'

Chapter Four:  Kayambi, Mulilansolo and Mulanga,

December 1958- 1964.

                             (Initiation by the Bemba-speaking people of N-Rhodesia)

 

Kayambi, 17 December 1958 - 9 April 1959

 When I woke up early next morning I heard from far away a choir practicing the well-known Christmas carols. It was going to be my first Christmas in Africa and I hoped and prayed that it  would not be the last one. The course on chi-Bemba, the language of the people, would only start after the festivities and we were given the opportunity to roam around and to get to learn the people in the nearby villages.  They showered us with an array of polite greetings of which we understood little but which made us feel to be very welcome. It was the beginning of the rainy season and  both men and women were busy preparing their fields. That afternoon the kind Fr. Fons Cox introduced me to the elders and the catechists who had come from the nearby outstations to clebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ. After another set of polite greetings he introduced me to them. My name, Hinfelaar, sounded somewhat like Imfula, which means rain and with great hilarity they decided that I was a member of the Rain Clan. Then Fr. Cox asked them whether I would stay for a long time in the country. He translated their reply for me, words I would never forget.

            “If he is wa nsansa (a happy person) and has no cipiyu (grudge, resentment), he will stay until very old” they answered.

These were obvious the most important values by which they measured the goodness of a church leader. Later, much later, I learned that bitter people with resentments, who have ‘an axe to grind’ were feared as they were likely to become and practice witchcraft.

  

Next day, Fr. Belin, who was the superior of the mission, asked me to accompany him to Makasa, a big outstation some 20 miles to the West of Kayambi. It was the capital of chief Makasa whose predecessor had been the first Bemba Chief to receive the first White Fathers missionaries in his country.

Soon after our arrival, Fr. Belin disappeared into the confession box as long queues of people were waiting patiently in front of the thatched church. When Chief Makasa  heard that a new and very young missionary had arrived, he made it a point to come and greet me in person, surrounded by his retinue. He welcomed me to his fiefdom with the customary blessing.

“Lesa amupaale amate” May the High God spit on you (bless you), to which he added “May you stay here for a long time”.

 I was moved, but did not know what to say and how to behave myself. I gave him my chair but I remained standing between the doorposts of the little priest house next to the chapel. Suddenly he froze, told me by gestures not to move and to stay where I was. Next to me, at the height of my shoulders the head of a poisonous snake came slowly out of a crack between the posts and the mud bricks and moved into my direction. One of his kapaso’s, (footmen) approached me from behind with his staff and deftly killed the snake with one mighty blow[1].

 

The Christmas midnight and morning Masses were fantastic. I could not get enough of the singing of the men with their deep voices and the high pitched ululation of the women. All of them, adults and children alike, seem to be able to harmonize in various voices without any difficulty. Their singing could swell like a huge hurricane and then dwindle to a pleading whisper.

Next day, after the morning Mass, I was invited to the house of one of the Chief’s councillors. The men squatted around a huge beer pot and waited patiently for the women to pour hot water on the millet mush for fermentation. They said a little prayer and after the councillor himself had ‘fore-tasted’ the beer he handed the reed to me to have the first sip. It was quite an art to push the reed through the thick mush, and find the soft warm beer in the middle of the pot. I managed somehow and for the first time I tasted and enjoyed the home brewed millet beer of the Bemba people. After everybody had had a sip the dancing and the singing started and, without doubt, would last until late in the evening.

That afternoon I cycled happily back to Kayambi amidst the miyombo trees after having said goodbye to the Chief, his households and all his councillors.  The potent beer had made me feel good and I realized that finally I was in deep, deep Africa and that the initiation to its culture and customs had begun.      

 

In the late 1950’s Kayambi seemed a lonely place, lost in the bush, but soon after my arrival I learned that during the last decade of the previous century the mission had been an important outpost of  the Royal ‘Crocodile’ Clan, the Bena Ngandu, who had their headquarters in Chitimukulu, near Malole Mission, in the district of Kasama.

During the second half of the 19^th century the Bemba warriors had become heavily armed with obsolete, but dangerous firearms of the muzzle loader type due to the ivory trade with  Swahili traders from the East. The poorly equipped agents of the British South African Company, who claimed the area for the British Crown, were in 1895 in no position to overpower the disciplined and well trained foot-soldiers, (the fita), of  the Bemba hegemony.

I had been the intrepid French White Father, Bishop Joseph Dupont, who had forced himself into the heavily defended fortress of Chief Makasa, with only the Dutch Brother, Antoon Verkuijlen, as assistant. This had made such an impression that they nicknamed Dupont Bwana Moto Moto, (Sir Fire, Fire) and had accepted him as a kind of broker and negotiator with the B.S.A. Because of Dupont no treaty of humiliating submission was signed by the proud Bemba and the transition of tribal to company rule had occurred relatively smoothly and with little bloodshed.

In 1895 Chief Makasa Mwilwa allowed Dupont, his fellow White Fathers and a group of redeemed slaves  to establish a mission near his musumba, headquarters  but after a few months  he and his people moved some twenty miles away to the east, according to the local adage :

Ngoshe shibili, tashaikala pa culu cimo (Two black mamba’s cannot live on one and the same anthill)

Left on their own, the White Fathers had to defend themselves not only against lions but also against marauding remnants of the disbanded Bemba army. They built a thick wall of mud bricks around the whole foundation, some remnants of which were still there when we, André Neault. Denis Bernardin  and I,  started the language course on the second  of January 1959.

The mission post of Kayambi belonged to the diocese of Abercorn with the recently appointed Bishop Fürstenberg in charge[2].

Despite the important rule of Lavigerie that his missionary society should be international, the majority of the missionaries who were appointed to the diocese of Abercorn during the 1930s, were of German nationality. During the war they had suffered as detainees, with no support from their home country. Some of them had now gone on leave after almost twenty years of hardship to find that many of their family were killed,  maimed or impoverished. A spirit of bereavement, of defeat and loss, still reigned among them. They tended to live and talk about the past while the country itself was on the threshold of a new era.

The post went very slowly; it could take four weeks for a letter to reach from Europe. Once a week a young man cycled with a locked postbag all the way to Abercorn and came back with the incoming letters after two full days. In Abercorn the post had to wait for the weekly plane to the capital of Lusaka.

During the first week of the New Year, 1959, I got hold of a national newspaper. On the front page, I read about the emergence of a Nationalist Party, ZANC, later to become UNIP,  founded by Kenneth Kaunda, an ex teacher from the Presbyterian mission Lubwa in Chinsali. A previous national party, The African Nationalist Congress, was already  known in the villages and some people, in particular the men, spoke excitedly about a possible Independence of Northern Rhodesia in the near future.

In the major seminary we had been prepared for such a political change as it had already taken place in other, mostly West African, countries.

The then Prime Minister of Great Britain, Harold MacMillan, has spoken about a ‘Wind of Change’ blowing through the entire continent. We expected this wind to hit the Federation of  Nyasaland and the Rhodesias one day or another.

The elderly missionaries seemed poorly prepared for this and to our surprise, they told us that it would take more than 20 years before Independence would come to Northern Rhodesia. They seemed to live in a cloud cuckoo’s land with their heads in the sand like ostriches.

Before our departure we had been advised by our superiors to keep our mouths shut for at least two years and  only to listen to the wisdom of the elders, so we did not react publicly but wondered whether they did not live in a world, created by themselves.

Meanwhile the language course had started. Most of the White Fathers missionaries knew the language well. Some of them had become linguists and had composed the first grammars and dictionaries.

The capable Fr Jean Pierre Belin had adapted the ‘Direct Method of Learning English’ to the Bemba language. He had pasted a lot of pictures of objects and girls and boys in action on  paper and asked us to reply in Bemba what the object was or what the children were doing.

We came to call it the Chinchi ici , ‘What-is-that ?- method.’

The results of one week’s learning in this way was quite remarkable but later, when things became linguistically more complicated, the method seem to stall. Bemba, or rather Chi-bemba (the Bemba language), was and still is a very rich language. It has hardly any adverbs, which are expressed by some 120 different tenses. For example there are different  tenses for the immediate future, the future of the evening, of tomorrow and of eternity. You could mean to say: ‘Please, come tonight” and the person would come next morning, when the wrong tense was used.

Like so many other African languages Bemba it also tonal, i.e. the meaning of a word could change according to lower, middle and higher tones. Some of the missionaries managed to hit the right tones but the majority tried and hoped for the best!  On the whole people were kind and understanding.

The afternoons were free to visit and talk in the villages nearby. In the beginning I did not get further than a few greetings but people were patient and remained encouraging. They said that the polite greetings were the most important part of the language.

Some of the women insisted to show me how local beer was brewed. It is a complicated process of fermenting the millet and takes at least three days. Not every woman is successful and the best brewers were known by all the men of the surroundings. A nubile girl who had the reputation of brewing good beer got married very quickly. Later in life she would start her own business, the beginning of a village pub.

 Some of the very old women told me that they had come as babies on the back of their mothers from the Luangwa valley, near Mozambique. They had been made slaves in order to carry ivory from the Luangwa valley but had been liberated and redeemed by the famous Bwana Moto Moto, Bishop Joseph Dupont[3].

In the beginning it was a hard life. Of the 37 Missionaries who went to central Africa between 1883 and 1900 , 15 had died within 15 years[4]. The first graves in Kayambi’s cemetery were of fathers and brothers who had died at a very early age.  Among them were two Dutchmen. : Brother Antoon Verkuijlen and Father Kees Goetstouwers. Brother Antoon, who came from Rotterdam, had first served the Pope as a  zouaaf, as a soldier, protecting the Papal States in the time of Pope Pius IX. From time to time I visited the cemetery and wondered what these men thought when dying at such a young age, so far from home.

Brother Antoon had  arrived in Africa with the seventh caravan sent by Cardinal Lavigerie in 1889 and first built Mponda mission at the southern point of Lake Malawi. After the British South African Company had declared this foundation ‘illegal’, he trekked with the missionaries into the direction of Lake Tanganyika, via Lake Malawi and once again build a mission on the Stevenson Road,  near Mambwe on the border of Northern Rhodesia and Tanganyika. In 1895 he accompanied Bishop Dupont into Bembaland and was asked to built his third mission in Kayambi. He worked day and night and soon established a flourishing garden. Chief Makasa kept on asking him for the magic that produced such good crops.

“Hard work, daily prayer and the blessing of the seeds” had been his reply.

 At the end of 1896 he caught black water fever and after a painful struggle, he died on the 1 August,  only 32 years old.

The diarist wrote simply : ‘Le frère Antoine est mort’  For the people his death was the first one of  the European missionaries and they realized that even they were mortal, like all human beings. The missionary priests noticed how popular he was with the people, when they came, crying and wailing from all over the country, in order to pay their last respects to this obedient and holy man[5].

Of Fr. Goetstouwers little was known. He had arrived in Kayambi in 1897 and was asked to be in charge of the material welfare of the orphans and the first schoolboys. He also died of the feared black water fever and was buried  a few days before Christmas, only 30 years old

 ‘It is a great loss’, I read in the mission dairy, ‘as he was doing so well with the children. God’s ways are not ours. May he help us through his intercession in Heaven’[6].

 

A few weeks after my arrival it was my turn to got my first bout of malaria. It was the rainy season, the mosquito net was torn and the ill-fitting door and windows of my mitanda, (annexe) room had big cracks. It started with a light shiver but within a few hours I had to face the full impact of a nightmare that seems unremitting. In my delirium  I saw Brother Antoon, confused him with Ketelbinkie, the little urchin of Rotterdam.

 I felt as if I was going to die, and be buried next to ‘Le frère Antoine. To make things worse, around 11 p.m. a thoroughly drunken man, on his way back to the village from the beer pot, stumbled in front of my window and fell asleep. He woke up from time to time to sing a doleful song and then sleep again.

 

“An excellent initiation into bush life” said the stern Jean Pierre Belin and continued with his pastoral work. But at that moment Fr Alfons Cox, the second in command, showed himself at his very best[7]. He looked after me like a trained nurse, found a better mosquito net, and made sure I took the right doses of anti-malaria pills. Between the periods of heat and cold and even terror there were semi lucid moments, during which I saw him looking after me. After I recovered he made me rest for a week in order to regain my strength.

            “Most missionaries get chronic malaria because they refuse to take a good rest after an

              attack” he said wisely.

 It was an advice I kept all my life.

My Bemba teacher, Fr Jean Pierre Belin was less patient, even a bit fanatic. He insisted that I follow the letter of the Gospel according Luke chapter 10 and go on tour with hardly anything and eat the food of the people. I tried once to eat the bwali, the tough mush made of millet and the munani, the relish  called pupwe, a kind of okra made of edible leaves of a tree that grew on top of the termite hills.

 I never had a strong stomach and refused to continue after eating a few ntoshi, the little balls of  millet mush, one rolls between the finger of the right hand before swallowing them.

 “You will never be a good bushman” he said.

 But at times he came back from tour,  with a stomach ulcer, and vomited bile and blood.

He also conducted an on-going war against some of the traditions of the people, like the one of  Ishina lya Mutoto, the giving of a traditional name to a new born baby after its umbilical cord had dried. He preached against this ‘pagan’ custom during a Sunday sermon and to my pleasant surprise the people in the church publicly reacted, denounced his opinion and told him they would never give up this part of their culture.

Somehow it made me think of the time of St Augustin, when the people responded  to the sermons of the bishops and priests. After the High Mass the head catechist went up to Fr. Belin denounced him and ended quietly by saying :

 “Bwana, you were not born here and you will not die here!”[8].

 

For the St II-IV girls of the nearby boarding school we, the three young missionaries, were always a welcome distraction. They tested our progress, compared one with the other and roared with laughter when we made a mistake. Like in all languages, the slightest mixing of consonants and vowels, and in Bemba the wrong tonality, may give a word a complete different, even obscene, meaning.

The sister in charge invited us and the Mission staff for a ‘concert’ during which they danced demurely and with down-cast eyes. But once they got hold of a village drum and dear sister was away, they swayed their hips during the traditional dances with as much élan as any woman in the village.

They sung enthusiastically  in the church and could not understand that a person could be tone deaf.  These were the days before Vatican II with the Mass still in Latin. My confrere, Denis Bernardin had to sing the  ‘Ite, Missa est’ (Go, the Mass over) in Gregorian plain chant at the end of High Mass on Sunday. The only note Denis could recognize was a currency note.  He squeaked out the chant so flat that the whole bunch of girls roared with laughter.

After three months I was deemed to speak the language well enough to teach the catechism to the pupils of  Standard IV.

 “The girls know some English” the sister told me, so if you get stuck, try English”.

 It took me three days to prepare the lesson on paper, after which I felt confident enough to face the group. But as soon as I had started, one of the girls lifted her finger for a question to ask.

“Father” she said sweetly  “ I love to read the Bible, but there is one word I do not understand. Could you, please, explain to us what ‘circumcision’ means!”

 

At the beginning of April the bishop came, tested our knowledge of the language and granted us ‘jurisdiction’, the permission to preach and to hear confessions. It was Good Friday and I was again sent to Chief’s Makasa’a place, this time to help Fr Belin with confessions and the services. Later I was told by the catechist that all the big sinners of the musumba, the chief’s capital, had come to me, the kaice, little boy priest, knowing for sure that I would not understand everything of what they confessed!

Again, it became a big feast with lots of dancing and beer drinking. This time, I had my own motorized  transport, a so called Phillips motorped,  so I could stay a bit longer.

It was at that occasion that the kind Chief Makasa explained to me why he called himself ‘the child of Moto Moto, Bishop Joseph Dupont’. After the death of the senior chief Mwamba Mubanga Chipoya, during the night of 24 October 1898, his mother had been in danger of being raped, enslaved or even killed during the period of lawlessness that followed the death of a paramount chief. She had run with her child on her back to the tent of ‘Bwana Moto Moto’ who had protected her and others against the looting and grabbing men. The little baby was Chief Makasa himself who was later told that he owed his life to the strong bishop Dupont. During the late 1960s one of his sons, Paul, became a local priest for the Diocese of Mbala.

“The White Fathers always worked for our country and protected our women and children”, he said. “That became part of their task”.

It was another lesson  learned for the future.

We had come to the end of our first initiation into the language. With the jurisdiction the bishop also brought our appointments. Dennis Bernardin was to stay in Kayambi itself, I was sent to Mulilansolo, a mission near Isoka and André Neault  to Mulanga, both places in the district of Chinsali.

We left Kayambi during Easter week in April and traveled via the, so called, ‘Chosi’ Road to Nakonde-Tunduma- the border post with Tanzania. There we did some shopping but also saw the well-known Dr. Hope Trant, whom I met again, later, during the Lenshina Uprising[9]. At Isoka, a small district Boma, we branched off on a small dirt road towards Kasama and, after a 30 km, reached Mulilansolo. It was on a glorious late afternoon when we arrived, at the end of the rainy season, with everything still very green and lush[10].

A plump figure came out of the mission house and greeted us with joy. He was Fr Willie Fuchs, who had arrived in the country in 1935. He offered us a glass of orange juice, which, he said, came from fresh oranges in the nearby orchard. When he showed me a room, he told me that he could finally go on leave, now that I had come.

 

Mulilansolo:  9 April 1959 – 25 July 1962

 According to the elderly  people nearby, the Mission of Mulilansolo was founded in 1936, ‘in the ciboria (deserted village) of Lombe Shula’. They told me that the Mission was situated along an old trade road that ran from Chinsali straight north to Chunga, near the Kalunga wa Bwiba river and then to the border near Nakonde where it led towards the old slave market of Ujiji in Tanganyika[11].

After the Bemba warriors had beaten the coalition of the Ngoni impi (footsoldiers) and neigbouring tribes, in about 1870, they had occupied this lucrative trade and slave route and established  military posts along it in order to ‘keep watch’ against the enemy[12]. That is why the area was called Chilinda from the verb uku-linda : to keep watch.

Around the turn of the century, during the chieftainship of a Bemba overlord, called Lombe Shula,  the BSA administration had curtailed the hegemony of the Bemba and pushed the border between the Bemba and the BenaMwanga back to the area around Mulilansolo.

After Lombe Shula had died and chief Mubanga I had succeeded him, the Bemba capital had been shifted some two km to the South and the deserted place of Lombe Shula had been granted to the missionaries to settle in 1936.

 

The founder of the White Fathers, the church historian Cardinal Lavigerie, had instructed his missionaries to target African chiefs as the first objects of their work of conversion. He had based this instruction on the legendary conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great at the beginning of the 4rth century and the one of his compatriots, Chief Clovis at the beginning of the 6^th century. It was believed that, once the leader had been rendered favourable towards Christianity, the people would automatically follow[13].

Of course things had been much more complicated than these myths. To start with the missionaries had to deal with people who traced chiefly succession according to matrilineal descend and not via patriarchal primogeniture as was the case among the Germanic tribes.

