Shining Lights: Magic Lanterns and the Missionary Movement, 1839—1868

The Ishinde

Whereas the lantern shows in Kololo and Lozi country took on an air of entertainment, the lantern in Lunda territory became inextricably linked with delicate trade negotiations. The movement of the Kololo and the Ndebele north threatened the stability of the Lunda kingdom, which according to oral tradition, had been established in the eighteenth-century. The Lunda were connected to Atlantic trade through their western neighbors, the Bashinje. Though not the king of the Lunda, the Ishinde at Kabompo had the most profound effect on the path of proposed trade route. As such, he is the narrative focus of Livingstone’s account of Kabompo, especially in his description of the lantern show on January 23rd, 1853. In his letters, Livingstone evokes the political implications of the lantern show by implicating two epiphenomena: his formal reception by the Ishinde on the 17th and the gift of the nautilus shell on the evening of the 24th.

The reception

The appearance of a white man with a group of Kololo men and Kololo vassals in Lunda territory prompted Ishinde to design a lavish parade that displayed his wealth and power. This was perhaps one of the most significant moments in Livingstone’s journey west, and as such, Livingstone took great care to represent this formal reception in Missionary Travels. By Livingstone’s estimation, the reception attracted a crowd of 1,000 as well as 300 soldiers. The Ishinde’s court served as visual symbols of his skill as a diplomat, for his chief wife was Ndebele. The procession reflected the cultural diversity of Kabompo’s residence. The procession included Mambari traders clad in Portuguese military uniforms, followed by the Ishinde’s vassals paying obeisance. There were displays of military prowess in the form of dance fighting and musicianship. The reception culminated in a series of speeches that conveyed Livingstone’s goodwill as a Kololo representative. John Murray, Missionary Travel’s publisher, spared no expense to illustrate this moment, for Livingstone was allowed to make corrections to the proofs. His notes, as seen on the annotated proof for the illustration read as follows:

Could the artist not make the sheaves of arrows on the boys shoulder as a soldier carries his musket & not on their backs. Many more rings on the legs and arms of Shinte would be important & plenty of beads round the necks of the women[1]

Livingstone’s annotations highlight the symbols of Ishinde’s military strength (the arrows) and wealth (the rings and beads). Such a demonstration may have struck a chord with the Lozi members of the expedition whose government closely resembled the Lunda courtly culture before the Kololo invasion.

The Lantern Show

Prompted by Ishinde’s demonstration of cultural sophistication and prosperity, Livingstone made plans to give a performance of his own, using the lantern, but his plans were delayed by a week due to illness. This would not be a solo act, for Livingstone had to rely on Kolimbota to translate from Kololo to Chilunda. Finally, on the eve of January 23rd, 1854, Livingstone exhibited the pictures of the magic lantern while Kolimbta interpreted the narration for Inshinde who “had his principal men and the same crowd of court beauties near him as at the reception.” By surrounding himself with the men and women of his court, the Ishinde visually reminds Livingstone and his company of his authority and wealth, and in doing so, co-opts the lantern show in order to demonstrate his political power.

The image of Abraham with uplifted knife takes on new meaning when read in light of the Ishinde’s reception and uneasy relationship between the Lunda and the Kololo. As I have described elsewhere, Livingstone’s choice of slides reflected the reformed theology driving his missionary activity, but a botched transition created a moment of misunderstanding. When Livingstone removed the slide, the Lunda members of the audience mistook Abraham’s sideways lunge as a treat to their safety, prompting those in Abraham’s path to flee. I would argue that this image and its movement threatened to compromise the Kololo goodwill mission, albeit inadvertently. Abraham’s horizontal slide reveals different levels of technological acculturation in the audience. The Kololo and Lozi members of the expedition were accustomed to content of the slides and the visual vocabulary of lantern transitions, for they would have seen the pictures many times before. The Lunda, however, had no contact with Europeans except through Afro-Portuguese slave traders and had not previously encountered a projector. While their terror can be attributed to the lantern’s status as a technological novelty, I would posit that the narration, the image’s content, and the context of the performance played a more significant role in shaping the audience’s interpretation of this image. As one of the narrators, Kolimbota anchored the images on screen in the physical reality of the performance space. If Livingstone’s narration drew from scripture, Kolimbota would have remediated conversations between Abraham and Isaac in Chilunda, lending materiality to the phantasmatic body on screen through the sound of his voice.[2] For a Lunda audience, the materiality of Abraham and his uplifted knife would have been inextricably tied to the presence of the Kololo warriors who had stolen Lunda cattle. When accompanied by narration from Kolimbota, the weapon in Abraham’s hand registered as a visual emblem of conquest and violence, particularly as part of the fallout from the Mfecane. As such, its sudden movement toward the audience represented the threat of Kololo invasion.

