And Home Was Kariakoo Read online

  In January and February 1959, the English writer Evelyn Waugh, at the age of fifty-five wishing to winter at a place not wasted by tourism or politics (and without a prohibition on alcohol, like parts of India), came to eastern Africa on the Rhodesia Castle and landed in Mombasa. He then travelled south, mostly by road, visiting many towns and taking full advantage of his privileged status to receive hospitality (and information) from local British officials. On February 24 he flew from Dar to Kilwa Masoko and the next day was driven to Kilwa Kivinje. His travels were quick and what he saw was fragmentary, but still the observations were often quite apt:

  Drove to Kilwa Kivinje—well laid out, well planted, picturesque, decaying. There are no European inhabitants.… In the ramshackle little German hospital Indian doctors rather ironically displayed their meagre equipment. A few youths squatted on their doorsteps playing the endless and unintelligible game [bao] of dropping nuts very swiftly and earnestly on a board hollowed out for them as for marbles in solitaire. No crafts survive in the town except, among the women, very simple grass matting.… There are a few Indian grocers and a pleasant little market of fish and vegetables. Meat is almost unprocurable.… It was a regrettable and much regretted decision to move the boma [government offices] to Masoko. Anyone having business at headquarters has a walk of nearly forty miles.

  Visiting Kilwa Kivinje every morning to look around, we are a curiosity in a town where very little happens. It is assumed that we are looking around to buy property. What else would Asians want here? The plaza, facing the harbour, pulls us like a magnet every time. Once, when the tide is out, we walk on the squelchy wet sand out to the dhows, watch the repairs in progress, listen to the tock-tock-tock of small hammer on wood, as pull-carts arrive carrying sacks of salt to be loaded.

  One afternoon we stop on the main road at the site of the mwembe kinyonga, the hangman’s mango tree. I first read about this tree in Dar’s daily paper, the Tanganyika Standard, as a schoolboy, at about the time of the country’s independence. Julius Nyerere, the prime minister designate, the report said, had visited Kilwa and was taken by the town’s elders to the site where their fathers were hanged for resisting the Germans. A casual bit of news, but it intrigued me sufficiently that this became a place I wished to see someday. But now as we walk over to this almost mythical site, as significant surely as any war memorial elsewhere, it turns out to be a disappointment that signifies to me many things at once. The dead tree—and the hanged men—are memorialized by a rather forlorn white monument standing at the roadside by itself, close to two huts and a vegetable patch; there is no ornamentation or boundary, any relief to give it stature and draw attention. The inscription is crudely painted by hand in black, its uneven lines ending abruptly with broken words. The information presented is inaccurate. This careless memorial is the contribution of the independent African government; and—one thinks in despair—it was probably constructed with foreign aid, anyway. It is further irony that the century-old memorial down the road to two Germans martyred to colonialism is more impressive, the inscriptions precise.

  Behind the adjacent hospital is a cemetery that could have been used to bury the hanged.

  German colonialism was resisted all along the coast and in parts of the interior, from 1885 to almost 1910. The leaders of these insurgencies showed courage and resilience and fought to the bitter end; sometimes they used Islam as a rallying cry, and only the Germans’ well-equipped and greater numbers, with the aid of sea power, defeated them; when captured, the leaders were hanged from a locally designated tree. One of those hanged in Kilwa, at its famous tree on the site where I stand, was Hassan Omari Makunganya, a chief of the Yao tribe.

  One morning when the German forces based in Kilwa were away in the interior to quell Chief Mkwawa’s now legendary resistance, Hassan Omari attacked the boma with a large force. He almost took it. But the boma proved a good fortress, the askaris with their superior weapons were adequate, and Makunganya was forced to retreat. He continued a guerrilla war in the area, until von Wissmann, the soldier governor in Dar es Salaam (and Bismarck’s personal friend), became utterly exasperated and sent reinforcements to capture the chief. Makunganya fought to the end and was captured but not killed. Von Wissmann himself came to Kilwa to give him a trial, bringing the rope with him to hang Makunganya and three of his companions.