Moreover, by establishing themselves near a Bemba overlord, the White Fathers had unwittingly legitimized the conquest of an area by Bemba warriors, that previously had belonged to the BenaMwanga and Beba tribes driven into the hills of Isoka around 1870.

 

To the South-West of the mission there was one fiefdom that had remained part of the ‘original inhabitants’ This belonged to Chief Shimwalule, the priestly guardian of the royal burial grove and the representative of the original inhabitants and the spirits of the land.  Together with the original councillors he made sure that the dominance of the Overlords remained restricted and would not become dictatorial.

. 

The area consisted of valleys and floodplains between the Muchinga escarpment and the Chambeshi river, the main tributary of the mighty Congo river. There was game, fish in the valley in the West and endless woods along the escarpment in the East. I remember standing on an anthill and feeling as if the trees and the grasslands must go on for ever and ever.

The people had acquired the tradition of keeping cattle from the nearby  pastoral BenaMwanga-Beba people. The area was so self sufficient that there was little inclination among the young to leave for the mines in the far South or to become part of any  migrant labour. Many of the inhabitants had never been into town.

Further on, along the main road from Isoka to Kasama, in an area called Mbesuma, near the Chambeshi river, an English engineer from Winchestor, a Mr Fred Rumsey, had occupied a considerable piece of land. He had been an elephant hunter and a recruiter for the Boer war at the beginning of the century, after which he joined the army when World War I started.

In October 1918 he had evacuated all women and children from Kasama when the German army, led by General von Lettow Vorbeck attacked Northern Rhodesia. Fred Rumsey had personally taken the news of the armistice to the German General who camped with his army of askaris near the ferry on the road to Mpika in the South[14].   

After the war and together with a Mr. Thornton he had brought thorough-bred cattle in Broken Hill (Kabwe), and trekked the animals 500 miles to Mbesuma in the North. This was done during the night and after the rainy season when the tsetse flies were quiescent  

The pedigree cattle attracted all the lions and leopards from as far as the Northern Luangwa valley. From 1921 to 1951 a total of 450 lions were killed in the district by bullets or poison. In 1934 his companion, Mr. Thornton had died and Rumsey became the sole owner of that immense estate. During World War II Kasama and the Polish refugee camps in Abercorn had been in great need of meat. Rumsey had done well and by the time  I came to Mulilansolo in 1959, he was a wealthy man.

He was also a kind and generous man. He had been intent on upgrading our mission cattle and that of the people by selling for a reasonable price his pure bred short horn bulls, originally imported from South Africa.

During the war Mulilansolo mission had been made self sufficient by the German brothers. It had a wheat field, an orchard, and a vegetable garden watered by a furrow from a dam slightly uphill, in a mushitu, a jungle.  The water in the furrow that was channeled from this little dam turned a wooden wheel of the grain mill and provided us with clean water in the house. Next to the door stood a small army generator that charged two batteries during the day and gave us light during the night. The place looked like a little paradise and reminded me of a village scene in the Black Forrest.  At table we had strawberries and cream and enjoyed fresh home made bread and butter[15].

There was another missionary on the mission. His name was Fr. Ludwig Bergmann, of the German nationality. He wanted me to initiate into the task of the bursar as quickly as possible.  I will never forget that he asked me to kill a cow a few days after my arrival.

I declined, returned the rifle and left the honour to him. He shot the poor animal quite accurately between the eyes and then ordered me to assist him with the cutting up the various parts. It became a bloody affaire and it made me so sick that I almost vomited. Some of the meat was cut in long strips and expertly smoked as bill tong in a small room nearby. Fr Bergmann told me what kind of leaves to use for the smoking. He also showed me how to make butter and cheese.

Behind the mission buildings there grew a few hectares of wheat. When it was near the time of harvest, young girls were positioned in and around the field to chase the hundreds of birds with their singing voices. It was called Ukwamina and it sounded melodious and attractive.

 

 Not long after all these practical lessons I was put in charge of the kitchen and the finances of the house. The kitchen was situated outside in one of the ‘annexes’. Thick black clouds wafted through the door. When I peered inside I heard someone singing and in the smoke I discovered two twinkling eyes over and above the woodstove. These belonged to our fabulous cook. He had been baptized Joseph as it was his task to look after us, as St Joseph had looked after Jesus and Mary, the holy family.

Whenever I had a free moment, mostly when the fathers enjoyed their siesta, I walked around to get to know the area. One day I found myself on top of the hill, near the source of the little stream that flew into the dam. Suddenly, I was surprised by a heavy rain storm, something rather unusual for April. I saw a small, neatly made shelter and, to protect myself from the rain,  I squatted inside of it until the rain stopped. In the middle I found, what I thought, were a few old and discarded utensils.

When I came out, I saw a quick movement in the bush from the corner of my eye but thought nothing of it, until I returned to the mission at the beginning of the evening. An elderly man stood in front of Fr. Bergmann, gesticulating and pointing his finger at me. He told me that I had taken shelter in the sacred shrine of a deceased chief and had desecrated the place. The offense had to be brought to the notice of Chief Mubanga.

At that time the Chief Mubanga was Simon Mukwikile, who had been baptized as a young man near Shiwa Ngandu in the South. After I had apologized, he took the affaire with a grain of salt and a sense of humour. He ordained that no defilement or desecration had taken place, as I was only a Mwaice ,a child and ‘cold’ i.e. not sexually active.

It was my first lesson in Traditional Religion. We became great friends as he made sure that I was properly initiated in the culture of the land. When he became old and was near death, I gave him the sacrament of the sick and brought him Holy Communion. He was so grateful that he handed me one of his Mbafi, ceremonial axes, to be kept until the end of my life and an old snuff box, the value of which I only guessed at a later date[16].

By far the most colourful missionary in Mulilansolo, was the Canadian Fr. Jean-Jacques Corbeil, who made up the third member of the community. There was never a dull moment when he was around. He had that talent of being able to approach a person as if he or she was the only man or woman that existed on the earth. He smoked like a chimney, and laced his Coca Cola with gin. Above all, he collected the artifacts of the people and displayed them all over the house and in the offices. He had boxes full of objects of witchcraft that he had even stored under my bed before my arrival. As a good Christian missionary I felt myself above it all, but I did feel ill at ease, especially when I found it difficult to get  tosleep. In fact the mission seemed to be one big museum and people, in particular, Europeans, came from afar to visit it.

 

The staff of the mission changed suddenly at the beginning of June. On the 29^th of May Father Fuchs (Fukushi) went on leave and Fr Bergmann, nicknamed Pinkelmani by the people, became in charge. Fr.Corbeil (Kolebeki) and Bergmann did not get on with each other. The bishop decided to appoint the latter to another mission and promised us a new superior. He was a Dutchman Father Karel VanRijthoven, whose nickname was Kachesa (a person who sings with his mouth wide open)

With him and Corbeil I experienced one of the most interesting periods of my life[17].

 

VanRijthoven’s entry into the mission grounds on the 29^th of June was impressive. He arrived with a roar in a big car driven by its owner Fr. Guus Wehmeijer. All his possessions, even his old motorcycle were in it. When they started to unload, they noticed that his expensive tape recorder was not there. They thought it was stolen but it had fallen from the car when crossing the Chambeshi by pontoon. Some honest person picked it up, tied it carefully on his bicycle and brought it back to the owner in good condition after a trip of 30 km through the bush!

Next day Guus returned to the minor seminary of Lubushi, 50 km to the West of Kasama where both priests had come from[18].

Meanwhile Corbeil had taken it upon himself to introduce me into the secrets of his little dispensary. Next to the  collecting objects of art and magic witchcraft he was widely known by the people as a genuine Nganga, a healer. Early in the morning people arrived from afar and waited patiently in front of the small dispensary. The mission had no hospital or qualified sisters and Lavigerie’s rule that

‘Women must never receive medical attention from us but only from sisters’[19], was airily waived aside.

Kolebeki combined good medicine, mostly sent to us by Memisa in Holland, with healthy doses of psychology, some old fashioned methods from Canada,  and a working knowledge of traditional herbs. For example when a young, recently married lady complained that she was not becoming pregnant quickly enough (and it was never too early for the husband!), he gave her a month’s course of multi-vitamins, and combined it with a doses of crushed leaves, collected by an expert from the bush. He would say to her in his well intoned Bemba :

 “Do not be afraid, my little mother, within a few months you will conceive”

 And often this was the case. His reputation grew by leaps and bounds.

Later, on tour, I discovered that a number of small children were called after him, ‘Kolebeki’, out of gratitude and joy.  His motto was :

 ‘We must save people from pain as well as from sin’.

We worked together without stopping from early morning after Mass until lunch at 1.pm. after which I went out to visit the villages nearby to improve upon my Bemba.

Corbeil was also fond of small animals and had created a kind of zoo, behind the kitchen. There were a few mpombo (Duikers), one of which was for one reason or another  fond of cigarettes. He always had a couple of monkeys jumping around on his shoulders.

They  would grab a banana out of your hand before you realized it.Then there was bush baby running along the curtain rails in the house and a honey badger in one of the fruit trees. Corbeil himself was bitten several times by the snakes he kept in a huge class container and one of his eyes had been slightly affected by a spitting cobra.

To avoid the same misfortune, he advised me to run immediately to a nursing mother so that she could spurt milk in my eyes with one of her breast!

 ‘That’ he claimed ‘would neutralized the acid poison’.

  He also gave me one of his, so called, ‘black stones’ a remedy against snake bites. I was told to made a small incision on the spot  where the snake had bitten, apply the stone that would suck the poison out of  the patient’s blood.

People were bitten by all kinds of snakes rather frequently, sometimes fatally. One Sunday afternoon, when everybody was having a good time around the beer pot, a small girl went into the outside pit latrine to relieve herself. Out of the grass roof fell a black mamba and bit her on the buttocks. I was called to apply the black stone but by the time I arrived she was dead. A green sticky slime came out of her little mouth and people said that she had been bewitched. Someone had sent that snake specifically to her.

   

Corbeil owned a blue VW Combie, with which he managed to reach the most isolated villages. When he was asked to fetch a woman in difficult childbirth, he would summon all the able bodied men of that village and order them to run in front of his combie, remove any obstacle make small bridges and cut all the trees. The advantage was that by doing so, willingly or unwillingly, they not only saved life but also made a musebo, a dirt track that connected their community to the wider world. When he saw that the woman needed professional attention, he transported her quickly to the nearest doctor, mostly residing in the Presbyterian mission of Lubwa, the birth place of Dr Kaunda[20].

 I often accompanied Corbeil on his pursuits if only to enjoy the magic and showy way he treated a sick person. Soon after my arrival he was called to a village of which the headman was said to have been bewitched or poisoned by a possible usurper. It was night when we arrived. Corbeil had the groaning man transported to the bush, and lit the whole scene with the headlamps of his car. Then he called the three wives of the patient and instructed them to stand around their husband and with their fitenge, waist cloths, screen him from the preying eyes of the excited bystanders. First he administered  an almost overdoses of Epsom Salts. Then he turned the patient upside down with his legs in the air and inserted a small tube in his backside, made a funnel from a banana leaf and slowly poured a soapy substance into the bowels. The effect was almost instantaneous and the people, especially his wives, ululated with joy.

On our way home he told me that there were people, especially contenders of a position, who tried to poison an old man  to take his position. The poison used was often not on the official list kept by the colonial administration and so the case could never be proved. But in certain circumstances they did cause disease, fear, worry and finally death. The first thing to do in a case of witchcraft was not to deny its existence but to purge the person as quickly as possible from any toxic matter. Not only was the patient relieved but also people around him would not be accused of witchcraft.

Sometimes Corbeil was away and left the dispensary in my charge. People came but were apprehensive. I had to establish my own reputation. That day came when a very old lady came up to me, pointed in agony to an almost loose tooth and asked me to pull it. I applied the rules I had learned during the Memisa course and, to my surprise, the tooth came out very easily. She danced around with joy the tooth in her hand and ordered one of her grandchildren to give me a chicken.

From then onwards I was known, not perhaps as a dentist, but as a good teeth-extractor. It always amazed me how much pain some of the patients could endure, as we did not use anesthetics but only gave them a sip of Corbeil’s gin. On the whole the teeth of the people in the villages stood out well from the gums, were not ingrown, and one could get a good hold of them before extraction.            

Another reputation I gained was more complicated. One Sunday afternoon I was called to a young woman who had great difficulties in giving birth. I had been told  that a woman in such circumstances could be accused of having committed adultery during her pregnancy, according to a widespread belief. When I entered I saw that the poor girl was in terrific pain and even seemed to have been beaten by the four midwives around her, who accused her of adultery.

Unlike Corbeil I had no car to transport her to the hospital, in fact I did not know how to drive. I decided to apply the magic approach of my mentor, Corbeil, calmed the midwives by saying a prayer and followed the rules that I had learned during my Memisa  course. in case of a baby being in a wrong position. And lo and behold suddenly the little head of the new citizen became visible and the child was on its way out. I will never forget the moment when the girl child was born. The four midwives, squatting on their knees around the young mother, suddenly  called out simultaneously and sighed : Muntu, a human being (is born).

I was asked again and I learned quickly that causing the mother and the midwives around her  to be patient and at ease was one of the most important conditions for a happy birth.

 

My ascribed medical reputation caused raised eyebrows among the Powers-that-be in Abercorn, the headquarters of the Bishop. Fortunately Corbeil and his blue combie was mostly around and during those years, from 1959until 1962 we saved a great number of mothers and children.

 

Life however was not always so pleasant. Both  Frs Van Rijthoven and Corbeil were regular consumers of Gilby’s gin. According to me they were not alcoholics  but all the same, together they easily finished one bottle a day. One gloomy morning Corbeil’s Comby had broken down, VanRijthoven’s old motorcycle refused to start and there were only empty bottles left.

Both ordered me ‘under obedience’ to cycle the fifty km up to Isoka and come back with 30 bottles of gin. I was young, looked forward to be away from them for a few days and also enjoyed a cycle ride together with the postman, who accompanied me. But I was taken aback by this strange application of the vow of obedience and  I felt that something was wrong   

There was another not so attractive characteristic of mission life  I learned in that time, namely the great difference of financial means between the White Fathers. In contrast with other religious orders and congregations, our founder, Cardinal Lavigerie, did not asked his adapts to make a vow of poverty. He left the stewardship of monies acquired to the private initiative of the missionaries themselves.

The great advantage was that each individual could start a project with his own money, once it was agreed upon by the other members of his community.  The great disadvantage was that there were chronic  inequalities among us. Some had easier access to finance from family and benefactors than others and could not refrain from showing this. During the four years in Mulilansolo Fr Corbeil went through two Volkwagen Combies while I slowly saved for a small motorcycle.

Moreover the bishops was tempted to appoint a person for an important assignment, not primarily because he had the talents, but rather he had the money.

 In the years that followed some of my talented confreres would leave the Society of the White Fathers because of this very reason. It caused a measure of stratification, of ‘class distinction’, not everybody was aware of.   

 

We were far away from the wide world but this did not mean the events of the day passed us by. Since 1953 the Federation of North and South Rhodesia and Nyasaland had been imposed on the people. In Chinsali district the level of education was relatively high and the teachers and clerks knew with the help of men like Sir Stewart Gore-Browne in Shiwa Ngandu that a massive cash flow from the Northern Rhodesian Copper mines went to cover the shortages of money in Southern Rhodesia[21]. The budding politicians knew also that they had the grass root support from the local population, while most of the advice reaching London was based on local Chiefs.

I had hardly arrived in Mulilansolo when in May 1959 Kenneth Kaunda and his aide-de-champ Frank Chitambala were detained by the Federal Government in Kabompo, in the Western Province. Later Kenneth Kaunda was arrested and transferred to Southern Rhodesia. This caused his home district in the Northern Province to erupt in strife. In their frustration people burnt schools they had built with their own hands, destroyed bridges and cut big trees over the main roads.  The teachers were afraid that the thatched roofs of our school buildings would have a similar fate and asked us to help them by watching the place during the night.

I had to be there each evening from 10 to 12 p.m. as, by then, I had been made a manager of the mission schools. We stood near a warm fire and chatted together most of the time. Gradually I got to learn these faithful teachers and some of the parents who all wanted the best for the children. Fortunately after a few weeks we were indirectly informed by the UNIP youth brigade that the mission school was not on their list and that we could go to bed and sleep without any worry.

The district became politically rather volatile. We decided to stay on our post, trust the goodwill of the people and not apply for any protection However the bishop and the regional superior asked us to make a last will in case of a sudden death. I donated everything I had to the diocese of Abercorn. The will became soon invalid as so many names changed after Independence. The papers were returned to me at a much later date. Reading the official style of a last Will, duly singed by witnesses, made me wonder what I had to give to the bishop at that time except my typewriter and the beautiful chalice my family had given me on the day of my ordination.

By then the diocesan headquarters in Mbala  had officially asked me if I was willing to take over the management of the Catholic mission’s schools in the North off Chinsali district.

The Protestant Missionaries had already handed their schools to the Local Education Authority (L.E.A.).

Between the Administration and the Catholic Church there existed a gentlemen’s agreement that dated from before World War II. The Catholic Church was seen as an agency that managed their own schools, with an overall subsidy of 75% from the Government and a contribution of 25 % from the Church. In reality it meant that the manager worked without any remuneration, the teachers were paid less than their colleges in government service, and the parents were asked to assist with their labour when building a new school[22].

As the new manager I had to be registered  by the Provincial Administration in Kasama. The Education Secretary, Fr. Wim Boenders, who was in charge of all  the schools in the Diocese recommended me to the Provincial Education Officer in Kasama[23]. But there nobody knew of my existence in the Federation as I had forgotten to apply for an ‘Alien Permit” as directed by that practical lady  at the Abercorn air strip on the day of my arrival.

On a rainy day in January 1960, a government official arrived from Chinsali. With a very serious face he announced that I had become a prohibited immigrant.  He produced a camera from his car and with a smile took a series of pictures of me. Once welcomed into the house, he introduced himself as John Hannah, the District Officer and advised me to travel quickly to Kasama and to make myself known to the colonial administration.

John Hannah, his wife Mary, and, later, their two children, would remain friends for life.

 

Fr. Piet VanderLinden finished his language course and left for his first appointment in  Chilonga. Soon after his arrival he introduced the African church hymns with his usual enthusiasm. The young loved it but some of the older teachers were not so forthcoming.

“Why is it that you, Europeans, always impose things’” they said, “Before we were forbidden to follow our culture under pain of mortal sin, and now, suddenly, we are told that it is beautiful”.

In Mulilansolo his place was taken by two British White Fathers, who had performed important tasks in their home province, before finally being sent to ‘Africa’ One of them was Jimmy Hughes, already mentioned, who had fought as a marine during D.Day and the other was the glamorous Paul Conner, who had worked as a ‘propagandist’ in the USA. Both had great difficulties in learning the language and took every occasion to get away from the mission. When Jimmy heard that I had to go to Kasama at early notice he offered me a lift in his landrover.

