Folk arts and personal independence in Tanzania: Fundi Mdawalo bin Milonge.

This short paper examines the life and work of a single Tanzanian folk artist, Fundi Mdawalo bin Milonge (Fig. 1), who enjoyed a successful career as a sculptor of wood dolls for sale to Europeans and traditional regalia for Luguru men in Morogoro Town. (1) I seek to trace the origins of Fundi Mdawalo's art, how he developed his own style as an artist, and how he marketed his work. I also discuss the way that the occasional income Fundi Mdawalo earned from his craft enabled him to claim a degree of independence from wage labor and gave him both a sense of personal dignity and control over his own destiny.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

In 1972-73 my family and I lived in Morogoro, which was then a town of fewer than 25,000 inhabitants and headquarters of Morogoro Province. Located some 125 miles due west of Dares Salaam, I had established a base at Morogoro from which to undertake a regional history of eastern Tanzania in the nineteenth century. (2) During twelve months of fieldwork, I conducted interviews at villages across the region from Handeni and Turiani Districts in the north, at Sadani and Bagamoyo on the coast north of Dares Salaam, southwest from the capital into Kisarawe District, as far south in Morogoro Province as Kisaki, and west into Kilosa District. Initially, I restricted myself to conducting interviews in and immediately around town, as a way both to improve my spoken Swahili and to refine my methodology. Drawing upon a set of introductions provided by an enthusiastic student at the University of Dares Salaam whose father was a prominent member of one of the leading Luguru lineages, I gradually developed a network of local historians who were able to provide me with contacts in the surrounding countryside and farther afield. After a month of intensive interviewing, I was a well-established--if somewhat eccentric--figure by virtue of my eagerness to talk to older people who could tell me about the history of the town and region before the arrival of the Germans.

Early on in this research program I was introduced to the work of Fundi Mdawalo bin Milonge. While visiting a friend one day who taught at the local Kilakala Girls Secondary School, I saw a charming, obviously modern wood carving of a man wearing a kofia (fez) and kanzu (a long-sleeved calico gown worn as an overgarment; Fig. 2). When I asked her where she bought it, she replied that the man who made it lived in the mountains above Morogoro and sometimes appeared in town to sell his pieces from door to door. My only clue to his identity was that she said he looked very much like his male figures.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Soon thereafter, walking down the mountains back to town after an interview, my research assistant and I met a man who was carrying a matched ceremonial staff (fimbo) and ax (shoka) which were carved in the same style as the fig urine that I had seen at Kilakala (Figs. 3-4). He was indeed the craftsman whom I was seeking, and after I had asked him if he could make me one of his figurines and a matchedfimbo and shoka and bring them to our flat in town, we went our separate ways. Some days later he showed up at our front door with a bag of carvings that included not only human figurines of various sizes and types, but also a giraffe (Fig. 5). My family and I were so taken by his work that, over time, as he revealed different carvings to us during his visits, we ordered a Noah's Ark of the animals (Figs. 6-8), as well as his family of people in both large and small versions, since our children were then quite small themselves and wanted a play set (Figs. 9-11). Our appreciation of his human figures was enlivened by his presentation of them to us as different members of a single family, reflecting different "traditional" and "modern" generations, as one could see from their styles of dress.

[FIGURES 3-11 OMITTED]

Knowing a good thing when he saw it, Fundi Mdawalo, as he told us he was called, began to visit us regularly with his bag filled with items we had ordered as well as new surprises. Before long, I established a relationship with him that was part publicist, part business agent, and part supplier. Thus, my family talked about his work to our friends and when they expressed interest, I either sent him to their homes (if they lived in Morogoro) or commissioned pieces for them (if they lived in Dares Salaam). Once or twice, on my occasional shopping runs down to Dar, I also purchased, at his request, a can of the shellac with which he coated his pieces to give them their high-gloss finish and gave it to him without charge.

