Jesuit Missionary Types and Nsenga Responses in Dominic Mulaisho's 'The Tongue of the Dumb'

Hale, Frederick

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Title:	Jesuit Missionary Types and Nsenga Responses in Dominic Mulaisho's 'The Tongue of the Dumb'
Author:	Hale, Frederick
Year:	1999
Periodical:	Zambezia
Volume:	26
Issue:	2
Pages:	211-226
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Zambia Central Africa
Subjects:	missions Nsenga literature Literature, Mass Media and the Press Missionaries The tongue of the dumb (title) Books--Reviews Christianity Traditional culture
About person:	Dominic Mulaisho (1933-2013)
External link:	https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/AJA03790622_44
Abstract:	Dominic Mulaisho's 'The Tongue of the Dumb' (1971) was not only the first contribution of a Zambian author to Heinemann's African Writers Series, it was one of the first Zambian novels to roll from the presses of any country. The novel's reconstruction of relations between Nsenga and European colonial cultures, particularly with regard to religious matters, provides unique insight into Central African history during the waning years of the British empire and the rise of African nationalism. This article examines Mulaisho's portrayal of Jesuit missionaries in the then Northern Rhodesian field, giving particular attention to his four types of missionary and their style of evangelization: the confrontational European, the devoted and acculturated European, the European who becomes one with his African flock, and the African who incarnates European missionary zeal. It also examines the reactions of indigenous Nsenga to the missionaries' attitudes and behaviour in an environment of colonialism and cultural clashes. Mulaisho, himself a Roman Catholic layman, was born at Feira in 1933. He became permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education of Zambia and in 1970 was appointed executive chairman of the Mining Development Corporation. The fictional world he constructs mirrors what he observed near the town of his birth but can most profitably be read with his ascent in the world of postcolonial politics and economics in mind. Mulaisho's work cries out against categorical indictments as well as facile affirmation of Christian missionaries and their strategies in propagating the Gospel. Ref., sum.

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