Paper short abstract:

Archives and disputes gather around the last Kwanyama king (from 1911-1917), Mandume ya Ndemufayo. Disputes over Mandume’s head and decapitation obscure questions of his putative state of mind, as detailed in colonial archives, and his thought, as locally apprehended.

Paper long abstract:

Archives and disputes gather around the last Kwanyama king (from 1911-1917) in northern Namibia/southern Angola, Mandume ya Ndemufayo. Boyhood stories of being hidden in an antbear hole to preserve his life, emerging as a scarred and cruel youth, echo motifs of outsiderness, proximity to animals, seclusion and abnormality from traditions of origin. Mandume instituted radical reforms to recentralize internal judicial functions and punishment. He pushed back against Portuguese expansion even after military occupation in 1915 and his migration to South-African controlled territory in South West Africa. A military expedition in February 1917 ended in Mandume’s death, with ongoing disagreement over whether he was buried intact or decapitated. In this bifurcation of knowledge systems, colonial rationality and clinical – but civilised – violence meet with another imaginary that endows the colonial aggressor with barbaric violence, needing postcolonial reparation. The former coloniser disavows this, even as they collected other body parts for their museums after 1915. But such disputes over Mandume’s head tend to obscure the question of his putative state of mind, as detailed in colonial archives, and his thought, as locally apprehended. Descriptions of the former include Mandume’s suicidal moodiness, violent disposition, disregard for rules and an unspecified ‘old complaint.’ Local memory dwells on how he tested others, how he reset the rules, and his drive for productivity and ecological duration for the future. Such features gesture towards the historical depths of ‘the vernacular’ of which Hunt writes.