So during the period of my research in Morogoro, I established a casual yet somewhat symbiotic relationship with Fundi Mdawalo that we both clearly enjoyed. Occasional conversations with him revealed glimpses of his background, and as the year wore on, I decided to interview him formally about his own life's history and craft. My interest in conducting this interview was not, however, simply to know more about his art, but was stimulated by my knowledge that, according to T. O. Beidelman, "In the past Luguru carved excellent ceremonial staves, combs, and other utensils of considerable artistic value, but little such carving is done today" (Beidelman 1967:28). As it happens, I had already acquired a fine example of a ceremonial ax (Figs. 12-13) during an earlier interview in the mountains with the mwenye kiti or title holder of the Mzeru clan. (3) According to what I was told, the wood from which this shoka was made was msambwa, one of Fundi Mdawalo's preferred woods, although it is clearly manufactured from a much different wood than that utilized by Fundi Mdawalo for all of his work. In addition to sharing certain Luguru stylistic similarities with Fundi Mdawalo's work in the hair dressing of the figurehead and the shape of the iron ax head (Fig. 14), this piece also exhibits affinities with a number of other works of art from eastern Tanzania, which is not surprising either culturally or historically. (4)

[FIGURES 12-14 OMITTED]

Thus, I saw Fundi Mdawalo as the bearer of an older tradition of wood carving among the Luguru, perhaps the only one who managed to preserve his art into the postcolonial era. In addition, a visit to the National Museum in Dar es Salaam convinced me that his work deserved serious study, for there in the display of ceremonial staves and axes from all over Tanzania were two examples labeled "Luguru" that were clearly either his work or that of someone working in exactly the same tradition. A large part of my purpose, therefore, was to discover how it was that he appeared to be the only remaining practitioner of this craft. (5) It is this interview, conducted by my research assistant, Mohamed Halfani Msisi (Geza), and me on June 20, 1973, outside Fundi Mdwalao's home at Kibwe, in the mountains above Morogoro Town, that forms the evidence upon which this presentation is based.

Fundi Mdawalo indicated that he was born before 1914. His matriclan (ukoo)--for the Luguru are matrilineal--was Mbena, the most important clan family in Uluguru. Its prominence arose from its clan head, the Kingalu, who controlled one of the most important rain shrines in the entire region from high up on the eastern side of the mountains at Kinole. His father's clan (mtala) was Mogera, a local variant of the more widely dispersed Mzeru clan. (6) He was Roman Catholic, as were both of his parents. When I asked him the origin of his ability to carve figures in wood, he told us:

   This work began with my father,
   who was  a fundi for making wooden
   cooking spoons only. During the
   government of the Germans, he
   went to the house of Bwana Rambrashi
   [i.e. to look for work]. There
   Father was employed to make carvings
   from pictures belonging to
   this important person. These pictures
   came from Dodoma; they
   were German pictures. When Father
   was asked if he could do this
   work, he said "Yes." And when he
   proved that he could do them exactly
   like those that came from Dodoma,
   he began to get a great deal
   of work doing carvings. Now he
   was a very famous fundi and he received
   very big presents [for his
   work]. And during these years my
   father taught me, so that I began
   this work from 1927.

"Bwana Rambrashi" can be identified as Lambrecht, the first German commanding officer at Morogoro after the district headquarters were removed there in 1904 from Kisaki, some 60 miles to the south at the other extreme of the Uluguru Mountains. Morogoro was becoming a bustling small town then, with the westward extension of the Central Railway from Dares Salaam to the far interior (1907-1914) and the rapid development of sisal plantations in the plains lying to the north and east. (7) What presumably began as an isolated response by Fundi Mdawalo's father, Milonge bin Muwanda, to the curious request by Lambrecht, who presumably wanted some souvenirs for his collection or to send to family and friends at home, gradually became a viable means of earning cash as more Europeans settled in the district and created a modest market for this sort of reinvented folk art.

