A Tale of Religion and Resistance

Once upon a time, about a century ago, a powerful Mganga (shaman) named Kinjikitile Ngwale discovered a spring that had the power to make German colonial forces more vulnerable than they had ever been before. By drinking a potion containing this magic water, warriors would become invincible as German bullets turned into maji (water) and fell harmlessly to the ground.

They did. They weren't. They died.

Kinjikitile's Jwiywila movement relied on more than just a promise to turn men into Achilles -- it also preached that departed ancestors had not actually died but rather were waiting in a sort of limbo to come and assist in the removal of the Germans. If the people only took up arms against their oppressors, an army of ancestors would join in the fight.

They did. It didn't. They died.

The maji-maji wars were a major effort at resisting German colonialism in Tanganyika. Unlike previous armed struggles, maji maji transcended tribal boundaries as a number of different tribes employed a number of different strategies and techniques to regain their independence. Like previous armed struggles, the maji maji resistance failed. It failed spectacularly. The German forces in Tanganyika displayed a casual brutality that would become commonplace in another war some three decades later.

And yet, maji maji was not entirely a failure. The widespread rebellions forced the Germans to improve conditions to the point that Tanganyika was arguably the best-run colony in East Africa when the First World War broke out. More importantly, by emphasizing the futility of armed rebellion, Tanganyikan nationalists turned to the kind of political activities that eventually led to uhuru (freedom) under the British.