Suddenly he darts forward and drags
himself
forcefully over a trail that your eye only discovers now. Like you can
spot a
white cow in a herd, the dog can smell the trail of the springbok, whom
he
follows. And while you cannot see further than three steps in the
undergrowth,
the wind tells the dog where the prey stands. Like the dog, which has
the gift
to recognise what you cannot see, there are beings who see things with
a
different view and intelligence other than ours and it is easier to
say: “I
cannot smell anything, so there is nothing,” than to admit that our
gifts do no
allow us to see everything.
I already told you,
Mukama, of the
clothing of the Wasungu and now I will also tell you about the women.
Here it
becomes difficult for me to follow things to the heart of the matter.
Only this
one thing I already know for sure: the women of the Wasungu are
artificially
deformed and their crippled bodies are dressed in furs, woven material
skins
and feathers of wild creatures, so that a new figure is created which
has
nothing in common with the natural, beautiful woman-sculpture as we
know it
with the Watinku. Nude girls and women are nowhere to be seen, not on
the
streets, nor at the harvest work. Also, they do not all bathe, and
those who do
bathe, wear suits and it is not allowed to take a close look at them.
Only in
the evenings when the Wasungu eat and dance together, the girls are as
good as
nude and only a part of their body is covered with clothing. They do
not dare
to come completely without clothes because their body consists of two
parts
which are only loosely connected and are held together with a stiff
outer
construction. This construction, they cover up in the evening with a
little
clothing. But of course, not more than absolutely necessary. If the
women did
not have this construction they could not walk upright and would
collapse. This
construction is most likely to be an ancient invention of the men. They
forced
it onto the women in order to remain superior to them in health and
stamina, in
spite of their own laziness and bad habits. This frame is designed in
such a
way that the women cannot breathe expand, so that a part of the lung
rots and
dies. They lack the deep breath. Consequently, the women cannot run or
move. So
the flesh under the frame withers away and the body becomes grossly fat
on the
upper and lower parts, which is something the Wasungu find beautiful.
Already
in maidenhood, the body of the girl is cocooned because it is feared
that they
could remain healthy for too long. The intended success has not to be
waited
for long: most women are prematurely sickly and frail and then the men
speak
with a certain callous satisfaction of the “weaker sex”.
The women move like
upright
walking tortoises in their cocoons. You cannot imagine how it looks
when a
woman walks down the street and slides her legs forwards under this
stiff
construction. And when she pushes her motionless mass onto a chair,
when the
limbs hang down and the head moves helplessly from side to side, then
an
educated Negro feels something close to compassion for such a
mistreated
creature. I often think of the supple figures of the girls of Kitara,
like when
they bend over the field fruit, like when they walk along with bulging
clay
pots on their heads and how their body balances the slopping water into
their
step. And also the dance at the last celebration of the King’s Spear, I
do
frequently remember. The maidens stepped around the spear wall and held
up
white flower branches with their raised hands. The full moon coloured
them into
statues made out of silver and ebony. Like the supple stalks of the
sweet corn
in the wind, they bent themselves to the rhythm of the drums and the
flutes.
These pictures become alive within my soul when I hear the friendly
sound of
the flute in this country. This happens very often, then even if the
Wasungu as
creatures do rank deep below the Watinku, they are great in one sense:
in their
art to depict the world with sounds. They rub horsehair on twisted
sheep
intestines which are stretched over hollow wood; they blow on wood
flutes which
are far more beautiful than our bamboo sticks, and Kudu horns and
shells which
are copied in metal and yield many different sounds; they beat onto
iron, wood
and stretched skins and bring out a river of sounds which often arouses
pain
and happiness in my heart. Then I imagine to sit at a bay of Ukerewe
and to see
the sun go down beneath the Kurwi mountains. From Ukara the wind is
blowing,
the waves lap and the Ibises fly past screaming. Yes, just think,
Mukuma, the
sounds of the Wasungu are taken out of my youth! Who brought them to
the
Wasungu? Who inspired them to depict a country in sounds where Lukanga
has
loved and suffered? Lukanga speaks the language of the Wasungu but he
remains a
stranger to their thinking; in their sounds the Wasungu speak a
language which
he deeply understands. This third letter I send to you, Mighty Mukama,
out of
Wasungas big city, written by my own hand.
Your humble
Lukanga Mukara
FOURTH
LETTER
Berlin, 6th December
1912
Mukama!
You ask for what the
Wasungu use
cars and why they drive so aimlessly to and fro? Think of the way from
Niansa
to Rubengera.
At the moment a carrier
walks four
days, a messenger two. The Sungu would build a metal plank-way so that
the
messenger arrives there in one day. To build this way, thousands of
people have
to go there and work there and then go back. Others have to bring them
food and
firewood. The workers get wages. These they will want to spend. That is
why an
Indian with many loads of materials, caps, pearls and booze has to
come. Then a
Sungu who stands next to him and screams of the Sungu. Then a Sungu who
counts
and writes down these goods and collects a duty for them. For him too,
a house
must be built and a second one for the one who makes sure, that the
money taker
doesn’t keep the money to himself. Now we are already in a “healthy”
economical
life or in a “healthy economical development”. Then comes a Sungu who
makes
pictures of the goings on and writes a book about them. Then a house is
built
in which the cars of the railway are repaired. In this house people
work, who
have to be fetched with the cars. For this, coal and wood is needed and
this is
fetched with the cars and the coal powers the engine. The cars are
built to
fetch the coal and the coal is fetched to built the cars, businesses,
traffic,
smoke, noise and progress, ergo that, what the Wasungu call “culture”
occurs.
Also merchants, booze
sellers and
prostitutes settle down, to take the money of the workers. Because the
covetousness that is awakened in the workers and the booze are causing
disorders, armed overseers have to be fetched by the cars, and other
men who
write down of which kind the disorder is, and how that is called what
the
workers did disorderly.
For those writers
another house
must be built, and to make sure that the workers who committed
disorders do not
go home, cages are be built in which the workers are locked, fed and
guarded.
Again a car has to fetch
coal and
iron to make the bars of the cages. Then water must be led into the
houses of
the writers and guards, and artificial light, so that it is possible to
write
at night, when nature forbids it. Then a house must be built for the
man who
writes down which of the writers are called ‘SIR’ and another one in
which is
thought out, how much money every house has to contribute, to pay for
the
guards and the writers. All this they then call ‘Government.’
This way a big city
arises, a
metropolis as the Wasungu say, and all this happens only because a
messenger
had to make the way from Niansa to Rubengera quicker. This town grows
and more
and more cars have to drive. Then houses are needed in which the cars
are put
and again people who built these houses, guard and count them and write
about
them.
But because people go
mad in such
a city and with such occupations, big houses must be built outside town
in
which the lunatics are locked in. Through this, work and new economy
life is
created. Those who are not fully mad yet, have to, in order to avoid
becoming
completely crazy, drive very often outside town, to scream in the
meadows, rip
out flowers, and frighten or pierce animals. This is why many cars full
of
people drive to and fro. Also, houses must be built in the meadow or
the jungle
in which these half-crazies can buy booze and smoke-sticks, and boxes
have to
be put up with machines that make noise, which the Wasungu love. To all
this
they make lots of smoke, pour lots of liquids down their throats and
yell at
each other. Then they have pictures taken of themselves with drinking
vessels
in their hands. To make sure that one knows where those houses are in
the
jungle, signs are erected at the road on which the name of the next
booze
station is written and how far away it is. Those signs must be guarded,
so that
nobody takes them away. For this purpose, armed guards are employed.
