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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2016
In October 1934, a group of schoolgirls at Malangali School in Iringa Province, Tanganyika received doses of what the school headmistress thought was shark liver oil. Many girls began to spit and vomit the medicine, while others attempted to leave the school grounds to return home. Within three hours, several pupils had died and within three days, another 32 girls succumbed to the toxic draught. This article examines this little known and poorly understood tragedy through the lens of the scientific and social experimentation that occurred at Malangali School. As one of two government- run schools that enrolled girls, Malangali provided the colonial state with an opportunity to conduct a variety of experiments upon a captive audience. This article argues that the ‘discovery of colonial malnutrition’ in the interwar period not only depoliticized hunger but its emphasis on techno-chemical approaches to social and material problems led to tragedy.
1 Tanzania National Archives, Dar es Salaam (TNA), G. Maclean, Sleeping Sickness Officer, Report on Sickness and Deaths from Poisoning at Malangali School, 29 Oct. 1934.
2 British National Archives at Kew (BNA) CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
3 Communication with M. Walsh, 26 Apr. 2016 and M. Benjamin, 28 Apr. 2016. Alison Redmayne reported that her informants claimed the poisoning involved only Bena girls ‘and this ghastly tragedy is not remembered by many Wahehe today nor given specifically as a reason for not sending children to school’. A. H. Redmayne, ‘The Wahehe People of Tanganyika’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Nuffield College, Oxford, 1964), 282. There is one further account, in the memoir of a former teacher at Malangali School, who taught there in 1938; Mang'enya, E. A. M., Discipline and Tears: Reminiscences of an African Civil Servant on Colonial Tanganyika (Dar es Salaam, 1984), 68–72 Google Scholar.
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11 TNA 19310, Misc. No. 413, Report of the Colonial Development Public Health Committee’, July 1930.
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14 TNA 15/35, R. D. Lawton, District Agricultural Officer, District Tour Report, 7 Mar. 1931. Walter Bruchhausen cites the 1925 Report of the East Africa Commission as the impetus behind the shift toward the ‘health problems of the African population – for humanitarian as well as economic reasons’. Bruchhausen, W., ‘From precondition to goal of development: health and medicine in the planning and politics of British Tanganyika’, in Hodge, J. M., Hödl, G., and Kopf, M. (eds.), Developing Africa: Concepts and Practices in Twentieth-Century Colonialism (Manchester, 2014), 209 Google Scholar.
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26 TNA 19343, ‘Mafuta ya Afya’ [Oil of Health], 15 Oct. 1930.
27 They offered a four-pence discount for cod liver oil and seven-pence reduction for shark liver oil orders in bulk. See TNA MOH 450/75/3, letter from Burgoyne, Burbidges and Co., London, to Director of Medical Services, Dar es Salaam, 23 July 1930.
28 TNA MOH 450/75/3, letter from Howse and McGeorge, to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 8 May 1931.
29 TNA 25540, Summary of Action Taken on Nutrition Report, 6 Jan. 1938.
30 TNA 13/54, ‘Employment of women and young persons’, Ordinance No. 5 of 1940; Bruchhausen, ‘Health and medicine’, 213; and for general rationing practices from 1945–7: see TNA 13/67, letter from Tanganyika Sisal Grower's Association, Lindi to Labor Commissioner, Dar es Salaam, 9 May 1947.
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36 Peter Kallaway notes the lack of cross-references between anthropology and education in the journals of the 1930s despite the clear intersection of the fields in colonial educational policy. See Kallaway, P., ‘Science and policy: anthropology and education in British colonial Africa during the inter-war years’, Paedagogica Historica, 48:3 (2012), 419 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bonini, N., ‘Un siècle d’éducation scolaire en Tanzania [A century of schooling in Tanzania]’, Cahiers d’Études Africanes, 43:169/170, Engseignements (2003), 45–6Google Scholar.
37 There is no clear date for when the girls joined the school. In a 1930 publication, Mumford mentioned enrollment numbers, but only for the boys. In 1928 there were sixty boys and in 1929, 117 boys enrolled: see Mumford, ‘Malangali School’, 268. However, in 1929, Mumford gave an outline of the curriculum with specific differences between girls’ and boys’ education. The school was gender-segregated in all facets, including instruction and habitation. See Mumford, ‘Education and the social adjustment of the primitive peoples’, 155. In addition to the schools at Malangali and Tabora, there were three government ‘Central Schools’ located in Bukoba, Tanga, and Dar es Salaam in 1925. See Jones, T. J., Education in East Africa (New York, 1925), 181 Google Scholar.
