Geschosse zu Wassertropfen Sozio-religiöse Aspekte des Maji-Maji-Krieges in Deutsch-Ostafrika (1905-1907)

Abstract

Geschosse zu Wassertropfen Sozio-religiose Aspekte des Maji-Maji-Krieges in Deutsch-Ostafrika (1905-1907). By Jigal Beez. [Bullets to Drops of Water: Aspects of the Maji Maji War in German East Africa, 1905-1907]. Vorkoloniale und fruhkoloniale Geschichte Afrikas Vol. 1. Koln: Rudiger Koppe Verlag, 2003. Pp. 210; 2 maps, 3 illustrations, 3 poems. euro19.80 paper. In Geschosse zu Wassertrophen (Bullets to Drops of Water) author Jigal Beez studies the Maji Maji war (1905-1907) against the German colonizers in Tanzania, arguing that this was foremost a socioreligious struggle. For this book the author reworked a 1998 M.A. thesis in ethnology at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and notes how its publication at the beginning of the twenty-first century takes on special relevance with the increase in religiously motivated terrorism (p. 11). Becz summarizes the study as an attempt to explain Maji Maji by analyzing the categories of thought of the people in southern Tanzania (p. 12). In this regard, the author first investigates various theories regarding socioreligious movements. As a historian, this reviewer is hard-pressed to judge the applicability of these theories, but the ground seems to be well covered. From theory, the book moves into the history of Maji Maji. Beez examines changes within the precolonial societies in southern Tanzania, the establishment of German economic and political power, and then the outbreak of Maji Maji. Beez describes the main points of the conflict and summarizes the postwar German repression and the effects upon the African societies. Overall, Beez presents a concise, readable history covering the many aspects of the conflict. The next chapter then progresses into the most interesting part of the work, a historical analysis of the social and religious elements of the Maji Maji movement. Beez explains how the movement evolved and the maji spread and then even how, after the first setbacks against the Germans, these people who believed in the possibility of medicinal protection were willing to try new but similar types of protection (pp. 142-43). Parallel to this, the analysis follows the path of Kinjikitile as the prophet of the water's power to a later period, after German suppression and widespread hunger, when Kinjikitile is seen by some as a deceiver (p. 143). Finally, the fifth chapter meshes the two historical chapters with the theory and argues Maji Maji can be seen as a socioreligious struggle with nativistic, revivalistic, and millennial aspects. Throughout the argument, Beez remains very careful at refuting the contention that Maji Maji borrowed concepts from Christianity or Islam; the indigenous religious were capable of providing ideas for the struggle. …