Again
those need houses. Because the signs cost money, the way gets
barricaded with a
tree and is opened only when the wanderer pays money. Then a house next
to the
tree is built in which the man lives who collects the money and a
second one in
town in which the man lives who makes sure that the first one doesn’t
keep the
money to himself. Also, guards have to watch that nobody goes around
the tree
without paying, and when many half crazies arrive, that they walk on
one side
of the way where the right hand is. So that the half crazies can read
what is
written on the signs and how far it is to the next booze station,
houses have
to be built in which a man beats the children until they can read and
count.
This takes eight years.
For him too a house must
be built
and one for the man who determines when this man has beaten enough to
call
himself ‘SIR.’
And then another one for the
one who controls the men calling
themselves
‘inspectors’ without having permission for that or wears little metal plates over
the breast nipple before
he reaches the befitting age. So that one knows when somebody is old
enough to
be allowed to wear little metal plates, the life years have to be
counted and
books are written in which one can read on which day each single
citizen has
come out of his mothers belly. That is why houses must be built and
cars must
drive to and fro, day and night.
So, this is why the
Wasungu need
cars, built ways with metal planks and drive non-stop to and fro. One
thing I
forgot to mention and it will either completely astonish or disgust
you: the
letter writing of the Wasungu. I can hardly find the words to describe
this
idiocy. In the whole of Usungu there is not one house where not daily a
messenger arrives, who carries letters. But what do the Wasungu write?
What everybody
knows anyway: “I am here and drink,” “I come tomorrow,” “the car
drives,” “the
food is tasty.” Or they send pictures of themselves how they hold a
drinking
vessel and make a stupid face. Or they write because of money. I will
put it
like this: Everything that they do and everything that is moving, they
write
down. This is why messengers drive to and fro and houses must be built
in which
the letters are sorted and other ones in which those live who watch
when those
who sort the letters are to be called `SIR’. Finally the letters are
counted,
and how many people drive to and fro and how many years longer the
Messengers
live than those who sew clothes all day long. Through all those things
the
Wasungu believe to become cleverer and better, and when a new house is
built,
they meet, hold speeches and yell RA! RA! RA! which is their expression
of
highest happiness. Afterwards they pour liquids into their throats.
The Wasungu also
practise the
following tomfoolery: If you ask in Kitara “Who is there?” The answer
is: “Muntu,
a human being!”. But the Wasungu class people after what they are
doing. They
want that everyone only does a certain foolery, so that differences
occur, so
that they can count even more.
The Numberfred led me
into a house
in which many men were sharpening knives. They all looked very pale. I
asked
where those people have their fields whereupon I got the answer that
they would
never do anything else but sharpening knives; only so it could be
determined
with precision that people who sharpen knives every day die when they
are 30
years old. And his eyes shone with happiness when he told me that the
people,
who did all day long nothing else but bring Pombe, Smokerolls and
Carcass
pieces to the swallowers in the stone caves died even younger. When I
shook my
head in horror, Fred said that I could not doubt it because it was
proofed
scientifically beyond doubt and it was anticipated to obtain even more
accurate
figures. When I asked for what such figures were necessary, he
explained a
Tomfoolery that no-one will believe.
Mukama, I am at loss to
explain
this to you. But listen: Every year they pay a certain sum of money
which is
collected, written down and paid to their relatives after they have
died. They
believe to be happier for it. A knife sharpener pays a different amount
than a
farmer because the numberfreds know how long they live. To make this
calculation work, everybody has to stick with his work and is never
allowed to
do anything else. Because of this Idiocy, houses must be built again
and more
cars drive to and fro.
Do you understand it
now? So now
you will know what the Wasungu really do and why it is that they always
do
something. I tell you: they are on the move non-stop, to disturb each
others
peace, to make sure that all the people have to run around and don’t
have time
to think.
Now they busy themselves
with
bringing order into the turmoil of which they are proud. They forget
that they
first made turmoil that wasn’t necessary and then talk about order.
No, dearest, you can not
understand
it. You will think of Kitara. Order, for what? The mountains are there
and in
the valleys the streams flow. If the water is high, one waits till it
trickles
into the ground. “Amri ya Mungu.” It gods commandment and his
punishment
inevitable follows. I will talk about this punishment later. This
punishment is
just; because these are unnecessary things and a self-chosen untidiness
in
which unuseful people bring order.
I live with a man who is
the
driver of a car which drives on metal planks. I accompanied him and got
told
what the individual Wasungu do, who drive in the car. One man who drove
with us
builds the metal parts for the cars. Next to him stood a man with a
sword and a
metal spike on his head. He has to watch that the cars on the street
don’t run
a Sungu over and he writes down if someone gets killed. Then another
spike head
climbed onto the car, whose work it was that the other one looked at
him and
bangs his legs together and the arms onto the torso, which is a
greeting. Then
there sat a woman with a red cross on her arm. She bandages the people
who get
run over. Then a man who catches dogs that don’t carry a coin around
their
neck. Next to him sat a man who has smoke rolls made in a house. Then
another
one who sells pills for an illness which comes about through smoke
stinking.
Then a numberfred who writes down, which people have paid money in case
they
get run over. For what this is I
will
write later. Then another one who sells the coal with which the cars
are
powered and one who makes books in which is written when the cars are
going to
drive. Every single one carries a time pointer on his belly and looks
onto it
as soon as the car stops and when it drives on. Then a man with glass
pieces
before his eyes sat there. His work was to talk about how it was in the
past
and how it is now. He told me that this ordered traffic is a sign of
the high
culture of the Wasungu. Once there were times when no metal planks laid
on the
way on which we drove. Then everybody said that it wasn’t necessary
that cars
drive here and nobody would drive with them and now one could see, how
much
affluence the traffic had through the building of the cars.
But I found that all those fools were
on the
move, not to live and to work good things but only that cars could
drive or
that which could be mended what was destroyed by driving to and fro. If
all
those fools would stay on their fields and with their children, then no
cars on
metal planks would need to drive and if no cars drive everyone could
have a
field and be happy.
This is why, Kigeri, you have to
protect your
beautiful country from the order of the Wasungu, and from the cars and
the
metal planks and forbid that time pointers are brought into the country
which
through their sight bring people to commit tomfooleries. At dawn the
cock
crows. In the day it is light, at night it is dark. In the morning the
sun
rises, at noon she stands high and in the evening she sets. But life
ends with
death. A person only needs to know that.
But where cars drive, there have to
be time
pointers and again people who make these pointers and keep order and
out of all
this evolves all this foolish, totally unnecessary work from which all
people
become ill and joyless. I find that all these Time fools only run
around so
that cars drive and that they drive to run around and to hinder each
other.
I have written about things that
should stay
alien to the Wise of Kitara if they want to remain main human beings.
Greetings from your loyal
Lukanga
FIFTH LETTER
Magdeburg, 19th
October 1912
Mukama!
