Memory, migration and the authority of history in southern Tanzania, 1860-1960

In the southern highlands of Tanzania, the 'Bena of the Rivers' are said to have migrated from the highlands of the Iringa plateau to the Kilombero ri ver valley following a great battle in 1875. Memory of the Battle of Mgodam titu and the ensuing migration has been central to the constitution of powe r and authority in the region since the late nineteenth century. German mil itary ethnographers were the first to write down oral accounts of the migra tion. The political context of colonial conquest informed both African reco llections of the migration and their written representation. British ethnog raphers later used these German documents as source material during the est ablishment of Indirect Rule in the 1920s and 1930s. Oral narratives did not disappear with the advent of these written testimonies, however. Rather, o ral and written traditions interacted with one another, in a context that p rivileged the written. In the 1930s collective memory of the migration became highly charged, as r uling groups negotiated the boundaries of district administration. Competin g claims to land and power were buttressed by appeals to the migration narr atives. Bena chiefs were supported by the written testimony of their coloni al ethnographer, A. T. Culwick. In the 1940s and 1950s, Ndamba dissidents w rote their own histories, challenging the legitimacy of Bena overrule.