Photography and the religious encounter: Ambiguity and aesthetics in missionary representations of the Luba of South East Belgian Congo

Comparative Studies in Society and History

Volumn 53, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 38-74

  Maxwell, David ^a  

^a KEELE UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

MODERNIZATION; PHOTOGRAPHY; PUBLISHING; RELIGION;

BIOKO; EQUATORIAL GUINEA; LUBA;

EID: 79960749348     PISSN: 00104175     EISSN: 14752999     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0010417510000629     Document Type: Article

References (187)

1. Grant Wacker, "Searching for Eden with a Satellite Dish," in R. T. Hughes, ed., The Primitive Church in the Modern World (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 142, 154-55.
2. P. Harries, Butterflies and Barbarians: Swiss Missions and Systems of Knowledge in South- East Africa (Oxford: James Currey, 2007);
3. P. Forster, T. Cullen Young: Missionary and Anthropologist (Hull: Hull University Press);
4. J. Clifford, Person and Myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).
5. His most significant scholarly publications were Proverbes des Baluba (Elisabethville: Editions de la Revue Juridique, 1958);
6. And Luba Religion and Magic in Custom and Belief (Tervuren: Annales de Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, 1961). These were published earlier in Bulletin des Juridictions Indigènes et du Droit coutumier Congolais.
7. David Maxwell, "'The Soul of the Luba':W. F. P. Burton, the Congo Evangelistic Mission and Belgian Colonial Science," History and Anthropology 19, 4 (2008) 325-51.
8. Paul Jenkins, "On Using Historical Missionary Photographs in Modern Discussion," Le Fait Missionnaire 10 (2001): 71-89, 73.
9. D. Poole, "An Excess of Description: Ethnography, Race and Visual Technologies," Annual Review of Anthropology 34 (2005): 159-79, 159. (Pubitemid 41638305)
10. E. Edwards, Raw Histories: Photographs, Anthropology and Museums (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 3.
11. Poole, "An Excess of Description": 159.
12. J. Sassoon, "Becoming Anthropological: A Cultural Biography of E. L. Mitchell's Photographs of Aboriginal People," Aboriginal History 28 (2004): 59-86.
13. In South Africa the 1992 exhibition was curated by the University of Witwatersrand and also displayed at the University of Cape Town
14. see A. Nettleton, ed., The Collection of W. F. P. Burton (Witwatersrand: University of Witwatersrand Galleries, 1992).
15. Two useful essays which commented on the South African Exhibition are: Michael Godby, "Framing the Colonial Subject: The Photographs of W. F. P. Burton (1886-1971) in the Former Belgian Congo";
16. And Patricia Davison, "Different Visions: A Comparison of the Central African Collections of W. F. Burton and Irma Stern," both in Social Dynamics 19, 1 (1993): 11-25, and 16-38.
17. The American exhibition (1996) was organized and presented by the Museum for African Art in New York and traveled to the National Museum of African Art inWashington, D.C.
18. see M. Nooter Roberts and A. Roberts, eds., Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History (New York: Museum for African Art, 1996).
19. A "fairly representative section" of the Burton collection was exhibited earlier in the Africana Museum Johannesburg 1939-1940.
20. N. Leibhammer and F. Rankin Smith, "Redemption and Reconstruction: The Burton Collection," in A. Nettleton, ed., The Collection of W. F. P. Burton (Witwatersrand: University ofWitwatersrand Galleries, 1992), 15.
21. Some of Burton's collection is on permanent display in Tervuren, Belgium. Masks from his Tervuren collection illustrate a number of books on African art. Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium, file, Burton. Some Burton material was also used in the exhibition, presented in Musée Dapper, Paris, 1993-1994.
22. F. Neyt, Luba. Aux Sources Du Zaïre (Paris: Editions Dapper, 1994).
23. H. Geismar, "Malakula: A Photographic Collection," Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, 3 (2006), 521-63, 524.
24. C. Pinney "Introduction," in C. Pinney and N. Peterson, eds., Photography's other Histories (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 10.
25. Similar arguments have made by C. Geary-see "Photography: History" in J. Middleton, ed., The New Encyclopaedia of Africa (New York: Scribners, 2008), 143.
