11 - The Opportunities

Summary

AS THE SWAMPLANDS were declining in population and production, the Nunu along the river were developing new tactics to prosper despite the restrictions imposed by the colonial state. They borrowed new ritual techniques to replace the declining power of the nkinda charms. They learned new industrial techniques and adopted new types of fishing nets to increase their production. They also exploited new markets. As the twentieth century progressed, the new tactics coalesced into a new form of big-man competition that dominated economic and social life along the river.

MISSION TECHNOLOGY

Missionaries from the London-based Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) had first visited Bolobo in July 1884, only two years after King Leopold II's International African Association had established a post there. Four years later George Grenfell returned to build a mission station in the open space between the Bobangi and Nunu towns of Bolobo. In the 1890s more missionaries arrived and built European-type houses. Bolobo became the depot for the two steamships owned by the BMS and the home of the BMS printing press on the upper river. The mission opened a school which enrolled 70 students by 1893.

While the Baptists concentrated on Bolobo, Catholic missionaries focused their efforts on Yumbi. The Mill Hill Fathers opened a station in Yumbi in 1905, which they abandoned two years later. After that the area received irregular visits from the Scheutist Fathers until 1929, when responsibility for the region passed to the Lazarists.