Your Kingly Heart is angered because
I haven’t
written to you yet what the Great and mighty Master! Order your people
to be
silent for two days so that the atrocity that I will tell you now finds
a place
in your mind: The Wasungu are souleaters, are cannibals.
They mix the food which the earth
gives with
the parts of various animals. Especially pigs, cattle and horses are
killed,
chopped and cut in many little pieces. Dogs are killed and eaten in a
town
called Halle. Cat meat is only mixed secretly into the food. Nobody
would buy
it if it was on offer, so it is cut into little pieces and collected
into tons
together with other carcass pieces, then it is put into the intestines
of
cattle and sold. In some villages, they mix it with flour and fat and
eat it
out of shells. Only people are not allowed to be slaughtered and eaten.
Some of this I know, not because I
seen it
myself, but because a man of the tribe of the Korongo told me about it.
Some of it I saw myself and that why
I
believe what the Korongo told me.
I saw a man, who took calf corpses
that were
still bleeding from a car onto his shoulders and hung them into a house
so that
everybody who passed had to see the corpses. And men and women walked
passed
and were cheerful although they could see this. The man also hung up
internal
parts of animals and wrote numbers onto them because he wanted money
for them,
when people bought it. The corpses are torn into pieces and the parts
are sold
singly as if they were fruit. The blood of the animals is also eaten.
I said: The Wasungu eat. This is not
right:
They swallow. And everything they put into their mouth is prepared so
that it
is swallowed and not eaten. There are some amongst the Wasungu who know
how to
eat food: but the majority are swallowers.
Their language knows two words for
taking
food: “eating” and “feeding”. The swallowers say about themselves that
they eat
and that animals feed. When I showed a Wasungu how a Cow looks for
herbs and
told him he should “feed” like the animals, he became angry.
The Wasungu make pigs that they want
to eat,
artificially ill so that they become very fat. They force these animals
to
swallow hastily and then to lie down. That is how they force-feed the
animals.
And like the pigs they force-feed themselves.
They achieve this through many means.
A Sungu
does not wait with eating until he feels hunger, but he goes and sits
down and
sees if he can make something out that he would like to swallow. To
make sure
that he fattens himself, he sits down at a certain time, even without
hunger,
and starts to swallow. And not in a dark room and alone, but together
with
other Wasungu. His eyes are wide open while he swallows. Whilst he
swallows one
dish he looks onto a piece of paper on which the name of next dish is
written.
Through this he achieves faster swallowing. Because he doesn’t eat out
of
hunger and doesn’t taste his food, he eats with his eyes and he eats
always the
next dish and not the one he has got in his mouth. No food is written
on the
piece of paper, but stuff that is mixed and heated. So that it doesn’t
get
chewed, the swallower pours drinks into his mouth. All Wasungu train
hard to
swallow drinks instead of sucking them.
A widely used means to enhance the
fattening
of the body is this: The Wasungu make a date to sit together in a group
at a
table to swallow the same dishes. Although they are not hungry they
still
manage to swallow a lot. Servants come, who try to entice the greed of
the
swallowers. They do this by holding the dish, which name the swallower
has read
previously on a piece of paper, from behind their back under their
nose, one by
one, until the swallower has taken something from it. Because all
swallowers
take from the same bowl, they give themselves the impression that they
must
take away from the others and take as much as possible for themselves.
When they start to take some of it
into their
mouth, they scream at each other and so force each other to faster
swallowing.
On top of this it is the duty of the dish lies are suddenly taken away
and through
this method even faster swallowing is achieved. To make sure that the
swallowers have to scream very loud, twelve men are hired who blow on
horns and
make noise.
If I think about the verses of
Rubega, then I
feel as if I step out of the smoke into a breeze. Let me, Mukama, write
down
the words of the great priest so that I remember them accurately
myself. Rubega
says:
“Look, human being at a nut.
Why is it’s kernel wrapped? So that
one
person unwraps it and the other one eats it? No! So that the one who
should eat
it, peels out the kernel and doesn’t stuff his gob full.
When you eat you should still know
the soil
from which the fruit was taken. And even if you never have been there
yourself,
your thoughts should be there while you eat.
So go into the room that is made for
your
repast and stay there on you own until your desire is fulfilled.
You should lie down while you eat.
So you have the opening to the sky of
the
room above you on which is written when you are permitted to eat.
In the day you should eat, in the
never-ending blue.
But at night stars are standing there
and
your thoughts are with them. Then you should fast.”
Mukama, if I place the Wasungu next
to the
Watinku, then I know which nation has the better advisors.
Amongst the Wasungu are many who
practice
excessive fattening, and amongst every working community is a number of
such
fallings. But although they do their best to become unable to bear
weapons and
to go against the enemy, they do not lose their citizen rights, and
when I tell
such a fattened warrior that in Kitara only those who at a moments
notice can
fulfil certain things, are granted the full honour rights of a citizen,
he only
swallows more.
They all live in continuous fear that
they
don’t get enough mixed and heated stuff into their body. Only about
real food
they’re unconcerned, yes, they loathe food because they fear to become
active
and happy through it and not fat.
They make a lot of effort to destroy
the
things they throw into their pots and to take away their sun taste
whereby a
strong and continuous fire is their most important aid.
Afterwards they put salt on
everything and
then they say: “It is tasty.” And of everything that tastes of salt
they
swallow so much until they can’t put anymore in.
To prepare bad things that no-one
would eat
so that they can be swallowed and to destroy the good things that they
become
equal to the bad things: that is seen as a fine art and especially
women busy
themselves with what is called “cooking” or “frying” depending on if
water or
fat is heated.
I told you in my last letter about
the body
harness and said that the men invented it to make the women weak. I
think that
they invented cooking too, to take away the time to think from the
women and to
keep them into stupidity. And now everybody believes it to be vital for
life.
But maybe a higher force revenges the sacrilege of the men, because
they must
keep on swallowing cooked things so that the women don’t stop to cook.
And so
they are damned to lethargy because they are force-fed.
Shining Lord! It isn’t made easy
here, for
your servant, to eat as befitting for a human being. But do not fear:
Even
amongst the dog-eaters Lukanga feeds on sun power.
And when he lies by day amongst the
stones of
a hilltop and rests his eyes onto the never-ending azure, then the
aroma of a
fruit awakes his joy of life.
Alone on a hill in the land of the
Wasungu:
What a feeling it is to stand as the first Negro on top of a hill.
And especially as your envoy
Lukanga Mukara
SIXTH LETTER
Berlin, 1st
November 1912
Mukama! Friend of the Bulls!
The mountains and valleys of Kitara
are
connected through small ways on which cattle, sheep and people walk.
There,
where the ground is softened by the springs, the cattle step into their
old
marks and leave lumps of earth between their prints. Over the papyrus
swamps of
the valley your Wahutu lay bundles of reed and on the river waits a
hollow tree
trunk that serves as a ferry. At the hay huts under the rock, bananas
are
growing: the corn is stored in wicker baskets which stand on poles and
a girl
offers honey drink in a hollow marrow to the wanderer. The peaks of the
volcanoes Karissimbi, Sabinjo and Niragongo greet your eye. The clouds
that
linger above them, pour their drops over the valleys and the water
flows in
lovely streams down to the plain of Kagara. And now turn your eyes away
from
this elevated peace and beauty, towards the land of the Wasungu. It is
as if
you saw a swarm of termites which are in fear of death because of a
bush fire.