What we do not know, unfortunately, is the precise provenance of the picha ("pictures") that Larnbrecht showed to Fundi Milonge and that served as models for his original carvings. First of all, it is not clear whether or not these were photographs or line drawings. Second, it is impossible to determine the source of the illustrations which served as Fundi Milonge's models. They may have appeared in a book, or postcards, or even photographs taken by Lambrecht himself. A review of the literature suggests that one of the most likely candidates might have been Franz Stuhlmann's Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika, but in fact the only carved figures included in this volume (Stuhlmann 1910:32, Abb. 16-18) are from Uzaramo and Manyema and look nothing like what Fundi Mdawalo learned to create from his father (Fig. 15). (8) A much closer example of the kinds of figures that Fundi Mdawalo reported were shown to his father may be found in Wilhelm Blohm's later work on the Nyamwezi, but even these are no more than suggestive (Blohm 1933:Tafel X, Abb. 132-137; less likely Tafel XII, Abb. 162-164) (Figs. 16-17). (9)

[FIGURES 15-17 OMITTED]

Later in the interview, however, Fundi Mdawalo indicated that his father's knowledge of this craft came from Tabora, in the center of Nyamwezi country, rather than Dodoma, in Gogo territory. He also observed about his own work that "I began to make pictures of German and English askari [soldier, police] into pictures," which conjures up images of the figures illustrated in Blohm's volume on the Nyamwezi. In discussing his father's work he also mentioned that the pictures that Lambrecht showed him to work from were "kinyago cha askari," that is, pictures reminiscent of ceremonial figurines such as those used in initiation ceremonies among many Tanzanian societies. In this case, of course, the intrusion of askari belies the very recent, colonial origins of these particular vinyago (the generic word in Swahili for indigenous initiation figures). Linguistic confirmation that the original source for this Luguru "tradition" of carving in wood was indeed either photographs or drawings of similar handiwork from elsewhere in German East Africa can be deduced from the fact that when Fundi Mdawalo spoke to us about his own work he always used the Swahili phrase kutengeneza picha, literally "to make pictures", rather than Swahili vinyago or some more specific word in Luguru.

When we asked if his father had trained others in his craft we got conflicting answers from Fundi Mdawalo. In one place he indicated that his father wanted to teach as many young men in his new craft as he could, but the local people were not interested in learning. In another he stated that his father trained many pupils, but that all had died. Whichever was the case, and perhaps both were true, only his son, Mdawalo, now survived to carry on this craft. And although Fundi Mdawalo had taught his own son to carve in wood, this son had already died by the time of our interview. "For this reason there's no one else left to carry on this knowledge." In an attempt to follow up on Beidelman's isolated reference to an indigenous Luguru tradition of woodcarving, we inquired if in the old days there were craftsmen like his father among the Luguru. But Fundi Mdawalo could not answer this question, since all that he knew came from watching his father and his students. Elsewhere he noted that there were no other craftsmen like his father working in Morogoro until he began to carve.

The origin of Fundi Mdawalo's craft echoes the better-known story of the origins of commercial woodcarving among the Kamba of Kenya. This thriving industry also traces its roots to the initiative of a single man, Mutisya Munge, from the Wamunya area of Machakos district, who was, according to Walter Elkan, "already renowned as a carver of ceremonial sticks" before he joined the Carrier Corps during World War I. Elkan goes on to note, "It was apparently from the Zaramu in the hinterland of Dares Salaam that he picked up many of the models which were soon to become typical of Kamba carving in the inter-war years" (Elkan (1958:315). We are fortunate to have one published example an askari standing figurine that Mutisya carved (Jack 1991: "Kamba Carvings") which is indeed reminiscent of Zaramo style, and another--previously unpublished to the best of my knowledge--that depicts an askari atop a fimbo, which more closely resembles the figures illustrated in Blohm's Nyamwezi illustrations than it does Zaramo representational figures (Fig. 18). (10) Although Mutisya's initiative evolved into a major industry among the Kamba--quite a different legacy than that of Fundi Mdawalo's father--the circumstances of his personal transformation of an indigenous tradition of woodcarving during the early years of the last century are certainly similar.

