Editor’s Preface
The original title, Au Kilima-Ndjaro, means “To Kilima-Ndjaro.” The editor has rendered all names of places and persons in their current Swahili form, hence Kilimanjaro. The editor adjusted the title to Mission to Kilimanjaro. French phonetics was easily recognizable in Voumba for Vumba. But the nonnative may not know that Lake Dyipe is currently Lake Jipe. The editor is beholden to Fr. Dr. Florentine Mallya, C.S.Sp., who meticulously reviewed for us the thousand or so Swahili names of people and places.
The French original was published in several editions and formats from the 1890s to 1942. Translated here is the edition of 1914; this edition exists in at least two recensions. We stuck to the recension used by the translator, except for the engravings by Mgr. Le Roy and corrections noted in later editions (see, for example, note 1 on page 91).
The late Fr. Dr. Adrian Edwards, C.S.Sp. lamented the lack of social anthropology in the formation of today’s Spiritan missionaries. We began a discussion that eventually led to his translating this book. Mgr. Alexandre Le Roy was a Spiritan missionary whom Fr. Adrian greatly admired and saw as modelling the well-formed Spiritan missionary. At first, he wanted to translate a few chapters he regarded as most relevant for Spiritans in formation. Under gentle prodding, he happily and with accustomed grit translated the entire work. Fr. Edwards, lecturer and social anthropologist, died in Chester on October 31, 2017, while this work was being prepared for publication. As far as I know, this is the first and only English translation of this primal source.
Fr. Kenneth Oguzie, C.S.Sp., graduate assistant at the Center for Spiritan Studies, carefully photographed the engravings. Mary Beth Calorie, the then-administrative assistant, diligently inserted the photos. Fr. William Cleary, C.S.Sp. came on board as Associate Director late in the editing process. The book is dedicated to the memory of Fr. Adrian Edwards, C.S.Sp.
James Chukwuma Okoye, C.S.Sp.
Director, Center for Spiritan Studies
PART ONE
From Zanzibar to Kilimanjaro
Chapter 1: Etymology,
Discovery, Exploration
Its Scientific, Political,
and Religious Importance.
Taking the Road.
The Arabs and the Swahili of the east coast of Africa, followed by European travelers and geographers, have given the name Kilima-Ndjaro to an isolated massif of volcanic origin which is situated a little below the third degree of south latitude, about 280 kilometers in a straight line from the coast. For a long time, people have been asking, and in fact they are still asking, the meaning of these two words, or rather of the second word, since the first, Kilima, means “mountain” in Swahili and in several languages of the East African hinterland. But nobody seems to know the meaning of the second word, Ndaro or Njaro. However, in order not to seem ill-informed, which would have been a pity, the recognized travelers have quickly produced a meaning. Here is what Mr. Joseph Thomson, who passed by the mountain in 1883 had to say:
The name, Kilimanjaro, means, it is generally said, “the Great Mountain”; but it seems to me that its meaning really is “the White Mountain,” the term Njaro having been formerly used to indicate whiteness. This meaning has become out of date on the coast, but it can still be found among some tribes in the hinterland.
In fact, on the coast, this usage is so out of date that nobody recalls it, not even among the bearded elders. And as regards the hinterland tribes, who are supposed to know it still, let me be blunt and say that Mr. Thomson would have his work cut out to find them. Mr. H. H. Johnston stated his view in 1886: “This word comes from Kilima, ‘mountain’ and Njaro, the name of a demon, who is thought to cause the cold weather.” With all due respect, this is surely a case of etymology by auto-suggestion.
In reality, the name Kilimanjaro is absolutely unknown to the Wachagga or the Chagga who live upon the mountain. For them there is no general name for the mountain as a whole. Each inhabited area has its own special name. The vast forest that forms a ring round the mountain is called Msitu, “dark wood.” The highest peak is called Kibo, “the white,” and the other peak is called Mawenzi, “the companion mountain.” The Maasai say in their own language, Oi Doinyo Oebor, “The White Mountain.” As to this word Njaro, which Thomson thinks means “something white,” and which Johnston takes for “a demon,” we had it in mind to make a serious study of its meaning when, it so happened, at Taveta, that we were taking a walk with some local children. One of them asked us if we had to stay a long time at Kilimanjaro. I replied, “What are you saying? Kilima-Njaro?” He answered, “Yes.” “But what does that mean, Njaro?” “Njaro, Njaro, in the Maasai language, and for that matter in our own, it is ‘water.’ And that big mountain over there is called ‘the mountain of water’ because all the rivers here and everywhere come from there.” We concluded that this must be the real meaning. At Taveta, which one can say is at the foot of the famous mountain, traders up from the coast would have heard Kilima-Njaro (in the Mombasa dialect of Swahili) and Kilima-Ngaro (in the Pangani dialect). British travelers have written Njaro, using “j” for “dj.” The Germans, not wishing to have to say “Ngaro,” find themselves obliged to write “Ndscharo.” In our opinion, French geographers, who wish to follow the correct coastal pronunciation, should not follow the Germans.
The Portuguese, established at Mombasa from 1507, seem to have had some idea of the existence of this massif, and H. H. Johnston cites a navigator of that period, Enciso, who wrote:
To the west of the harbor of Mombasa, there is Ethiopia’s Mount Olympus, which is very high and beyond which there rise the Mountains of the Moon, where the sources of the Nile are. In all this country, there is a lot of gold and a great number of wild beasts. The population eats locusts.
The old sailor has got a lot of things right in this short passage. Certainly, till now, nobody has seen a lot of gold come from this country; but also, if Kilimanjaro is the African Olympus, it is quite correct to say that, moving westward from the coast further inland one would find these high mountains from which the Nile flows, and which were rediscovered by Stanley. Everywhere in the hinterland, there are fierce animals. As to the locusts, the missionaries who have recently settled on Kilimanjaro know they exist since they have eaten all their corn.
But it was Mr. Rebmann, a German, who worked for the Church Missionary Society of London, who had the honor of having rediscovered Olympus in this century. His compatriot, the Rev. Dr. Krapf, working for the Church Missionary Society, had established a mission in the neighborhood of Mombasa. In 1847–48, Rebmann undertook a journey to the interior, accompanied by only eight porters and an umbrella. The direction he took was at first toward the Taita Mountains, then, on 11th May, he saw across a desert the superb summit of Kibo, covered with snow and shining, under the powerful equatorial sun, like a massive block of silver.
His discovery, subsequently reported to European savants, was very ill-received by them. The President of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Mr. Desborough Cooley, had just invented a very ingenious system for filling up the blank spaces in the map of Africa. Unfortunately, his system did not make any allowance for mountains, particularly snow-covered mountains, in the precise place where poor Mr. Rebmann had seen, and indeed climbed up, them. Mr. Cooley produced a seemingly convincing argument that the missionary had had an apocalyptic vision—very interesting from a psychiatrist’s point of view, but utterly unacceptable in a geographical handbook. Dr. Krapf attempted to come to the support of his friend by going to