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42 M. Walsh, ‘Misinterpretation of chiefly power in Usangu, south-west Tanzania’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Wolfson College, Cambridge, 1984), 63.
43 One of the teachers, Odilo Roser (who Mumford identified as a Hehe man), lost his six-year-old son in the poisoning. See Mumford, ‘Malangali School’, 268. Roser, however, had a German father and his mother was Wemba. See BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
44 Mumford, ‘Education and the social adjustment of the primitive peoples’, 151.
45 Frederick Lugard's ‘Dual Mandate’ was further echoed in Mumford's accounting of his educational theory. See Jones, T. J., Education in Africa (New York, 1922)Google ScholarPubMed; Jones, Education in East Africa 169–92; Lugard, F. D., The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (London, 1922)Google Scholar; and Mumford, ‘Education’, 138.
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47 Ibid . 139–40.
48 Mumford, A Comparative Survey, 20–1.
49 Mumford did not identify his critics, but his 1929 paper was circulated among his colleagues in the colonial government. See Mumford, ‘Malangali School’, 286–7.
50 Mumford, ‘Malangali School’, 286–7. For information on the Jeanes schools, see Bude, ‘The adaptation concept’, 345–6; Ranger, T. O., ‘African attempts to control education in East and Central Africa, 1900–1939’, Past and Present, 32 (1965), 68 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
51 TNA 6/6, Ghee Industry Report, Aug. 1933; TNA 25540, Summary of Action Taken on Nutrition Report, 6 Jan. 1938.
52 Kallaway, ‘Welfare’, 346–7; Kallaway, ‘Science’, 419–20, 424; Decker, Mobilizing, 43, 50–3, and 61–5; Summers, ‘“If you can educate”’, 464.
53 Mumford, ‘Malangali School’, 268.
54 Protestant missionary, Mrs Maynard, as quoted by Bruchhausen, ‘Health and medicine’, 211.
55 The number of boys boarding at Malangali School in 1934 was not stated. See BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935. Familial anxieties about girls’ moral corruption limited their interest in boarding schools. See Decker, Mobilizing, 21–2 and R. Smith, ‘Education in British Africa’, 71. Most girls in S. Rhodesia attended rural schools near their homes. See Summers, ‘“If you can educate”’, 458.
56 Mumford, ‘Malangali School’, 276.
57 While some changes occurred after Mumford left, there is little evidence of a dramatic shift to a more conventional ‘English’ academic education until 1938. See Mang'enya, Discipline and Tears, 63–6.
58 St Clair Hamilton Archer (née Baynes) Wallington, graduated from the University of Birmingham with her MB ChB. See British Medical Registry (London, 1934).
59 BNA CO 691/140/16, Telegram notation, 31 Oct. 1934; and BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
60 Only a few girls’ schools existed outside of the missionary context well into the 1950s. See Decker, Mobilizing, 5; Hanson, H. E., ‘Indigenous adaptation: Uganda's village schools, ca. 1880–1937’, Comparative Education Review, 54:2 (2010), 155–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Summers, ‘“If you can educate”’, 458; and Tripp, A. M., ‘A new look at colonial women: British teachers and activists in Uganda, 1898–1962’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 38:1 (2004), 123–56Google Scholar.
61 Students learned to cook local and European-style meals and were allowed to take the food home to demonstrate what they had learned to their families. See Decker, Mobilizing, 43, 53, and 65. In S. Rhodesia school officials learned that the absence of the right type of food was cause for protest. See Summers, Colonial Lessons, 36–9, 94, and 184.
62 Mumford, ‘Education and the social adjustment of the primitive peoples of Africa to European culture’, 155.
63 Brown and Hutt, Anthropology, 220–1.
64 The practice of cattle dipping to regulate biting insects is mentioned in, TNA 25540, Summary of Action Taken on Nutrition Report, 6 Jan. 1938. For monthly veterinary reports of livestock disease. See TNA 6/5, Livestock Disease.