My registration ‘as an alien’ did not take much time. When it was over, we decided to go for a small trip and visit Chilubula mission, and Kapatu mission.

Chilubula, the fiefdom of Bishop Moto Moto Dupont, had the genuine atmosphere of a well- established mission post. It housed a couple of very old missionaries, men like the Frenchman Fr Joseph Fayet. Small of stature with a barrette on his balding head and an angelic smile on his face, he spent most of the day on the steps of the double storied, Province-styled, house, waiting for visitors and local people to talk with them. He offered us a cup of dark coffee and chatted with us in rapid French As he was slightly deaf, he did not bother about a reply[24].

I met the Dutchman, Father Fred Berlage who had been ‘in Education’ almost all his life and who gave me a few hints for my task as a budding Manager of Schools. “Make sure,” he said a bit pompously, “that you always sent a detailed annual report to the District Education Officer and apply for grants well in advance before the three monthly meetings”[25].

Then there was Brother Elisée(Jan Bloemberg). He was an old man when I met him but had kept his perpetual grin and his sense of humour. He had arrived in Northern Rhodesia in 1912. When building a church on Chilubi island, he had fallen through the roof, but insisted on continuing until the evening. This left him with a life-long limp

After having admired the Chishimba waterfalls nearby, we went on to Kapatu mission, founded in 1905. Again, there reigned an almost sleepy atmosphere, with children chanting and reciting in the nearby schools, and the gentle ring of the bells at noon for the Angelus. One felt that many missionaries had come and gone from here after years of steady work.

We greeted the old Fr. Louis Etienne. He had an excellent reputation as a teacher of Bemba, especially among the young officers of the Federal Administration.

 One of them wrote much  later: ‘I cannot forget Fr. Etienne of the White Fathers who taught me Bemba and was a special friend for many years’[26].

Another added  “On the whole I found the R.C. Missions the most impressive to visit,. because of the natural way in which one was admitted into the routine of life: the bare cell with a crucifix, was always quite a monastic experience”[27].

When Fr Etienne heard that I was Dutch, he mentioned the name of another Dutchman, he had known long ago, Bishop Jan VanSambeek. He latter had started his life as a missionary in North Rhodesia but by then he was emeritus, a retired bishop in Tanzania. He argued that the Diocese of Abercorn suited the Dutch and the German missionaries more than the French as they were used to deal with Protestants. Much later, in 2005, Ie came to understand the remarks Etienne made about the bishop and what had happened in the past[28].   

After we had crossed the Chambeshi river by pontoon, on our way back to Mulilansolo Fr. Jimmy Hughes decided to pay a visit to his compatriot, Fred Rumsey. It was 4 p.m. and the old man was just settling down for his sundowner while overlooking the green flood plane with the grazing cattle from his house on top of the hill. He was pleased to see us and soon the two Englishmen fell into a lively conversation. I was silent, tired and thirsty after the long journey. In front of me on the table stood a bottle of what I thought was cool water. I filled half a glass with it, saw the surprise glances of the two but thought nothing of it. When I took a sip I noticed that I had poured pure gin in my glass. I was too shy to say I had made a mistake and decided to swallow the lot in one big draft. After I had emptied the glass, everything became one turning mass in front of my eyes. I realized that I was near a black-out, and wondered how I would get back into the car. Fortunately they recognized my mistake and ushered me gently to the vehicle, holding me under my armpits Later Mr. Fred Rumsey would laugh every time he saw me and ask whether I had enjoyed my ‘baptism of fire.’

 

After VanRijthoven had installed himself in his room and his office, and had re-established contact with the people in the  area around the mission , he called the catechists from the various outstations and drew up a plan of action.

 From that day onwards the mission was in full swing and remained so until his departure in 1962. His first act was sending me on safari, on tour through the North of the area. I had been looking forward to it since my arrival and tried to prepare myself as well as possible. At that time Mulilansolo did not possess well-equipped outstations so I had to take all my camping equipment with me: Mass kit, food box, personal belongings etc. Four young men plus a safari cook were there to travel with me and to carry all these items with them on bicycle from one place to another.

When we reached an outstation, it was as if a circus had arrived in that village. The children ran out, danced and sang as we seem to break the monotony of daily life. The chapel- tent was erected in the middle while the well- trained safari-cook brewed a quick cup of tea near a tree. He kept the excited children on a distance and established his authority among the elders. The catechist took me to the chief or headman to announce our arrival and inform him of our timetable. We normally stayed for three days. There was the usual morning Mass, registration and administration of baptisms, writing down and preparation for marriages, teaching of catechumens and other pastoral duties. But in the evening there was singing, acting and telling fables while I stretched my hands towards the heat of a campfire and sniffed the familiar smell of burning resin and turpentine. After a day’s work I looked forward to the moment we all sat together relaxed.  I enjoyed this tremendously and came with pen and paper, could not get enough of it. The little children next to my camp chair would fall asleep and be carried home gently by their mothers or sisters.

 

Around the villages of Kalela and Kambwi, in the North, and nearer to the mission territory of Kayambi, people were extremely happy to see us and asked us to re-open their school again. I did not know what had happened in the past and later referred the matter to VanRijthoven, the Bwana Mukubwa,  the father in charge of the mission. It appeared that in the past most of the schoolchildren had been taken by their parents to Kasomo, the Lumpa Headquarters of  the prophetess Alice Lenshina Mulenga,and that consequently the school had been closed.

During my stay in these villages my friend, Fr Piet VanderLinden came to visit me. He had been ordained a year after me, and, after having been appointed to the Diocese of Abercorn, he  had been sent to Fr Corbeil in Mulilansolo in order to learn the language. Later in life he remembered having been shocked by my frugality as we had luch together that consisted of a piece of very old bread and a tin of bully beef.

He possessed a strong and full  tenor voice, he soon became very popular with the members of the church choirs.

In one of the villages an old man, the father of a teacher,  refused to come to me for Confession. “You are much too young for my sins”, he said, “I am only confessing to the Father in charge”

I replied that in that case he had to travel to Fr VanRijthoven in Mulilansolo, 35 km away. He took his old bicycle then and there and disappeared. Next morning he was back, just in time to tell me that he got rid of his big sins and was now ready to receive Communion from me!

On the whole people were very welcoming, kind and joyful but in some villages the children were afraid to come to my tent  and were told by their parents to stay at a safe distance. Only a handful came to attend Mass. It was the first time I came into contact with the independent Lumpa Church.. Its adherents told the catechist firmly they did not want to be visited by the BaRoma, the Roman Catholics, as they had their own independent church and had built their own Tempile, temple in Kasomom, near Chinsali.

I was a bit disappointed but went away, impressed by their self-sufficiency.  The Bena-Lumpa lived in well- kept villages and sung church hymns that seemed to keep them happy all day.

A great deal has been documented about the beginnings of this church[29]. Founded in 1953, the Church appealed so much to the people, in particular to the women, that thousands of baptized Christians broke away from the ‘main line’ missionary churches and joined this independent movement.

When I returned to the mission after a fortnight, tanned, sticky and tired, I felt very content, happy to have reached what I always wanted in life.

 

It became the turn of VanRijthoven to go on safari. He went into the direction of the Luangwa valley, an area more to the East of the mission. He came back deeply impressed by the singing of the Lenshina people and their joie de vivre.  He was musically highly gifted. Before becoming a missionary he had obtained a degree in music in Utrecht, in one of the best conservatoria, of The Netherlands.  Next to playing the organ, piano and the clarinet, he had a melodious voice and knew how to compose music. During his stay at the Junior Seminary of Lubushi near Kasama, he had tried to adapt some of the Europeans hymns to local modalities. But the strict regulations and the stress on Gregorian chant of a Vatican-sponsored institution had not given him the leeway to experiment sufficiently.

The next day he called the teachers of the nearby mission school, in particular the outstanding Michael Longe and Taddeo Chintu and asked them to help him with the composition of church hymns, based on the traditional music of the Bemba-speaking peoples. After that tour along the Luangwa escarpment he saw his chance and soon spent days and nights together with the teachers and catechists, composing  Bemba music.

The results were overwhelming. Within a short time church choirs came from far away mission posts and outstations to learn the new church music. They camped around the church and the house, singing and dancing. . It became a glorious time. The carriers of my luggage on safari became also a male choir. They taught the new hymns to people all over the area.

What I remember of that period is indeed singing, and singing.

The following year, in 1960, Fr Ritter, the person in charge of Religious Broadcasting in Lusaka, came to take recordings. He started with one microphone but quickly realized that he would need three to four of them in order to catch the full volume of these rousing church hymns.

VanRijthoven was an artist and could be very moody. He was extremely sensitive to any interruption when composing or teaching new hymns. He was a perfectionist who never allowed a sloppy performance.  He would insist on practicing the same hymn until the choir members almost collapsed from fatigue. He found it difficult to be criticized or corrected. He demanded full collaboration from us and even from the Bishop and the Regional. Fortunately he did get cooperation from the powers-that-be, in particular from Fr Louis Oger, the Regional who even encouraged other missionaries to visit Mulilansolo. The house was often chock-a-block with visitors and sometimes I slept in the sitting room to make place for a visitor in my own room.

One important feast day I will always remember. VanRijthoven had composed a new Mass, had practiced it for days and was at the point of directing the parish choir at the beginning of High Mass. I was to be the main celebrant. When I entered solemnly into the church, flanked by a long row of mass servants  I noticed  one of Corbeil’s monkeys sitting in one of the open windows, looking with great interest to the choir-girls beneath him. It had broken loose from his leash in the courtyard. At the very moment VanRijthoven raised his arms for the choir to start, the cheeky monkey jumped with joyful anticipation on top of one of the girls and grabbed her brand new chitambala, headscarf. She screamed with fear and the whole performance collapsed like a house of cards. Fr Corbeil rushed to the scene, called his monkey to sit on his shoulder and returned the scarf to the owner. But the performance became a flop with VanRijthoven blaming Corbeil for the failure.

On the whole both artistically minded missionaries worked well together. There was never a dull moment in their lives and during those years I collected and learned to appreciate a great amount of African Bemba culture and traditional music. Their conversations at table were often priceless.

An elderly missionary and linguist, Father François Tanguy, who had arrived in the country in 1911, became curious and appointed himself to Mulilansolo. He was an independent Frenchman and spoke Bemba fluently. He had written a history of the Bemba and had helped with the writing of Readers for the Lower, Middle and Higher Primary School. He was a well-connected and highly esteemed figure among the officials of the Ministry of Education and a personal friend of Sir Stewart Gore-Browne.

Like so many elders he was also very aware of his expertise and found it difficult to be corrected. One day he stated rather bluntly that among the Bemba the concept of virginity, celibacy or sexual abstinence did not exist. I ventured to disagree and gave as one of the examples the position of the BaMukabenya, the wives of the Sacred Relics in sacred places like Shi Malule[30]. It was obvious that he had never thought of this and, with his stinging irony, he turned to my superior, VanRijthoven and said:

 “Charles, be very careful, this young man is running behind the virgins in the bush”!

Tangy had diabetes and had been told to follow a strict diet, and keep away from anything sweet. In June 1961, he insisted on going to a 50 years anniversary of the ordination of one of his contemporaries in Kasama. Before he left, I reminded him, a bit self- righteously not drink any beer. I saw on his face that he did not like that advice of mine. During the festive dinner he took a few beers, followed by a glass of wine and consequently fell into a coma at table, never to recover. We buried him in Chilubula, the place where many missionaries found their last resting place.

 I still hear his sharp, ironic voice[31].

The year 1961 passed quickly with going one safari after the other. I particularly recall one tour, along the Chambeshi. People told me that a White Father of a neighbouring mission was nearby. I cycled all the way to his outstation, Chisali wa Mulila, near the Kalungu river to have a good chat. There I met Fr Bernard Poisson, teaching a group of young boys. Later he told me that we met each other on the day the Russian Sputnik was successfully launched into space.

 

As my confreres preferred to stay on the mission, compose music, or collect artifacts for the museum, I was the one who was on safari most of the time and learned a great deal, not only of the language but also of the people’s culture.

One day I found myself far away down the escarpment in the East and met in that same village a young  European District Officer, also on tour. His outfit and retinue was far bigger than mine. He told me that he was engaged on making a survey of the number of cattle in the district in view of the dreaded rinder-pest. Towards the evening he sent a messenger to me with an invitation for dinner. When I entered his tent I was overwhelmed by his formal dress and the amount of furniture around him; the place looked almost like a Victorian drawing room. He asked me to say a prayer after which we sat down. He then filled his and mine glass with South African wine, stood up, and said solemnly  :

 “Gentleman, a toast to the Queen”!

I almost replied by saying :

 “Gentleman, a toast to the Pope”.

 We sat  down on our chairs and drank our wine without saying a word.

‘Here we are, ‘I thought’ far away from civilization, with the sun setting on the British Empire, toasting Queen Elizabeth in far away London.

We talked until late in the evening and I came away impressed by the sincerity of this District Officer who must have known that his employment was coming to an end.

The next day I invited him humbly to a cup of tea. I do not know if he enjoyed it because my tea was almost like coloured water, but he remained polite and on leaving  thanked me heartily for a ‘real cup of Dutch tea’.

It must have been during that same tour when I met Alice Lenshina Mulenga the Lumpa prophetess herself. Our little band of cycling carriers, with me at the rear, suddenly stumbled on large crowds of singing people. Before I could stop I stood in front of Lenshina and her stern-looking Badikoni, (deacons). She smiled , greeted me, asked me where I was going and what I was doing. We talked together , me in halting Bemba. When I said goodbye she ordered her staff to give me two chickens.

I was surprised as I had been told that Lenshina was antagonistic towards the Catholic Church for she allegedly equated such things as rosaries with fetishes and regarded the celebration of the Eucharist as wicthcraft.

I remember her open face, proud bearing and quiet self assurance, so different from the time I met her again in the 1970s during her house arrest in Lusaka. 

 

Towards the end of 1961 I was sufficiently versed in the language to be sent on what was called a “Mafundisho” . It was to take place in Kalela, the outstation I had become to love.

The great strength of the White Fathers was their thorough preparation of catechumens before final baptism, and of the baptized children before  the reception of various sacraments. During the school holidays a series of annual instructions were given that lasted a fortnight. Despite the fact that most of the teaching was still based on the old penny catechism, the method of teaching was quite modern. I arrived with a highly pressurized ‘Tilley’ lamp, the light of which was strong enough to project slides on an old bed sheet. The children and the grown-ups loved it and asked hundredsof questions.

Later I acquired a small Minolta slide projector that could be connected to the battery of my motorcycle. I also possessed rolls of pictures on the life of Jesus, which could be shown during the day. I noticed how easily the people understood the narratives of the Gospel as they were so similar to their own daily life.

And again, once the teaching was done, the adults would light a huge fire and re-tell the history, the stories, fables and  wise-sayings of the past. The boys told mostly fables about the clever, shrewd and smart Kalulu, (hare) while the girls went more for dramatic narratives, each one of which had its little song. The plaintive singing of these songs, their endless repetition and, sometimes, unhappy endings made me realize that these young ladies were being prepared for a hard and often brutal life.

These dramatic narratives would stay with me for many years to come.

I stayed in that village until the New Year, 1962. After the rains, in April, I came back to help the people to make bricks for a new church. They used the softened clay of the big termite hills to mould the bricks. After they had dried them in the sun, a kiln was made and the bricks were fired with dry wood from the bush. This burning process took three days and nights to produce beautiful, red bricks that could undergo the test of time.

By then I had completed my initiation into missionary work and was ready for a bit of rest. The diocesan treasurer gave me a lift to Ndola, in the Copperbelt where I ordered my first motorcycle. These few days in the modern and hard working Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia made me realize that there was more to being a missionary than life in the bush. I was given a lift back and finished my ‘local leave’ cycling through a great part of the diocese of Abercorn, visiting one mission post after the other.

On my way to Kopa in the district of Mpika, a mission at the end of a 100 mile long and sandy road, I stopped in a nika, a swampy open piece of wetland, also called a dambo. I put my bike against a tree and ate my sandwiches.

When I scanned the horizon I discovered a lion looking at me from the edge of the wood. I could not believe my eyes and stared at it mesmerized. Then he sniffed loudly, turned and disappeared in the bush. A few minutes later I met up with a crowd of men, armed with spears, and muzzleloaders.

 “Didn’t you meet a lion on your way ?” the leader asked . Look here at its footprint aal over the road!”

  “Yes”, I replied, “at the edge of the dambo. He did not attack me but sniffed and turned away. Why did he not attack me?”

 “Because Europeans stink”, he replied, and ran on with the armed group to face the animal.

 

Before leaving for another mission post, the missionaries had showed me on the parish map a shortcut but I missed it,  lost my way and found myself wading, with my bike and a bundle of my clothes on my shoulders  through a dambo and then through sticky mud that became increasingly more difficult to get out of.

It was midday with not one soul in sight. The sun was hot and there was only the piercing sound of the crickets to be heard. I panicked and thought ‘Here I am going to sink away and nobody will ever find my corps’. But suddenly I found hard ground and reached dry sand after a long hour of slugging through the mud.

hen I sat down on the edge of the dambo to take a rest, I noticed that my body was covered with leeches, having a feast day on my blood. I extracted them one after the other, and encouraged myself that these leeches were formerly used to cure people. I  reached the next mission post late in the evening. That night I dreamed of the endless bush, that looked like a cathedral of a miombo woodlands.

The missionpost I had come to was called Mulanga, the post I would be sent to in that same year.

A few days after my return to MulIlansolo I got a letter from the company VanRooyen in Bulawayo with the news that that my motorcycle , a BSA 250 cc, was on the way. It had been dispatched via the line of rail to Broken Hill, (Kabwe) and put on top of one of the coaches of the Central African Road Service (CARS). The letter indicated the date and even the hour when the coach would arrive at the junction of the dirt road to Kasama, near Isoka. I hardly believed this to be possible but we, Corbeil and I, went there all the same with a jerry can of petrol. And true enough around the indicated time, suddenly the coach appeared on the horizon with a big crate on top. We signed the papers, pried the motor cycle out of its crate, filled the tank with petrol, checked everything and after a few spluttering kick-starts, it ran smoothly. I had become a motorized missionary.

I used the motorbike on all my tours and even on a   journey to Ilondola where I was asked to introduce the White Fathers newcomers to the African church hymns[32].

 

One of my task as manager of schools was to launch a new Primary School in Chilunda, on the way to Chunga in the North. Most of its inhabitants were Watch Towers, at that time not known for their love of education. But the parents told me that they would like the boys to read and write so that they would be able to read the Bible. They had build a small shelter and the first classes were in session. The school was in need of a more permanent building.  I spent four lovely weeks with the population making clay bricks, and collecting rafters and grass for the roof.  I enjoyed painting the school benches and a few shelves. The boys came faithfully every day but there was only a handful of little girls, sent by a catholic village in the Bemba area.