Some carry here, some carry there, stones, eggs and leafs. You can’t
talk about
wanderers, not even about footpaths and peace of the valley. The
Wasungu rush
to and fro through their country. They flatten the ways, put slippery
metal
planks onto them and let cars race along them in which they sit down.
You could
think that they have something important to do. I never heard this.
They have
like us, Parents, sisters, brothers and children, who fall ill or die,
they
have fears and sorrows. That is why, they say, they rush through the
country,
on occasions where we in Kitara stay at home. But even stranger is what
they do
with the things that they gather everywhere. These too are packed onto
cars
that they let drive totally pointlessly through the land, so fast that
you can’t
run beside to them. Pointlessly I say: because I often saw it that two
cars
that were loaded with the same goods passed each other. Everywhere next
to
these metal plank-ways men are standing who guard, whistle and wave and
look
onto these time pointers that are posted everywhere or carry them on a
chain.
This Foolery they call traffic and think of this nonsense as so
important that
they don’t sleep at night but light torches and wave coloured lights.
They
people who drive in these cars have books in which is written how fast
they
rush through the country. They keep on looking into these books and
onto the
time pointers in their clothes pockets. Even their Eldest are
childishly happy
about these Madnesses.
To learn about the joy of nonsense I
followed
a fool who made it his mission to write down how many people, animals,
stones,
marrows and trees are sent to and fro with these cars. He carried a
book on him
in which he showed me the it was more every year.
I asked him, when would it be enough?
He didn’t
know that. I have, mighty King, realised the foolishness of the Wasungu
more
clearly and I will share my wisdom with you, as little as it might be.
The one
thing I tell you: Beware your people of these murderers and robbers. My
tears
fall as I write this to you: because unfortunately you can protect
neither your
proud people nor your quiet country from beings that are mad and can’t
see that
they want to bless the straw roofs of huts with flames. They don’t see
that
they are running round in circles, that they don’t do anything else but
throw
everything into disarray that is on the Earth and destroy all the
beauty and
richness in the world. They have a sort of competition spirit nations
compete
whit each other who of them does the most nonsense, rushes to and fro
the most.
They call it life. I call it death. They call it healthy: I see it is
disease.
The fool I travelled with had the name Karl. He was very proud to show
me his
tomfoolery. So hear how he did it: His father left him a box with
paper.
Through the ownership of those papers he came own the master ship over
a valley
where farmers lived, because he had at the right place and the right
time let a
certain fool write something onto them. Here was a place to which Karl
had to
drive frequently, and when he didn’t drive to there, he drove somewhere
else
because it was written so, looking into the number book, when the cars
speed
off and looking onto the Time pointer.
Karl’s father came into possession of
these
papers that had such enormous power because he managed to take away the
fields
of a thousand people and also their corn, so that they were poor and
had to
perform tomfooleries for him in order not to die of hunger. This is how
the
papers came about that really have the power to make other fools
believe that
Karl is the master of a valley. In this valley Karl, had brought many
people
together that did something that he called work. They ran to and fro.
Some
improved the run of a river that God had misconstructed. It ran, like
the
Nyawarongo, in meanders through the plain. Now it was straightened.
Others
pulled down a mountain and threw it into a swamp in which up till now
only
herons lived. A big stream was running downhill too fast. Karl ordered
that
this couldn’t be and had earth poured in front of it and behaved like a
mad man
out of happiness over the fact the water could not run over the earth
and
collected, and because wheels were moving on which the overflowing
water was
pouring onto; something that every child knows when it bathes
underneath a waterfall.
This movement Karl exploited to scratch something off the bread grain
which he
had brought together from everywhere. The bad part that was left was
for the
people. Karl made sure that the people could only buy the bad and had
to give
more money for it than for the corn.
To achieve this he drives to and fro
with his
car. He wants that the poor people become ill and weak from the bad
quality
corn, because he has papers which certify that he becomes richer when
people
buy a strengthening tonic that his brother makes. Another brother of
him is a
wonderman and gets money from the poor so that they can lament to him
how weak
they are and that he writes the name of the tonic onto a piece of
paper. Apart
from that, the people also bought a paper everyday into which Karl lets
write
how good the tonic is. I asked what the tonic contained: whereupon I
received
the answer that no-one is allowed to know.
I conclude the following:
Karl and his brothers drive around in
cars a
lot, to make sure that the people stay poor and stupid and so become
their
slaves out of free will. They make sure that the slaves cannot live
without
money but also that they never get too much money so they don’t stop to
work
and that they buy things with their money which keep them in poverty
and
illness and make him rich. The children of these slaves learn to read.
But that
is their misfortune: because Karl makes sure that they only read what
serves
the purpose of making him richer and them poorer. If they couldn’t
read, they
wouldn’t know the name of the tonic and that what Karl lets write about
it, but
observe that, what every hutu knows, that those who eat roasted corn,
stay
healthy. But because the nation is so, that it doesn’t observe anymore,
but
reads, and because it sees the difference between a few rich and many
poor as
something great and admirable, it calls itself a cultured nation.
But what, you ask if Karl and his
brother
become richer and richer, happens with the money? With this they build
unnecessary houses to keep the slaves busy. Or they donate money, so
that the
ill, the crippled, the beggars and the crazies are locked into
beautiful houses
so that they do not have to look at them. But because within time too
many
slaves lift themselves out of poverty and hunger, what is unavoidable,
they
make sure that big destruction tools land. So the rich get richer and
the poor
become poorer. The greatest happiness of the Wasungu is counting.
You’ve
already experienced this. They are really of the opinion that ten huts
are ten
huts and can not imagine that we consider it rude to count how many
houses
there are or how many baskets of matama are harvested. May I remind you
of the
conversation that you had with the Sungu who visited you? The Sungu
wrote into
his book and said: “Here are ten huts.” You replied deeply shocked:
“No, Sir,
some; actually many.” There the Sungu stepped outside and pointed with
his
finger onto every hut and said aloud: “One, two, three.............”
When the
crowd heard this they ran away, lamented and brought sacrifices in
their huts.
Luckily it stopped the fool from counting any further. He asked
bewildered: “Aren’t
it ten then?” You grew pale and asked him to take a seat on a stool
that was
carved out of wood and said: “A hut is for to live in, does one know
from the
outside if it is empty? And it isn’t really a hut, because the wahutu
have
brought poles out of the Kagebewood and dry grass from the mountains
where no
cattle graze, and you call that a hut when it is standing there. But if
it
burns down it is no more, or if the occupant is wounded whilst tending
cattle
on the hill and cannot return home, it is no hut to him. This is why it
is a
mistake to count the huts and the punishment of Riangombe will follow
if you do
this. The Sungu said while he smiled patronisingly: “You are uneducated
and
superstitious; I will send you some missionaries who will teach you the
right
faith and counting, so you become a useful ‘Culture nation’ and take
part in
the world-market; watch it, soon it will look different here; the nude
people
will be able to buy clothes, everybody gets his house made out of
concrete and
a number on it and the whole thing gets a church and a prison. You will
pay for
the lot or you will be locked up. Then order and culture will come into
this
area and the nonsense will be driven out of your heads, if necessary by
force.
