Patronage, millennialism and the serpent God Mumbo in south-west Kenya, 1912-34

Africa, Wntr, 2002 by Brett L. Shadle

From 1914 to 1934 the creed of Mumbo, the serpent god of Lake Victoria, extended across south-west Kenya. Mumbo condemned Christianity as rotten and vowed to cleanse the land of white people--colonial officials and missionaries--and their lackeys--chiefs and converts. It pledged to provide followers with abundant cattle and grain. Mumbo, which threatened to sever the arms of those adorned in Western clothes and transform whites and their allies into monkeys, would seem to have had little in common with European rule. It comes as some surprise, then, to learn that Africans had `quaintly compared [Mumbo] to serikali', Government. (1)

In this article I wish to explain how a millennial movement like Mumbo could be compared to Serikali, and thus why it presented a genuine challenge to Europeans and their African allies. Patron-client relations covered south-western Kenya (home to Luo and Gusii peoples) in a series of overlapping webs. Clients offered labour, tribute, and allegiance, while patrons provided protection, food, and economic and social security. This was the environment in which, from 1908, colonial chiefs were created and missionaries set up shop. In many ways both groups acted as former patrons had, yet differed from them in certain fundamental respects. Chiefs and missionaries made extreme demands of their clients, and professed to represent higher, omnipotent powers, Serikali in the case of chiefs, God in the case of missionaries.

It was within the disturbed socio-political context of the early colonial period that Mumbo could be compared to Serikali, or, indeed, to God. All three powers--God, Serikali, and Mumbo--spoke the language of patronage. Like chiefs and missionaries, Mumbo's adepts acted as patrons, backed by an omnipotent being. But Mumbo demanded much less of its followers than did the others. This was the key to Mumbo's popularity: it spoke fluently the local language of patronage, while it boasted the power to silence the new would-be patrons, whose misinterpretation of that language caused them to overburden clients. This was why Mumbo faced repression: power in south-west Kenya was a zero sum game. The more clientele Mumbo attracted, the fewer could be integrated into the struggling patron-client networks of missionaries and chiefs.

This interpretation of Mumbo challenges the received historiography. Mumbo has been held up as an anti-colonial resistance movement par excellence. Mumbo promised to drive out the imperialists and condemned the white man's religion. Given the Gusii blood which had been shed in three earlier British `punitive' expeditions, another, not overtly violent avenue had to be found to express their rejection of colonial rule. As a movement intent on awaiting, not inducing, the end of colonialism, Mumbo served just this purpose (Maxon, 1989: 67, 74, 95-8). That Mumbo was patently and primarily anti-colonial has not been questioned by scholars: what has become the main point of contention is the nature of Mumbo as `religious' or `political'. Several scholars have argued that Mumbo was a purely political movement (Maxon, 1989; Ochieng', 1977; Ogot and Ochieng', 1972), and that whatever spiritual or religious aura may have surrounded Mumbo was consciously adopted as a cover for its political ends (Ogot and Ochieng', 1972: 167; cf. Mwanzi, 1985: 165-6). Wipper (1970, 1977), in contrast, insists that, while people followed Mumbo for political reasons, they were attracted by its religious overtones as well.

While Mumboites certainly were dissatisfied with colonial rule, Mumboism was much more than just that. First, making distinctions between `the religious' and `the political' is ultimately impossible: in many African societies the two were intimately intertwined (Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, 1963; Fields, 1997), (2) and trying to separate the two impedes our investigations. (3) In this regard the historiography of Mumbo has reached a dead end. Bypassing the `religious or political' debate allows us to re-examine Mumbo's structure and the reasons why adherents would be attracted to it. Placing Mumbo in the context of local ideas of patronage and of power reveals it to be not simply a challenge to colonial (and missionary) rule but an alternative, and an attractive one at that. It is here that we grasp the meaning and importance of Mumbo.

HISTORY OF MUMBOISM (4)

Mumboism may have had roots in earlier spiritual beliefs, but the experiences of Onyango Dunde of Central Kavirondo District (inhabited mainly by Luo) set the stage for its advance into South Kavirondo. (50 Reclining on the shore of Lake Victoria one day in 1913, Onyango was swallowed up by a giant serpent which had arisen from the waters. The serpent, calling itself Mumbo, regurgitated Onyango and spoke:

   Those whom I choose personally, and also those who acknowledge me, will
   live forever in plenty. Their crops will grow of themselves and there will
   be no more need to work. I will cause cattle to come up out of the lake in
   great numbers to those who believe in me ... All Europeans are your
   enemies, but the time is shortly coming when they will all disappear from
   our country ... Lastly, my followers must immediately slaughter all their
   cattle, sheep and goat. When this is done, I will provide them with as many
   as they want from the lake. [`Nyangweso', 1930] (6)