Mr. Snelson, the then District Education Officer, arrived for a quick inspection tour, congratulated me on my achievement but insisted that both in Mulilansolo and in Chilunda the ratio of girls was below par and had to be increased. This was not a sinecure. Most parents allowed the girls to remain at school until Standard two but by then the majority of them had ‘grown up’ ready for an early marriage. Some of them were bright, passed their Standard II exams with high marks and were consequently selected for Standard III, even for Standard V. in Ilondola.  However, to my frustration on the day the school year started in 1961, only two girls turned up, the daughters of the teachers.

I went to the villages where the girls students came from and spoke with the parents. One of their main objections was their genuine concern that as ‘weekly boarders’ they were out of the control of normal village life and might even become pregnant. Many of the pupils came from a considerable distance. They arrived on Sunday evening with a bundle of food and stayed in the mission dormitories until Friday afternoon. However there were no dormitories for the girls. I promised to make a special building for them as quickly as possible. The schoolboys and the parents helped to make the bricks and from my little savings I bought the corrugated iron sheet for the roof. It was my first building and I was very proud of it. It did not take long before the people called it ‘ the girls convent’.  The first female students arrived but we had not reached the require number that is one female to three male pupils. I toured day after day through the villages to encourage the parents to send their girls to school.

 Some of their mothers remarked  jokingly: “Are you going to marry them all, Father? That will cost you a lot of money”[33].

Academically 1961-62 became a good year. There were plenty of activities, sports , drama and concerts. Together with the teachers we aimed at a 100 % pass and made them study in the evening with the help of a couple of pressure lamps. At the end I knew most of their names and would remember most of them for many years to come[34].

Things were going so well as regards the school that the people around Kalela send a delegation to the mission and asked if we would be ready to open their  Primary School again

As it had been closed indefinitely the matter had to go through a meeting of the District Education Council in Chinsali. There it was decided to re-open the school again, not under the White Fathers agency but under the management of the Local Education Authoirty, L.E.A. It left me with a sense of loss as I had become fond of the children around Kalela and could have done so much for them.

The set-up of the school staff had one weakness and that was the female helper.  She was a young, unattached lady who was not a qualified teacher and taught domestic science to the girls. She was never accepted by the teachers’ wives were inclined to accuse her of seducing their husbands. One day she walked from Chilunda school to Mulilansolo to collect her paltry salary. On her way back she met a teacher who tried to rape her. She fought and fought like a lioness, until some villagers, passing by,  heard her crying : “Oh Jesus, let me die, let me die !” It was my sad duty to bring the case to the notice of the authorities who put the teacher on probation for two years without any salary. The young female teacher decided to leave her employment and entered a sisters congregation in Tanganyika and took religious name of Angela. Later, in 1973, I met her again in the University Teaching Hospital of Lusaka, where she was diagnosed to have cancer of the kidneys. She died in Tanzania in 1974, far away from her parents in Mulilansolo in 1974[35].

 

The country was slowly but surely moving towards Independence. Mr. Kenneth Kaunda was released from prison and met the Prime Minister Macmillan in London.

In 1960 the Colonial Office send a commission, under Lord Monckton, to take evidence from as many people as possible as regards the future of the Federation. Some members visited Mulilansolo on their way to the European farmers in Mbesuma, Chunga, and Isoka[36]. When it was released in October, the outcome was as expected: everybody in the rural areas was dead against the Federation, that had been imposed in 1953.

In 1961 the colonial secretary, Mr. Ian Macleod proposed a system of elections of which one third of the seats belonged to the so called ‘upper role’, one third to the ‘lower roll’ and a final one third would be obtained by combining the electoral registers. This was accepted by Kenneth Kaunda and Harry Nkumbula and after the first Mulungushi UNIP conference, the momentum towards Independence could not be halted any more.     

 

Soon Africa, and in particular the rural areas of Northern Rhodesia, (Zambia) were no longer the sole domain of adventurous pioneers, professional hunters, colonial administrators or bush missionaries. The “Winds of Change” opened the continent for the media and for more secular groups. The first group of lay helpers to arrive in the North were four Kayotters  from Brabant in the Netherlands. They belonged to the youth branch of the Catholic Labour Movement (KAB) and were sent to Malole, near Kasama There they helped to build the new Secondary School, dedicated to St Francis and staffed by the American Brothers of the Sacred Heart. Their leader Ben VanKeuringen, and two of his comrades visited us in Mulilansolo in 1961 and admired my newly acquired motorcycle. They were followed by volunteers from Germany and many other , more secular groups of young men and women that were collectively called N.G.O’s : Non Governmental Organizations.

 

The team of creative pastoral workers in Mulilansolo, consisting of the missionaries, the teachers and the catechists continued to pioneer the composition of hymns according to Bemba/Bisa modalities. In the middle of 1961 they also ventured into the more difficult area of adapting local customs in order to incorporate these into Christian ritual.

The Catholic Action of the Laity became carried forward by the members of the Legion of Mary. This rather militant movement had been founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1922, and was adopted by the White Fathers in Chilubula and in Abercorn from the beginning of the 1950s onwards.

Devotion to the Virgin Mary had been stimulated among the Catholics by the Marian year in 1954 and the stories about the apparitions of Mary to three children in Fatima[37]. In 1955 a well known- priest, Fr Patrick Peyton, was invited to launch a Marian crusade. He traveled all over the country with the rosary in his hand, repeating the motto :

 ‘The Family that prays together, stays together’.

The younger vintage of missionaries who arrived around the 1960’s had been very impressed during their studies by the example of the members of the Legion of Mary in China, who, as an underground community, kept the presence of the Catholic Church alive despite all oppression.

In Mulilansolo the Legion of Mary consisted mainly of an active group of women. Part of their work was to visit parishioners, who in one way or another, had strayed away from the ‘narrow path’ and to encourage them to come back to the fold.

One day in February 1961 they talked about some catholic women who had conducted an initiation ceremony for the girls in Mubanga. According to the Statutes of the diocese, Ukuchindila Ichisungu, (the dancing of a nubile girl who had come of age) was pagan and had to be discouraged as much as possible. Those in charge of the initiation ceremony ran the risk of being excluded from the sacraments, even excommunicated.

But fortunately even in the Catholic Church the ‘Wind of Change’ was blowing with the council of Vatican II being prepared.  We, in the mission fields, were delighted that finally ‘Mother  Church’ was ready to divest herself from a European attire?

What ever the case might have been, by then the ‘in’ word was not ‘condemnation ‘of foreign customs but rather ‘adaptation’.

VanRijthoven suggested not to reprimand these BanaChisungu,( the leaders of the Initiation ritual) but to invite these local elderly women to the mission for a dialogue. “ Would they be so kind as to perform the initiation ceremonies in and around the presbytery rather than hiding in the bush”, he asked?

The majority of the women responded with enthusiasm and started with decorateding all the walls of the parish church with colourful panels. The result was overwhelming.The women themselves were given the chance to show the beauty and positive side of these ceremonies without the prejudices of the men in general and the priests in particular. Corbeil gratefully made use of the occasion to collect the various emblems and VanRijthoven recorded the music and the dances[38]. Even if the women accommodated the ritual to the mental capacity of the men, the fact that the ceremonial dances took place at the mission was a major step forward. It quickly became  known all over the country and even met with encouragement from the Regional of the White Fathers, Fr.Louis Oger.

 

The recording of these rites was another step forward. VanRijthoven and his team composed church hymns according the initiation modalities and emblems, while Corbeil kept the objects in his museum. It was clear that some rituals resembled the  Christian initiation to the sacraments. For example the desire for a conversion, a profound change, was there when the adapt was told to leave childish habits behind and become a responsible woman in the community.

However the whole exercise stayed in the phase of collecting data. It  was not analyzed, let alone scrutinized.

One of the reasons was that  we were overtaken by political events. Mulilansolo was a 500 miles from Lusaka but was also situated in the Chinsali district that did not escape the upheavals of the struggle for Independence. From the beginning of the 1960s onwards freedom fighters arrived from the Copperbelt and the Capital and were pursued by the Federal Authorities as political trouble makers.

 

A few days before Christmas 1961 I received  two letters with very  sad news. One told me that Tante Fie, the elder sister of my father had died of cancer and, the other that one of my my brothers, Frans, had in the darkness of the night driven his scooter under a parking lorry and had subsequently died on the 4th December, He was only 21 years old. Like his older brother Stef, he had safely returned from military service in Dutch New Guinea. He wass on the point of becoming an auto-mechanic engineer and had just become engaged to a young lady

 At that moment I was so busy and so far away that the impact of these events did not register.

That would come later, during my first leave.

 

One day a very important visitor arrived in the mission, the Canadian, Fr Georges Mondor. He came from the Generalate in Rome and was one of the Superior general’s assistants. He seemed to enjoy and appreciate the experimental work of both VanRijthoven and Corbeil.

I left him to it without much comment. Towards the end of his stay he called me, almost as in an afterthought and, after a few polite introductions he said:

 “I hope you have realized that your two elderly confreres are not the normal cut of White Fathers missionaries”.

 I laughed and laughed. “That is the understatement of the year” I replied.

The wife and the small children of Mr Simon Kapwepwe passed by at the mission on their way to the village of  Kambwi, in the north, near the Kalungu river in order to find shelter and refuge among their family. Both Corbeil and VanRijthoven decided to remain hospitable to all callers without any discrimination or bias. Some local leaders of the National Independence Party asked them for a hide-out in the buildings as they were accused by the colonial administration   of sabotage. The missionaries hid them in the food silo’s of the mission an hour before the arrival of a Mobile Police Unit. The young European constable knew that the freedom fighters were hidden somewhere in the mission buildings but refrained from conducting a thorough search.

He left in  disgust and must have reported the case to his superiors.

At the beginning of 1962 Bishop Fürstenberg received a letter from the Federal Government with the stringent order to transfer the staff at Mulilansolo to other mission posts if they wanted to avoid being declared Prohibited Immigrants.

The Bishop was in a quandary with what to do but the solution presented itself very soon.

In February 1962 the Bishop traveled by Mercedes from Chinsali to Mulilansolo. At Nkweto he decided to pay a visit to the chief and to take a picture of the new chapel, that was partly built with the support of his benefactors. When he entered he saw six empty gin bottles on the altar with a few dried flowers in them. He asked the children, playing near the chapel, where these bottles came from. They answered innocently:

 “From Father Kolebeki. He drinks a bottle each day”.

Corbeil was subsequently told that he had a problem, needed a protracted leave  and was put on a flight to Canada on the 23^rd of March. Karel VanRijthoven was due to go on leave anyway. He went to the Netherlands in April.

The mission of Mulilansolo became silent without the presence of the colourful and lively Colebeki and Kachesa.

 

On the 24 July the bishop arrived with Guido Stuer, a young Belgian missionary, in tow. He told me to get ready for a transfer to Mulanga within a day. Guido would take my place. I recall throwing my possessions in a few baskets and cardboard boxes and jumping into his posh Mercedes.

I did not get the chance to say goodbye to the people who had taught me so much in such a short time and with such great love. I had to leave my motorcycle, the BSA 250 cc, behind. A few moths later I gave it to my friend, Fr. Pat Menzies out of gratitude for coming to our rescue during  the Lumpa upheavals. But that is another story.

Once on the Great Northern road and very near Matumbo, the tee junction to Mulanga, the bishop told me that I was to be the superior of Mulanga mission with my friend Piet VanderLinden and the Swiss brother, Joseph Mächler as partners. Both had  arrived in Mulanga in  April. I was only 29 years old and hesitated to accept this responsibility. But the thought of working together with my friend Piet VanderLinden and with the kind  Brother Joseph made me to take the leap into the unknown.

Some time after my departure a new superior arrived in Mulilansolo.

 One of the first acts he did was to whitewash all the initiation panels, painted by the women in the parish church and in our priest house.

But the first impetus towards , what was later  called ‘inculturation’ had taken given, and , once taken over by the laypeople, was not to be stopped any more.

 

Mulanga - August 1962 to December 1964

 ‘Mulanga ni mfumu tulange,

 Mulange ni mfumu tulange!’ was the first line of a plaintive hymns composed by the prophetess, Lenshina Mulenga.

            ‘Please, Morning Star, show us the Lord,

 Please, Morning Star, show us the Lord!’

 

Indeed, the area seemed to be in great need of the Lord.

 Everywhere schools, houses of teachers, and small bridges had been burnt as a result of the first  uprising of UNIP followers in an attempt to attract world wide attention and  so to accelerate the granting of Independence[39]. The Mobile Units of the police force had passed, removing the trees on the road and sniffing out the freedom fighters who were regarded as the culprits of this ‘Cha-Cha-Cha’ upheavals. Nobody was to be seen except a few women and children who fled in the bush as soon as they heard the noise of a car.

After we had branched off from the Great North Road and had taken a track eastwards near the small settlement Matumbo, 60 km to the south of Chinsali, we suddenly found ourselves on the first edge of the stunning Muchinga Escarpment. We stopped to have a quick look at the magnificent view of the country that stretched itself all the way down into the North Luangwa valley. We took a sip of water from the source of a clear and fresh stream nearby. Later I was told by Chief Chibesakunda himself that the stream was called the Chintasama, which runs into the Mwambwa river and finally into the Luangwa river on its way to the mighty Zambezi. He was the ‘owner of the land’ and when he had been appointed chief  before World war II, the councillors had encouraged him to repopulate the area as quickly as possible. He had followed their advice by marrying a great number of wives and by having many children according the biblical command in Genesis to Ukufusha Icalo, the populate the earth (1:28).

At that moment I did not understand what he meant but once I knew a bit of the history of the Babisa ba Milundu, the Bisa of the Hills, I  could somehow comprehend this order to be fruitful and multiply.

Like so many tribes in the North of Zambia, the Bisa had arrived since about the 16^th century onwards from Kola, (Angola, Congo) in gentle ripples. For the Luban invaders, who had arrived later in 1730, the Bisa were the owners of the original inhabitants of the land, the autochthones, the owners of the sacred shrines[40].   

They were traders who had kept the route that linked Feira, at the confluence of the Luangwa with the Zambezi, and Kazembe, in the Western Luapula valley, open and firmly in their own possession despite pressure from the in-roads of Portuguese traders.

The Bisa had traded mainly in ivory and precious metals which they carried personally to Feira, and even further, beyond and along the Zambezi towards the Indian Ocean[41]. They prided themselves of being a well to do group, freedom loving and not given to any dealing with slavery. They had no central, hierarchical authority Each chief was more or less independent and common actions rested on consensus.  

However at beginning of the 19^th century things changed for them dramatically. In 1831 they were attacked by the Central, ‘Luban’ Bemba of Chitmukulu, out to gain access to the lucrative ivory trade. The Bemba warriors  made slaves of the vanquished  and used them as porters who carried the ivory towards the coast and so to the international markets[42]. The superior Central Bemba drove a wedge in between the Bisa. Some of them fled into the Bangweulu swamps, others were driven into the Muchinga Escarpment and even emigrated  eastwards across the Luangwa where they settled among the Tumbuka and Chewa.

The last straw came with the arrival of the  Ngoni impi’s from South Africa, who in 1835 crossed the Zambezi, moved upwards to the North and destroyed everything that came in their way.

The Bisa became impoverished and were near starvation. When Dr David Livingstone passed  in Bisa land in 1866 he met a Chief Chibesakunda who was depressed and without hope[43].

Finally, in 1870, after the defeat of the Ngoni by the central Bemba soldiers, The Babbia ba milundu, The Bisa of the hills, had feld to the BenaMwanga in the North, near Isoka and had found a measure of protection from the occupying British South African Company at the edn of the century.

At the beginning of the British Administration of Indirect Rule the, by then empty, areas of Mutambe and Chinkumba were returned to the little group of Bisa[44]. It was at that time that the Bisa councillors had commanded the young Chibeskunda to populate the country again.

The chief not only followed their advice but made sure that his children were educated in the modern ways of the colonial administration. He invited the Presbyterian missionaries of Lubwa to establish a school in his own musumba (capital).

 

After a ten miles driving down hill we crossed the wetlands and the bridge over the Mwambwa river and reached the mission.

An impressive, well groomed  and heavy set person came out with outstretched arms and a very welcoming smile and exclaimed in Latin:

            ‘Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine,

 secundum verbum tuum in pace,

 Now, Lord, you can let your servant go,

 just as you promised, in peace!’[45].

and he, addressing himself to me,  added :  

We mulumendo,  young man, you can take over now!

He was Ba-kole, Fr. Aloys Kohle, who had arrived in the country from his native Germany in the mid 1930s and was then 63 years old[46].  Behind him was the swarthy, well-set figure of Brother Joseph Mächler, grunting a welcome, to be followed by my friend Piet VanderLinden[47].

Fr Kohle looked tired and  worn out, ready to go on leave. During the week after my arrival he quickly showed me the parish books, gave a few useful hints and said goodbye to the people.

 

When we, three relatively young men,  Piet, Joseph and me, sat down for our first house council,  we suddenly felt the weight of the responsibility on our shoulders.

To say the least, the mission of Mulanga had had a rather checkered history. It had been founded by Fr Reber, a German White Father in September 1939,  a few days before the outbreak of World War II. In 1940 he became detained as a German national and given a kind of  ‘house arrest’ by the British authorities. It meant that he was not to be the superior, could not go on tour and had to report to the Boma in Chinsali at regular intervals. This was at a moment that he and Brother Gottlieb, also a German, still lived in tents near a lush mushitu, a thicket, the source of two small streamlets both called the Chisulo[48].

Later an inexperienced and young  Dutchman, Fr Fred Berlage, had to come all the way from Kasama to be the acting superior. As has been seen above, Berlage was an educationalist, not very interested in pastoral work and was very often away.

It was said that towards the end of the war Fr.Reber became so depressed both by the news from home and by his being left alone in the mission, that he burnt the mission’s diary, took the little possessions he had, walked the 10 miles to the Great North Road, and boarded a CARS bus to the south to disappear for ever.

According to the people the reason for the poor start of Mulanga was obvious[49]. The founding group of missionaries had been looking for fertile soil and fresh water but unknown to themselves they had decided to build the mission almost on top of an old Bisa cemetery. It had been a burial place, destined specifically for deceased young women of the Chibesakunda chiefly clan before the Bisa had been driven northwards by the Bemba in the 19^th century. The spirits of  these young girls had been disturbed by the arrival of the missionaries, who not only cut the big trees in the thicket but also killed a lusato, a boa constrictor, all traditional symbols of chiefly presence[50].

While preparing the vegetable garden and making holes for young orange trees, the brother had, indeed, stumbled upon some bones and decaying copper bracelets.

To show their displeasure it was said that during full moon drumming and plaintive singing could be heard coming from the same mushitu, the jungle thicket. These spirits of these young girls were obviously not pleased with the proximity of male foreigners[51].

 

Together with the mission posts of Mulilansolo, Ilondola,  Katibunga and even Chalabesa  Mulanga had been founded in the 1930s to counteract the influence of the Presbyterian Free Church of  Scotland, based since 1905 in Chinsali and, later, in nearby Lubwa.

