Faith & Community
Peerless
Kinjikitile Ngwale
died 1905
His Maji Maji rising was the first thing that made Tanganyika one people
Peerless is level 1 of 4 in the Tanzania Hall of Fame: changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
He gave his followers water mixed with millet and castor oil and told them it would turn German bullets. It did not. But the rising he started joined separate peoples into a single movement — the first thing resembling a Tanzanian nation.
Kinjikitile Ngwale, called Bokero, was a spirit medium in German East Africa who said his ancestors had ordered him to lead a rebellion against German rule.
He distributed maji — water mixed with millet and castor oil — telling those who took it that it would protect them from German bullets. It did not, and the Maji Maji rising of 1905 to 1907 was put down with great brutality and famine. But his achievement was to unite peoples of separate ethnic groups across the territory in a single movement against colonial rule, and it is widely treated as the earliest forerunner of a shared Tanzanian national identity. The Germans hanged him as a traitor on 4 August 1905, in the rebellion's first weeks.
He distributed maji — water mixed with millet and castor oil — telling those who took it that it would protect them from German bullets. It did not, and the Maji Maji rising of 1905 to 1907 was put down with great brutality and famine. But his achievement was to unite peoples of separate ethnic groups across the territory in a single movement against colonial rule, and it is widely treated as the earliest forerunner of a shared Tanzanian national identity. The Germans hanged him as a traitor on 4 August 1905, in the rebellion's first weeks.
- Wikipedia — Kinjikitile Ngwale
- BlackPast — Maji Maji Uprising (1905–1907)
- Wikipedia — Maji Maji Rebellion
Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we will check it.