[FIGURE 18 OMITTED]

On the technical side, Fundi Mdawalo told us that he always used either msambwa or mlengolengo, both of which are "white" woods, i.e., light-colored hardwoods readily available in the mountain forests, for his work. (11) His tools included a chisel, knife, saw, and a piece of iron. He blackened the wood by burning it with the heated piece of iron; this enabled him to create the details of his creations. Eyes were created by inserting tiny beads into the wood, something he learned to do from his father. Finally, he finished each figure with varnish: "Basi picha." In general, if he had other work to do, he was able to complete one figure each day; but when he was free of other obligations he was able to complete three figures a day. On the other hand, at times it took him three days to complete a single figure, depending on circumstances. Artistically; he learned most of his models from his father, as he did his technique. Some of the animals he carved he had seen for himself, while others, he said, "I saw in pictures on the tax certificates of the English." (12) Still others he simply imagined, such as the idea of placing a man's head peering out of the mouth of a crocodile (Fig. 19). He also indicated that his father's work was limited to vinyago, i.e. animal and human figures, and that it was his idea to begin to make shoka and fimbo (cf. Cory 1956:17-18, on individual talent in this genre of representational art).

[FIGURE 19 OMITTED]

With respect to sales, local African men were the main purchasers of his ceremonial staves and axes, which they would carry when making visits to clan heads and on similar important occasions, as Fundi Mdawalo engagingly demonstrated to me. Both items had deep roots in Luguru society and represented respect for custom and tradition. (13) Africans also bought his animals, but it was Europeans who constituted Fundi Mdawalo's main market. As he told us, "Africans liked to buy animals, but more so those Europeans! Yes, they really loved them. From a long time ago I sold to the Europeans around here." In addition, Fundi Mdawalo also sold his things in Dares Salaam through a European who carried them there and sold them in his shop. When I asked him if this was his main means of earning money, he replied:

   This work that I began in 1927 until
   today in 1973 is my only work. By
   this work I led my life. If I earned a
   lot of money, there were others that
   I helped in working their fields.
   This was really my work. Formerly
   I sold a staff and ax for 25 shillings
   each, but these days I sell them for
   20, 25, up to 30 shillings.

This formal statement of his life's work reiterated what he had on several occasions told me informally: He was proud that he had been able to earn money by working for himself, whether as a craftsman or farmer. He had never had to work for Europeans, although he clearly would not have survived without a European market for his wares.

The independence that carving wood figurines afforded Fundi Mdawalo may also have motivated his father's decision to accept Lambrecht's challenge "to make pictures." John Iliffe tells us that shortly after Lambrecht assumed administrative responsibility for Morogoro, he came under increasing pressure to turn out African labor "without employing compulsion" for the growing needs of European plantation owners.

   He therefore let them establish a
   card system. The cards were given
   to headmen for distribution. Any
   African who accepted a card from a
   headman was liable to thirty days'
   work within fifty-five days on a
   European enterprise. Those who
   refused cards, or failed to work
   them off, were conscripted when
   necessary for public works. The
   governor questioned this, but the
   advantage of the system, according
   to Lambrecht, was ... that it allowed
   the worker to choose his employer.
   As he told an akida [African administrator
   of a district section],
   'everyone is able to work where he
   likes, be it here or there' (Iliffe
   1969:136-137; see also Koponen
   1995:402-403).

The imposition of such a radical colonial intervention suggests a powerful motivation for anyone who was fortunate enough to be able to earn tax money by other means and, thereby, to avoid the rigorous German labor system to do so.

It seems to me that the life and work of Fundi Mdawalo bear witness to the assertion by Kris Hardin and Mary Jo Arnoldi (1996:13) that "By focusing on human agency and change, it is possible to view the ways in which Africans actively use objects to produce social and cultural forms, including forms of resistance, contestation, and other aspects of unique and changing identities in an ever-changing world." Specifically, we can identify two different manifestations of power within the context of his art: that deriving from the dignity embodied in respect for Luguru custom, as exemplified in his production of shoka and fimbo for Luguru men, and that deriving from the relative financial independence that carving wood figurines for a primarily European market provided for the artist himself. In the context of the colonial history of Africa, the struggle for independence, and the postcolonial travails of independent Africa, these may seem small achievements. But they were human achievements, and for Fundi Mdawalo, at least, they defined his life and his work.

[This article was accepted for publication in September 2001.]

(1.) A fundi is "a person skilled in any art, craft, or profession, and so able to instruct others in it, a skilled workman, one who has learnt his trade, a trained artisan or craftsman" (Johnson 1939:103.) An earlier version of this paper was first presented at the PASALA Conference, "Crosscurrents: Art and Power in East Africa," University of Iowa, March 26-27, 1999.