This, now so incredible beleaguering of this mission by catholic missionaries, in particular by the then Apostolic Administrator Jan VanSambeek, caused not only great sadness to the Presbyterian ministers but was also a source of considerable confusion for the local population. The missionaries had preached a divided Christ and established Christian communities that opposed, even fought each other.

The emergence of Lenshina Mulenga’s Lumpa movement at the beginning of the 1950s did not contributed to the welfare of Christianity either. The cleavage between Catholics and Protestants spilled over into the Lumpa Movement the members of which sang that the Ba Roma (meaning the Roman Catholics, not the Roman soldiers) had killed Jesus and that the Bena Lubwa were hypocrites and caused mayhem in the country because of their hidden acts of  adultery.  Many Catholics became adherents of the new and independent movement and traveled to Kasomo, the home of Lenshina and the capital of the movement, in order to throw their rosaries and statutes as so many objects of magic on a big heap of  ‘witchcraft’.

In Mulanga there were so many Catholics who had lapsed, that some missionaries had lost courage, and had gone back to their home land in Europe. Almost each week big groups of happily singing Luma adherents passed the mission on their way to Kasomo to help build the big temple. Many of them were Tumbuka speaking people who came from as far as Lundazi and had walked aal the way through the Luangwa valley.

It was not only the Lumpa movement that had crippled the mission. The young members of UNIP had not left the place unscathed. From July until October 1961 all the schools, including the middle school of the mission, had gone up in flames. Later the cattle barns had been ransacked, and some of the cows were driven to Matumbo to ‘ in name of the Cha-cha-cha and to feed the freedom fighters’ as was said.

The two elderly fathers, Aloys Kohle and Peter Loch became so worried about their house being the next building to be burnt that they decided to sleep in a makeshift shelter, made in that same mushitu thicket, nearby. Of the two Peter Loch was not so popular among the people. His nickname was ‘Kapendamachungwa’ the one who counts the oranges as he allegedly tried to count all the oranges on the trees in order to avoid any stealing by the children. He had bneen transferred to ano0ther mission and Fr Piet Vander Linden had been appointed in his place.

 

This was the situation when I arrived. Not only were the schools at the mission burnt but all  of the the Catholic schools and the churches in Kasangala (near Matumbo, along the Great North Road,)and Chabola (a place to the East of Mulanga) were one blackened mass.

After we had gone for our first safari’s made up the balance I could not suppress a feeling of despondency.

 “Why had all this done to elderly missionaries who had come with the best of intentions”, I wondered ?

‘When I arrived in this burnt-out mess and met with the rather hostile attitude of some of the people, I wondered why they had appointed me here’,  I wrote to my sister[52].

 

But we were young and convinced that our more adapted methods of the Apostolate would pacify the people.

There was another, very important reason for our hope and optimism. That was the opening of the Vatican II Council in far away Rome, which occurred not so long after we had settled down. News came in from the Vatican in dribs and drabs but it kept us going.  We read that right from beginning the conservative cardinals Ottaviani and Tardini had been afraid that things would go too fast. They wondered whether the old John XXIII had the strength to oppose ‘any revolution’ that could break out. But to our joy it was reported that everything that the Roman Curia had prepared, all these Commissions, were completely overturned and that John XXIII did not oppose this. Originally he wanted the Council to be one of Union but quickly he realized how much the Catholic Church needed an aggiornamento, a genuine updating[53].

I remember vividly reading the opening speech of Pope John the XXIII on the 11^th of October 1963.

 “We feel that we must disagree with those prophets of gloom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world is near.

The Church should never depart from the sacred patrimony of truth, received from the Fathers. But at the same time she must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life, introduced into the modern world.

The Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit of the whole world expects a step forward towards a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciousness in the faithful. There should be a perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine which however should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of the modern world.

The substance of the ancient doctrine is one thing and the way it is presented is another.

Nowadays the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy  rather than that of severity. We must demonstrate the validity of our teaching by kindness rather than by condemnations”.

 

‘I have neither gold, nor silver but what I have I give  you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk’. (Acts 3:6).

The Church does not promise merely earthly happiness but divine grace, raising human beings to the dignity of the children of God.

 

For Pope John the aim of the Vatican Council II was to bring together the Church’s best energies, prepare, as it were, and consolidate the path towards that unity of humankind, so that the earthly city may be brought to the resemblance of the heavenly city where truth reigns, charity is the law and whose extent is eternity.

‘The Council will rise like day break’ he wrote, ‘It is only now dawn—heaven and earth will be united in the way, you bishops, will correspond to the modern expectations and needs of the various peoples of the world’[54].

 

But these encouraging texts arrived at a later date. In the second half of 1962 and the first half of 1963 we worked hard to get our feet on firm ground.

Twice a year Fr Ernst Hoch asked me to come and teach the Bemba hymns and modern methods of evangelization to groups of young and lively White Fathers at the Ilondola Language Centre. I cycled all the way from Mulanga via a short-cut, straight to Ilondola and met young missionaries who had been taught more modern theology during their training[55].

Others, men like Fr Adrian B. Smith, had followed a course on modern catechetics at the Lumen Vitae Institute in Louvain. They stayed for some time in our mission to gain pastoral experience. We talked until deep into the night about the way the Catholic Church, now with its windows wide open, was stepping out into the world and renewed itself according to the demands of modern times. It became an euphoric period that was filled with visions of constant experimentation and adaptation.

Another valuable asset to the community at that time was the seminarian Telesfor Kabiti who joined us for one year of probation before being ordained. He provided a more local dimension to our work. He loved to cycle to Matumbo and stay there for some time in order to give catechism lessons to the youth. Because of this we gave him the nickname ‘The Bishop of Matumbo’. He was ordained a priest some years later and served the church community in the dioceses of Mbala and the archdiocese of Lusaka  to retire in Lwitikila at the end of the 1990’s.

 

We, Fr Piet VanderLinden, Bro Joseph Mächler and I, decided to concentrate on pastoral missionary work and limit material concerns to a minimum. The cattle around the mission was a source of worry as the barns had been burned down. We decided to send the whole herd to Fr Patrick Menzies in Ilondola who was then the bursar and had to feed hungry students. Brother Joseph and a few herdsmen trekked all the cattle over the Muchinga escarpment into the valley of Ilondola. It took them three days and they slept in the open air around a big fire.

The sheep and the few chickens we kept for our own needs. Later the sheep got a liver disease and Brother Joseph disposed of them in a short time. Then there were the orange trees that lined the vegetable gardens. On his first visit to the mission Bishop Fürstenberg insisted that we, like Fr Loch, would sell these oranges to the people in order to cover some of the running expenses of the mission.

I could not help it but this Episcopal admonition made me think of my uncle Willem, the elder brother of my mother. He was a greengrocer who sold his wares in an lucrative stand near  Het Holland’s Spoor.The Holland Railway Station. Childless and with little comprehension of what I was doing in the seminary in Sterksel  I wanted to do with my life, he had called me aside one day during the 1940’s and  offered me to take over his business.

“It will give you a good income” he had confided to me. I had politely told him that I would consider his generous offer, but in the train on my way to the seminary, I realized that he had no clue of my missionary vocation.

This episode returned to my meomory like a flash and I  shouted to the puzzled bishop:

            “I have not studied 12 years and left my country in order to sell oranges in Africa. That I could have done in the Netherlands!!”

He did not exactly understand what I meant but saw my determination not to become a salesman just for the sake of a few pennies. Later we compromised. I sold the proceeds of each tree by auction to the women around the mission, who made a good profit by selling the oranges at the bus stop in Matumbo along the Great North Road.

 

We were indeed very idealistic and  wanted to follow the demands of the Gospel as much as possible. Visitors found our food poor and monotonous but we never noticed this. One of the language students, Fr Gerard Klomp, was so taken aback by our frugality that he decided then and there to call it a day and return to the Netherlands, where he worked in a well-to-do parish for the rest of his life.

By then the management of the Catholic Schools had been taken over by an capable lay  person, Mr. Peter Kasolo. He asked us to help the people with the reconstruction of the burnt downs schools in Kasangala, Chabola and in the mission itself. Some of the youthful arsonists were caught and send to a Probation School in Livingstone where they learned a trade and became well equipped and rehabilitated for further life.

The majority of the parents had been against the burning of the schools and were eager to help as they wanted their children to continue attending school. After long meetings it was decided that the parents would rebuild the walls, cut new rafters from the bush, while the mission management promised to buy new corrugated iron sheets wherever needed. With a small grants from the government and our personal contributions we bought a heap of new roofing sheets that were delivered quite quickly by the lorry of the diocesan treasurer.  This encouraged the parents to do their part of the deal. Within a few months all the schools were repaired and the children were back in the schools.

It was great to hear their singing voices again and see them playing in the yard.

More difficult was the building of the small chapels in the outstations. We decided to move the chapel from rural Kasangala to the growing centre of Matumbo at the junction of the Great North Road and to build a permanent chapel in Chabola. The number of Catholics was small, inclined to let the mission do most of the work.  We were young and ready to help with our bare hands but counted on the full collaboration of everybody to repair their chapels. Slowly but surely the work of restoration started. I remember combining a mafundisho, a course of religious instructions of two weeks, with the laying of the foundations of the chapel in Matumbo. The headman gave us a plot where previously a Lumpa church had stood. It had been

made of wattle and a grass roof but was burnt down, when the adherents of this sect left for their own settlements in Kasomo and in the Luangwa valley. We used the bricks of Kasangala, 3 miles down the road. For this we had the use of the diocesan lorry for two days but we had to break down the walls of the old chapel and load and unload the bricks ourselves. I must have driven the bricklayers without mercy because on a hot day one of them, an outgoing man, called Machisa, suddenly tumbled from the make-shift scaffolding and fell in my arms below.

We folded him into an empty wheelbarrow and brought him back to his laughing and understanding wife. “He has been drinking too much beer yesterday evening”, she explained.

 

There was no transport to take the new doors and window frames to the two outstations from the mission. Good and obedient Brother Joseph offered to take them on his bike and bring them wherever they were needed. His Bemba was not always clear but people loved him. One day he arrived in a village, disheveled and very thirsty.

 “Ndi ne cilaka” he groaned. These words, meaning ‘I am thirsty’ were ambiguous and could have a sexual meaning. The girls and women laughed to their hearts’ content but young boys brought him some water and helped him to carry the building material up the escarpment.

We made a ruling never to be too long on the mission itself. One of us, priests, had always to be on tour. It meant spending long evenings with our Brother Joseph, who loved to talk about his background and his youth. The trouble was that after a few sentences in broken English he would revert to his native German Swiss, as, according to him, ‘it was very much like Dutch’. He was born in Canton Schwyz and spent his youth high in the mountains, herding cattle, washing in the snow. During the winter their village could become isolated for months. The sons of the cattle owners had to keep to a hard and fast rule ‘to marry the girl next door’. One day he decided the flee away from that incestuous atmosphere, walked all the way to Luzern where he decided to enter a monastery. He knocked on the first door and was so well received by the White Fathers that he decided to stay and become a missionary.

Brother Joseph was a stocky, well built man. Once he threw a young, obstinate calf with one mighty sweep over the wooden fence into the kraal. He could roll single-handedly a drum that was filled with 44 gallon of fuel onto a lorry.  He loved the children in the village, who were always pleased to see him. At times he looked like the legendary Piper of Hamel with a string of happy kids singing behind him[56].  

The occasional visitors often found an empty house, with one priest on tour, the other visiting the villages and brother Joseph in the village or deep in the garden. One day the Vicar General, Fr Friedrich Reuter, arrived with a bottle of schnapps and some grapes from South Africa. He was a gregarious man, always ready for a chat and a laugh combined with a bit of innocent backbiting. He found the house open and empty with only the noise of rats scurrying around in the decomposing ceiling. He became upset that there was nobody to welcome him and listen to his stories. He was annoyed and expressed in so many words when I returned from a sick call to an old man in one of the villages. Once he settled down, had been given a room and something to drink, he became his good old self again and was ready to give us the latest news.

He was a kind and friendly man who always caused people to relax in sometimes strained situations. He told us that Father Karel VanRijthoven was on his way back to Africa and asked us whether we were ready to have him as a member, not as superior, of the community. I was very apprehensive about this as he had been my superior in Mulilansolo and had initiated me so well in the culture of the country. But, of course, he was always very welcome.

He arrived a few weeks later but we soon noticed that he was a changed man. Before his arrival he had been told by the bishop not ‘to dabble in the initiation rites’ and keep to the statutes of the diocese. These statutes, unaltered since the 1940s, still regarded the Initiation Ritual and other tenets of traditional religiosity as ‘pagan’ and forbidden. This outdated rule discouraged him, and caused him to be resentful, even acrimonious.

 

The country was in political turmoil and unsettled by the both the UNIP cadres and the adherents of the Lumpa Church of Lenshina. The former became afraid to live in the villages of the UNIP followers who, according to them, defiled the calo, the country by their adulterous and promiscuous behaviour.

 These accusations of the prophetess Lenshina’s adherents were not groundless. In that period  dances ,like Pata-Pata and Sinjonjo, was introduced from abroad that could be very erotic and lasted until deep in the night[57]. According to the elderly women the young UNIP men did not seem to adhere to the strict moral code of the initiation rites and traditional marital behaviour. This was believed to cause disease and even death among the mothers and the children.

Many of Lenshina’s hymns consisted of plaintive forebodings of future disaster and death in a time when ‘freedom’ seemed be synonymous with  ‘promiscuity’ to some of these young freedom fighters. Their ‘adulterous’ behaviour was seen to contaminate the community

The deacons of the Lumpa church decided to leave these defiled villages and create clean settlements in areas where no people lived. Like Noah, they had built a boat in order to survive as a nation or ,like Moses, they had gone into the desert to move to a promised land. Many young women, wives of zealous UNIP freedom fighters, left their husbands for a better world to live in. That the creation of new villages, let alone huge settlements, was forbidden by the traditional law and by the colonial government made little impression on them. The administration of the Basungu, Europeans, was, according to them, on its way out and the legality of the Paramount (Luban) chiefs had always been questioned. The Lumpa followers, in particular the women, wanted to go back to the, possibly mythical, house cult of the traditional villages of long ago, with no influence of Overlords, be they African or European[58]. Both in Mulanga and in Mulilansolo whole church choirs, the majority of them girls, moved to these new villages and caused once again a shortage of  female pupils in the schools.

 

Our touring went on unabated. People, both Lumpa adherents and UNIP followers remained friendly and we soon knew the leaders of both camps. Our teaching became simple: Love one another and prepare yourself to be united as a new and independent nation.

But by 1963 too much water had gone under the bridge to reverse an upheaval. Lumpa followers had trekked away, mainly to the slopes of the Luangwa escarpment and now lived in isolated settlements, expertly laid-out and well-kept. To protect themselves they constructed strong stockades around these villages and even trained for a possible war with the help of muzzle-loaders, axes, spears, machetes, bows and arrows. It was evident that they intended to found their own kingdom. 

The UNIP youth, intent on including everybody in the thrust towards national Independence could not leave them alone and all during 1963 and the beginning of 1964 there were skirmishes and clashes between the two camps with victims on both sides.

There were, as yet, no religious sisters, on the mission and we both, Piet and me, took turns in the little dispensary to look after the wounded.

I remember bandaging a deep axe wound, cut in the head of  a local UNIP-leader and trying to push back a cluster of intestines into the abdomen of a Lumpa follower. All to no avail; both died that same evening. There were also better moments. One day people came running to the mission with a small baby, already gray blue due to a lack of breath. It had swallowed a whole groundnut that got stuck in its throat. Fr Piet Vander Linden grabbed its little legs and, upside down, gave it a hard slap on its buttocks. The nut snapped out of its throat like a bullet from a pistol. The mother was a bit upset that he had given her child such a blow but happy when it cried and breathed again.

 

As there were not so many Christians who needed attention we had plenty of time to chat with the men in the insaka, the gazebo in the middle of the village. One long afternoon during a session with Chief Chibesakunda, I was invited by one of his young daughters to come to her house and enjoy a plate of Bowa, mushrooms with her. It was clear by the way she called me that she was not a girl from the village. She happened to be one of the rare girls who had attended the secondary school at Chipembe, near Lusaka[59].

On another occasion when I cycled down the road from Matumbo back to Mulanga  I met a couple walking in the middle of the road, holding hands, something that was rather unusual in those days. They were Mwelwa Francis Chibesakunda and  Emma Goodshade. He had finished his secondary school at the Jesuits in Chikuni and she had successfully completed a secretarial course after completing Standard Seven in Ilondola. They were married in Mulanga, after which they flew to London where Mwelwa obtained a  honours degree in law. He was to serve his country all his working life as the Clerk of the National Assembly.

Emma’s mother was one of those staunch Christians who kept the faith going despite all upheavals. Born Maria Nkandu in 1911, she was strong, lean and resilient when she was in her fifties, the years I knew her[60]. Married to Mr Goodshade she was an ardent member of the Legion of Mary and was ready to walk miles in order to visit a wayward Christian. When Fr Palma Lévesque, the chaplain for the Laity, called all the legionaries of the district for a meeting in Ilondola, it was she who suggested that we all walked the 70 miles from Mulanga to Ilondola. I decided to go with them but as a precaution I took my ‘champion’ bike with me. It took us two full days. The more we came in the proximity of Ilondola, the greater our group became as other legionaries joined us on the way. After the meeting we walked back again the 70 odd miles. It became a triumphal trek that brought us closely together.

As superior I was in charge of the various mulandu, cases that people came with and brought to the parish office. I was a young and unmarried man but was asked to judge about marital troubles, make marriage inquiries and make important pastoral decisions. I had the diocesan Statutes as guide but often I found the rules out of date and unnecessarily harsh. I had the local catechist as interpreter when necessary but he seemed inclined to ‘tow the party line’ When a young girl became pregnant before outside wedlock she was excluded from the sacraments for a couple of years, her baby was not baptized and she could not be an active member of one of the youth movements. While dealing with such matters the kind words of John XXIII often came to my mind:

Nowadays the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity.

 

One day a young choir girl became pregnant and was dealt with by accordingly these rules.

Later, during the 1990s, when conducting a workshop in the Mtendere Compound of Lusaka, the now elderly grandmother made herself known and reminded me of her being excommunicated by me as a young girl.

“Did you then realize, father, that I had been raped by my uncle but could never divulge this publicly”.

 

I went on a long tour in the southern area of the mission and at the end of it I felt exhausted and dirty. In a village along the Great North Road many of its inhabitants had Tuberculosis (TB), and we had to bury two victims as quickly as possible. I had had not much sleep due to the insistent and endless wailing of the women during the night.

We left next day and suddenly, in the middle of the bush, I found myself in a Narnia dream world of neat Victorian cottages complete with slated roofs and even with chimneys.

I had reached the estate of Shiwa Ngandu, created by Sir Steward Gore Browne[61]. I decided to pay him a visit despite not having had a good wash for days.