26. Pinney, "Introduction," 7.
27. Poole, "Excess of Description," 163-64.
28. R. Becker, "The Photographs of W. F. P. Burton," in A. Nettleton, ed., The Collection of W. F. P. Burton (Witwatersrand: University of Witwatersrand Galleries, 1992).
29. W. F. P. Burton, Babylon, Truth Series No. 2 (Kendal: Akinson and Pollitt, n.d.), 5, 6, 12.
30. H. Behrend, "Photo Magic: Photographs in Practices of Healing and Harming in East Africa," Journal of Religion in Africa 33, 2 (2003) 129-45, 132.
31. W. F. P. Burton, Signs Following (London: Victory Press, ND), vi, 24-27.
32. Wacker, "Searching for Eden," 142.
33. University of Witwatersrand Art Galleries, file, Burton Personal, Burton to Owen Saunders, South Africa, 8 July 1925.
34. Maxwell, "Soul of the Luba," 327-28.
35. D. Garrard, "History of the Zaire Evangelistic Mission/ Communauté Pentecôtiste au Zaire 1915-82," 2 vols. (PhD diss., University of Aberdeen, 1983);
36. Congo, Democratic Republic Of," in S. Burgess, ed., International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001).
37. H. Womersley, Wm F. P. Burton, Congo Pioneer (Eastbourne, England: Victory Press, 1973), 69-79.
38. CEMR 56, Sept.-Oct. 1935.
39. CAM [Central African Missions] file, Burton to Salter 1919-1930, letter 19 Sept. 1928.
40. CAM, Burton to Salter, 29 May 1923; 25 Mar. 1924.
41. CAM, Burton to Salter, 25 Mar. 1924. There is no evidence that Burton succeeded in publishing in these magazines.
42. Archives of the United Methodist Church, Drew University, Madison, N.J., Springer Archive, 1001-7-7:06, Congo Evangelistic Mission, Burton, W. P., correspondence and articles, 1924-1953.
43. See D. Crawford, Back to the Long Grass (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924).
44. B. Meyer, "Religious Revelation, Secrecy and the Limits of Visual Representation," Anthropological Theory 6, 4 (2006): 431-53, 432.
45. For a useful history on Religion's shifting use of media, see J. Stolow, "Religion and/as Media," Theory, Culture and Society 22, 4 (2005): 119-45. (Pubitemid 41203769)
46. See J. Ryan, Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualisation of the British Empire (London: Reaktion Books, 1997).
47. For useful comparative literature see missionary photography, see C. Geary "Missionary Photography: Private and Public Readings," African Arts 24, 4 (1991): 48-59, 99-100;
48. P. Jenkins, "The Earliest Generation of Missionary Photographs in West Africa and the Portrayal of Indigenous People and Culture," History in Africa 20 (1993): 89-118.
49. L'Illustration Congolaise, Journal Mensuel De Propagande Coloniale. See Christaud Geary, In and Out of Focus: Images from Central Africa, 1885-1960 (New York: Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, 2002), 43-50.
50. J. Lake Kellersberger, Congo Crosses: A Study of Congo Womanhood (Boston: Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions, 1936);
51. Geary, In and Out of Focus, 59-80
52. Womersley, Wm F. P. Burton, Congo Pioneer, 103.
53. E.-J. Devroey and C. Neuhuys, Léon Dardenne 1865-1912: Peintre de la Mission scientifique du Katanga (1898-1900) (Tervuren: Musée Royal de L'Afrique Centrale, 1965).
54. For instance, The Cornish Riviera Pictured by Ernest Haslehurst: Described by Sidney Heath (London: Blackie & Son, 1921);
55. G. E. Milton, Beautiful Britain: The Tossachs (London: A. G. Black Ltd., 1916);
56. L. Richmond, The Technique of Oil Painting (London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1929), in the possession of David Womersley.
57. Meyer, "Religious Revelation": 438.
58. University of Witwatersrand Art Galleries, box W. F. P. Burton, file correspondence with Wits, 1929. The manuscript was not published in English until 1961 (see below). The image of a boxer striking the air is a well-known Pauline allusion about the effectiveness of Christian service (1 Corinthians 9.26).
59. Musée Royal de L'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium, dossier 373, Cahen to Burton, 16 May, and 9 June 1960.
60. Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, Belgium, Burton Correspondence, dossier 473, Burton to Schouteden, 9 May 1929;
61. Maxwell, "Soul of the Luba," 328-31.
62. University of Witwatersrand Art Galleries, Burton to Richards, 7 Jan. 1940.
63. Ibid., 16 Mar. 1940.