So he spoke, but not everybody
understood
him.
I have to think about this
conversation when
I see now what happened to the Wasungu. It was a blessing for Kitara
that this
Sungu got killed by an elephant at the river Russissi, that he comes
within the
number that counts:
Killed whilst hunting 1910
| A.
European |
a) prot. |
3
|
|
b)
cath. |
1
|
|
c)
ath. |
-
|
|
|
|
B.
Natives
|
a) prot. |
8
|
|
b)
cath. |
10
|
|
c)
heath. |
13
|
How mad the counting is and that it
evokes
the anger of the Holy spirit, that, the Wasungu have discovered now.
They
counted the number of the ships that sail on the ocean, the people that
were
born, the clothes that were woven, the grain that was harvested and how
much was
driven to and fro with ships and cars. That’s why a war came and took
all their
ships, killed the people, jeopardised that clothes were made and
lessened the
grain. You think now that would bring them to their senses? No! What do
they do?
They count and write down how many ships sank, how long the war lasted,
how
many people got killed, how many became mad with fear, how many people
were
hurt, and how many of those believe in the other god. They write it all
down
into beautiful books, and those who order this to be done are called
“Sir Boss”
and their pictures are taken and it is said that they are famous. There
is no
real disaster for the Wasungu, then even disaster and death they know
how to
count and then they are happy.
The joy of counting also prevents
them to see
to that misery of the poor peopledelight in counting every year how
many people
were killed drunk, how many children of drunk parents are born without
minds,
how many crimes the pombe drink brings, and how many of the different
drinks
were necessary to bring out a certain amount of murder, poverty and
callousness
and how many people were locked into prisons as a result. It happens
that they
meet in big buildings and talk about it as if it was a celebration and
everybody is happy about the beautiful books which contain the figures
of
murder, manslaughter, prostitution and illness. At the end, they
celebrate the “Sir
Boss” and praise each other. Then they go and pour themselves
inebriating
drinks down their throats and talk about the amount, colour, warmth of
the
drinks and how much one can take in.
The Wasungu feel especially funny
when they
can count how fast people will die, if their food is bad, if many are
locked
into one hut or forced to do the same thing over and over again. Karl
showed me
with the help of numbers out of a beautiful book that the erudite of
the
Wasungu had accomplished a big joke. Fifty years ago all Wasungu had
beautiful
teeth even in their old age. I saw this myself when the skull of an old
man was
removed from a grave that had to go because a way wasn’t as straight as
it has
to be with the Wasungu. In the old times as today, roots with sweet
juice were
growing on the fields and the people cooked this juice. Then it looked
brown
and trickled as slow as honey. People of the kind like Karl changed
this juice
with machines that only they were allowed to own. They made white,
tough grains
that looked like shingle. Now a big noise was made because this was
achieved, a
few Karls were allowed to call themselves “Sir” and a shining piece of
brass
was fastened over their breast nipple so that the people were led to
believe
that this what they invented was something superior that would make
them
happier if they bought it. This is how the Karls managed to wean the
people of
eating what is free and to make them bring the roots into a big house
where
fire, steam, smoke and various noises and smells are made, where wheels
turn
and signs are hanging up that say ‘ENTRY FORBIDDEN’. This whole thing
was
lovingly lit in the evening and in a small room lots of paper was being
written
on. Many Karle got very fat, wore beautiful clothes and always had
thick
smoke-sticks in their mouth, many other people grew very pale and
looked dirty.
The white crystals were sold very expensively. Now new numberfreds were
employed who had to write down how much more white crystals the stupid
peasants
ate , how many more teeth rot, how many teeth-pullers were employed and
how
much faster the people died now. When some people said: we don’t want
to make
the white crystals made anymore, we want to eat root juice again, then
the
teeth repairer said: “For what are we here, we got to have something to
do”.
And they showed how good their skills were to fill teeth with gold and
to make
whole dentures out of gold and stone. And the Karls who had the white
crystals
made and got richer for it, let write that the white stuff is healthy;
because
on the evidence of several experiments of a secret prime-boffin with
several
metal plates over his nipples, it goes from the belly of a person
straight into
the blood. All this was believed by the Wasungu who weren’t allowed to
call
themselves Sir and to have something secret and to wear metal plates
over their
nipples. Like with the sweet roots, they do the same now to the grain.
They make
a very dusty, soft flour out of it and feed the nutrients that are
scratched
off, to the animals. This way they achieve that people become weak and
ill and
go to the wonderman . He writes down how many are coming, how many
suffer from
this or that disease and sends the figures to a numberfred is happy
about them
and counts them all together. So that they have even more to count,
they also
practise following superstition: The wonder priests take bloody puss
from the
stomach of diseased calves that are killed, make incisions in the flesh
of
little children with a sacred knife and smear the puss into it. This is
a gods
trial. They then count how many children become ill and how many die
from it.
This gods trial the priest practice as their sacred right on every
stranger who
crosses the boarder into Sungu land and I myself only escaped through a
miracle.
The Wasungu are heavily punished by
their
number madness. Enormous problems came and changed everything. They say
that
corn cost a certain amount of coins. Their blasphemy even went as far
as that
they dared to trade a certain amount for a certain number. Then an
angry power
intervened and made that the corn vanished and the money had different
value.
Then even the bellies of the Numberfreds became smaller out of hunger
but don’t
think that they stopped to count. All of this they then call a science.
It is a
science of the to and fro of unnecessary things with which the fools
stupefy
the nation and keep them in want.
In pain, sorrow and humbleness
your
|
Running Number |
2 (Two) |
|
Name |
Mukara
|
|
Arrival Day |
4.4.1912 |
|
Religion |
Heathen |
|
Place/Date of Birth
|
Not Known |
|
Nationality |
Kitara |
|
Vaccination |
Successful |
|
Criminal Record
|
None
|
Lukanga
SEVENTH LETTER
Berlin, 1st
February 1913
Mukama, you slim, warming light!
You are the greatest of the Kings.
But the
King of the Wasungu is also mighty and proud. Uncountable are his
warriors,
shining are their weapons and outstanding is their bravery. They love
their
King and honour him, because he is kindly disposed towards his people.
Your
servant Lukanga can tell you of glorious and beautiful occasions, when
thousands of young men parade in strength and beauty and know how to
carry
weapons.
But this one thing your eye would
see, even
if it was clouded and its senses would know it, even if dust was to lie
on
them: the Wasungu honour their King in one way, the Watinku you in
another way.
As mighty as the King of the Wasungu
is , he
can not hinder the lowly habits of his subjects. Knowest:
The Watinku celebrate the day of your
birth
by fasting; the Wasungu celebrate the birthday of their King by putting
a lot
into their into their bellies.
The Watinku make themselves cleaner
and
stronger because they are happy that you live; but the Wasungu try to
increase
the coarseness of their manners to the limits. They don’t understand
their King
when he says: “Abstain from the pouring-in that makes you unable to
serve the
fatherland.”