He came out with outstretched hands, welcomed me with unfeigned pleasure and then said kindly:

  “What about a good  and warm bath, Padre”!

 He ushered me, as the Lord of the Manor, into his fabulous house and showed me a spacious visitors’ room

I must have been in some state but he was obviously used to bush missionaries. How much I enjoyed that bath, with soft water, heated by a ‘Rhodesian’ boiler while Joseph, his valet, stood outside to hand me a clean towel!

Later we had a meal, each of us sitting at the far side of a beautiful table. It was like a fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm or of the dutch strip story of Sir Oliver Bommel.

It was a place to stay for ever.

 

However Sir Steward brought me swiftly back to reality once he spoke about the political situation. He had been to London, visited the United Nations and was certain that Independence was knocking on the door of Northern Rhodesia.

            “But what about Alice Lenshina Mulenga”, he said, “Why can you missionaries not

             control that simple village woman?”.

I tried to explain that for the UNIP officials anyone who declined to be part of the struggle for Independence was regarded as an enemy. The Lenshina adherents were no saints, often aggressive but they wanted to stay out of it, to be counted out and live peacefully in their own little kingdom, their promised land near the Luangwa valley, an area that was uninhabited anyway. It was a pity that isolation, such a dangerous factor in religion, had made them fanatical, even suicidal, with. Apparently, no possibility of change. My advice was to handle the situation very gingerly.

The next day was Sunday. Sir Stewart Gore Browne had arranged everything like a dutiful Lord of the Manor. He ordered that the Catholics of his estate were the first to worship in his manorial chapel while “we, the heretics, will come after you, Padre”.

I told him that the Vatican Council in Rome had opened the way to more ecumenical services but he preferred to the traditional separation of Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

 

When I had said goodbye and went upstairs to pack, I found that my dirty linen had been washed and ironed. Down below my bike was clean and its tires pumped. I was ready for the next leg of a long tour.

On the day before my return to the mission I visited an old village where the headman had given me a house to sleep in. It belonged to someone who had gone to the Mikoti, to the Mines. In one of the dark corners I found an old saucepan radio and wondered whether its batteries were still charged[62]. After some crackling and hisses I got a few stations with the newscasters talking all the time in different languages about President John Kennedy.

I finally managed to get the BBC World News and heard that  President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in far away Dallas, Texas by some one called Lee Harvey Oswald. It was 22 November 1963.

Already then I had that foreboding that, despite our optimism, the aggiornamento in Rome, the updating with its euphoric ambiance, the opening of doors and the ecumenical encounter of world religions might not last and that we would have a long and arduous road before us.  

 

I went for another long tour, this time due east, down into the Luangwa valley. It meant days of travel. At times we had to carry our bikes and the luggage on our backs in order to descend down the sandy slopes into the hot valley.

Its people were different, spoke a mixture of Tumbuka and Bisa and seem to live the slow life of hunters and gatherers. There was plenty of game. Things grew easily in the fertile alluvial soils of an area, that long ago had been a lake. Great interest in any development, let alone religion did not seem to exist. In one big village the headman asked for a school but when I told him that the population had to contribute by labour and organization, his interest vanished. The appointment ended when he reached for his little beer pot provided to him by one of his wives.

That evening he hosted a traditional commemoration of an important deceased person and invited me for a drink. When I entered his yard I saw six huge beer pots ready for the occasion. My catechist dissuaded me from taking part as he regarded the party as a pagan ritual.

 

Next day we prayed all the same with only a few worshippers. Others were still asleep after their grandiose orgy. Two young girls presented themselves with their Christian cards. They were pupils of the Kanyanga mission in the diocese of Fort Jameson on the other side of the Luangwa and had been baptized at Easter. They were like two candles shining in a dark night.

We traveled on and on, in between the herds of animals and the occasional village. There was no shortage of food. As soon as we arrived in a village, women would rush out with eggs and other foodstuff. They bartered this for items like salt, matches, needles, safety pins, and fishhooks!  They still followed the custom of igniting pure fire by friction to cook food for their babies. Fire from the defiled nsaka , rest hut,  the gazebo of the men could not be used.

At the end of the tour I had more eggs than I and my carriers could swallow!

After more than a fortnight and on my way back up into the hills I got an attack of malaria. I stayed long days lying on my camp bed in my tent with the front flap open. It gave me  a terrific  view over the simmering Luangwa valley in the summer heat.

I knew that with plenty of rest I would get over it but the headman of that village was very concerned and offered me all sorts of local medicines. Thanks to his care and with the help of a few anti malaria pills I became strong enough to climb up the high escarpment, and cycle back to Mulanga.

 

On another tour I went to the south, direction Katoma, where the people wanted a school for their children. They were more serious about it than those in the Luangwa valley and promised to make bricks. To show my goodwill I started to teach the children of the village with the aid of my pictures. Suddenly a piercing cry was heard. A group of baboons had attacked the village and had climbed into the food bins on a moment that there were only women around. The men heard the war cry and rushed back from their gardens with spears, axes, and sticks. I ran with them and became witness of a running battle between human beings and fiercely shrieking monkeys. The strategy was to drive them to an open space where they could not climb into the trees and then surround them.

It took almost two hours before the battle was over with as the end result a row of dead baboons and a group of human beings smarting because of their injuries. Wounds inflicted by bites of monkeys quickly become septic if not treated properly. Fortunately I happened to have a good stock of permanganate crystals and iodine and spent the rest of the day disinfecting the afflicted. In the evening, as a token of gratitude I was offered a plate of monkey kidneys, regarded by the people as a great delicacy. I realized that I had to eat at least some of them to avoid offending the generous donor. It tasted like other kidneys.

Within a short time the people build their first school, an office  and  two houses for the teachers and from then onwards Katooma became ‘ part of the wide world’.

 

Mulanga was a lonely place and every visitor was very welcome. One of them was a professional hunter from Kitwe who was nicknamed Lungubi by the people. He came each year with a couple of licenses to shoot big game. He would try to go down into the valley with his combie volkswagen as far as possible, make a base camp and from there track a herd of elephants. To make the whole hunting expedition profitable he singled out an elephant with the biggest tusks and followed it patiently for days, even weeks on end. As an excellent shot he was usually successful. He would send us a piece of the trunk in exchange for fresh vegetables, fruit and a few potatoes. One day at the end of hot season he arrived and left the next day for his hunting party. Days, weeks passed and we forgot about him. The rains came and he had not returned to the escarpment before the valley became impassable. We sent someone to trace his whereabouts and after a few days he was discovered far away from his base camp, almost in a coma.

I reached him by bike with elementary medicine, vitamins, fresh food and a stretcher. We carried him to his base camp and his combie. By then he had come to but was extremely weak, too weak to drive his car. To his dismay I told him that I had never driven a car but was ready to try under his instructions. We managed somehow to climb the escarpment, I behind the wheel and he behind me giving instructions. Once back in the mission we called Dr Derek Braithewaite who happened to be working in the small hospital in Shiwa Ngandu. He arrived in the middle of the night but found the embankment and the bridge in front our mission  flooded after a very heavy rain storm. He left his land rover in the village on the other side of the river Mwambwa , stripped to his pants and so entered the house. When he saw the patient, and the dark spots on arms and legs he diagnosed almost immediately that he was in and advanced phase of sleeping sickness. We carried him high on a stretcher to the other side, wading up to our shoulders through the fast running river and got him in time to Chilonga hospital.             

The hunter was fortunate to survive and to be able to return to thank us[63].  He  knew also  a great deal of the chitemene system of the people and was of the opinion that this method of agriculture was not as bad as its translation into English ‘Slash and Burn’ indicated. The branches of the tress were lopped, dried and burnt to produce potash, a compound the soil needed badly. The first crop of millet and pumpkins was followed by a 3 years rotation schedule for other crops like groundnuts, beans and cassava.

He brought us seeds of napier fodder, and of other legumes to enrich the soil.  During the cold season, from May until August, I joined the young men in their task of climbing the trees and cutting the branches. Not that I was very successful in comparison with the men who could strip a tree in a very short time[64].

Another heavy but exciting pastime was ukusowa,  hunting with nets. We walked for miles deep into the forest and spanned a long string of nets with the help of forked sticks. We camouflaged ourselves with leaves and branches and squatted down in front of a net, holding an axe or a spear. Meanwhile the women and girls formed a very wide half circle behind us and started singing a piercing but very rhythmic ditty in order to drive any game towards our direction into the nets.

When I sat there with an axe in my hands  I became mesmerized by the silent bush around me, the strange call of a hornbill and the slow approach of the singing women. Suddenly a lovely, innocent looking mpombo, a duiker, passed me, hopped and entangled itself in my net, crying like a baby.

 “Kill it, kill it”, shouted the man next to me but I could not bring myself plunging my axe into its beautiful skin. The man finally jumped up, stunned and killed the deer with a couple of well-directed blows and looked at me disdainfully.

Not everybody had been so lucky as we were. Further on a wild pig had stormed out of its den and raced straight through the net, leaving a big hole. But on the whole the hunt was a success and we returned with joy. According an unwritten law half of the duiker went to the man who killed it and half to me, the owner of the net. But the story that I could not even kill a small duiker, went through the entire county.        

 

One day,when visiting some villages nearby, I met a fellow missionary of the Presbyterian Church. He was young, married and had a little boy. He and his family lived at Lubwa, the mission where Kenneth Kaunda was born. We had a good talk together, and exchanged experiences.  I saw that he was tired and offered him a cup of tea and some scones in our mission. To my regret, he declined as he did not want to be seen by his parishioners to enter a Roman Catholic Establishment. Later, during the Lumpa trouble we worked together but he found it difficult to have me around with the White Fathers Rosary around my neck. Ecumenism was still a foreign concept to most of us in these days. Fortunately relations between the ‘main line’ churches improved tremendously at a later stage. Years after this event I met him in Chinsali on a visit to Zambia. I reminded him of this event and he replied with a laugh “We were all very young then, Hugo, and perhaps a little fanatical”

 

In January 1963 the so called Maudling constitution was finally enacted. It divided the electorate in an upper role and a lower role. We, the Basungu, Europeans were put on the higher role and our catechists were regarded clever enough to get a vote on the lower roll. Six party leaders of both UNIP and ANC came to visit us in October 1963. When the elections came most of the people voted for UNIP hoping that this party would bring not only independence but also prosperity and health to all the inhabitants of the country.

 It was the first and the last time I ever voted in my life

 

After more than a year working steadily, things started to run smoothly. A a better understanding with the local population had been created, even with the followers of Lenshina. They came to listen to the church hymns of our choirs. My confrere, Piet VanderLinden had  an beautiful baritone voice, was an excellent choir conductor and, to the envy of some of the old missionaries, could get the young boys and girls into an enthusiastic and rousing song within a few minutes. One of Lumpa’s Diakoni (deacons,) invited him to conduct services in a couple of their own churches. He was received with reverence and appreciation.

From them he learned one way to cut a preacher short when he goes on too long.  During his sermon Piet was suddenly interrupted by the intonation of a hymn[65].

We ended up knowing most of the members of the Lenshina choirs. Later this proved to be very beneficial. We also encouraged the young people to return to school.

But that was not to be and an uneasy truce reigned from the end of 1963 onwards.

 

There were skirmishes between Lumpa and UNIP followers in January 1964. We gave hospitality in our house to a group of mostly women and children. Happily things were smoothed over and all during the rainy season we kept our fingers crossed.

The cold season came and our colourful Brother Joseph was replaced by the lanky Brother Burkhard  (Johann Fischer) He was asked to renew the termite-ridden roof and to build a new church in front of the house. We had to move and were accommodated temporarily in old food bins that originally had been constructed for the mission’s school boarders.

 Bro Burkhard stripped the decayed roof from the walls and on 27July we went to sleep in our new cubicles. During the night: 

 

‘At 2am, 28 July, hundreds of heavily armed Lumpa warriors broke out of their settlement  and attacked the villages of Chipwata, Mabundo, Katuishi and Fineno killing all the inhabitants, crying “Jericho”. Before the first sing of dawn at least two hundred and thirty five people were murdered, with many of the children burnt alive’[66].

 

I was celebrating the Eucharist in the early morning when suddenly the little church filled itself with scores of anxious looking people. Within a few hours the space between the church, the recently repaired school buildings and the village was occupied by hundreds of refugees, growing to a total of three thousand within a few days. People were on the run from a fiercely attacking army of aggresive Lenshina followers, conquering their promised land with the biblical war cry Jericho[67].

Fortunately a tipper lorry had arrived the day before. The driver, Jakobo Katongo, agreed to take me before day break through the hostile Lumpa lines to Chinsali to report the incident to the administration and the police. It took me some time to convince the Boma that the situation was serious but finally at 10.30 a.m. a police patrol set out for Mulanga. I was bundled into a spotter plane in order to identify the area. At midday the police mobile unit arrived near Mulanga with us in the little plane circling above the ruined mission. On the way to Chilanga, near the village of Chapaula, the police patrol found the bridge over the Chamusenga stream destroyed. From above the pilot in the spotter plane we noticed that a group of heavily armed Lumpa men were hiding in an ambush behind a huge termite hill. The pilot tried to make radio contact but the radio was defective, contact failed and, from above, the patrol was seen to be attacked. Inspector Jordan was killed and the drugged Lumpa warriors mutilated his body. The corpse was retrieved after an exchange of bullets after which the police unit withdrew in haste, back to Mulanga Mission. After we had circled over the burnt and devastated villages, the plane returned to the small airstrip in Chinsali. By then the authorities at the Boma were thoroughly convinced that things were serious.

I returned to Mulanga as quickly as possible and found myself in charge of a growing number of refugees, consisting of frightened  men, women and children.

To protect the refugees on the mission grounds we suggested  erecting a stockade before it became dark. Never did I see the men, in particular the older ones, working so hard and so efficient. Within the perimeter of the palisade the women quickly built temporary shelters of sticks, branches and banana leaves. The resilience of the women amazed me. They arrived barefoot, with babies on their backs, their necks straining under stacks of firewood piled on their heads and with a bundle of food in their hands. This constant stream of women, carrying water to and from the river Mwambwa, soon created a sense of order and discipline among all the other refugees in the camp.

In order to stay as near as possible with the people during the night we slept in the sacristy. It was the beginning of August and the nights were bitterly cold but from there we could easily oversee the camp and be of support whenever necessary.  The refugees were settled, water from the river Mwambwa was near and nkuni (firewood) from the woods was plentiful.

But what about food, and daily hygiene?

We dug two long toilet ditches in the corner of the camp and surrounded them with a movable fence. One was for the women, the other for men. Each day the old trench was covered with earth  and a new one was dug, next to it[68].  

Food was more difficult. The refugees had come with bundles of cassava and millet meal plus some relish. This they had quickly grabbed before running away from the Lumpa hordes but it  would not be enough to feed these thousands.

It made me think of the wonderful multiplication of loaves and fish in the Gospel and we prayed that something like that would happen. As a first measure I decided to offer them all what we had in our food stores. There was mealie meal, some wheat flour but also bags of very old groundnuts, beans and cowpeas. This kept us going for two days. Fortunately the following day, when we became almost desperate, the Red Cross broke through the lines of the Lenshina horded, occupying our access road and brought us food and medicine from the line of rail.

 

Piet VanderLinden worked all day in the mission dispensary to try and keep the people reasonably healthy. This was not a sinecure as the people had come with their coughs, and other contagious diseases. Many had scabies and he treated this with old motor oil. Soon the first cases of small pox were diagnosed. Fortunately by then our plight had caught the attention not only of the interim government of Dr Kaunda but also of the international media. Each evening the BBC world service reported on what was happening in the north of the country. Soon a doctor of the Red Cross arrived with plenty of vaccine and other expensive medicine[69].

Fr  Karel VanRijthoven gathered the people together for prayers and the singing of hymns. People of all denominations loved it and at times he had more than 2000 people, young and old, attending his ecumenical service. He also addressed the soldiers and implored them not to be trigger-happy and do their utmost to allow the BenaLenshina to surrender peacefully.

But he did not feel at ease in the refugee camp and still smarted because of the orders from the bishop. He wanted to return to the Netherlands as soon as possible. On the 5^th August he received a letter from Abercorn allowing him to leave the country at the beginning of September[70]. 

In Lusaka and the Copperbelt church leaders of other denominations heard of our plight. Under the direction of the articulate Rev. Colin Morris of the Methodist Church they formed a team in order to ’face Lenshina and her followers’. He arrived in Mulanga on the 10^th of August, surrounded by a horde of  pressmen and photographers. He borrowed my Roman collar and made sure that they took his picture in front of the refugee camp. He promised a team of clergymen to us and moved on to other trouble spots[71].

This team arrived on the 12^th of August. Instead of helping us with the day-today running of the camp some of the clergymen got the poor people together, distributed hundreds of bibles and preached long sermons, with the occasional baptism thrown in between[72]. It was the first time in my life that I saw how the church made use of the misery of the people in order to proselytize. When Colin returned a few days later I complained to him about it. He took some of the zealous clergymen with him and promised more practical help.

This came in the person of the Anglican Archbishop of Lusaka, the Most Reverend Oliver Wilkinson. I was busy distributing food when someone told me that the Archbishop had arrived. I thought it was the Catholic Archbishop of Lusaka, Adam Kozlowiecki and knelt down to kiss his ring. He laughed merrily and explained that he was ‘of the Anglican persuasion’. He was a most delightful person[73].

“We come to assist you with the care of the refugees. What are you most in need of”, he said, after a cup of tea.

“ We need someone to distribute the food to the people, especially to the children and  the women”, I replied

Next day a prime and proper lady arrived called Miss Wisdom, accompanied by a priest of the Copperbelt, Canon Mulenga. Miss Wisdom was the exact person we wanted. She proved to be a great asset. From the Red Cross we had received bags of pea- and protein powder. Each morning Miss Wisdom prepared a huge amount of pea soup and protein drinks in two huge cauldrons with the help of a few young men, who brought firewood and kept the fire ablaze. Then she ordered all the children to stand ‘nicely’ in a queue and ladle out cups of soup and protein drinks almost all day. Her high singing voice was heard all over the camp:

 “Dear child, here is a cup of soup and here is a cup of protein”

I wondered whether the kids understood her but at one moment I saw a couple of urchins behind the stockade, imitating her almost perfectly.

With her calm attitude and common sense she brought not only peace and quiet to the camp but also renewed health. The children picked up, stopped coughing and were seen playing around as if they hadn’t lost their parents[74].

A number of them had been ‘weekly boarders’ and slept in out school dormitories on the night of the Lumpa attacks. They had lost their parents and had become Ba-kashiwa, orphans.  But this was 1964, when the traditional customs of the extended family was still in force. Within a few weeks all the orphans had been assigned to uncles, aunts and other members of the family. As a matter of fact later I had difficulty finding them, and distributing the money that was collected by kind people in the mines ‘ for the orphans’.