64. Davison, "Different Visions," 29. On the importance of Notes and Queries
65. see Poole, "Excess of Description," 164.
66. CAM, Burton to Salter, 10 Apr. 1930.
67. Poole, "Excess of Description," 163.
68. D. N. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London: J. Murray, 1857);
69. V. L. Cameron, Across Africa, 2 vols. (London: Harper and Brothers, 1877).
70. Secret society" is another problematic term from the colonial era intended to exoticize. Like many Belgian colonial administrators, Burton viewed "associations" such budye and kasandji as clandestine and threatening sources of alternative authority. This approach toward secret societies persisted until the 1950s, although Vanden Bossche in his 1954 survey acknowledged that some were not "secret" at all and posed no threat.
71. J. Vanden Bossche, Sectes et Associations Indigènes au Congo Belge (Force Publique Leopoldville-Kalina: Editions du Bulletin, 1954).
72. J-L. Vellut, "Rural Poverty in Western Shaba, c. 1900-1930," in R. Palmer and N. Parsons, eds., The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa (London: Heineman, 1977);
73. Mining in Belgian Congo," in D. Birmingham and P. Martin, eds., History of Central Africa, vol. 2 (London: Longman, 1983);
74. B. Jewsiewicki "Rural Society and the Belgian Colonial Economy," in D. Birmingham and P. Martin, eds., History of Central Africa, vol. 2 (London: Longman, 1983).
75. Edwards, Raw Histories, 10.
76. CAM, see Burton's map 1926 and 1933 maps "Working Sphere of Congo Evangelistic Mission." These maps are on display at CAM Headquarters, Preston, England.
77. CAM, Burton to Salter, 28 Feb. 1934.
78. T. Reefe, The Rainbow and the Kings: A History of the Luba Empire to 1891 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
79. CAM, Burton to Salter, 7 Dec. 1929;
80. File, Burton to Salter, Hettie Burton, "A Missionary Exploration of the Luvidyo Watershed," May 1923.
81. CAM, file, Burton to Salter, 22 Oct. 1928.
82. C. Young, Politics in the Congo: Decolonization and Independence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 13-14;
83. F. De Meeus and R. Steenberghen, Les Missions Religieuses au Congo Belge (Bruxelles: Van Dieren, 1947).
84. While the regime sought a monolithic Belgian Catholicism, there were Catholic critics of Belgian colonialism and tensions between Catholic orders.
85. Archives Africaines: Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Bruxelles, General Council of the Assemblies of God, M641 XVIII, "Les Missionnaires de la 'Pentecôte' au Congo," 14, 11, 1922.
86. Archives Africaines, Bruxelles, M640, XIV, CEM, Katanga, Governor General, A. Tilkens, to Minister of Colonies, 5 June 1934.
87. Archives Africaines, Bruxelles, M640, XIV, CEM, Katanga, Governor, p. i, G. Heenen to Governor General, Elisabethville, 5 July 1923; report 10 May 1923.
88. J. Stengers and J. Vansina, "King Leopold's Congo, 1886-1908," in R. Oliver and N. Sanderson, eds., The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 6: From 1870-1905 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
89. There were earlier, smaller waves of conversion amongst the Bakongo: Wyatt MacGaffey, Modern Congo Prophets (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983);
90. J-L. Vellut, Simon Kimbangu: 1921, De la prédication à la deportation: Les Sources, Volume 1: Fonds missionnaires protestants (Bruxelles: ARSOM, 2005)
91. Stengers and Vansina, "King Leopold's Congo," 347-48.
92. B. Jewsiewicki, "Belgian Africa," in A. Roberts, ed., The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 7: From 1905 to 1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 470.
93. Vellut, Simon Kimbangu, ix-x.
94. J. Vansina, Paths in the Rainforests: Towards a History of Political Tradition on Equatorial Africa (London: James Currey, 1990), 239-48.
95. J. D. Y. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 33-47.
96. Ibid., 238.
97. Ibid., 238, 245.
98. W. De Craemer, R. Fox, and J. Vansina, "ReligiousMovements in Central Africa: A Theoretical Study," Comparative Studies in Society and History 18, 4 (1976): 458-75;
99. Vellut, Simon Kimbangu, xi
100. For debates on conversion and rupture, including my own view, see: Joel Robbins "Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture," Current Anthropology 48, 1 (2007): 5-38.