  Makunganya was a charismatic figure, and his capture and public hanging from the mango tree by von Wissmann, who himself was already feared and held in much awe in the country, must have been a momentous occasion for Kilwa. It is described in some detail in a Swahili long poem, called “The War Against Hassan bin Omari” by Mwalimu Mbaraka bin Shomari.

  There are in fact a number of historical poems describing resistance to the German occupation of mainland Tanzania. Swahili poetry is traditionally a public form. The poems are sung to an audience, always to the same tune, in a low droning intonation. I can recall, while walking in my Kariakoo neighbourhood, hearing poetry recited on the radio somewhere. It is a haunting, unforgettable sound. Even today, Swahili newspapers will devote a column or two to poetry sent in by the public.

  Among Makunganya’s collaborators there were four Indian shopkeepers of Kilwa. According to the poet Mzee bin Ali bin Kidigo bin il-Qadiri, who narrates the proceedings of the trial in his “The Poem of Makunganya,” upon the Indians’ denial of the charges against them, the German officer Hans Zache stormed to their houses and found the incriminating evidence in a book in the house of Kasum Pira. This was presumably a log of the revolution to come, when all the Germans, including Wissmann would be dispatched to Berlin.

  By official German accounts the death sentences of the four Indians were commuted to imprisonment and heavy fines. The poet narrates:

  Wahindi wakatiwa nyororoni, wakawekwa karakoni

  sitima wakangojea, ilipokuja wakapakiwa

  wote kujisafiria, wakafika Bender-Essalama

  …

  wakashukwa kama watumwa, kette ilivowangia.

  Leo mnajuta nini baa la kujitakia?

  The Indians were chained and put into prison

  waiting for the steamer. When it arrived they were put into it.

  They all travelled, reached Dar es Salaam.

  …

  They were brought out like slaves, chains cutting them.

  Today why regret the trouble you yourselves invited?

  From Dar es Salaam, the poet says, they were sent to Tanga to work on the railway, but this is disputed by scholars.

  The poet was from Zanzibar and his name implies that he may have been from the Qadiriyya Sufi sect. (I have altered the translation a little.) His tone is sycophantic towards the Germans and mocking towards Makunganya. Wissmann “has a pure soul,” “is glorious … has no fear,” “is a good man.”

  (Such poetry, with “Uncle Tom” attitudes, have been found extremely embarrassing, especially by the intellectuals of the 1960s, who would rather have wished them away. Perhaps there’s greater tolerance—and wisdom—now, enough to separate poetry and history from sycophancy, and even to understand the sycophancy. And with so much dependence on Europe today—even the volume from which I quote the poetry comes from Germany—who dares cast a stone with a clear conscience? We should not forget either that Makunganya himself was a businessman and traded in slaves.)

  Mwalimu Shomari, another poet who deals with the subject, leaves no doubt about local feelings following the hanging of Makunganya:

  nawahubiri wenzangu

  hii ezi ya Wazungu

  shikeni maneno yangu

  wepukane na hatari

  babu zetu madiwani

  kwanza ni masultani

  sasa atajua nani

  kwa mato kutubusiri

  I tell you, my friends

  it’s the time of the European

  hold on to my words

  and avoid trouble

  Our grandfathers were diwans

  they were sultans

  now who knows us

&n
bsp; who notices us?

  Il-Qadiri’s poem was translated and published by Hans Zache (known locally as Bwana Saha); Mwalimu Shomari’s poem is from an edition by Carl Velten. Both Germans were present at Makunganya’s trial and hanging, as was Mwalimu Shomari, who, according to Velten, helped him translate the letters incriminating the plotters.

  There is a Makunganya Street in Dar, next to Indira Gandhi Street. But there is no mention of him on the memorial to the mango tree where he was hanged; it mentions Kinjikitile, the prophet of the great Maji Maji War of 1905–08, as having been hanged there, but according to historical sources, Kinjikitile was captured and executed elsewhere.

