A Dance of Assassins: Performing Early Colonial Hegemony in the Congo

9. Composing Decomposition

193 9 · ComposingDecomposition Remembering is never a quiet act of introspection or retrospection. It is a painful remembering, a putting together of the dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present. —Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture WhatfuneralpracticesmighthavebeenundertakenhadLusingametanatural— oratleastalocal—demise?WhileIwouldassertthatLusingaexplicitlyengaged in“culture-building”ashesoughttovalidatehisemergingauthoritythroughthe commissioningofstatuaryandothervisibleandperformativemeans,hewasnot doing so from whole cloth. Instead, he was adopting and adapting eastern Luba practicesthatweresufficientlyresonantwithTabwapoliticalcultureastobeacceptedlocally .Suchcreativeworkincludedburialofchiefs.1 Thearchaeologicalrecordsuggestshowelaboratefuneralritescouldbefor earlierpeoplesoftheregion,butarchivalmaterialsconcerningsuchmattersas precolonial burial of chiefs are meager indeed, and Storms left the barest of notes that are not specific to any given chief, community, or moment in time.2 Most Tabwa with whom I worked in the 1970s knew very little of such procedures ,anditislikelythatacombinationofsecrecy,theinventivebutdiscontinued maneuvers of ambitious individuals like Lusinga and Kansabala, and nearly a century of colonial intervention—especially by Catholic missionaries based at Mpala-LubandaandMoba-Kirungu—meanthatfewdetailshavebeenretained 194 · Remembering the Dismembered if they were ever widely known or generally practiced. Nothing resembling a “genealogyofperformance”hasbeenmaintainedorcanberetrieved,then,and wehavenoglimpseoftheinevitable“anxiety-inducinginstability”ofanygiven performance event when arguments about who does what and how are played out according to the particularities of local-level politics. As Victor Turner asserted ,“Thereisno‘authorizedversion’ofagivenritual”likeachief’sinterment, and indeed, because of inexorably shifting social dynamics, “no performance . . . ever precisely resembles another.”3 Nor do available data permit an understanding of local variation in symbolism and broader purpose from one burial,village,chiefdom,clan,orethnicdifferencetothenext,tosaynothingof the development of procedures across time. Surely there was variation, as one wouldexpectamongcommunitiessolooselyrelatedtoeachother—ifatall—as wereTabwaofthelatenineteenthcentury.Thearchaeologyofperformanceto be offered here willbe a deductive quest, then, as stimulated bya mostintriguingentryintheWhiteFathers ’MpalaMissiondiaryconcerningthedeathand burial of Sultani Kansabala, Lusinga’s “mother’s brother.” The “Emperor” Strikes Back—Again By early March 1885 Bwana Boma was anxious to return to Lubanda from a brief visit to Karema, because he had learned that a new Lusinga had been named without his authorization. This same sojourn was when Storms was obligedtodealwithupheavalsamonghismengarrisonedatFortLéopolddue to the bizarre behavior of the tormented Victor Beine, and one can imagine that such aggravations contributed to the lieutenant’s haste in setting sail for Lubanda across the lake’s expanse. Indeed, rather than Beine, Storms left the talented professional Sef bin Rachid to hold Karema. Sef hailed from the Comoro Islands and led supply caravans to and from the east African coast on behalf of Storms and earlier IAA officers. These latter not only had confidenceintheman ’sestablishedabilitiesandknowledgeofcaravanprocedures and politics, but they also were frankly fond of him.4 As soon as Storms regained his boma in Lubanda he began planning an expedition against the new Lusinga, deploying his main force of over one hundred. The lieutenant hoped to supplement his rugaruga irregulars with wangwanaandmenfromMpalaandotherchiefdomswithinhispurview.He was immediately confronted by these latter who insisted that they be given new red cloths of the sort that the rugaruga sported with such panache, so as Composing Decomposition · 195 not to appear the “slaves” of these latter.5 Such “‘ghastly finery’ [of rugaruga was] designed to inspire terror,” and “during a battle or a siege, they would point to the cloth and shout to the defenders: ‘This is your blood!’” The argument between Bwana Bomaand his men was a manifestation of identitypoliticsmadethemorecomplicatedbytheprobabilitythatsomewangwanawere themselves still enslaved.6 After great acrimony, Storms was able to muster forty local men to bolster his force. Even as he sent them off there was further dispute,becausehisrugarugawishedtobearstandardsoftheirown“nations” east of Lake Tanganyika. Storms seized all banners and insisted that only his own flag would be carried.7 Such insubordination suggests that Bwana Boma was still seen by some to be of a piece with Congolese warlords of his day. Bwana Boma’s trusted man Ramazani led the force that climbed the mountaintrailfromLubandaandquicklyseizedKansabala’sfortress,onlyto discoverthatthechiefandmanyofhishenchmenhadescapedtoneighboring Chief Mwindi’s.Ramazanidulyattacked Mwindi’s stronghold tendayslater. Astheyapproachedandfiredtheirfirstshots,Storms’sfightersweremetwith raucous guffaws and a hail of arrows that so infuriated the mercenaries that they threw themselves upon the palisade to climb its walls “like cats.” The stockade fell and was pillaged and burned. More than 150 were seized as “spoils of war” by and for the men of Bwana Boma. Ramazani and the rugarugareturnedtoLubandaintriumph ,firingtheirmusketswithsuchabandon that Storms grumbled that his men wasted more ammunition in celebration than they had spent in battle. Nonetheless, it was in this context that he proclaimed , “All authority that is not based upon force is worthless and illusory” and added, “The primary condition for us is to be the strongest in the land. . . . If I must humiliate myself...