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Images of an African Ruler: Kabaka Mutesa of Buganda, ca. 1857–1884

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Richard Reid
Richard Reid*
Affiliation:
University of Asmara
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Extract

There can be few areas of the world which have been more systematically misrepresented than Africa, especially that part of the continent south of the Sahara. For centuries, and certainly since the Midas-like Mansa Musa sat astride West Africa on the maps of fourteenth-century Spain, the weird and wonderful imagery of Africa has flooded Europe's vision of that continent. Much of this imagery has been generated by Europeans, and even where it has been generated by Africans themselves, the original meaning and intention is often difficult to discover. The imagery has, to the non-African world, become Africa; this is the case to the point where, at the end of the twentieth century, almost every adjective placed before the name “Africa” is loaded, has some ideological or political currency, and indeed has a history of its own.

Most famously, perhaps, Africa was for a long time “dark”, and still that image periodically appears in assorted Western media, a comforting crutch to an audience which remains somewhat confused as to what to make of the continent. Africa is often supposed to have a “heart,” in a way that neither Europe nor North America does. This is perhaps related to the continent's geographical shape, for it is rather more self-contained than Europe, Asia, or the Americas. It is more likely, however, that an African “heart” is sought precisely because it cannot, using the clumsy surgical tools of Western culture, be found. In more recent times, Africa's “dark heart” has been replaced by its “troubled heart;” but the idea remains unchanged.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 26 , January 1999 , pp. 269 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1999

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References

1 The one work ostensibly concerned with Mutesa's life is by Kiwanuka, M.S.M., Muteesa of Uganda (Nairobi, 1967).Google Scholar The title alone is indicative of the way in which, during the 1960s, prominent precolonial rulers might be held up as belonging to a common, national heritage. Nyerere's Tanzania sought similar edification from figures such as Mirambo.

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