Fundi Mdawala/Jak Katarikawe.

Your recent issue of African Arts (37, 2) contains an article and a letter to which I want to respond:

First, the article: In his informative and valuable paper on the Luguru woodcarver Fundi Mdawala bin Milongo, Edward A. Alpers notes that the woodcarver "sold his things in Dares Salaam through a European who carried them there and sold them in his shop" (p. 50). Alpers appears to have recorded this remark by Fundi Mdawala in Morogoro some time in 1972 73 (p. 44). I have not visited Dar es Salaam or Morogoro since 1966, but in 1957-58, late 1961 63, and for three months in 1965 and in 1966 I regularly visited most of the shops in Dares Salaam dealing with African woodcarving. No Europeans ran any of these, and I doubt that any European ran such a shop in 1972-73. During this period the only European-type shop in Dar es Salaam dealing with African artefacts was run by Muhamed Peera, an innovative and highly sophisticated Asian dealer who imaginatively promoted a number of African carvers and who had extensive contacts with African craftsmen and traders over a wide area. In my review of Zachary Kingdon's A Host off Demons (Anthropos 99 [2004]:177-9), a valuable book on modern Makonde spirit sculpture, I discuss Peera and his shop. In 1963 I purchased from Peera a work identical to the central male figure in suit and tie appearing in Alpers's Fig. 9. It was the only such figure 1 ever saw for sale in all my years frequenting the shops in Dares Salaam. I purchased the figure because (except for the shellac finish) it strikingly resembled traditional carvings by matrilineal peoples of east-central Tanzania, people I have written about extensively. Indeed, Alpers credits some of my writings for influencing his interest in this material. Now, thanks to Alpers, I know that the carving was made by Fundi Mdawala, a Luguru, one of the ease-central matrilineal people along with the Kaguru, Ngulu, Kutu, and Zigula. I am, however, now wondering how Peera was connected with Fundi Mdawala and why only one such work ever turned up in Dar es Salaam during all my visits to the shops carrying African artefacts. I also wonder why such a delightful carver never succeeded in Dar es Salaam, especially if a skilled promoter such as Peera had some contact with him.

Now, the letter: I read Elspeth Court's letter about the Ugandan painter Jak Katarikawe and was puzzled why she chides me for having "difficulty comprehending the regional career of a twentieth century professional illiterate artist from Uganda" (p. 91). I have never ever considered or tried to evaluate the course of Katarikawe's career so I can hardly have had difficulty doing something I never attempted to do. In my earlier letter to African Arts I responded to a review of Jak Katarikawe's work that seemed not to pay much attention to what his own aims and ideas might be. That seemed something no good review should do. I then recounted those few memories I have from when Katarikawe and I were friends thirty-eight years ago. At that time Katarikawe was not successful and famous; he was simply a friend who was charming, interesting, and an artist whose works I liked. I was not collecting data about him. From what little I now read about Katarikawe, I found his early life poorly reported. I wrote to African Arts to supply what I could recollect about an artist before he had been "discovered" and whom I therefore might have known differently from how he now is known. When my letter was published, a friend of Katarikawe in Nairobi sent my department an e-mail from Katarikawe warmly greeting me. My department replied, noting that I would like to hear more from him but that I communicated only by post. Katarikawe remains illiterate and no-one has since written to me for him. African Arts also sent me a long set of comments by Court to which I promptly responded via African Arts. In that letter I noted that I had no access to much of the material she cited and asked her how I might find it. Court never replied. I should add that the Frankfurt Museum had not responded to any of my written requests for information or for information on how I could purchase a catalogue. Nor could I easily find out such information through New York book dealers. Because I have my regular work to do and am only interested in catching up with an old friend's success, I did not proceed doggedly with inquiries at museum or African Studies libraries. It is just as well then that I would not write academically about my friend, because illiterate Katarikawe is unlikely to embark on communications with me in New York, because I am not interested in visiting either Frankfurt or East Africa, and because no-one involved in studying Katarikawe seems interested in communicating directly with me about anything.