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Religious and Colonial Realities: Cartography of the Finnish Mission in Ovamboland, Namibia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Pellervo Kokkonen
Pellervo Kokkonen*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
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Extract

Missionary work was one of the main forces in the opening of the African continent to direct western influence. In many cases, from the 1830s onwards, missionaries were the first Westerners residing in the interior of the continent, thus accumulating considerable knowledge concerning geographical conditions in their respective areas of residence.

The question arises: how did information from these people with scarce knowledge about the interior filter down to representations of geographical conditions such as maps and literary descriptions? Working in close cooperation with Africans, their conceptions were likely to be somewhat more detailed than those of the colonial administration. Politically, they often assumed the role of mediators between the foreign powers and local societies; perhaps this was also the case where geographical knowledge was concerned. The aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which the Finnish Mission in colonial Ovamboland under German influence had an active role in mapmaking.

One ostensible reason for Germany's annexation of colonies was to turn a profit from them and strengthen the economy of the homeland. An additional function of German colonies was to persuade people who otherwise would have emigrated to the United States or Latin America to stay within the German economic sphere. White settlers were to supplant what was considered inefficient African land use with commercial agriculture whose products were to be exported to Germany. Public opinion in Germany also advocated colonization for status reasons, which made politicians sensitive to it.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 20 , 1993 , pp. 155 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1993

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to the Finnish Missionary Society and Aila Haal (Helsinki) for helping me inspect materials from their archive. Special thanks to the American Geographical Society Collection (Milwaukee) and British Library Map Library and to employees in these institutions who helped me browse through their material more efficiently. This paper was written under the supervision of J. Brian Harley and edited and commented on by Bruce S. Fetter. I would also like to thank the following individuals for their assistance in the project: Matti Peltola, Eino Murtorinne, Kalevi Rikkinen, and Clinton R. Edwards. The author can be reached for comments through Internet at [email protected] or [email protected].

References

Notes

1. Max Eckert, Entwicklung und gegenwärtiger Stand unserer Kolonialkartographie. British Library, Map Library: Pamphlete and Articles, Cartography General 25-51. Vol. 1, s.a., 1.

2. Beidelman, T. O., Colonial Evangelism (Bloomington, 1982), 5–6.Google Scholar

3. Neill, Stephen, Colonialism and Christian Missions (New York,) 1966, 412–21.Google Scholar

4. Goldblatt, I., History of South West Africa from the beginning of the Nineteenth Century (Cape Town, 1971), 191.Google Scholar

5. Peltola, Matti, Suomen Lähetysseuran Afrikan työn historia, [Sata vuotta suomalaista lähetystyötä, 2] (Helsinki, 1958), 12.Google Scholar

6. Murtorinne, Eino, “Suomalaiset lähetystyöntekijät Afrikan kartoittajina 1800-luvulla” in Löytönen, Markku, ed., Matka-Arkku (Helsinki, 1989), 404.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., 406.

8. Goldblatt, , History, 15.Google Scholar

9. Peltola, , Suomen, 29–30.Google Scholar

10. Goldblatt, , History, 53–108Google Scholarpassim.

11. Galton, Francis, The Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa (London, 1853).Google Scholar

12. Kiepert, Richard and Partsch, Joseph, Deutscher Kolonial-Atlas für den amtlichen Gebrauch in den Schutibebieten, (Gotha, 1893)Google Scholar; and Langhans, Paul, Deutscher Kolonial-Atlas (Gotha, 1897).Google Scholar

13. See list of early maps, p. 168.

14. The significance of missionaries' contributions to ethnolinguistic studies has been discussed in other African contexts in Fabian, Johannes, Language and Colonial Power: The Appropriation of Swahili in the Former Belgian Congo, 1880-1938 (Cambridge, 1986), 75–78Google Scholar, and Chimhundu, Herbert, “Early Missionaries and the Ethnolinguistic Factor During the ‘Invention of Tribalism’ in Zimbabwe,” JAH 33 (1992): 87–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Björklund, B.B., “Ovambolandet,” Geografiska Föreningens Tidskrift, 3 (1891): 5, 248–67.Google Scholar

16. Including Dennis, James S.et al., World Atlas of Christian Missions, maps by Bartholomew, John G. (New York, 1911)Google Scholar; Grundemann, R., Kleiner Missions-Atlas zur Darstellung des evangelischen Missionswerkes nach seinem gegenwärtigen Bestände (3d ed.: Stuttgart, 1905)Google Scholar; Les cartes de nos champs de mission (Paris: Société des Missions Évangéliques, 1922)Google Scholar; Missions-Atlas der Briidergemeine (Herrnhut, 1907).Google Scholar

17. E.g., Gramatica, Luigi, Teslo e Atlante di Geografia Ecclesiastica (Bergamo, 1928)Google Scholar; Atlas der Katholische Weltmission, Internationale Fidelskorrespondenz in Rom unter Verwertung kartographischen und statistischen materials der Archivs der Hl. Kongregation der Glaubenverbreitung, Jahrbuchfolge 1932, Priestermissionbund im Deutschen Sprachgebiet (München, 1932); Streit, Karl P., Katholischer Missionsatlas enthaltend die gesamten Missionsgebiete des Erdkreises (Post Kaldenkirchen, 1906).Google Scholar

18. Missionskarta öfwer Afrika och Ovambolandet jemte Beskrifning, Finska Missionsällskapets förlag (Helsinki, 1879), 22, 2 maps.Google Scholar

19. Rikkinen, Kalevi, “Ragnar Huit and the Emergence of Geography in Finland, 1880-1900,” Fennia 166 (1988): 3–192.Google Scholar

20. Langhans, Deutscher Kolonial-Atlas.

21. Chimhundu, , “Early Missionaries,” 87–109.Google Scholar Chimhundu makes the point that the ethnolinguistic maps introduced by early missionaries have persisted and often influence modern scholarship.