101. Fetish" is a highly problematic term. Burton was usually referring to nkishi (nkisi): wooden memory figures often enhanced with activating agents in magical bundles. He used the terms fetish and idol interchangeably. For discussion of the complex meaning of minkisi
102. see W. MacGaffey, Kongo Political Culture: The Conceptual Challenge of the Particular (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), ch. 5.
103. On domestic service as formation, see Nancy Rose Hunt, "Colonial Fairy Tales and the Knife and Fork Doctrine in the Heart of Africa," in Karen Tranberg Hansen, ed., African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 15.
104. For recent work on African encounters with literacy, see Harries, Butterflies, ch. 7.
105. J. Salter, Abraham: Our First Convert (London: Victory Press, 1936);
106. Burton, Honey Bee (D. Fischer: Johannesburg, c. 1959).
107. CEMR 1, July-Aug. 1923; 2 Oct.-Dec. 1923. The second photo was a picture of Abrahama with his wife and child.
108. On seeing this photo, Abrahama's son was adamant that his father would have nothing to do with such objects under normal circumstances. Interview with Ngoy Kabuya, Ruashi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 13 May 2007. Abrahama was later seriously poisoned.
109. Burton Honey Bee, 60;
110. Salter, Abraham, 14.
111. Salter, Abraham.
112. De Creamer, "Religious Movements";
113. Mary Douglas, The Lele of Kasai (London: Oxford University Press, 1963).
114. Salter, Abraham, 32-35. Notions of heaven, hell, and judgment pre-dated Christianity;
115. See W. Burton, Nkindji [Proverbs] (Preston: R. Seed & Sons, 1921).
116. Burton, Honey Bee, 19. The Gospels and Gospel stories in primers were published from 1920 onward.
117. Interviews with Edmund and Heather Rowlands, Margate, England, 15 Mar. 2006; and David Womersley, Rushdon, Northants, England, 27 Sept. 2006 and 29 Jan. 2008.
118. W. F. P. Burton, When God Changes a Man: A True Story of this Great Change in the Life of a Slave Raider (London, Victory Press, 1929), 56.
119. W. Arens, The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
120. Ngoi A. Marcel recounts Christianized returnees' fears of Luba heathenism: The Life of Shalumbo (Eshiba dya Yamena): The Beginnings of the E.P.C.O (CEM) among the Basongye, pt. 2, Eddie Rowlands, trans. (Kipushya: Eglise Pentecôtiste au Congo, 1968).
121. W. F. P. Burton, Mudishi, Congo Hunter (Luton: Victory Press 1947).
122. See also Peel, Religious Encounter, 237.
123. This observation was made by the young African anthropologist and subsequent Kenyan President, Jomo Kenyatta. Congrès International des Sciences Anthropologiques et Ethnologiques: Compte-rendu de la Première Session, Londres 1934 (London 1934), 213-15. I am grateful to Dmitri van den Bersselaar for this reference.
124. Peel, Religious Encounter, 237.
125. CAM, Burton to Salter, 29 July 1933. In 1926 there was an official investigation of CEM catechists on the instigation of Catholic missionaries. General Council of the Assemblies of God, M+E (24) 43, CEM, L'Administrateur Werniers, Bukama, 2 Oct. 1926.
126. On persecution, see Peel, Religious Encounter, 235-38.
127. Peel, Religious Encounter, 245.
128. Burton may have been referring to an nzunzi, but he and Womersley continued to use the term kanzunji (spelt slightly differently) for "dreamchild" or "bogey": CEMR, May-June, 43; July-Aug. 1933; Nov.-Dec. 1937. There were differences in dialect across Luba territory.
129. CEMR 18, Oct.-Dec. 1927.
130. Interview, Ngoi Lomami, 5 May, Lubumbashi, DRC.
131. Burton, Honey Bee, 35.
132. Burton first told the full story in the CEMR 60, May-June 1936.
133. M. Ferme, The Underneath of Things: Violence, History and the Everyday in Sierra Leone (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001), 4.
134. Meyer, "Religious Revelation": 441, 445.
135. W. F. P. Burton, Congo Sketches (London: Victory Press, 1950), 55-58.
136. M. Nooter, "Luba Art and Polity: Creating Power in a Central African Kingdom (Ph.D thesis, Columbia University, 1991), 12.
137. There is a similar, smaller series in the Tervuren collection.
138. See Nooter Roberts and Roberts, Memory, ch. 6. Use of Burton's photographs and paintings are made throughout the Roberts study.
139. CEMR 43, July-Aug. 1933.
140. Nooter Roberts and Roberts, Memory, 92-97.
141. W. F. P. Burton, Report 10, 12 Feb. 1917.
142. Burton, Mudishi, 125-26.