65 Mumford, ‘Malangali School’, 281.
66 W. D. Raymond was the chemist who analyzed the shark liver oil in 1934, by 1941 he was shaping nutritional policy in Tanganyika. See TNA 19/50, W. D. Raymond, Reasons for a Nutritional Policy in Tanganyika, Medical Pamphlet No. 35 (Dar es Salaam, 1941), 5; and TNA 22511, letter from W. D. Raymond, Analytical Chemist to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 1 Nov. 1934.
67 Megan Vaughan notes that while many view African ‘indigenous’ healing systems as unusual, ‘biomedical practices can be as ritualised and exotic as any other healing practices’, Vaughan, M., Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Stanford, 1991)Google Scholar, x.
68 TNA 19/50, Raymond, Reasons for a Nutritional Policy, 5.
69 Ibid .
70 TNA 25540, Summary of Action Taken on Nutrition Report, 6 Jan. 1938; TNA 13/67, letter from R. Johnston, Provincial Commissioner, Southern Province to Labor Commissioner, Dar es Salaam, 8 Aug. 1947.
71 TNA 19/50, Raymond, Reasons for a Nutritional Policy, 1; Brantley, Feeding Families, xi.
72 Hodge, Triumph, 95–6, 156–8. When food shortages did occur, responsibility was shifted to African cultivators. See TNA 15/55, letter from D. J. Jardine, Governor's Deputy to Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, Secretary of State for the Colonies, London, 19 Oct. 1933.
73 TNA 19310, Misc. No. 413, Report of the Colonial Development Public Health Committee, July 1930.
74 TNA 19343, letter from J. O. Shircore, Director of Medical and Sanitary Services to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 22 July 1930.
75 TNA MOH 450/75/3, letter from J. Harkness, Medical Officer, Iringa Hospital to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 30 Sept. 1934; Bruchhausen, ‘Health and Medicine’, 212.
76 Vaughan, Curing Their Ills, 33.
77 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
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96 Worboys, ‘The discovery of colonial malnutrition’, 210.
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102 McCulloch protested that much of Nigeria's palm oil was exported for use in the cosmetics industry, leaving little for local consumption, causing vitamin A deficiencies in the population. See TNA 19343, Memorandum, W. E. McCulloch, Pathologist, Dietetics Research, Katsina to Director of Medical and Sanitary Service, Lagos, 13 Oct. 1931.
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106 Pellagra occurs in societies that rely upon maize as a staple because it is deficient in niacin (B3). In Mesoamerica pellagra is rare because the grain is mixed with the mineral lime, and consumed with beans and chillies: see Pilcher, J. M., ¡Que vivan los tamales!: Food and the Making of Mexican Identity (Albuquerque, NM, 1998), 95–6Google Scholar. For information on pellagra in Italy and parts of Africa, see McCann, Maize and Grace, 74–7, 119, 198–9.
107 The Tanganyika Standard covered events of interest to Europeans in Tanganyika, such as a bomb plot against Benito Mussolini, as well as other global news. Most of the paper gave briefings on events around the British Empire, in Africa and elsewhere. The advertisements in the paper targeted a European audience and its concerns, with images and commodities that ranged from automobiles to fine liquors, furs, and travel. See Tanganyika Standard (Dar es Salaam), 3 Nov. 1934.
108 Bynin Amara advertisement, Tanganyika Standard, 13 Oct. 1934.
109 Lancet, 26 Dec. 1903.
110 The Sanatogen advertisement ran next to the article about the poisoning at Malangali, on page 11 of the newspaper. See Tanganyika Standard, 3 Nov. 1934.
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115 TNA 19343, letter from J. O. Shircore, Director of Medical and Sanitary Services to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 22 July 1930.
116 TNA 19343, letter from J. O. Shircore, Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam to Burgoyne, Burbidges, and Co. Ltd, London, 15 Oct. 1930. While Shircore wanted the ingredients to remain secret, others disagreed; noting that fish was often relished as a delicacy and deception was likely to cause trouble (handwritten note, 6 Nov. 1930).