  We are sitting at the restaurant on the main crossroads one morning, over a breakfast of mandazi and chai. Outside in the glaring sunshine, on the road, as cheerful as ever are the buffed-bodied bus touts. All that coiled-up energy, you feel, bears some menacing potential—perhaps it needs only a spark to set it off? And you wouldn’t want to be in the way. Barely visible across the road is the white German monument. Down from it is the opposition party office, looking lively—it’s hardly surprising for the opposition to have a following in this long-neglected town. We’ve noticed that the breakfast of choice here is “supu”—a beef soup with one big bone in it—and chapati. The only people who can afford it are the bus touts and a few others who look like businessmen.

  One such businessman, a slight, well-dressed man in shirt and pressed trousers, upon overhearing our inquiries, volunteers the information that he belongs to the Qadiriyya Sufi tarika (order) and agrees to show us his mosque, which is close by. It turns out to be a fairly new, tall white structure. Outside it stands the sheikh, a handsome, tall, black-bearded African in immaculate white kanzu and cap. Yes, they do the dhikri, the sheikh answers with twinkling eyes, a silent meditation every day, and yes, once in a while they do have the chant—and in a beautiful voice he sings it, “La illaha ilallah, Muhammadur rasoolullah, Abdul Qadir Jilani …” The second name upon whom God’s blessing is invoked is that of the twelfth-century Sufi mystic from Iran, founder of the order, whose branches can be found all over the world. It is an enchanting experience.

  Later that morning we have tea with the businessman, and he tells us he is an exporter of timber to Zanzibar and beyond. He has a mill in the forest.

  (Photo Caption 7.3)

  We return at night from Kilwa Kivinje, the landscape pitch-black except for the occasional solitary lamp outside a dwelling: a family cooking, or sitting down to eat, or simply chatting for a while before turning in. And it hits me, something that is so obvious and that I always knew: so much of the country lies in total darkness at night.

  But the African night is unforgettable; it sits forever on your heart.

  8.

  Quiloa, the Island

  MILTON’S “QUILOA” WAS KILWA KISIWANI, THE ISLAND. A view of the Island is what our beach hotel promises its few visitors, and provides, in the hazy distance towards the southeast; but tourists come to Tanzania for its animals, not its history. Tanzania’s history is of little interest to the world, or even apparently to itself. The Island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but that means practically nothing so far.

  We decide to visit the Island.

  Masoko harbour, a short distance from the hotel, is quiet. Under a large tree some hundred yards from the water a group of men and women stand and sit waiting patiently for something to happen. The two European prospectors from our hotel have flown to Mombasa; their ship, heavy with equipment, is set to depart soon with its Filipino crew to join them. One of the young men waves at us. We hoped to visit the Island by dhow, but the wind is wrong—it will take us three hours to cross the channel by dhow, the motor boat operator tells us, but he can take us in fifteen minutes. We have no choice and negotiate a price. We board the boat, and this being their signal, the waiting men and women come down at a trot to take their seats around us, without charge—they’re going our way anyway. The sea is choppy, and the full boat cuts diagonally across the channel towards the other shore. When we arrive we remove our shoes and wade to the beach. By this time a man with a cell phone has attached himself to us as guide. He seems quite unnecessary; at the ruins he tells us what’s already on the plaques, which tell us exactly what’s written in our slim volume on ancient Kilwa. The published literature on the ruins is sparse and out of print. Here, at the site, there is no resident office, no literature; no one who knows anything more than us.

  No other town or city on the East African coast, no other place in southern Africa has a written premodern history all its own. Kilwa does. The story of Kilwa has been told in the Kilwa Chronicle, or The Book of the Consolation of the History of Kilwa, a history set to paper around 1550 in Arabic, at the instigation of the ruling sultan, who feared that the story of Kilwa would soon be forgotten. Says the writer of the Chronicle, whose name is not known (because the page bearing it is missing),

  Historians have said, amongst their assertions, that the first man to come to Kilwa came in the following way. There arrived a ship in which there were people who claimed to have come from Shiraz in the land of the Persians. It is said there were seven ships: the first stopped at Mandakha; the second at Shaugu; the third at a town called Yanbu; the fourth at Mombasa; the fifth at the Green Island [Pemba]; the sixth at Kilwa; and the seventh at Hanzuan [in the Comores]. They say that the masters of these first six ships were brothers, and that the one who went to the town of Hanzuan was their father. God alone knows all truth.