The Watinku are bound by the custom
that
exists since ancient times, that in the days which belong to you,
everybody has
to remain on his mountain as long as the sun is circling the sky and
only at
night he is allowed to enter his own hut in silence; the Wasungu come
together
in closed rooms for the celebration of their King and what they do in
them, I
will tell you as I perceived it.
It is a single day that they
sacrifice to
their King. They go and meet with many others to put many foods and
liquids
into their bodies.
On this day they sit on long tables
and
swallow in the same fashion I described their stomach and drink like
people who
walked a long way in the blazing sun and are thirsty. It is seen to be
unworthy
of a man to take liquid in small sips to mix it with saliva and the
more a man
can swallow, the higher he ranks in the respect of others [2]
What they drink is pombe, a
hallucinogenic
drink of various colours. It is not permitted to drink juice that is
free of hallucinogenic
spirits , yes, it is the duty of everyone to drink as much intoxicating
liquid
as possible and the one who retains control over his mind on this day
is looked
upon as one who treacherously denies his King the due respect. They
misunderstand their King so much that they honour him, he who demands
the
abstinence from intoxicating liquids, by pouring-in.
The drink is so important that it is
not
permitted to talk about anything else but the kind, colour, amount and
warmth
of the drink and in which way it is poured down the throat and how it
is poured
out again. Only once it is allowed to talk about the King, the fattest
man gets
up, calls the name of the King and everybody yells: “RA! RA! RA!”.
During this
they stand up and hold a glass of pombe between their nipples and after
the
last RA! is screamed, they pour it’s entire contents down their
throats,
breathe out deeply and sit down again.
Afterwards, everybody is quiet, until
the
glasses are filled up again and then they talk again about the kind,
colour,
amount and warmth of the drink and how it is poured in.
Especially men, who once lived at a
river
called Mosel, distinguish themselves. They are only allowed to drink
out of
specially formed glasses and move the vessel three times in a circle in
front
of their mouth before they pour in. They are not permitted to laugh
whilst they
do this, but must look very serious. They enjoy the highest status
amongst the
drinkers and strive to be recognised by everybody through blue veins on
their
nose and hard veins that come out like worms on their temples. The
chief of the
celebration is easy recognisable through his fat figure and the many
beauty
scars that he has in his face. On his nose he carries a golden metal
wire with
two glass pieces through which he must look. The finery of the beauty
scars is
not permitted for everyone, it is the privilege of such men who don’t
work but
drink very much and don’t get punished if they commit brutalities.
The Wasungu are very clumsy when they
cut
these scars or don’t have a sense for beauty, because the cuts go to
and fro
the face and very often an ear or the nose is cut too. But they like
the beauty
scars, because they only wear them on exposed parts of their body and
leave
other parts free, although there is more flesh and skin area. The art
of
keeping cuts in the lips, nostrils and ears open is not known to them.
Only
women drill holes in their ears and hang metal or stones into them.
Whilst they sit and swallow mixed and
heated
stuff, they practice the following custom: One yells at the other one
and holds
a filled vessel towards him and says:”Good Health!”. Then he pours in.
The
yelled at also grabs a filled glass, jumps up and pours into his
throat. Then
he holds the empty glass between his breast nipples and glares at the
one who
yelled at him, sits down again and breathes out deeply. Then he lets
his
drinking vessel be filled again and talks about the colour, amount and
kind of
the drinks and how much one can pour in.
When they eat fat from the abdomen of
a murdered
pig, the servants bring every swallower a very tiny vessel with strong
pombe.
Then everybody is quiet and lifts the vessel up. The fattest one
whistles, then
everybody whistles and pours the liquid fast down their throats.
Again they talk about the amount,
colour and
warmth of the drinks and how much can be poured in.
When they have swallowed a lot of
mixed and
heated stuff and drugs, they then let bring real food: servants bring
bowls
with fruits. But no-one takes from them. Then little basins are brought
for the
washing of the fingers. Now they practise another custom: someone takes
his glass,
walks towards some-else, forces him to get up and to hold his glass in
front of
him and says one of the three following sentences:
“I know your brother” or “How is your
father”
or “I saw your sister.”
And then he says “Cheers”, both clash
their
glasses together so that the rims on which their spittle sticks, touch
each
other, empty their glasses and hold it at nose height in front of them
and look
at each other sharply.
Then they return to their seats and
again
talk about the colour, warmth and kind of the drinks and how much one
can take
in, with the people they sit with.
Then the smoke making begins.
They let come rolled dried leaves of
a rare
plant, rub a fire and set the roll alight at one end. The other end
they hold
with their teeth, close their lips and suck, so that the smoke enters
the
mouth. Out of their mouth they blow the smoke in the air and soon the
whole
room is filled with the smoke they blown out.
From this moment on, they all talk
about the
kind of smoke-rolls, how many smokers each one burns every day, if they
suck on
small or big rolls and how much the single smoke-roll costs. Whilst
talking,
they all make serious faces. Now they let bring vessels with a brown,
stinking
fluid and talk very loudly about the white foam that floats on top of
the fluid
that they call the “head”.
When the smoke making started, they
go
outside one by one and return after a short while.
Now there is a loud screaming through
which
the thanks for the party is expressed .
Especially the following is a big
favourite:
Two men scream at each other and say: “Come outside with me.” They then
get up,
take their smokers with them and return after a while with flushed
faces.
While they go outside and come inside
all the
others are quiet.
This custom is called the `Honour
Game’ and
the room in which it is played is called the `Room of Honour’.
The game itself goes like this: One
says to
the other one: “You looked at me” the other one answers: “You swine.”
Then they take their smokers in the
left hand
and hit each with the right hand into the face. Afterwards they stick
the
smokestacks back into their mouth, reach into their clothes pockets and
give
each other a little piece of white cardboard. This finishes the game
and they
go back inside to pour more drinks in.
This game has great significance with
the
Wasungu. They know that through their rough manners the good in them is
killed.
But they don’t want to abstain from their manners and can’t improve
themselves.
That is why they create a superstition and commit a visual action,
which though
it is rough, is still accepted by all the others because they don’t
know any
better.
The superstition is the following:
They think
that there is a hostile power that besmirches the good in them. But
because
they don’t want to acknowledge, that the good in them is seriously
harmed, they
assume that there is something between the good and the hostile power.
And that
they name with the word “Honour”. They never say that they are bad,
only that
their honour is hurt and like all low standing nations with despicable
manners,
they find themselves an enemy and beat or slaughter them and believe
that
through this they themselves become good again.
Yes, Mukama, you have problems to
imagine
this, because you are surrounded by self-confident, educated people,
but
amongst the Wasungu are many, who continuously feel guilt about their
bad deeds
and want to hit other people because of it. They believe that a person
can
amend their mistakes through a vile attitude against others. Through
this, a
certain privilege has evolved, that those who are rich and powerful
have
monopolised. They say, that only they those, who only work with the
power of
their arms like nature commands, don’t need `Honour’ because they can
be proud
and satisfied anyway.
