Paper long abstract:

In 1932, German missionary-anthropologist Bruno Gutmann published Die Stammeslehren der Dschagga, Tribal Lessons of the Chagga. The collection includes teachings from Chagga rituals of initiation, which themselves embed moral ideations of mutuality and diversity across generations. This presentation will describe and analyze Die Stammeslehren from three angles: that of Gutmann's missiological frame at a time when Tanganyika was transitioning form German to British colonial administration; that of Chagga conceptions of pedagogy and generationality at the time of the text's creation; and that of Chagga youth and elders living on Mount Kilimanjaro as conveyed through a local denominational Christian frame at the turn of the twenty-first century. I will use discussion of this last perspective as an occasion to reflect and comment on the articulation of intergenerational visions of mutuality/diversity with historical changes over time; and I will link these changes to ideations about the future that children and youth from Kilimanjaro express in connection with the global reaches of schooling and religion today.