Talking to Chief Mkwawa: Multivocality and negotiation in an ancestral offering in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands

Abstract

An ancestral offering carried out by the chiefs of two neighbouring groups in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands was documented through participant observation, photo-elicitation interviews and photography. The ritual took place in front of a museum, which contains the late Chief Mkwawa’s skull – a German war trophy in colonial times. Apart from preserving knowledge about the history of the region, the offering was marked by two other features, namely multivocality and negotiation. Photo-elicitation interviews conducted after the event unearthed the protagonists’ diverse and contradictory perspectives. Their high interest in others’ ‘mistakes’ and at the same time openness to modification can best be conceptualized using a post-modern performance approach. This approach allows reading ‘flaws’ as clues to ritual as a dynamic process that includes the freedom to deviate from a perceived norm.