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ABSTRACT
The essay analyses a set of the landscape photographs of Walther Dobbertin that were taken in the German East Africa highlands before the First World War. The concept of locality binds the discussion of three settler enclaves – A Trappist monastery, a Evangelical Lutheran mission station, and a government-leased farm. One exclusively indigenous site, the Mlalo Kaya, adds as well to the conceptual discussion. The photographs are high-resolution scans of the original negatives, and enlargements reveal much information about land husbandry and the ecological consequences of the implementation of colonial power in particular places. The analysis also suggests that the nature of locality formation has long lasting consequences.
Acknowledgements
I offer my sincere thanks to Utah State University’s Office of Research, and the History Department for funding the 2016 research journey to Tanzania. I also wish to thank Sabine Barcatta for her editorial comments throughout the writing process. Finally, I received two excellent anonymous reviews from the Journal of Eastern African Studies. My colleagues’ comments helped immensely with the revisions and I thank them.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Photographs reprinted here with permission from the German National Archives, Koblenz Branch. For a discussion of locality formation, see Chambers and Gillespie, “Locality in the History of Science,” 221–40.
2 Dracaena spp. grow vigorously and profusely along the outlines of the tree grove. For an explanation of the plant’s significance, see Sheridan, “Tanzanian Ritual,” 491–521. Albizia are an important component of agroforestry because their leaf litter fixes nitrogen in the soil.
3 For an excellent summary of the era, see Lane, “Developing Landscape Historical,” 306. For a broader picture of eastern Africa’s ecological history during the nineteenth century, see Waller, “Emutai: Crisis and Response,” 73–114.
4 For a good synthesis of the landscape concept and landscape history, see Morrison, “Capital-esque Landscapes,” 58–9.
5 See for example, Foster, et al., “The Importance of Land Use Legacies,” 77–88. Also see Stump “Ancient and Backward,” 1251–62 and “On Applied Archaeology,” 268–98.
6 Balée and Erikson, “Time, Complexity and Historical Ecology.” Fisher and Feinman, “Introduction,” 62–9. See p. 64 for timescales.
7 Ingold, “The Temporality of the Landscape,” 153.
8 For example, see Balée, “The Research Project of Historical Ecology.”
9 For a summary, see Berkes, Doubleday, and Cumming, “Aldo Leopold’s Land Health.”
10 Giblin, The Politics of Ecological Control; Anderson, Eroding the Commons, Shetler, Imagining Serengeti; Maddox, Giblin, and Kimambo, eds., Custodians of the Land, Carola Lentz and Hans-Jürgen Sturm, “Of Trees and Earth Shrines;” Von Hellerman, Things Fall Apart?
11 For a recent set of essays that begin to fill gaps in our knowledge for the Kenya Rift Valley, see Anderson and Bollig, eds., “Special Issue.” For creativity in source reading, see in same volume, Anderson, “The Beginning of Time.”
12 McIntosh, The Peoples of the Middle Niger.
13 Snyder, “Territorial Photography;” Landau, “Empires of the Visual;” Vokes, “Reflections;” Killingray and Roberts;” Sandler, “Deutsche Heimat;” Schneider, “The Topography of the Early History;” Ryan, Picturing Empire;” Prins, “The Battle for Control;” Thompson, Light on Darkness?
14 Snyder, “Territorial Photography,” p. 182. Also see Ryan, Picturing Empire, ch. 2.
15 Harries, “Under Alpine Eyes,” 174.
16 Ibid., 179–83.
17 J.M. Coetzee White Writing, 166.
18 For a discussion of the essential contents of South African landscape images, see Harries, “Alpine Eyes,” 178–79.
19 In White Writing, J.M. Coetzee argues for a South African landscape painting formula that fits with colonial photographs as well. The landscapes contain a side scene, or coulisse, on one side shadowing a foreground, a large central feature, and a plane of luminous distance, preferably mountains.