117 TNA 19343, letter from Howse and McGeorge, Ltd, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 17 Oct. 1933.
118 TNA 19343, ‘Mafuta ya Afya’, J. O. Shircore, Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 15 Oct. 1930.
119 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
120 In this instance, eighty pounds of pure arsenic powder was mixed with maize to form a toxic mash. See TNA 15/35, District Tour Report, R. D. Lawton, District Agricultural Officer to Director of Agriculture, Morogoro, 7 Mar. 1931.
121 TNA 25540, Summary of Action Taken on Nutrition Report, 6 Jan. 1938.
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124 Brown and Hutt, Anthropology, 181.
125 Ibid . 182.
126 TNA MOH 450/75/3, letter from J. Harkness, Medical Officer, Iringa Hospital to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 30 Sept. 1934.
127 TNA MOH 450/75/3, letter from Howse and McGeorge Ltd, Nairobi to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, 16 July 1931.
128 TNA MOH 450/75/3, letter from Burgoyne Burbidges and Co., London to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, 15 Sept. 1931.
129 TNA MOH 450/75/3, letter from O. Guise Williams, Acting Provincial Commissioner, Iringa, to Medical Officer, Iringa, 18 Sept. 1934.
130 TNA 19343, letter from L. A. Howse, Howse and McGeorge, Ltd, Nairobi to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 17 Oct. 1933.
131 TNA 19343, ‘African Diet – File Notes’, 17–18 Aug. 1934.
132 TNA 22511, G. Maclean, Sleeping Sickness Officer, Report on Sickness and Deaths from Poisoning at Malangali School, 29 Oct. 1934.
133 TNA 19343, letter from L. A. Howse, Howse and McGeorge Ltd, Nairobi to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 17 Oct. 1933. A series of file communications between Shircore and the Chief Secretary explained that Howse and McGeorge purchased the oil in 1930 at a cost of £300 to distribute to Tribal Dressers. In turn, the government issued a special warrant to buy the oil at full cost, further indication that the oil never made it beyond the druggist's backroom. See TNA 19343, Special Warrant, No. 121 of 1934, 9 Oct. 1934.
134 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
135 TNA 22511, letter from J. Harkness, Medical Officer, Iringa to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 6 Nov. 1934.
136 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
137 TNA 22511, G. Maclean, Sleeping Sickness Officer, Report on Sickness and Deaths from Poisoning at Malangali School, 29 Oct. 1934.
138 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
139 TNA 22511, G. Maclean, Sleeping Sickness Officer, Report on Sickness and Deaths from Poisoning at Malangali School, 29 Oct. 1934.
140 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
141 TNA 22511, letter from W. D. Raymond, Analytical Chemist to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 1 Nov. 1934; ‘Medical Noes in Parliament’, British Medical Journal, 2:3859 (1934), 1184 Google Scholar.
142 The arsenic trioxide was incorrectly referred to as arsenite trioxide by Raymond in his letter. See TNA 22511, letter from W. D. Raymond, Analytical Chemist to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 1 Nov. 1934. In the inquest file, arsenic trioxide was called arsenite of soda (NaAsO2), which is the gray powder pesticide. See BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
143 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
144 Cooper, W. F. and Nuttall, W. H., ‘The theory of wetting, and the determination of the wetting power of dipping and spraying fluids containing a soap basis’, Journal of Agricultural Science, 7 (1915), 219–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
145 TNA 22511, letter from W. D. Raymond, Analytical Chemist to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 1 Nov. 1934.
146 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
147 Ibid .; BNA CO 691/140/16, Note, T. H. Lee, 14 Feb. 1935.
148 TNA 22511, letter from Acting Provincial Commissioner, Iringa to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 13 Nov. 1934.
149 Brown and Hutt, Anthropology, 175–84. Some families questioned why healthy children received ‘medicine’ (dawa). See TNA22511, letter from Acting Provincial Commissioner, Iringa to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 13 Nov. 1934.
150 Brown and Hutt, Anthropology, 177.
151 Ibid . 178.
152 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
153 TNA 22511, Translated Statement by N. T. Owden Mwansongwe, Malangali, 7 Dec. 1934. At the inquest, this informant was called Mahwala bin Masawange. See BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935. They are the same person since both reference the death of three-year-old Zenab binti Hussein. Perhaps Hutt's contributions to the anthropological study with Gordon Brown led to this sentiment. See Brown and Hutt, Anthropology, vi.