Because there are many amongst the
Wasungu
that do not work with their hands and never ate a fruit which they
asked the
earth for themselves, it is, that in every house a special room of the
Honour
must be. This room serves all those unlucky ones who are not allowed to
be
satisfied with themselves to restore their `Honour’. The room is
covered with
stone tiles, reflecting glass panels hang on the walls, beneath them
water
flows into beautiful basins. To ensure that there are always enough
witnesses,
the room also serves other purposes which I cannot depict to you.
So, this is the room in which the
game is
played that is called `Honour game’.
Apart from that, this is also very
popular:
The fat chief of the party orders everybody to bang the table with
their
drinking vessels. Then everybody has to pour the drink down their
throat at
once, all together. They call it the `Serpent game’. Never before has
your
servant witnessed anything as repulsive as this game.
After that, the spitting out of the
poured-in
liquids begins.
For this, there is a special,
beautifully
made, hollow sacrificial stone to which the votaries step one after the
other.
They hold themselves on two handles
that are
fastened above the stone whilst they disgorge. With this, the
celebration has
reached its climax. Now everybody says about everybody else that they
have
poured in too much, and destroyed their mind more than it is usual, but
they
himself did it just right, because they know when they had enough. So
another
loud conversation ensues again and some also talk about the body form
of women
and horses.
The Chief still directs the party.
His call
is heard because he beats the table with a broken chair leg. Nobody can
see
through the smoke.
Now the chief lets all empty glasses
be put
up and everybody throws the ones that are not yet spilled, at the empty
ones.
Then he has a holy book fetched and
sits
himself underneath the table and starts to cry aloud.
This is the sign that everybody
starts to
cry, whereby they put their arms around each other and press their lips
onto
the others. With their glowing smokers they burn holes into their
clothes. This
is the end of the celebration.
Now servants arrive, who carry those
who play
dead out of happiness, into cars that bring them to their huts.
In this way the Wasungu celebrate the
day of
their King. They mock the commandment of abstinence that he gave them.
They
make themselves unable to carry weapons and no day is more convenient
for their
enemies, no day weakens their strength more than this one. It’s the
same in
every town. On this day no-one is permitted to keep the power of their
senses.
It would bring the animosity and persecution of his fellow citizens
upon him.
Kind Lord, look, such things to see
was given
to
Your servant
Lukanga Mukara
EIGTH LETTER
Berlin, 15th July
1913
Mukama!
In Chapter 41 the book of Job
describes the
Leviathan: Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leaps
out. Out
of his nose comes smoke, as out of hot kettles and pots. His heart is
hard as
stone (calcified!)
Mukama!
I read in Ibrahim’s letter that you
asked
about the custom of the smoke stinking. He writes: “The King ordered
that the
stink leaves you sent him, were to be taken into an empty hut and to be
set
alight. All the courtiers were assembled, all smelt the smoke and
coughed. It
is inconceivable how human beings can endure the smoke. But there was a
man
from Karagwe present who knew the leaves, he said, one has to crush
them with
the hands, breathe them in through the nose and seal the nostrils with
a clamp.
This custom he learned from a tribe called Kurigai.”
This is what Ibrahim writes. But the
custom
of the Wasungu is different
They roll the dry stink leaves into
sticks
and do always carry a good supply in their clothes. They also carry
little wood
pieces for fire making. The Sungu who wants to smoke-stink, takes a
stink stick
out of his pocket, bites the top off and spits it out. Some increase
the
strength of their teeth by hitting themselves with their hand on top of
the
head while biting into the stink stick. Then the Sungu blows air
through the
stink stick and sticks one end of it into his mouth. He holds it with
his lips.
Then he rubs a fire and sets light to the end which hangs out of his
mouth,
whilst sucking air through the stink stick. This air mixes with the
smoke and
the smoke enters the throat of the Sungu. Then he blows it out, whereby
he
either opens his lips next to the stink stick a little bit or he takes
the
stink stick into his hand whilst the smoke streams out. But some suck
the smoke
into their lungs and blow it out through their nostrils.
By now you are probably laughing and
you
cannot believe what I am writing to you, because it is unbelievable
that a
human being blows smoke out of his mouth. I already got so used to this
sight
that I don’t laugh about it any more. Those stink sticks do not burn
with a
flame, they just glow. The ash is put into little vessels that are
placed everywhere
in the houses where smoke stinkers live.
Not all Wasungu stink smoke. One
distinguishes between stinkers and non-stinkers and among the stinkers,
between
strong stinkers and those who only stink from time to time. This
distinction is
very important as it gives the Wasungu the opportunity to start a
conversation
with a stranger and to count how many stink sticks each of them burns a
day.
They also talk about the size and colour of the stink sticks, where the
leaves
grew and how much money they cost. I listen very often to such
conversations:
one asks, “Would you like a stink stick?” the other one answers, “No, I
don’t
stink smoke.” Then the first one says his name and lifts his hat with
his hand.
Then the smoke stinker starts to explain, that it is a habit he cannot
give up,
everything else he can do without, only that he must stink smoke. He
stinks
already so-and-so many years and now the medicine man has forbidden it
and that
is why he is doing it secretly, he has a bad heart, petrified veins and
sometimes
he is giddy; there are stink sticks which are said to be less harmful
but they
do not taste as good, and that his father and his brothers stink too. A
cousin
of his is a non-stinker and that the price of stink sticks went up last
week.
If the other one is also a stinker, then they take out their stink
sticks and
exchange one. They then write down where the other one has bought them.
These
conversations happen mostly in those cars in which the Wasungu travel
to get
there, where they pursue their tomfooleries with other crazies. Those
cars are
divided into some for smoke stinkers and others for non-stinkers. It is
written
on the outside in big letters.
Only a few women stink smoke. If a
woman is
present, it is custom to ask her permission to stink and only then is
it
allowed to blow smoke into her face. the door.
Some say yes and others no. This way
a
conversation starts everywhere. Especially these questions occupy the
Wasungu a
lot: at which age children should be allowed to suck on stink sticks,
if women
do have a right to breathe through stink sticks and at which age adult
men
should stop stinking because it is endangering their lives. The Wasungu
complain that their young people are starting to stink smoke much
earlier than
themselves and that because of this it is necessary to beat the
children more
and harder; that women never used to blow smoke but that now it has
become a
female custom to roll chopped stink leaves into envelope paper and to
smoke-stink these.
The consequences of the smoke
stinking are
multiple. The stinkers die earlier than the non-stinkers, which makes
those
happy who make a living out of the differences in the statistics, the
Numberfreds. Many smoke stinkers get tumours in their stomachs, their
lungs rot
prematurely, their veins become petrified, their head aches and the
children of
smoke stinkers are sickly. The bad habit of smoke stinking is part of
what the
Wasungu call “healthy economics”. It is unintelligible, that such an
unhealthy
habit is called something healthy, isn’t it? But that is the way it is
and in
their common idiocy they do not realise this: because many Wasungu want
to
shorten their lives by stinking smoke, many people, men, women and
children
have to go into the houses where stink sticks are made and work there.
They get
money for this, and, for the money, bread. But because the fields are
used for
the cultivation of stink plants, the fields for wheat become smaller
and the
bread dearer. To be able to eat enough, the workers have to spend more
time
making stink sticks so that they get enough money to buy bread. But if
one day
less stink sticks would be bought, so say the Numberfreds, the stink
leaf
workers would be unemployed and starve. The people who sell the stink
sticks do
not want the stinkers to stink less as, well as the fools who make the
vessels
for the ashes. And because from every sold stink stick money is paid to
the
government, the government does not want it either, because then they
could not
pay the Numberfreds and those fools who write about the noxiousness of
smoke
stinking. They are all afraid to be unemployed then.
