I wondered when reading Ambler's piece whether all prophets predicting the arrival of the Europeans--or all leaders who were then "canonized" as prophets--were men, and if so, how that influenced their prophecies. Who interpreted these prophecies and how did that differ by gender? As Christianity subsumed or merged with indigenous traditions, did women become more prominent prophetic voices, given their relative importance in mission history in East Africa?
John Lonsdale, like Chuck Ambler, also explores how the layered meanings of stories and prophecies not only create and wreck identities but can mask and illuminate the internal tensions of a society such as Kenya, whose contested stories are meant to discover just who among the Kikuyu were to blame for colonialism. Lonsdale's explorations tell the varied stories of the prophets Waiyaki and Mugo. The story of Waiyaki was changed over time to help create then to reinterpret Kikuyu identity, to explain how and when the British gained land and power (though to the British, Waiyaki's story "proved their right to rule" [244]), and how to justify both peaceful and military responses to colonial rule. Mugo's words, on the other hand, remained constant. Mugo's prophecies foretold the coming of the Europeans and, in a reinvention by Kenyatta, encouraged peace between black and white (271). The tales of these two men negotiated differences in Kikuyu understandings and power structures--between "dynastic and regenerative pasts, Kikuyu time and Biblical history, and the hopes of the literate and the unschooled" (277). The stories helped create a shared understanding in audiences and helped build a Kikuyu identity (though variable and fragmented). Lonsdale points out that Waiyaki's story allowed Kenyan civil rights activists demonstrate that deliberate nation-building can be oppressive (282). This reminded me of my own research on Zimbabwe's liberation war and the use of propaganda and myth to create a national identity and a new national history; shared ideology and shared history are critical for establishing a peaceful, working government.
As I pointed out earlier, the historical circumstances explored by these four scholars differed, but all of them emphasized the theme of prophets' relationship to power/politics and how their words were used to construct identities and ideologies and to engender resistance of some form. Thus, they are an important way to illuminate African history.
Anderson, David M. & Douglas H. Johnson, eds. Revealing Prophets: Prophecy in East
African History. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995.