20 For an insightful discussion, see Ingold, “Temporality,” 154–62.
21 For background on Dobbertin, see the introduction in Dobbertin, Lettow-Vorbeck’s Soldiers,” 7–11. Other postcards and photos come from Verlag Müller & Co., Tanga, and Verlag v. C. Vincenti, Dar es Salaam. Sometimes photographs taken by others and developed in these studios ended up on postcards as well, Eick letters. For a description of the postcard phenomenon in Uganda, see Richard Vokes, “Reflections.”
22 Dobbertin, Lettow-Vorbeck, 138. Dobbertin used glass negative plates sized 13 × 18 cm and 18 × 24 cm.
23 For an excellent description of the Gare market, see Döring, Morgendämmerung, 89. Döring notes especially an excitement as people come to Gare from all directions. They are well-dressed and laden with gourds filled with beer, pots filled with honey. He calls the market as a colorful and happy place. They are trading among other things pottery, salt, butter, spices, clothing, farming implements, meat, beer and honey.
24 Conte, Highland Sanctuary, 55–81.
25 Uhlig, “Regenmessungen aus Usambara,” 519–20. 1898 was the driest recorded year at Kwai with 493 mm.
26 Baumann, Usambara, 182–86.
27 Conte, Highland, 55–81.
28 Eick took many photographs at Kwai, but according to his grandson, long after he returned to Germany, a housekeeper saw what she thought were dirty glass windows and decided to clean what were the negative glass plates. Personal correspondence, Christian Eick. Müller Publishing in Tanga, German East Africa, published the image in figure 3. No date appears on the postcard. Eick may well have taken this photograph. He mentioned in his letters to Franz Stuhlman, the colony’s Agricultural Director, that while on leave, he had seen a postcard made from a photograph he had taken, Eick Letters. This was common practice among colonial photographers. See Vokes, “Reflections,” 397.
29 In 1899, Eick had traveled as a government representative to India, Ceylon, and Indonesia to visit British and Dutch botanical gardens, Eick Letters.
30 Bundesarchiv Berlin, R1001/8646, “Die Vorschungsstation in Kwai,” 59. This document describes the Land Commission’s survey of Kwai, which was in the process of being turned over as leasehold to Ludwig Illich.
31 Eick and his staff conducted experiments with coffee production at Kwai and nearby Mkuzi, Eick Letters.
32 Tanzania National Archives (hereafter TNA), G8/40, Verpachtung Kwai, 1906, 3. Eucalyptus leaf litter in effect poisons the soils beneath the tree canopy inhibiting undergrowth.
33 TNA, G8/41, Verkauf von Kwai, 7/13/1910, 13.
34 TNA, G8/40, Verpachtung, Feb. 17, 1909, a land dispute based on this particular eviction and the attendant land survey haunted the farm for subsequent decades. See correspondence in TNA 4/309/29, Kwai (Mr. J.T. Woodcock), Usambara District, in particular 21/1/31 PC to Lands Office DSM, p. 4.
35 “Nachweisung,” 450. It seems that the Trappists set aside part of their estate land for the Sisters of the Precious Blood, who founded a convent at Kifingulo, which was about an hour’s walk from Gare. As at Gare, Kifungilo’s buildings were executed expertly in rock and brick.
36 Aston, Monasteries in the Landscape, 86–91.
37 Deutsches Kolonialbaltt: Amtsblatt für die Schutzgebiete des Deutschen Reichs IX. (1898): 5–6.
38 Khandlhela, “The Trappists in South Africa,” 54.
39 “Nachweisung,” 450. There is some confusion in the report about just where the second plot lay. I believe second site was located at Kifungilo, the convent of Sisters of the Holy Blood which is visible from Gare. The two orders were closely connected. The estate lists from 1903 show both monasteries actively involved in farming maize, vegetables and fruit trees.
40 Koch, “Report on West Usambara.”
41 Gare is known in the Usambaras as a center of masonry expertise. At Kifungilo and Neu Köln the original buildings remain in use.
42 For formulaic ways of viewing African landscapes, see Harries, “Under Alpine Eyes,” 179.
43 Berichte, Volume 2, 450–51. According to the report, at any one time between 40 and 70 laborers lived at Gare and Kifungilo.