  This is the founding myth. Besides the oral tradition there is ample evidence in the form of coin finds, pottery, and inscriptions (for example, at the mosque in Kizimkazi, Zanzibar, dated 1107) of ancient Persian connection to the Swahili coast. Iran is known to have had a strong maritime presence in the Indian Ocean from pre-Islamic times, and there were Persian settlements in many ports. In East Africa, many coastal people consider themselves Shirazi, after the city in Iran. (The ruling party in Zanzibar, soon after its independence, was called the Afro-Shirazi Party [ASP].) The first sultan of Kilwa, and a Persian according to the Chronicle, was Ali bin al Hasan; copper and silver coins found at the site and nearby bearing his name attest to his existence, and place his rule at around 1070. He was known as Nguo Nyingi (“Much Cloth”), says the Chronicle, for having bought Kilwa Island for a lot of coloured cloth.

  According to archaeologists interpreting Kilwa’s desolate, grey stone ruins, by the late eleventh century Kilwa already boasted a stone mosque. It had a flat roof of coral laid over mangrove rafters supported by nine wooden pillars. What remains of that structure today are portions of the boundary wall with arched entranceways, the roof having collapsed. During the economic boom of the fourteenth century in Kilwa this mosque received a large extension, with fifteen domes, most of which still exist, and octagonal pillars of composite stone, also now very much in evidence. This larger combined mosque is called the Great Mosque. It marks a period of extensive and grand construction on the Island, the most impressive of which would have been the Great House, or Husuni Kubwa, only the foundations of which remain.

  Kilwa Island was the southern extremity of the Islamic world and its rise as a commercial empire corresponded with the rise of the Abbasid Empire centred at Baghdad and the growing market for gold, copper, ivory, timber, and many other items. Gold and copper were mined in Zimbabwe down south, brought to the port of Sofala—on the Mozambique coast—and dispersed through Kilwa to the commercial centres abroad.

  Sometime probably in March, in 1329, that remarkable Moroccan globetrotter Ibn Battuta arrived in Kilwa, having sailed from Aden, gone round the horn of Africa, and touched port at Mogadishu and Mombasa. This was before his more famous voyages to India and China. Ibn Battuta says, of his visit to East Africa,

  After one night in Mombasa, we sailed on to Kilwa, a large city on the coast whose inhabitants are black. A merchant told me that a fortnight’s sail beyond Kilwa lies Sofala, where gold is brought from a place a month’s journey i
nland.…

  The city of Kilwa is among the finest and most substantially built in the world. Its sultan at the time of my visit was Abu’l Mazaffar Hassan, surnamed Abu al Mawahib [the Father of Gifts], renowned for his humility, generosity, and hospitality. I saw at his court many sharifs from Iraq and the region of Mecca.

  The Kilwa Chronicle nicely corroborates this, and a copper coin minted in Kilwa has been found in Zimbabwe, bearing al-Mawahib’s name.

  Such was the reach of Kilwa on the Isle. It had wrested the southern African gold monopoly from Mogadishu, and its merchants were among the wealthiest in the region. They lived in multistoreyed houses of stone and marble with sunken courtyards and indoor plumbing, they wore silk and cotton, gold and silver, they ate off porcelain dishes. The Island’s reputation had reached legendary status abroad, though few had seen it. Milton would equate it (or Sofala) with the biblical Ophir, from where King Solomon received gold and silver. Other accounts described it along the lines of a walled, European city surrounded by luxurious vegetation, forgetting that it was an island off the coast of Africa.

  While in the mind of Europe Kilwa belonged to the realm of fantasy and myth, the city had a more mundane and an older relationship with India and China. Leopard skins, ivory, and rhino horns had a market in the Far East. Correspondingly, Chinese porcelain has been found in many coastal towns where it was used to decorate mosques and the better homes. Cotton from India was a valued commodity, as was silk from China. In the fifteenth century giraffes were shipped to China, one particular giraffe making a stopover in Bengal, whose ruler then presented it to the Emperor of China.