Ghosts of Kanungu: Fertility, Secrecy and Exchange in the Great Lakes of East Africa (African Anthropology)

NEW LOWER PRICEOn 17 March 2000 several hundred members of a charismatic Christian sect, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (MRTC), burnt to death in the group's headquarters in the Southwest Ugandan village of Kanungu. Days later the Ugandan police discovered a series of mass graves containing over 400 bodies on various other properties belonging to the sect. Was this mass suicide or mass murder? The question of whether Kanungu is best understood as mass suicide or multiple murder is more than just an intriguing detective story: it goes to the heart of how the event should be perceived and understood in both religious and social terms. Based on eight years of historical and ethnographic research, Ghosts of Kanungu provides a comprehensive and scholarly account of the MRTC and of the events leading up to the inferno. It argues that none of these events can be understood without reference to a broader social history of Southwestern Uganda during the twentieth century, in which anti-colonial movements, Catholic White Fathers missionaries, colonial relocation schemes, the breakdown of the Ugandan state, post-war reconstruction, the onset of HIV/AIDS, and the transformation of the regional Nyabingi fertility cult into a Marian church with worldwide connections, all played their part. The themes of this book were presented by the author when he gave the Evans-Pritchard lectures at All Souls College, Oxford. RICHARD VOKES is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand Uganda: Fountain Publishers (PB) Table of Contents Prologue: The End as a BeginningIntroductionOn Fertility & MisfortuneThe Many Lives of the Nyabingi SpiritGenesis: Building the NetworkNumbers: Religion in the Time of AIDSChronicles: The History of an African-Initiated ChurchRevelation: The Last Days of the MRTCEpilogue Ghosts of Kanungu throws light on secrecy and violence in Uganda, Rwanda and the Great Lakes area of East Africa.NEW LOWER PRICEOn 17 March 2000 several hundred members of a charismatic Christian sect, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (MRTC), burnt to death in the group's headquarters in the Southwest Ugandan village of Kanungu. Days later the Ugandan police discovered a series of mass graves containing over 400 bodies on various other properties belonging to the sect. Was this mass suicide or mass murder? The question ofwhether Kanungu is best understood as mass suicide or multiple murder is more than just an intriguing detective story: it goes to the heart of how the event should be perceived and understood in both religious and social terms. Based on eight years of historical and ethnographic research, Ghosts of Kanungu provides a comprehensive and scholarly account of the MRTC and of the events leading up to the inferno. It argues that none of these events can be understood without reference to a broader social history of Southwestern Uganda during the twentieth century, in which anti-colonial movements, Catholic White Fathers missionaries, colonial relocation schemes, the breakdown of the Ugandan state, post-war reconstruction, the onset of HIV/AIDS, and the transformation of the regional Nyabingi fertility cult into a Marian church with worldwide connections, all played their part. The themes ofthis book were presented by the author when he gave the Evans-Pritchard lectures at All Souls College, Oxford. RICHARD VOKES is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand Uganda: Fountain Publishers (PB) CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A NOTE ON ORTHOGRAPHY GLOSSARY PROLOGUE: The End as a Beginning 1 Introduction 2 On Fertility & Misfortune 3 The Many Lives of the Nyabingi Spirit 4 Genesis: Building the Network 5 Numbers: Religion in the time of AIDS 6 Chronicles: The History of an African-Initiated Church 7 Revelation: The Last Days of the MRTC EPILOGUE APPENDIX: Marian Literature Used by the MRTC BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX BACKCOVER This work is an investigation into the events and historical context of the Kanungu fire in south-west Uganda in which several hundred members of MRTC (Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God), a charismatic Christian sect, were burned to death in March 2000 Richard Vokes. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 226-233) And Index.