On the 14^th of August another doctor of the red Cross arrived. He had the same surname as Mr John Hannah, the D.C. of Chinsali. Within an hour he was in the small dispensary of Fr Piet VanderLinden and never stopped working. Late in the evening we met for a drink and talked with him for hours about our favourite theologian of that time, the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin.

A few days later John  Hannah himself arrived  I knew him from his visit in Mulilansolo when he reminded me to get registered in Kasama. In January 1964 he succeeded Mr. Michael Priestly as District Commissioner and now he had to bear the brunt of the entire Lumpa/Lenshina affair[75]. When he saw the huge camp, surrounded by a fortified palisade in our mission grounds he said jokingly:

“Father Hinfelaar, I think of arresting you because you have established an illegal settlement!” He told us that the new  government took a stern view on the Lumpa upheavals and that the Northern Rhodesian Regiment would come up from the south to try an do get the Lenshina people back to their villages . The soldiers arrived some time later.

John Hannah saw that we needed a rest and be away from it all for some days. He suggested to bishop Adolf Fürstenberg that my classmate Pat Menzies would come from Mambwe and assist me and took Piet VanderLinden to Chinsali..

My Bishop arrived  on the 19^th of August, together with his vicar general Friedrich Reuter. He had a quick look at the people in the refugee camp but appeared more interested in the building that was going on around our house. He called us all for a quick meeting and told us that a new roof would be constructed on top of the old walls of the mission.

I was tired, not able to deal with two matters at the same time, the refugee camp and renewal of our house. I told him that its foundations and walls were riddled with termites and that it would be better to break down everything and use the bricks to build an entire new house on a re-enforced concrete slab. In this Fr Reuter backed me up to the hilt but our reasoning was to no avail.

Later he gave me a lift to Chinsali  in his Mercedes to attend a meeting, organised by the Rev Colin Morris. Both, the bishop and Fr Reuter were in a poor mood and kept quarreling with each other about the house in Mulanga. They had been in the same class in the Junior Seminary and Reuter addressed him with his nickname “Blem”:

“Blem” Reuter shouted in frustration. “You haven’t changed a bit since you were a little boy in the junior seminary. You were always on your own, did what you wanted, never listened to some one else!”[76].

I could not help chuckle away behind them, in the back of the car.

The meeting itself did not produce anything new, except that the Rev. Colin Morris managed to bring us, the missionaries of various denominations, and the civil administration together. This was the first glimmer of a new era.

After more than a month of a stalemate the people in the camp became restless. They wanted the soldiers of the 1^st Northern Rhodesian regiment to move out into the open, and capture the Lumpa murderers. They also wanted to bury their dead and get on with life by starting to prepare the fitemene, gardens for the next season[77].

 

After a few days later the Bemba-speaking D.O., Peter de Vere Moss, arrived, from Mpika. Colonel Court Welch, who was in charge of the army, finally agreed and asked me to accompany him to show him the way. I asked the Rev. Jonas Sinyangwe  to join me in order to pray for those who had been killed. We sat on top of an armed vehicle, talking about recent events while the long column of army vehicles rambled on via a narrow bush track barely wide enough for them to pass. From the Colonel I heard that on other spots the Lumpa settlements had been attacked and many Lenshina adherents, including women with children on their backs, had been killed.

We moved slowly through the silent Miombo bush, aware of a possible ambush behind each termite hill but there was not a soul to be seen. It was evident that the Lenshina people moved away as soon as they heard the rumbling noise of the army coming their way.

Finally we saw scores of dark vultures in the blue sky, soaring above a specific area. We reached a village, known to me as being called Chipwata, and to our horror saw that all its inhabitants had been slaughtered or burnt alive after their huts had been set on fire.

All that day I walked from one body to another and tried to helped the C.I.D to identify the decomposing corpses. In the high grass I found our catechist, Ignatio Kawela, about 300 yards away from the village. He had died from spear wounds in the abdomen and had an axe-wounds  slashed over his skull. Like all the other corpses of the adults, his body was in a terrible state and his face was distorted by agonizing pain. Everywhere there was death, except among the chickens and the dogs, which, to my disgust, had been feasting on the intestines of the remains of the people.

We all worked as though in a trance, counted the victims, dug shallow graves in front of the corpses and tipped them over inside, with our shovels and hoes. I remember getting annoyed with a photographer of Drum magazine who did nothing else but clicking his camera, taking pictures even of women who were hardly dressed[78]. I was upset also by the officials of the C.I.D. who were out to get as much evidence as possible for future court cases and made it difficult for us, ministers of religion, to say a few prayers.

I suppose all of us were trying to do our job.

We went on to another other villages, called Fineno, where I found the remains of eight young girls, in the ashes of a hut, clasping each other in utter fright. Later we reached one of our outstations, called Katuishi. Again the same scene except that our little chapel stood there with even the thatch of the roof in tact. The Lumpa adherents had followed the Bible to the letter were it was said to leave sacred places untouched!

 The last village to visit and bury the dead was Mabundo. Bodies lay on top of bodies, hacked to death.  We buried the bodies inside the houses by pushing the walls on top of the corpses. We discovered a bewildered and dazed girl walking around in the bush with a big but already healing wound, slashed on her shoulder. I did not dare to ask how she had managed to cure the wound and keep herself alive. She joined us on our way back to Mulanga for medical and trauma attention.

Later I wrote in the mission diary:

‘Everybody was very quiet when we were going back to the cars. We all had our own thoughts about it, each according his own ideas, prejudices and knowledge of the whole situation. God the owner of all life knows why this had to happen. He himself will judge at the end of times and then we will know who was wrong and who was right. The villages will be deserted and they will always remain monuments of great grief’[79].

Back in Mulanga we continued looking after the sick and dying, giving evidence to the police and trying to keep order and quiet among the refugees, the soldiers, and the people and the political and traditional leaders.

 

It became the 15^th of August, the feast of Our Lady’s Assumption. Some of the men in the refugee camp traveled back to the above mentioned villages and reported that they had buried  many more of their family, people who had run into the bush and whose corpses we had not discovered.

A few days later, on the 17^th, Mr John Hannah arrived to announce the arrival of very important persons.  They were Mr. Simon Kapwepwe, the then minister of home affairs, accompanied by two parliamentary secretaries.

Mr. Kapwepwe went to the camp and told the people that he had come himself to see all their sufferings.  The food was bad, accommodation was bad,  there were many diseases.

 “Who has inflicted all this upon you he asked?

 “It is Lenshina and her accomplices”, he replied  as a good politician

            “We should not consider these people any longer as human beings’ he added.

 

After Mr. Simon Kapwepwe had left we, in particular Fr Patrick Menzies, had their hands full reminding the people not to take revenge, and leave any retribution to the legal authorities. Pat was an excellent sportsman and managed to get the balumendo, the young men, on the football pitch, He organised competitions between the village teams and so took their minds away from any idea of revenge[80]. With his sense of humour and attractive laugh he created a sense of relief.  He made me free to accept a lift from Mr. Peter Moss and take a few days of rest in Chinsali at the Hannah’s. There I heard about all that had gone on in other parts of Chinsali. Scores of Lumpa settlements had been flushed out with machine guns. Lorries arrived in the Boma, filled with corpses, dripping with blood. My Belgian confrere, Guido Steur helped the authorities to count the deceased and to pray for them as they were deposited in a mass grave near the local hospital.

Mrs. Mary Hannah did her utmost to make me at ease in her home. She told me that her family had known the White Fathers from the beginning of the century when her grandfather had been the Attorney General in Blantyre, the capital of Nyasaland (Malawi). At that time I thought she mixed us up with another congregation of missionaries but later, when writing the history of the Catholic Church in Zambia, I verified that, indeed, her grandfather had welcomed our  pioneer, Bishop Mathurin Guillemé, in his home at the beginning of the 20^th century[81]. 

Back in Mulanga I found Fr VanRijthoven packing for his final departure on the 23^rd of August. We were very sad when we said goodbye to him. He had been the first to introduce traditional African hymns in the church and had been so successful. ‘Were artists always a step ahead’ I mused ‘and so be misunderstood’?

Later in his empty room I found a small letter, in which he wrote :

‘ I leave everything that you find here to you. Divide it according you find it necessary. I will not forget you, neither the people, on the contrary I will pray much for this terrible place’[82].

 

That same evening two new doctors of the Red Cross arrived: Mr. and Mrs. Lawless. They had come originally from Lancashire in the U.K. in 1961 in order to found a children’s hospital in Ndola.

By then most of the district was free from strife and the refugees gradually returned to what was left of their villages. The prophetess Lenshina had been captured and her adherents, still alive, were on an epic trek through the bush on their way to the Congo in order to avoid retaliation. They must have suffered terribly as all their food and belongings had been destroyed. A few months later, just before the rainy season in December Father Frits Pennings stumbled upon a group of them near Serenje, crossing the border. They looked like skeletons and gratefully accepted some food and medicine[83].

Later in the month, on the 25^th a team of the Northern Rhodesian Information Service descended on us with the news that the president designate, Dr Kenneth Kaunda would soon arrive by helicopter. Towards midday we were startled by a sudden roar above us and when we ran outside we saw a helicopter landing in front of the school, near the camp. Dr Kaunda jumped out of the machine, waving a white handkerchief. People ran towards him, waving, singing and dancing. After shaking hands with all and sundry, he gathered the people around him and gave a small address.

He thanked the missionaries for receiving the people in these times of distress; he thanked also the police units, and the army. The new government was aware of the sufferings that were inflicted upon its people and it took it as a serious obligation to finish this strife and upheavals as quickly as possible. Guilty people would be punished and good people would be allowed to integrate in the new state, to be called Zambia. However only the government has the legal authority to judge and punish, not individuals on their own.

Lessons should be drawn from these troubles. From now onwards the local authorities should see to it that people live in bigger villages of at least 60 families. More could be done for them if they lived in these strong units.

Finally the most important lesson was to be united, under the adage ‘One Zambia, One Nation,’ and to love one another as good citizens of the new country. The new government intended to introduce new agricultural schemes in the rural areas and to supply the necessary amenities, like water, schools and dispensaries.

After shaking hands again with almost all the people, Dr Kaunda got into his helicopter and with a big roar disappeared into the direction of Chinsali.

From then onwards peace returned to the area.

After some time we were told that a group of emaciated Lenshina followers had approached the mission with the intention to give themselves up to the police. We went out in the army lorries and met them in the bush to the north-east of the mission. The soldiers had their guns cocked, ready to shoot if necessary. A sudden move from the Lumpa group could well have caused havoc and bloodshed without reason. I asked the Colonel to allow me to talk with their leaders. From a distance I recognized some of them. They were from a nearby village and had always been friendly. He agreed very reluctantly. I walked to them through the line of combat and saw some evidence of relief on the faces of the leaders. I told them that as protection the ‘Captain’ wanted them to climb in the lorries nearby and so to be transported to Chinsali. They agreed on condition that the soldiers would not point their guns to them. By then the Colonel had seen how desparate and hungry, in particular the women and the children, were and he agreed.

Slowly, almost gently, a long, dismal row of people came out and climbed into the lorries silent and subdued.

When the lorries drove along the refugee camp and through our mission grounds the people jeered and shouted obscenities despite our appeals not to show any hatred.

After this last exercise the army broke up camp and left security to the police units.

 

The  refugees started to bundle up their belongings and to walk back to what was left of their villages. After a few days, on the 25^th August, we counted only a 1200 refugees in the camp, 675 of them children.

Colin Morris returned to the Copperbelt and took the faithful Miss Wisdom, Canon Mulenga and an Anglican Franciscan Brother with him[84]. Fr Patrick Menzies jumped on my BSA motorcycle and resumed work his good work among the imprisoned Lumpa adherents in Chinsali. Also Mr. and Mrs. Lawless, the two doctors of the Red Cross, bade us farewell.

District councillors arrived and after a long palaver people agreed to establish a big settlement at the source of the Chamusenga stream. Chief Chibesakunda was more adamant. He told the people that the missionaries needed peace and quiet around their mission, that everybody should come to his new musumba , (chief’s residence) and that he would send his Bakapaso, (messengers) to force the unwilling. I found it to be my duty to stand up and say publicly that the missionaries did not want to chase the people away but that the people should follow the directives of the new government and form new settlements wherever they wished, even if it were to be very near the mission.

 

It became quiet around the mission, too quiet. For me this came as an anti-climax. Suddenly we were without any help and soon death raised its ugly head again. The small pox was not entirely rooted out and many children suffered of a combination of diarrhea and pneumonia. They started to die, one after the other.

At the beginning of September we helped the people constructing their houses in the new settlements. There were enough  food, blankets and clothes but the burying of children continued. At the end of September we counted 30 little graves around the mission and the new villages. A researcher arrived from London, and interviewed us about the Lenshina movement[85]. Bishop Fürstenberg came and asked Brother Burchard to re-start the building of the church and the house. He asked me whether I could stay another year at Mulanga to help with the rehabilitation of the stricken area. At that time home leave came only once in seven years. I promised to try and hold on but felt exhausted and traumatized.

Around the middle of the month of September there was again a sudden warning of an attack by the Lenshina people on the mission. By then we had daily radio connection with the help of a car battery both with Lusaka and with Chinsali. A contingent of police and soldiers came up quickly. I implored them not to attack the Lenshina people without reason and to try and negotiate with the leaders. Three miles east of Kapisha, near the river Mwamba, they stumbled upon a 600 Lenshina people, hungry, distressed and confused. They agreed to surrender on the condition that they would be captured and transported by the police units, not by the army. The army withdrew and with the help of Mike Bond , D.O. in Mporokoso and Mr. Peter Moss, D.O. of Mkushi the wretched people, mostly women and children, were helped into the lorries waiting in the bush some distance away. This time they passed silently through Mulanga mission on the way to Chinsali. We discouraged the people as much as possible from cheering and insulting the poor sufferers.

 

On the 21^st of September the teachers re-opened the school again. Attendance was still low especially in the lower grades. The first task was to break down the refugee camp, disinfect all the buildings and repair the dormitories. The soldiers had made holes in the walls of the school to stick their guns through them. I called the catechists together and appointed some of them to the new buyantanshi(progress) villages, set up by the new government[86].

By the beginning of October everything seemed back to normal again and I tried to resume my touring, first along the great Northern Road, to see the damage done. Things were not too bad and once back in Mulanga on 12 October I decided to ask for a lift from the diocesan treasurer and travel to  Chilonga hospital.      

There the doctor and the matron, Sr. Josephine, of the popular ‘Chigwell’ sisters insisted that I stayed for a good check- up and take a long rest[87].

I do not remember much of what happened after that. They gave me tranquilizers and sleeping pills but also plenty of food and ‘tender care!’ From my room, near the convent, I saw the Union flag of Great Britain being lowered and a new flag being hoisted up the pole.

Zambia became independent on the 24th October

 

I heard for the first time the country’s moving national anthem, sung by the school children:

 

Lumbanyeni Zambia , no kwanga,                Stand and sing of Zambia, proud and free,

Ne cilumba twange tuumfwane,                    Land of work and joy in unity

Mpalume sha bulwi twa cine,                          Victors in the struggle for the right

Twaliilubula, Twikatane bonse.                      We have won freedom’s fight,

Lubanyeni, Lesa, Lesa wesu                               All one, strong and free.

Apale calo, Zambia Zambia, Zambia            Praise be to God, bless our nation

Few bantungwa mu luunga lwa calo             Free men we stand, under the flag of our land

Lumbanyeno Zambai, Twikatane bonse.      Zambia, praise thee, all one strong and free.

 

Mr. John and Mrs. Mary Hannah came for a visit on their way to the U.K. and advised me to apply for leave despite the fact I had not completed the full 7 years. The bishop eventually agreed.

I returned to Mulanga on the 22^nd of November to pack my cases and paid a visit to the poor Lenshina people, still imprisoned in huge iron cages in the middle of Chinsali. They were later moved to the Lunzuwa camp, near Abercorn, soon to be called Mbala. I stayed in these cages for days on end and talked and talked with the prisoners, most of them women. Gradually I got an inkling of what drove them to a point of no return, to their suicidal rush towards the heavily armed soldiers and their wish to wish to obtain a passport for entry into heaven.

 

On the 3^rd of December Fr. Robert Lavertue was appointed to be my successor. Fr Piet VanderLinden was so kind as to stay on for a while in order to show Fr Lavertue the ropes.

 In the middle of December, almost exactly 6 years after my arrival in Northern Rhodesia I left the country, now called Zambia, for a good rest and some time for reflection in the Netherlands.

 

My initiation to life in Zambia as a missionary had been completed and I had plenty to think about.

On my last tour to Matumbo and then along the Great North Road, I had stopped near the fresh stream of the Chintasama, pushed my bicycle against a tree and had sat down on a rock overlooking the wide span of the  country rolling towards the Luangwa valley. It was the same place where I had talked  with Chief  Chibesakunda  a few weeks after my arrival in Mulanga.

 “Ukufusha icalo” he had said. “I must populate my country with people”

But what had happened since then? There had been a civil war, during which the people killed each other despite being of the same tribe, even of the same family. The dividing line had even run through the Kaunda family in Lubwa, where the elder brother Robert had been one of the leaders of the Lumpa church and had helped Lenshina with the texts of her rousing hymns and where his younger brother became the leader of the United Independence country, and eventually the president of Zambia[88].

What had caused this bitter strife, this division, even hatred?  Was that the idea of Jesus Christ’s message?

It would be easy to blame and point the accusing finger to either the Lumpa leaders, in particular the Diakoni,deacons, or to the UNIP cadres, consisting mostly of defiant  balumendo, young men.

Kaunda’s slogan was ‘One Zambia, One Nation!’ He once remarked that the missionaries had introduced a divided Christianity into the country.

As a son of the kindly Presbyterian Evangelist, David Kaunda who had arrived in Chinsali in 1905 from the renowned Livingstonia Mission in Malawi, he had reason to be concerned. During the 1930’s the Roman Catholic missionaries, and in particular the Dutch Apostolic Administrator Jan VanSambeek  had thrown a circle of catholic missions around Lubwa, in order to counteract  the Scottish Protestants[89].

A distressed Rev. Dr, Brown, in charge of Lubwa mission, had written in his report of 1934:

‘It is a tremendous pity that in such a huge continent, so much of which is unoccupied by any Christian body that there should be such an invasion such as this, or rivalry such as is scarcely avoidable following such an invasion’[90].

‘Interdenominational rivalries had consumed a great deal of time, money and energy. It had bewildered the people and rendered a simple planning, which depended on co-operation between the missions, quite out of question. ‘ Mr. Peter Snelson had added at a later date[91].

During meetings the Colonial Administration and (in Chinsali) men like Sir Stewart Gore-Browne had often been called upon to keep the competing missionaries apart.

All this over the heads of hard working villagers who could hardly manage to survive in the harsh circumstances of the African bush.

