Towards an understanding of modern political ideology in africa: The case of the ovimbundu of angola

Journal of Modern African Studies

Volumn 36, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 139-167

  Heywood, Linda M ^a  

^a HOWARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84953714836     PISSN: 0022278X     EISSN: 14697777     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X97002681     Document Type: Article

References (86)

1. Washington Post, 26, 29, 30 Mar. 1992; 30 Aug.
2. See for example, Stephen Weigert, Traditional Religion and Guerrilla Warfare in Modern Africa (New York, 1996) for the Mayi.
3. See, for example, John W. Harbeson, Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, Civil Society and the State in Africa (Boulder, CO, 1994). This bias is also evident in a recent Wall Street Journal report on Mobutu. The article, entitled ‘Africa's Tito’, noted that ‘like a French King of the 18th century, Mr. Mobutu considers L'etat c'est Mobutu’. Wall Street Journal, 26 Dec. 1996, p. 6.
4. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities : reactions on the origin and spread of nationalism (New York, 1991 rev. edn).
5. See, for example, ‘The tribal-ethnic road in Africa: Belgian Congo}Zaire 1885-1990’, in Peter Gran, Beyond Eurocentrism : a new view of modern world history (Syracuse, 1996).
6. Crawford Young and Thomas Turner, The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State (Madison, 1985), p. 443, n. 55. For the concept of the ‘Big Man’, see Jan Vansina, Paths in the Rainforest (Madison, 1990), pp. 73-74.
7. For an example of this approach see, Peter Duignan and Robert Jackson, Politics and Government in African States 1960-1985 (Stanford, 1986)
8. Barry Munslow (ed.), Africa : problems in the transition to socialism (London, 1986).
9. For a sampling of these works see, for example, Patrick Chabal, Amilcar Cabral : revolutionary leadership and people's war (New York, 1983) ; James Mittleman, Underdevelopment and the Transition to Socialism : Mozambique and Tanzania (New York, 1981).
10. For the situation in the Balkan states, see Thomas Butler, ‘The ends of history : Balkan culture and catastrophe’, Washington Post, 30 Aug. 1992.
11. Terence Ranger, ‘Connexions between primary resistance movements and modern mass nationalisms in East and Central Africa’, Journal of African History, 9, 4 (1968), 437-53.
12. Peter Geschiere, The Modernity of Witchcraft : politics and the occult in post-colonial Africa (Charlottesville, 1997).
13. For the impact of Pan-Africanism on the political development of African leaders, see Kwame A. Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa in the philosophy of culture (New York, 1992).
14. Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya (London, 1938 also London, 1979).
15. See, for example, Irving Markovitz, Leopold L. SeUdar Senghor and the Politics of NeUgritude (New York, 1969).
16. See, for example, Basil Davidson, In the Eye of the Storm: Angola's people (Garden City, 1973).
17. Take, for example, the issue of African socialism (ujamaa) which Julius Nyerere so skilfully manipulated for so many years before retreating from active politics in Tanzania.
18. Alan Cowell, Killing the Wizards: wars of power and freedom from Zaire to South Africa (New York, 1993), p. 100.
19. Terence Ranger, Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe (London, 1985) ; David Lan, Guns and Rain: guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe (Los Angeles, 1985) ; see also R. Werbner, Tears of the Dead: the social biography of an African family (Edinburgh, 1991).
20. Wyatt MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa : the BaKongo of lower Zaire (Chicago, 1986), pp. 214-16.
21. John Thornton, “I am the subject of the king of Congo” : African political ideology in the Haitian revolution’, Journal of World History 4, 2 (1993), 181-214; Eugenia Herbert, Iron, Gender and Power, Rituals of Transformation in African societies (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1993).
22. Washington Post, 26 Mar. 1992. See also, Washington Post, 39, 20 Mar., 1992.
23. Washington Post, 26 Mar. 1992, 29 and 38.
24. Washington Post, 29 Mar. 1992, 4.
25. The special status of Dr Jonas Savimbi as the president of the main opposition party'. 8 Apr. 1997. (Washington, Center For Democracy in Angola).
26. As quoted in Leon Dash, ‘Angola's desperate decision’, Washington Post, 1992.
27. Cowell, Killing the Wizards.
28. Fred Bridgland, ‘Angola's secret bloodbath’, Washington Post, 1992.
29. The connection between rulers' use of power for private and public ends has been explored most thoroughly for the Congo, but has wide application for all of Bantu Africa. See McGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa, pp. 5-8; also, Simon Bockie, Death and the Invisible Powers (Bloomington, 1993), pp. 40-61.
30. Pierre de Maret, ‘Ceux qui jouent avec le feu : la place de forgeron en Afrique central’, Africa 50 (1980), 263-79.
31. I have examined this subject in a forthcoming book, Heywood, Thwarted Power: state-society relations in central Angola
32. Leon Dash, ‘Angola's desperate decision’, Washington Post, 30 Aug. 1992, C 5.