143. In CEMR 57, Nov.-Dec. 1935, Harold Womersley published a photo of Chief Nangole of Kabongo, described as a modern chief: "A Trophy."
144. Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Documentaires sur l'Afrique Centrale (CEDAC), Lumumbashi, DRC, Territoire de Moba 3.5.5.4, Dist du Tanganyika, "Extrait du rapport de voyage d'inspection du 13/9/15-au 17/1/1916."
145. CAM, Burton to Salter, 28 Apr. 1923, 24 July 1928, 7 Oct., 22 Oct., and 25 Oct. 1932.
146. Interview, Banze Kalumba Shayumba, Mwanza, DRC 23, May 2007. The Spiritans placed a similar premium on the conversion of chiefs;
147. see, "Deux chefs Indigènes Baptises au Moment De Mourir," Annales Apostolique, Jan. 1933.
148. CEMR 40, Jan.-Feb. 1933.
149. Archives Africaines: Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Bruxelles,M+ E (24) 43, correspondence dated 1915-1916.
150. Burton, Honey Bee, 5-7.
151. Nettleton, The Collection of W. F. P. Burton, object 247.
152. CAM, Burton to Salter, 25 Nov. 1932.
153. J. Mack, "Documenting the Cultures of Southern Zaire: The Photographs of the Torday Exhibitions 1900-1909," African Arts 24, 4 (1991): 64-67;
154. MacGaffey, Kongo Political Culture, 19;
155. S. F. Sprague, "Yoruba Photography: How the Yoruba See Themselves," African Arts 12, 1 (1978): 52-58, 107.
156. P. Jenkins, "'From a Real Body, which Was There, Proceed Radiations which Ultimately Touch Me, Who Am Here'-An Encounter with a Missionary Portrait of a Pre-Colonial Akan Court Official," Visual Anthropology 22, 4 (2009): 275-92;
157. C. Geary, Images from Bamum: German Colonial Photography at the Court of King Njoya, Cameroon (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988), 119.
158. The tortoise may have been an anthropomorphic Nile Monitor (Allen Roberts personal communication).
159. Interviews: Lubaba Rubin (Lubenyi) Bikomo, Ruashi, DRC 14 May 2007; Banze Kitwa Kapasa Zacharie, Mwanza, DRC, 22 May 2007; Banze Kalumba Shayumba, Mwanza, DRC, 23 May 2007.
160. Burton, Congo Sketches, 103-4.
161. W. F. P. Burton, "Proverbes des Baluba," Bulletin des Juridictions Indigènes et du Droit coutumier Congolais, vols. 23, 3 through 26, 10 (1955-1958); Proverbes des Baluba (Elisabethville: Editions De La Revue Juridique, 1958).
162. CAM, Burton to Salter, 22 Oct. 1928, and 21 Jan. 1944.
163. For analysis of these objects, see Nooter Roberts and Roberts, Memory, 194-209.
164. B. Sundkler, "African Church History in a New Key," in Kirsten Holst-Peterson, ed., Religion Development and African Identity (Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies 1987), 83. This was often the pattern in Southern Africa but it also did not apply to the Yoruba.
165. See Peel, Religious Encounter, 234-40.
166. Nooter Roberts and Roberts, Memory, ch. 3.
167. Burton, n.d. "My Personal Testimony," Bunyan Gospel Recordings (copy in possession of the author);
168. Burton, Honey Bee, 53-56.
169. Nancy Rose Hunt "'Single Ladies on the Congo': Protestant Missionary Tensions and Voices," Women's Studies International Forum 13, 4 (1990): 395-403.
170. See M. Wright, Strategies of Slaves and Women: Life Stories from East/Central Africa (London: James Currey, 1993).
171. Hettie Burton, My Black Daughters (London: Victory Press, 1949).
172. Mama Andyena; Kyungu Dyese; Numbi Martha, Mwanza, DRC, 21 May 2007. On missionary hygiene and domesticity, see Nancy Rose Hunt, A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual: Medicalization and Mobility in the Congo (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), ch. 3;
173. Johannes Fabian, "Religious and Secular Colonization: Common Ground," History and Anthropology 4 (1990) 339-55.
174. On the virtues of hygiene, see Burton, Congo Sketches, 177-78.
175. Nooter Roberts and Roberts, Memory, 112.
176. C. Wright, "An Unsuitable Man: The Photographs of Captain Francis R. Barton," Pacific Arts 15/16 (1997): 42-60, 51.
177. Kellersberger, Congo Crosses, 6.
178. CEMR 42, May-June 1933.
179. Burton was referring to the Bakasandji healing association, whose members used fragments of human bone in their medicines.
180. Nooter Roberts and Roberts, Memory, 180.
181. CEMR 45, May-June 1933.
182. CEMR 47, Oct.-Dec. 1933.
183. CEMR 95, July-Aug. 1942.
184. Wright, "An Unsuitable Man," 47.
185. Ibid., 48.
186. CAM, Burton to Salter, 23 Oct. 1942.
187. CEMR 98, Jan.-Feb. 1943.