Was it not a case of two elephants fighting, and so make the grass suffer? Did we really work for the extension of Christ’s kingdom or did it more look like two competing football clubs of young men, wanting to win at all costs? And by doing so, had we not introduced a measure of division, of strife, even family feuds among the people we came to work for? Was Lumpa’s so called fanaticism not the final fruit of our sometimes fundamentalist approach?

 

While I sat there near the source of the Chintasama stream, Pope Paul VI and the bishops, assembled in Rome during the Second Vatican Council, signed Unitatis Redintegratio, the decree on Ecumenism in order to promote the unity of all Christians. It was hoped that the period of religious intolerance was to become a thing of the past. But a great amount of harm had been inflicted to these young countries and the missionary churches had the duty to heal these wounds of the past.

Why did the Lumpa people, even married women with babies on their backs run into the bullets of a modern army? Why had their be a point of no return? Why had they become suicidal? Why had some of them climbed a big termite hill, wave their arms frantically in order to fly like a bird to heaven?

Was that the end result of half a century of missionary work?

Did we, expatriate missionaries, really know the religious tenets of the people, tenets that had kept people going for hundreds of years in very difficult circumstances? Had we, catholic missionaries not barged in, uninvited, and had regarded their religious background a tabula raza, a clean slate on which to write the questions and answers of the penny catechism?

Had we been properly prepared during our long studies for the genuine proclamation of Jesus Christ’s message on the continent of Africa or where we out to establish the western institution of the Roman Catholic Church[92]?

Did we read and take into account the findings of more objective anthropologists who had done scientific research from the 1930s onwards?

And what about the writings of other witnesses of the Lumpa troubles[93]?

The White Fathers were known for their knowledge of the language, and ‘custom’ but did this go far enough? Was the religious culture studied in its own right, as belonging to the World Religions or was it seen as an object of possible conversion as something that could be used for a better catechesis?

And, lastly, were we, well trained missionaries, challenged by the powers-that-be to dig deeper, to continue studying and so use our talents for the good of the people? Or did a bishop see us as so many men and women in the trenches, as simple parish priests, brothers, and nuns who kept the mission posts in his diocese going?

Many questions to which I had no replies as yet. When I flew from Ndola airport over Africa in the direction of Amsterdam Schiphol, I was grateful for all I had learned and experienced during these first six years but was also determined to try and find answers to my questions and so  become a better person for the extension of Christ’s kingdom, here on earth.

 

 

 [1]              The first meaning of  Kapaso, is ‘a small locust’. The duty of the footman was to hop from one assignment to another.

[2]              Until 1933  it had been part of the Diocese of Kasama but in that year the Luangwa vicariate was created with the Dutchman Jan VanSambeek in charge, to be followed by the German bishop Heinrich Horst during the war, and the Dutchman Jan VanderBiesen after the war.

 [3]              They might have referred to the caravan which J.M. Bell, an agent of the BSA Company intercepted in June 1896. During our training we had been encouraged to keep personal diaries in which to note down our first impressions and to keep our first letters.

[4]              See also Hastings, A. 1979, A History of African History 1950-75, Cambridge University Press. U.K.

[5]              Hinfelaar. H. 2004, History of the Catholic Church in Zambia, 1895-1995, p.27.Bookworld, Lusaka.

[6]              Diary, No 1, Kayambi , White Fathers Archives, Zambia.

[7]              Father Alfons Cox, born in Utrecht 1919, ordained in 1946, worked in Zambia until 1991, and died in the NL 24 Sept. 1996. He was a linguist, could draw very beautifully and had been the commentator during our ordination ceremony in ’s-Heerenberg.

[8]              And indeed Fr Belin left at a relatively early age in the 1970s and died  in Nanterre, France in 2003.

[9]              Trant, Hope, 1970, Not Marrion Square, Manuscript, Canada, WFA.Zambia.

[10]            Fr Raymond-Marie Fortin offered to take us in his big Ford to the places of our first appointment He was a teacher at Lubushi minor semoniary, near Kasama, but had come to Kayambi for a few months to assist Fr Belin.

[11]            During World War I, the road engineers kept the Great North Road on the high escarpment to the East and the Chunga  connection became obsolete. As a shortcut  it is still used by cyclists and pedestrians:  Times of Zambia, 1 March 2005, p 3, ’18-year-old man falls from dilapidated bridge across the Kalungu and drowns’.

[12]            This trade road is partly mentioned by Livingstone, ed. H. Waller, Last Journals I, 1874, pp.186-7, London.

[13]            Reneault, Fr. 1994, Cardinal Lavigerie, churchman, prophet, and missionary, p.268. Athlone Press, London.

[14]            Check author etc. 1960, F.S.R. Rumsey. D.C.M. of Mbesuma , pioneer farmer.

[15]            At the end of 1960 imported wheat flour from Southern Rhodesia became so cheap that it was not worth its while to grow our own wheat. The mill became the first museum of Fr Corbeil.

[16]            These finely carved  snuff boxes, made of mukwa wood were embellished with copper and lead wire. They were said to have come with  the Luba invaders around 1730.  My snuff box was deposited in the Moto Moto Museum.

[17]            Fr Ludwig Bergmann born 1912, died of cancer in Germany in 1974.  Fr Willie Fuchs, born in 1907, served as a  parish priest in Germany and died in Trier in 1993.

[18]            Guus Wehmeijer belonged to the families that owned the C&A shops. He was never short of money. Born in the Netherlands in 1926, he was killed in a car accident on the 22^nd of November 1972.

[19]            Lavigerie, 1977, A Conference to the Missionaries. WFA.Z.

[20]            The resident doctor was Dr Livingstone Wilson. He had arrived in Lubwa in 1951 and left for Scotland towards the end of 1959.

[21]            For more details see: Rotberg,R. 1976, Black Heart, University of California. London, and Lamb, Christiana, 1999, The Africa House, London, Penguin. He was one nominated in the 1930s to represent African interest. See: Gardner, T. 1997,  My first Eighty years,  pp. 72-79. and 93.The Pentland Press. Cambridge. UK

[22]            I received the paltry 10 pounds per annum ‘ to defray expenses’.

[23]            Fr Wim Boenders, born in 1915, ordained in 1946, remained Education Secretary until 1964, when he was appointed Vice Regional in the Netherlands. In 1977 he left for pastoral work in Canada, until 1988. He died in the NL in 2003.

[24]            Fr Joseph Fayet had arrived in the country in 1912 and gone on leave in 1923. In the 1933 he acquired himself a new passport but never went home again.  In the middle of the 1970s he went home and produced his ancient passport. The French Embassy gave him a new passport, and kept the old one as a souvenir! Fayet died soon after his departure, on 23-12-1976.

[25]            Fr Fred Berlage , born 1906, ordained in 1923, started life in Africa as a teacher and master of discipline in the prestigious Catholic T.T.C and Secondary School  in Malole, to the East of Kasama.  He remained Education Secretary until 1974 when the schools were handed over to the Independent Administration. After 6 years as bursar in Ndola, he went back to the NL and died there in 1982.

[26]            See Gardener, T. 1997, My  first eighty years. The Pentland Press. Cambridge. U.K. p. 60.

[27]            Coe, D.G. & Greenall, E.C. 2003 Kaunda’s Goaler, Memories of a District Officer in Northern Rhodesia and Zambia,p.48. Radcliffe Press, London.

[28]            Hinfelaar, H.F. 2006, The Autobiography of Bishop Jan VanSambeek, 1886-1966. White Fathers. Missionaries of Africa, Rome. In the 1930’s the eminent VanSambeek  hApostolic had caused tensions in the Apostolic Vicariate of Kasama,(Bangweolo) and been promoted away to the new  Mission sui iuris, of Luangwa, later called the diocese of Abercorn.    

[29]            Oger, L. 1960, The Lumpa Church, Unpublished Manuscript, WFA.Z.; Calmettes, JL. 1978, The Lumpa sect. Rural reconstruction and Conflict. Unpublished dissertation. University of Wales; Hinfelaar, H. 1994; Roberts, A. 1970, The Lumpa Church of Alice Lenshina’, Oxford University Press, UK.;  VanBinsbergen, W. Religious Change in Zambia, Kegan Paul, London. etc.

[30]            These priestesses are regarded as married with the Relics of deceased chiefs and are not allowed to have any intercourse with sexually active persons.

[31]            Fr Fr. Tanguy,  born in 1886, in Quimper, France, died 28 June 1961.

[32]            Ilondola mission, 40km to the south of Chinsali, became a study centre, where the young WF missionaries were initiated into the Bemba language and the culture of the country.

[33]            In that area the mpango (bride price) was very high, up to 10 heads of cattle for one bride. As regards the education of girls see also : Snelson, Independence and Beyond, p.101.

[34]            Jim Malama served as a professional officer in the Zambian Army, retired and took over the cattle of his father. Francis Nkashi settled in Lusaka and is now the national chairman of the St Vincent de Paul Society. Francis Matipa retired in Lusaka, in Bauleni. Teacher Tadeo Chintu died in Lusaka in 1996 and Michaeli Longe died in Chinsali in 1990.

[35]            Born 1939, became a female teacher in 1959, died April 1974, 35 years old.

[36]            Later in 1995, during an appeal for financial support in one of the parishes near Gatwick airport, I was told by the parish priest that before his ordination, he had been in Zambia as a member of that same  Monckton Commission.

[37]            The Secrets of these three visionaries continued mesmerizing the people until the death of one of them, Sister Lucy dos Santos, who died on 13^th February 2005, at the age of 97!

[38]            Hinfelaar, H.F. 1994, Bemba-speaking Women of Zambia, Brill, Leiden, NL, p 145.

[39]            According  Snelson. P. To Independence and beyond, p. 129, from July to October 1961, 120 classrooms, 7 teacher houses, 28 dormitaries and 38 annnexes were burnt in Chinsali district. It caused  8500 children to be without school.

[40]            They spoke ‘pure Bemba’ in contrast with the more recent immigrants who had accepted Bemba as their language and identity but had introduced  grammatical declinations from Chi-Luba.

[41]            The inhabitants of some villages along the Zambezi river spoke Bisa/Bemba They were known as reliable traders to the Portuguese. Newitt,M, 1971, Portuguese settlements on the Zambesi, Longmans, London  and Hinfelaar, H. 2004, History of the Catholic Church, pp. 1-4.

[42]            Roberts, A, The History of the Bemba, p. 111. and Gamitto, 1833 A, King Kazembe and the Marvae, Cheva, Bisa, bemba, Lunda and other peoples of Southern Africa, p. 164-66.

[43]            Livingstone. D,  1874, The Last Journals. Later, in 1901, the White Father, Louis Molinier, visited the Senior Chief Kopa of the Bisa ‘in the swamps’ and had the same impression of desolation, caused by the Bemba soldiers. Hinfelaar, 2004, History of the Catholic Church, p. 43, 45.  

[44]            Roberts. A. A History of the Bemba, p.289.

[45]            A quotation from Luke 2:29 of Simeon’s words when he saw the child Jesus brought in the temple by his parents.

[46]            Aloys Kohle, born in Frankfurt in 1899, died in Freiburg/B, 11-06-1976.

[47]            Br. Joseph, Engelhard, Mächler, born 1920, in Coir-Cur, Switzerland, died in Kasama, 19-11-1987.

[48]            Brother Gottlieb, Albert Waeschle, born in Rottenburg, 1907, died near Abercon (Mbala) 31 May 1972, after a fatal plane accident.

[49]            Information, Interview with Mr David Chuma, the traditional keeper of the Shrine, 1962.

[50]            The lusato were believed to house the spirits of deceased royalty. It was Brother Emmeram (Joseph Thumann) who  killed two of these snakes. Information. Chilonga, 1968.

[51]            In 1965, a lay group of unmarried young Italian women  arrived who  belonged to the A.L.M (association of lay missionaries). Their work was taken over by  Zambian Sisters of Charity at the beginning of the new millennium. It is said that since then the drumming and singing of the spirits  of the deceased princesses has stopped! 

[52]            Letter of author to Mrs S. Lutz-Hinfelaar,  (Ruinerwoldstraat 40, The Hague) 5 November 1962.

[53]            See interview with Cardinal Silvio Oddi, 1988. ‘At the beginning of the Council’ in Catholica, pp 9-16.

[54]            www christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/v2html.

[55]            I remember  the Fathers  Carey, Larkin, Piwek, Buijs, Klomp, DeWeerdt, Fahy, Lavertue, Shannon, Smith, Verkley,  Stumpf, Dorothy, LePiece, Breitshaft, VanDiessen, Bloching, Carmen, Bédars and the brothers: Guenter, Berkenstraeter, and Brenneis. Frs Klomp and Stumpf arrived in Mulanga for a few weeks on 22 April 1963.

[56]            Brother Joseph Mächler, born 1920, died in Kasama of cerebral malaria 12-11-1987.

[57]            The Pata pata dances were indigenous. The warriors (fita) danced them during the last years of the tribal wars in the 1880’s and as a sign of identification  shaved a line of hair from the forehead to the nape. Information: Fr Foulon, Bemba hairstyles, 1911, WFAZ.

[58]            For a more detailed explanation of this cleavage see Hinfelaar, H.F., 1994, Bemba-speaking Women. Chapters one and two.

[59]            Later, after independence in 1965, she was sent to study law in London, where I met her as an undergraduate.

[60]            Her parents were Gabriel, born 1876 died 1930, and Monica, born 1880, died 1922. They were baptized by Fr Donatien Davoust in Chilubula. Kasama.

[61]            A total of 23000 acres. See : Rotberg, 1876, Black Heart. and Bigland, E, 1939, The Lake of the Crocodiles, Macmillan, New York, and Lamb, C, The Africa House, London.

[62]            The so successful sauce pan radio was an invention of  H. Franklin, a media man working for the local broadcasting  service  in Lusaka. It was a simple radio embedded into a strong saucepan structure that could endure very rough treatment. 

[63]            Dr Derek Braithwaite, was a devout Anglican, single and a very dedicated doctor. He introduced the scout movement into the North, the East and in the Luapula province. In the beginning of the 1980’s Dr Kaunda asked him to be the administrator of the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. Later he was asked to be the Provincial Medical Officer of Solwezi and Chipata. He left Zambia at the end of the 1980’s and retired in Guildford, U.K. From there he sends regular bursaries  for medical students.  

[64]            The chitemene system  is applicable in wooded areas with not too  dense a population. Trees should not be cut down below at the stem but lopped.  If done well the trees return to their original state after 10 to 15 years.

[65]            Later on we learned from our catechist that there were three ways to show that the sermon went on too long. One was done by the choir via a sudden intonation of a hymn, the other was done by the women who pinched the bottoms of their babies to make them cry, and the third way came from the men who ostentatiously took a long draft of snuff.

[66]            For a more detailed report on events see Hinfelaar. H.F 2004, A History of the Catholic Church in Zambia, pp.184-190

[67]            The strategy of the conquest of a promised land in the north of the Luangwa valley, was based on the Biblical description of the conquest of Jericho, (Joshua 61:1-21) Hinfelaar, H.F. 2004, History of the Catholic Church, p. 186.

[68]            During the two months the people stayed in the camp the movable toilets traveled almost through the entire area. Later the schoolchildren planted trees on the spot and were surprised how quickly they grew.

[69]            He was an indigenous doctor from Southern Rhodesia, (Zimbabwe), had made his studies in Germany and spoke perfect German.

[70]            As has been seen, there was a disagreement between him and the bishop about the use of the Initiation rites during catechism classes.

[71]            With him was the Provincial Commissioner of Kasama, Mr. Baker who thanked us for the work we were doing. 

[72]            The church leaders were Miss Essie Johnson from Mindolo, Revs. Wilfred Chiumya from Ndola, T. Gilchrist from Kitwe,  Jonas Sinyangwe from Wusikile.

[73]            See also: Green, J.W. 1998, Bishop Oliver, Letters and reminiscences, York, U.K. The Archbishop retired to Winchester, U.K. during the 1970’s.

[74]            In later years Miss Wisdom became a catholic and taught English in Lubwe Mission for many years. She died and was buried there towards the end of the 1980s.

[75]            Doctor Nick Hannah and Mr. John Hannah were cousins. The former left for Australia after Independence.

[76]            The termites did indeed continue to destroy the roof of the house and the sacristy nearby. In 2004  the whole house had to be pulled down and a new one was built on another spot.

[77]            The Mobile Units of the Police had by then been replaced by the territorial army.

[78]            I was not the only one upset. Peter Moss wrote in his manuscript, page 22 : ‘A woman lay dead and blackened looking to the sky. There was a dead child in the cloth pouch on her back and another, possibly three years’old, lying black and bloated between her spread legs’.

[79]            For more details: See Mulanga Diary August 1964. WFA, Z Lusaka.

[80]              Theaction to avoid revenge was not so successful in other places: See Hudson, J. 1999,  A Time to Mourn.

[81]            Hinfelaar, H.F. 2004,History of the Catholic Church in Zambia, p. 49.

[82]            In the N.L. he joined a commune of hippies, young students, the forerunners of ecological concern. He died exhausted  on the 16^th of February 1972, only 56 years old.

[83]            Information to the author. Fr Frits Pennings, Heythuysen, Netherlands 1995.

[84]              The Anglican Franciscans of the Resurrection manned a mission post at  Fuwila, near Old Mkushi.

[85]            Later, in 1983, I discovered that he was Dr. Andrew Roberts, who published, in 1973, The History of the Bemba.

[86]            These villages were modeled on the Ujamaa ideology of  President Julius Nyerere of Tannganyika.

[87]            Sr. Josephine belonged to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which had its motherhouse in Chigwell, London, U.K. She died there in the 1990’s, after hard work in the Chilonga hospital since 1956.

[88]            A copy of the 300 Lenshina hymns is to be found in the Archives of the White Fathers, Lusaka, Zambia.

[89]            The apostolic vicar ,Mgr Jan VanSambeek founded Ilondola in 1934, against the rule of the Colonial Administration that kept Catholics and Protest foundations 25-30 miles apart. This was followed by Mulilansolo in 1936 and Mulanga in 1939. For more details see: Oger, L, 1991, Where a scattered flock gathered,Ilondola 1934-84. Ndola Mission Press; and  Ipenburg, A, 1992, All Good men: The Development of Lubwa Mission, Chinsali, Zambia 1905-1967. Peter Lang. Frankfurt. And Hinfelaar. H.F. 2006, An autobiography of Bishop Jan VanSambeek, White Fathers, Rome.

[90]            R.D. McMinn. Lubwa Report 1934, Archives of the Church of Scotland. Edinburgh as quoted by Snelson, P. To Independence and Beyond, p. 98.

[91]            Independence and Beyond, p. 65.

[92]            See Kerklaan, Marga, 1993, Het einde van een tijdperk (The end of an era), Most of the Dutch missionaries, interviewed by her, confessed that they had been poorly prepared for their task as missionaries.

[93]            See. e.g. the report of Dr. Hope Trant in her book: Not Merrion Square, The Thornhill Press, East London 1970.

'