(2.) The first fruit of this long-delayed work will appear as "Kingalu mwana Shaha and Political Leadership in Nineteenth Century Eastern Tanzania," in In Search of a Nation: Histories of Authority and Dissidence from Tanzania, James Giblin and Gregory H. Maddox, eds., forthcoming from Ohio University Press (Athens) and James Currey (Oxford).

(3.) Interview with Lukwele Abdallah, Mbete, October 7, 1972 and Field Notebook #1.

(4.) For subregional stylistic similarities, see Felix 1990:103, 106; for a comparable Luguru staff see ibid.:117 and Fig.X/17 (also illustrated at ibid.:280, #105-6); see also Roy 1999:86-7, Plates 30-32, and 330-31 for commentary. For related examples of Luguru axes, see Felix 1990:404 (illustrations 216a-216b), 406-7 (illustrations 218-220), 408 (illustrations 222a-222b); for a similar Kwere ax, see ibid.:118 and Fig. X/19 and 410 (illustrations 224-6), and for a similar Zigua ax, ibid.:412 (illustrations 229a-229b).

(5.) For an interesting discussion of a Zaramo artist who more closely fits into the pattern I had imagined for Fundi Mdawalo, although with very important differences, see Mshana 1997.

(6.) His father was born at Mbete, the core clan area of the Mzeru. Mbete is located on one of the several ridges above Morogoro Town, slightly farther to the southwest from Kibwe. Field Notebook #3, Mzee Shabani Mdungundwa, July 4, 1973.

(7.) By 1911, eighty-two plantations had been opened in Morogore district (Iliffe 1979:145). Koponen 1995:608, Table 8.5, lists sixty farms in 1912. It is not clear from the context whether or not these are overlapping categories. Between 1908 and 1913 the population of Morogoro grew from 1,300 to 3,000 (ibid.:621, Table 8.7).

(8.) For references to other examples of Zaramo initiation figures see Krauss 1907, who indicates that similar dolls existed among the neighboring Kwere; Reckling 1942; and Harding 1961. The "dolls" described by Krauss and Harding could be made of either wood or calabash; see also Pelrine 1991:121-9 and accompanying illustrations. For other examples of "dolls" from eastern Tanzania, including several attributed to the Luguru which exhibit the characteristic hair style also carved by Fundi Mdawalo, see Felix 1990:200-29; also Hartwig 1978:63, Fig. 4, for an example of a late nineteenth century Kami "doll".

(9.) I am grateful to Doran Ross, then-director of UCLA's Fowler Museum of Cultural History, for authorizing slide reproduction of Figures 17a, 18, and 19 and to Don Cole for the photography.

(10.) I am indebted to the late Roy Sieber for providing me with photographs and details of this staff, as well as references and photocopies of the articles by Elkan and Jack. Roy Sieber, personal communication, April 26, 2001.

(11.) Msambwa would appear to be either the exotic loquat (Eriobotrya japonica, family Rosaceae), a widely planted small evergreen used for firewood, poles, and carving, or a similar indigenous hardwood, possibly Pachystela brevipes or other Pachystela sp. (family Sapotaceae). Mlengolengo remains unidentified, but may possibly be Rauvolfia caffra (family Apocynaceae). For msambwa, see Mbuya et al. 1994. I am grateful to Martin Walsh of the Mbomipa Project, Iringa, Tanzania, for providing this identification for me (personal communication, March 22, 1999 and March 23, 1999), and for an extended analysis of all the cognate possibilities, with references, for both msambwa and mlengolengo. Thanks also to Tom Hinnebusch and Derek Nurse for connecting me to Martin Walsh.

(12.) While I have never seen these certificates, I presume they were similar to the animals that appear on modern Tanzanian currency.

(13.) At the time of my research, many adult men would still not by choice make an important journey without a swagger stick in hand as a sign of their majority. These were sold at all rail stations along the Central Line as men traveled across Tanzania (Fig. 20).

References cited

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--. 1979. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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