44 TNA, G54/353, Mlalo Lwandai, 1903–1913, 25.
45 There may be some truth to the story. It is common knowledge around the area that pregnant women were in fact forbidden to cross the stream near what became the mission or they would miscarry. Moreover, the missionaries built their edifice among a set of large trees (Miungu, Mshai, and Mikuyu), whose age suggests that the area had been settled, but abandoned for some time giving credence to the to the story of a bad neighborhood.
46 Döring, Morgen dämmerung, 94. Baumann describes the Mlalo region in 1888 in In Deutsch Ost-Africa, 78–88. For a March, 1892 description of the mission station, see Smith, “The Anglo-German Boundary,” 427.
47 Döring, Morgen dämmerung in Deutsch-Ostafrika, 93.
48 Döring, Eick Letters. The mission affiliated villages all had biblical names. Early in Eick’s tenure at Kwai, Mbugu herders moved the farm’s starving animals to Mlalo for more favorable pasture conditions. Eick, the farm manager, mistakenly accused them of theft.
49 For example, Miungu - Erythrina abyssinica, Mvule – Ficus spp, strangler type, also grows as a tree; Mkuyu – Ficus spp, tree type; Mshai – Albizia schimperiana. These trees have diverse uses and meaning, some have leaves and roots that fix nitrogen, others attract bees. Some have leaves that can be used medicinally, others have ceremonial uses or symbolic spiritual value. These trees occur naturally in Usambara’s forests and reproduce mainly from root suckers in forest openings. Warburg and Engler, drawing on Hölst name a number of the agricultural plants growing under the canopy of the banana plants. See especially, Warburg, "Die Kulturpflanzen Usambaras.” In this amazing article, Warburg draws on the extensive plant inventory and knowledge of Carl Hölst, the Mlalo Mission gardener.
50 A “kaya” is a founding settlement. See Spear, The Kaya Complex.
51 Baumann, In Deutsch-Ostafrika, 107.
52 On clear days, one can easily see Kenya’s Taita Hills, 50 miles to the north.
53 TNA, Secretariat 24732, Geoffrey Milne, "Report on a Soil Reconnaissance in the Neighbourhood of Kitivo, Lushoto District, Tanganyika Territory, and in Adjacent (West Usambara) Highlands, September - October 1937." Mimeo, East African Agricultural Research Station, Amani.
54 The area is located near the Kaya mosque. Women were drying their Kitivo rice harvest on this flat area when I visited in June, 2016.
55 Mlalo discussions, 6/28/16. The wazee pointed out the gardens corresponding to several hamlets in the Mlalo photographs. They also noted the names and locations of the same.
56 Mlalo discussions, 6/22/16. Significantly, none of the men we spoke with offered this explanation of these houses. In fact, their descriptions were circuitous and defied logic. The women whom we consulted in the Kaya neighborhood, on the other hand, did not hesitate in their responses, which were remarkably consistent.
57 I visited the shrines in 1991 and again in 2016. In the intervening years, one of the Kitaa and the rainmaking mbundi have been removed. The cemetery still exists as does the cedar fencing surrounds the ceremonial compound. The Lutheran Mission at Mlalo remains an active member of the larger community.
58 See for example, the current locations of the Irente Farm or the Sakaranni Mission from Google Earth.
59 Usambara Interview Transcripts, Mzee Terrance Mganga, 3/29/92, 15.
60 Adolph Engler, Über die Gliederung, 68-69. Engler notes Juniperus procera could be found in the hundreds and thousands in Mbuguland. Notable too was the great diversity in epiphytes, orchids, many other parasitic flowering plants. Olea chrysophylla and Podocarpus also grew as interspersed communities in the Cedar-dominated forest.
61 Conte, Highland Sanctuary, 41–95.
62 Warburg, "Die Kulturpflanzen,” 174–6.
63 Mlalo discussions, 6/28/16.
64 With many thanks to Messrs. Kivatiro and Msheba, who provided much appreciated companionship and valuable assistance during the Summer of 2016.