154 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
155 TNA 22511, letter from Acting Provincial Commissioner, Iringa to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 13 Nov. 1934.
156 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
157 Eczema can be a sign of vitamin D deficiency, but it is not clear if the girls exhibited such symptoms. TNA 22511, letter from Acting Provincial Commissioner, Iringa to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 13 Nov. 1934.
158 Most of the kin who testified were male; only four women appeared before the coroner. One woman was widowed, one woman's husband was away at the time of their daughter's death, another carried her husband's testimony in a note because he was too ill to appear, and the fourth was Luhuwile, the school's matron (compound mother) whose niece died from the poison. See BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935. Walsh notes that the Sangu leadership was mistrustful of Mumford and sent few children to the school. See Walsh, ‘Misinterpretation of chiefly power’, 63.
159 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935. The Swahili word ‘upele’ can refer to a variety of rashes, but is more commonly used to reference to scabies: Awde, N., Swahili-English Practical Dictionary (NY, 2004), 252 Google Scholar; and Kamusi ya Kiswahili-Kiingereza (Dar es Salaam, 2001), 346.
160 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
161 TNA 22511, letter from H. MacMichael, Governor, Dar es Salaam to Sir Cunliffe-Lister, Secretary of State for the Colonies, London, 31 Oct. 1934.
162 TNA 22511, letter from P. S. Paranjpe, Sub-Assistant Surgeon to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 1 Nov. 1934.
163 TNA 22511, letter from J. Harkness, Medical Officer, Iringa Hospital to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 6 Nov. 1934.
164 TNA 22511, Fragment, ‘Malangali Tragedy’, East African Standard (Nairobi) (10 Oct. 1934) (date incorrect on sheet), most likely 1 Nov. 1934.
165 TNA 22511, Telegram, Provincial Officer, Iringa to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 31 Oct. 1934.
166 After extensive research through the anthropological works of Alison Redmayne, Benjamin Martin, and Martin Walsh, there is little to indicate what a ‘drinking ceremony’ involved – it appears to be a colonial invention.
167 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935.
168 Ibid . TNA 22511, Telegram, Provincial Officer, Iringa to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 31 Oct. 1934; Draft of statement to be made by Chief Secretary to Legislative Council after Minutes, n. d.; TNA 22511, Volume II, letter from Provincial Commissioner, Iringa to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 4 Feb. 1935.
169 BNA CO 691/140/17, Inquest No. 9 of 1934, 20 Dec. 1934–17 Jan. 1935; Giblin, A History of the Excluded, 70–1; Nyagava, S. I., ‘Were the Bena traitors?: Maji Maji in Njombe and the context of local alliances made by the Germans’, in Giblin, and Monson, (eds.), Maji Maji (Leiden, 2010), 241–57Google Scholar.
170 TNA 22511, letter from J. Harkness, Medical Officer, Iringa Hospital to Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Dar es Salaam, 6 Nov. 1934.
171 TNA 22511, letter from Provincial Commissioner, Malangali, to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 3 Nov. 1934.
172 The debate over shark liver oil's utility went on for several years, its similarity in appearance with ‘other oils and occasionally poisons’ was an ongoing cause for concern. See TNA/MOH450/73/3, letter from Director of Medical Services to Pharmacist, Dar es Salaam, 15 July 1938; and Tanganyika Standard (Dar es Salaam, 1934), 19.
173 TNA 22527, ‘Custody and Labelling [sic] of Poisons’, Circular No. 2 of 1935 (Jan. 1935).
174 Martin Benjamin notes that well into the 1990s, Malangali was among the ‘poorest of the poor’ according to World Bank and Concern Worldwide, a charitable agency: M. Benjamin, ‘Development consumers: an ethnography of the “poorest of the poor” and international aid in rural Tanzania’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Yale University, 2000), 3.
175 TNA 22527, ‘Custody and Labelling [sic] of Poisons’, Circular No. 2 of 1935 (Jan. 1935).
176 Mang'enya, Discipline and Tears, 66–9; TNA 22511, letter from R. R. Scott, Dar es Salaam to Capt. J. L. Berne, Iringa, 19 Feb. 1935.