There are also wondermen who tell the
already
ill smoke stinkers to stink less, they get money for doing that and buy
bread
with it. And others, who make medicines to cure the induration of the
veins,
and sell them expensively. That is, why there are not only warnings
against
smoke stinking, but why everywhere is written “MAKE SMOKE!” No-one
realises
that the bread would be cheaper and that the people who make stink
sticks in
those houses would go into the fields where now stink plants are
growing and
plant wheat there.
Yes, the Numberfreds fear, that these
people
grow themselves what they need and want, and that because of this no
more cars
will have to drive hither and yon, and that the people, because they
have
healthy work, live too long and eat more bread. This is why they call
the
making of stink sticks a flourishing business and talk about healthy
economic
development. But it seems that those, who are used to stinking smoke
are
addicted and have difficulties to stop. Be happy that this bad habit is
unknown
in Kitara.
This is what Lukanga has to report
about the
smoke stinking of the Wasungu.
Kind hearted Lord, beware Kitara of
the smoke
stinkers.
Your
Lukanga Mukara
NINTH LETTER
Birkhain, 15th October 1913
Mukama, Master of the Cattle!
Since three month I am again in
solitude and
I live on a mountain and in a forest. Here I met both: rain and sun;
both: cold
and warmth; both: sorrow and happiness, until the happiness grew and
that was
in the last days. There came those who taught me that there is a hope
for the
people of the Wasungu. About these people I want to tell you now.
When I moved into the mountain
forest, it was
the time of the wheat harvest and then the grass and herb cutting
began, and
when the moon returned, the farmers dug the roots out of the earth and
picked
the fruits. There it was one morning. I had listened to the wild horned
animals
that bellows in the forest because it was the time of their rutting and
I
acquired more wisdom, then also in this country, the animals are the
only
teachers of the people. Now I lied down to rest in my grass-hut at the
mountain
brook. There I could hear voices down on the path and amongst a group
of young
Wasungu I recognised the man from the Korongo tribe. I packed my sack
and
hurried after the wanderers. I took the hand of the Korongo. He was
pleased to
see me and everybody was nice to me, the girls and the boys. They could
walk
and jump; talk, laugh and sing. They didn’t wear a body cocoon and no
tight
shoes. They didn’t wear tail feathers of wild birds on their heads.
Their own
hair hung in golden plats across their back, rings of red berry adorned
their
heads. When Lukanga saw all this, he became happy and followed them
where they
went: down the mountain and up another one, where an ancient chieftain
abode
reaches into the sky.
Many boys and girls gathered together
there.
They sat down. One spoke and the others listened to what the speaker
said.
Mukama, when I myself heard this, I
knew
news. I knew that there is evil from which this nation can free
themselves. And
I saw that the children of the Wasungu could achieve great things.
Then a sungu got up and said: “We
want that
every Sungu owns land and we hate it that so many live so close
together. Only
those who have land and a father-hut, have got a homeland and can fight
for the
peoples land.
And everybody called out loud, as a
sign that
they wanted this too, what he said.
There another says: “we want to
rejoice over
our people, what they can do, what they are and we want to stick
together
because we are children of one nation. We all speak the same language,
we know
the deeds of our fathers, so we do what we do as part of a nation: we
are the
Wasungu.
If you now thought, Mukama, that I
didn’t
call out too, you are mistaken. I realised that it is God-given when
every
nation has it own greatness.
But there were also those speaking
who wanted
it to be different. They said: “We want to make a distinction between
young and
old: because the young are clever and the old are stupid. We don’t want
to obey
anybody and laugh at anybody who does something for the nation. We only
want to
think about ourselves. Thinking and being young is sufficient.”
There only a few called , the others
said: “What
you said you can want for yourself, but we don’t want this, we want the
other.”
And this was good, because this is
the old
mistake of the Wasungu: All the time there have been some who saw the
good. But
because many ways lead there, they argued amongst themselves which way
is the
best. And that they did so thoroughly and in the process they poured so
much
into themselves, until they didn’t feel like giving themselves to the
good
anymore and other nations took the good.
Then came an experienced man
everybody knew
because he thought a lot and wrote it down for the others whenever he’d
found
something. He said:”We want to be for that every Sungu says things as
they are,
and not what they aren’t. We also everybody called loudly.
Then another said:”We have got our
own songs
that we sing and dances, we want to dance them and when we do this we,
want to
go from one mountain to another and be happy. But we want to pass by
all places
where swallowers sit and listen to noise, because there is everything
that isn’t
the manner of real Wasungu: swallowing and pouring-in and smoke blowing
and
girls with the hairs of other people and with the tail feathers of wild
birds.
There everybody called loud and one
stepped
up front and said: “Yes, that’s it. We don’t want to pour in and make
anymore
smoke. Our breath shouldn’t stink and our swallowing shouldn’t belch,
then we
will forever stay young and pristine, and our whole nation will be
strong and
intelligent, the whole world will see from the beauty of our deeds that
we are
the Wasungu.”
Now the whole crowd screamed a loud
call.
Mukama, I was witness to a
magnificent fire
that burned in the heart of noble people. These young people screamed
with
happiness because it was to be permitted that they could do a daily
deed for
their people and nation. I felt this: the Wasungu would grow big
because the
time of pouring in is over and the remaining time very small.
They talked for a long while and one
after
the other spoke. One was more beautiful than the other, every voice
evoked
thought after thoughts: Eighteen month I lived in Kitara and saw the
new
mountain grow from a white hot springs in the earth. This is how long I
am in
the land of the Wasungu and now I am watching the new nation grow, on a
mountain, by the forests.
When it was night, they
all went
down the mountain and wandered till midnight. And I followed them. They
walked
and sang, one of them played on a stringwood. They sang about flowers
and
animals, girls and boys, from the battle and love and nation.
The next morning they
climbed
early onto another hill. It is a law of these young Wasungu that no-one
is
permitted to speak there where he has already spoken one day. They know
that
the thoughts of people are purified through a long way. This is why
they move
to another mountain before they continue to talk. The time of year was cold. But we warmed
whilst
walking and bathed in a mountain brook underneath high trees. Then we
walked
onto a big grass field and found people there, as many as grass stalks.
They talked in a circle and held
their hands
whilst they sang and danced. They danced with nude feet, as we do in
Kitara.
And although they were dressed, they were beautiful, because their
dress was
different to that of the other Wasungu. So I was happy together with
them until
the evening. A high fire burned and they sang. Then everybody was
silent and
one of them stood at the fire and spoke the language of the Wasungu.
All around
them was the night and the moonshine and the stars. I saw the
silhouettes of
young men and women. I saw their eyes and the fire-shine in them. I
saw, as a
stranger, the future of a nation of people.
There a thousand voices sang the
song:”Great
is the land of the Wasungu”. But I bowed my head and cried...
Great King, You sent out
your servant
Lukanga Mukara