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Uganda: War in Pre-Colonial Eastern Africa
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New Vision (Kampala)
BOOK REVIEW
29 April 2008
Posted to the web 30 April 2008
Martyn Drakard
Kampala
Title: War in Pre-Colonial Eastern Africa
Editors: Richard Reid
Publisher: Fountain Publishers
WAR has long held a deep fascination for a wide range of writers - scholarly and otherwise - writes Richard Reid, a lecturer in African and Imperial History in Durham University, in the introduction to his book War in Pre-colonial Eastern Africa.
The aim of this meticulously researched and thought-provoking book is to refute the notion that traditional societies - the book covers the end of the 19th century - were simple and savage, as witnessed by their ritualism and endless wars; and to shed light on the culture of militarism in the African state.
The author focuses on highland Ethiopia, and the tribes of the Lakes area: Baganda, Banyoro, and the Wanyamwezi.
This study attempts to define 'war' - its objectives - some wars span generations, even centuries; and its effects, such as changing the identities of victors and victims, or patterns of settlement and demography.
His sources are British colonial archives, the Axumite chronicles of Ethiopia, "crafted as a military epic", and the oral traditions of the Great Lakes region. He analyses the stereotypes of the time, and the so-called bellicose characteristics of the Tutsi, Galla, Masai, and the slave-raiding states of Buganda and Bunyoro.
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War forged identity, and a state leader had to be - or appear to be - a great leader. Image was crucial; an unsuccessful battle could topple a king. Violence and terror were used to keep one's throne.
According to Reid, war violence had good and bad effects on the economy. The negative ones are self-evident; on the positive side, war opened up trade routes and access to resources.
Every aspect of war is discussed: plunder, designed to feed armies and hurt communities and depolupation, which introduced the tse-tse fly in some areas.
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