33. Childs, Umbundu Kinship and Character (London, 1949), p. 176; Anibal dos Santos Branda4 o, O grande Soma Huambo Kalunga o terrivel antropafago’, MensaUrio Administrativo (1952).
34. Childs, Umbundu, pp. 174-6; oral testimony of Arao Cornelio, Grove City, Pennsylvania, USA, 1987.
35. Alfred Hauenstein, ‘La royaute chez les Ovimbundu’, in Angola, os simbolos do poder na sociedade tradicional (Coimbra, 1983).
36. Pierre de Maret, ‘The smith's myth and the origin of leadership in Central Africa’, in Randi Haaland and Peter Shinnie (eds.), African Iron Working: ancient and traditional (Oslo, 1985), pp. 73-87. Eugenia Herbert, Iron, Gender and power, pp. 165-87.
37. Victor Turner, ‘A Lunda love story and its consequences: selected texts from traditions collected by Henrique Dias de Carvalho at the Court of the Muatianvwa in 1887’, Rhodes Livingstone Journal 19 (1955), 1-26. This story relates the founding of the Lunda empire through the exploits of a wandering hunter, very much as related in the highlands.
38. For background, see Gladwyn Murray Childs, Ovimbundu; see also Lawrence Henderson, Angola: five hundred years of conict (Ithaca, 1979).
39. Wilfred Hambly, The Ovimbundu of Angola, Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 21, 2 (1934), p. 45.
40. Hambly, Ovimbundu, p. 142; Silva Porto, Viagens, p. 174; SGL Res. 2-C-6, ‘Apontamentos’, vol. I, ‘Customues dos Gentilicos’, p. 97.
41. See the many references to these customs in Merlin Ennis, Umbundu Folk Tales from Angola (Boston, 1962).
42. Ennis, Umbundu, p. 303.
43. Heywood, Thwarted Power (forthcoming), ch. 1; see also Hauenstein, Angola: Os simbolos do poder, pp. 70-2 for modern manifestations of other customs.
44. Ennis, Umbundu, p. 246.
45. Silva Porto, Viagens, pp. 172, 184-5 La szlo Magyar, Reisen in Sud-Afrika, New York, 1974 reprint, 1st edn 1859), p. 270.
46. Ennis Umbundu p. 102; Hambly, Ovimbundu; Magyar, Reisen, p. 270.
47. Magyar, Reisen, p. 391.
48. As quoted in Child, Umbundu, p. 22.
49. G. M. Childs, ‘The kingdom of Wambu (Huambo), a tentative chronology’, Journal of African History 5, 3 (1964), 367-79.
50. Silva Porto, Viagens, pp. 172, 184-5; Magyar, Reisen, p. 270.
51. Magyar, Reisen, pp. 277-9.
52. Magyar, Reisen, pp. 286, 387 and 415 n. 16.
53. Magyar, Reisen, p. 159.
54. Anibal dos Santos Branda4 o, “Vanuambo” : nominaa4o de um seculu e seus cargos’, MensaUrio Administrativo 5 (1952), 38-9; Magyar, Reisen, p. 387.
55. CDIH, Est. 33, Cx. 20, Seca4o 7, no. 2 (1946), ‘Historia dos Postos’, n. p.
56. CDIH, Est. 33, Cx. 20 dos Santos Branda4 o, ‘Vanuambo’. 38-9.
57. CDIH, Est. 33, Cx. 20, Secca4o 7, no. 2 (1946), ‘Historia dos Postos’, n. p.
58. Silva Porto, Viagens e apontamentos de um Portuense em Africa (Lisbon, 1942).
59. Magyar, Reisen, pp. 280, 449; Hastings, ‘Ovimbundu’, pp. 128, 150.
60. NLS Cameron Journal, entry of 28 Aug. and 2 Oct. 1875.
61. G. E. Tilsey, Dan Crawford: missionary pioneer in Central Africa (New York, n.d.), p. 77.
62. Eyewitness accounts of the time are replete with details of how Ovimbundu caravans were organised.
63. Tucker, Treasury, pp. 68-9.
64. Letters from Leona Stukey Tucker, the wife of the Canadian missionary John Tucker, contain several descriptions of these practices, which she witnessed in the 1920s. Letters compiled by Catherine Ward in author's possession.
65. Canadian Council of Foreign Missionary Societies (CCFMS) Box 5, File 75b WCC Angola, M. Dawson, 13 June 1959.
66. Tucker, Treasury, p. 191.
67. MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa.
68. Adrian Edwards, The Ovimbundu under Two Sovereignties (London, 1962), p. 43.
69. In 1920, Leona Stukey Tucker referred to the power these individuals wielded in the villages, and the efforts of the missionaries to undermine them.
70. Lawrence Henderson, The Church in Angola; a river of many currents (Cleveland, 1992).
71. CCFMS, Box 5, File 75 WCC Angola, M. Dawson, 13 June 1959.
72. Heywood, Thwarted Power (forthcoming), ch. 4. () Tucker, Treasury, p. 123.
73. CCFMS, J. T. Tucker Papers, Box 7, file 130, Dondi Station Report, 1941.
74. Agencia Geral Das Colonias, ‘A Diocese de Nova Lisboa 1944’ (Lisbon, 1946), p. 19.
75. CCFMS, WCC, WMS, Angola, Box 5, File 77b, M. Dawson Collection, 1950.
76. UCC, Box 5, File 75 WMS, Overseas Mission, Angola, Missionaries - Margaret Dawson. Sept. 1953, p. 2.
77. UCC, Angola Box 4, File 72, Edith Clark to Friends, Dec. 1957, p. 2.
78. For the specific symbolism of red, white and black in Congo cosmology, see MacGaffey, Religion and Society and Modern Kongo Prophets.
79. CCFMS, J. T. Tucker Papers Box 1, File 14, 12 Mar. 1934, p. 1.
80. Antonio da Silva Rego, ‘Syncretic movements in Angola’, Luso-Brazilian Review 7, 2 (1970).
81. Interview with Janata4o (Tito) Chingunji, 1990. Lawrence Henderson recently told the author that as many as 75 per cent of the Protestants in the highlands at the time believed in some form of witchcraft.
82. Cowell, Killing the Wizards, p. 106.
83. Ennis, Umbundu, p. 202.
84. Interview, UNITA officials, Washington, 1992.
85. As quoted in Leon Dash, ‘Angola's desperate decision’, Washington Post, C 5.
86. As quoted in Leon Dash, ‘Angola's desperate decision’, Washington Post, C 5.