Naming Colonialism, History and Collective Memory in the Congo, 1870-1960 (review)

An on-going challenge of writing the history of the colonial Congo is to find sources and methodologies able to articulate a counter-narrative to the official archives produced by the aggressors, whose textual production was integral to the domination of both the people and the territory. During the transition to independence, in the early 1960s, this found expression in 'immediate history' (histoire engagée) and in the interpretation of oral testimonies, songs, paintings and poetry. Yet, knowledge of the colonial encounter, from a Congolese perspective, is scarce and fragmentary.

With this study, Osumaka Likaka provides an original, sociolinguistic analysis which rises to this challenge. For sources, he takes the collective and individual names - anthroponyms - used by Congo villagers to describe the actions and characteristics of explorers, missionaries, colonial officials and commercial representatives. He then develops a methodology to decode the meanings and to argue for the relevance of these anthroponyms as expressions of local agency and as subtle responses to colonial power and its practices. By patient exegesis, based on over twenty years of fieldwork, he builds an interpretation from the inside and reveals how such names can be understood as strategic entry points into that brutal, asymmetrical frontier where Congolese villagers negotiated the boundaries of the colonial world, and the culture of uncertainty, violence and foreign power.

In pre-colonial times, naming, renaming and name changing were essential to the cosmology of the Congo's cultural universe. Names constituted the essence of an individual, embodying experiences, memories, thoughts and actions. With the arrival of colonial white men into their midst, the practice was reformulated to meet the new aggressive challenges. Such names were used as repositories of observation and perception and as creative, mnemonic instruments for encoding myths, metaphors and satirical reflections. In other contexts, they held ambiguous expressions of protest and informed judgments about ethics, justice and moral standards. The decoding and translation of these names is complicated by the 280 languages in the geographical region of the Congo. Quite often, names take on multidimensional forms as they cross languages, regions and temporalities.

To take the most obvious example: Bula Matari, which means 'Break rocks!', was first bequeathed on the explorer and taskmaster, Henry Morton Stanley, but was later extended to all colonial officials and agents and became synonymous with state control and violence. Today, the name still conjures up memories of the brutality and evil of colonial times. The shifting meaning of Bula Matari, from being a description attached to an individual to become an expression used to describe the collective authority of colonial agents, is indicative of the changeable implications captured in these names. It is also apparent in other collective terms such as Atama-Atama (Enslavers).

Inevitably, many of these anthroponyms expressed the harsh realities of brutality and violence. Emin Pasha was called Eminimbi, a suffix which means 'wicked' in Bantu languages. Officials who used verbal threats instead of physical abuse were given names such as 'He who yells at people'. Those who built roads or collected taxes were bestowed with expressions conveying notions of speed and itinerancy. To the Congolese villagers, however, the colonial road was feared as an instrument of enslavement, social disruption and destabilization.

Both the extraction of latex rubber and the cash crop economy which replaced it were dependent on violence and coercion. The administration of the Congo Free State was called Ipanga Ngunda, 'He who destroys the country'. The names for local officials speak for themselves: Tumba Lombe (Home burner), Lilanga'atumbe (Garden destructor), Kitatshindja (Slaughter). Flogging was the cornerstone of local power relations. Bola-Bola (Beat-Beat), or the name used for brutal agents, Sikoti, a loanword from the French term chicotte, which means "hippopotamus-hide whip." The violators of sexual norms and predatory abusers are evident in names such as Makpatu (Chaser of Women), Ewa-Olefe (Womanizer) and "Man who behaves like a woman." Inevitably perhaps, cultural signifiers to do with masculinity, physical prowess and moral qualities are frequent.

Less...