Unlike the audience members who fled, the Ishinde “sat bravely through the whole and then afterwards examined the instrument with interest.”[3] The Ishinde’s performance of fearlessness functions as a demonstration of military prowess to the Kololo, Lozi, and the Lunda members of the audience. To the Kololo, the Ishinde demonstrated his ability to remain calm and in control, even in moments of imminent danger. To the Lozi, the Ishinde’s resistance to a Kololo threat gave momentum to those who wanted to rebel against Kololo rule. To the Lunda, the bravery of the chief conveyed a sense of stability and security. For Livingstone, the Ishinde’s composure represented a moment of successful communication, for the Ishinde’s examination of the lantern aligned with Livingstone’s efforts to promote technological acculturation.

The shell necklace

That is not to say that Livingstone was unaware of the Ishinde’s ulterior motives to establish a new trade route. In a letter to Roderick Murchison, Livingstone embeds a description of the lantern show in a longer aside about trade. On the evening following the magic lantern show, the Ishinde visited Livingstone’s tent in order to give him a gift.

Shinté came during the night and hung around my neck a particular kind of shell, which is highly valued, to around my neck, as a proof of the greatest friendship, and he was greatly delighted with some scriptural pictures which I shewed him from a Magic Lantern. The spirit of trade is strong in all Africans, and the Balonda chiefs we visited, all highly approved of our journey, each expressed an earnest hope that the projected path might lead through his town.[4]

Livingstone indicates that this was done privately so that the Ishinde’s extravagance would not illicit jealousy among his own court.[5] The quick transition from the Ishinde's costly gift of a shell to the scriptural pictures to the new trade route lends economic significance to the lantern show. From Livingstone’s perspective, the lantern show contributed to the Kololo goodwill mission by earning the Ishinde’s favor. This in turn would would benefit British interests by bypassing Portuguese trade networks, not to mention opening the interior for continued evangelistic activity. Because the magic lantern helped forge new trade routes, it also functions as a metaphor for trade policies. Livingstone’s pun on projection situates Lunda enthusiasm for new trade routes as an outcome of the lantern show. Livingstone would use a version of this pun in a later letter to William Thompson, evoking limelight as a metaphor for the “civilizing” influence of increased trade with the British.[6]

The shell necklace was so important to Livingstone’s narrative that it is remediated textually and visually in Missionary Travels.[7] As a commodity, the shell symbolized the Ishinde’s desire for increased trade with the Atlantic coast, but as an illustration, the necklace foreshadows Livingstone’s successful march to the sea. The prominence of this object, particularly in print, downplays the ways that the Ishinde’s gifts compromised Livingstone’s reputation. In Livingstone’s diary, the shell necklace is overshadowed by the Ishinde’s accompanying gift of a ten year old girl.

Old Shinté presented a girl to bring water for me in the way, a half of a nautilus shell highly valued among them, and promised that his people would accompany me to the sea, carrying all the way: we had now left Sekeletu far behind, and must look to Shinté alone for aid, and such would be cheerfully rendered. I left the girl. Would have refused her altogether, but she would be certainly sold to the Portuguese Ventura, and I may by retaining her for some time and educating her maker he useful to her people.[8]

Livingstone’s diary indicates that the Ishinde sent “an older girl” the next day because he assumed that Livingstone had found the younger girl too small. Had Livingstone not sent his wife back to England in 1853, he would have taken the girls with the expedition so that she could be “properly instructed” by Mary Livingstone. Their presence in the diary gestures to the way that Livingstone’s new trade route was inextricably linked with the slave trade. Although ivory became more lucrative than human trafficking, Kololo, Lozi, and Lunda taste for European firearms and cloth meant that maintained their ties to Afro-Portuguese slave traders despite Livingstone’s protestations. Livingstone’s implication in this system is completely removed in Missionary Travels. While he does describe the Ishinde’s offer of two young girls, he obfuscates their connection to the shell necklace by presenting these moments separately.

Despite the tension created by the Ishinde’s gifts and Abraham’s sideways slide, the Kololo mission in Kabompo was ultimately successful in gaining Lunda support for a new trade route. The Ishinde not only forgave past Kololo incursions onto Lunda territory, but he actively contributed to the expedition by providing provisions and by encouraging other Lunda chiefs further north to do the same.
[2] My reading of Kolimbota’s voice is influenced by Mary Ann Doane’s approach to sound in film. I offer an extended discussion of narration and the ways that it contributes to the apparent materialization of projected images in my analysis of John Williams’ lantern show.
[3] Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa; Including a Sketch of Sixteen Years’ Residence in the Interior of Africa, and a Journey from the Cape of Good Hope to Loanda on the West Coast; Thence across the Continent, down the River Zambesi, to the Eastern Ocean, John Murray, 1857, pp. 298-299.
[4] “Letter to Roderick I. Murchison,” 24 December 1854, Royal Geographical Society, London, England, Archives, DL 2/6/3, accessible via Livingstone Online, Adrian S. Wisnicki and Megan Ward, dirs., 2019, p. 7.
[5] Missionary Travels, pp. 300-301.
[6] "Letter to William Thompson, 13 September 1855.", University of London. School of Oriental and African Studies, CWM/LMS/Livingstone Wooden Box, item 88, accessible via Livingstone Online, pp. 8-9.
[7] Missionary Travels, p. 300.
[8] Livingstone’s African Journal 1853-1856, pp. 62-63.

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