Look at Majimaji! A plea for historical photographs in Tanzania

In Tanzanian museums, in commemorative booklets, in books, on websites and in the hands of families, historical photographs convey visually the history of Majimaji, a colonial war in which Africans resisted from 1905 to 1907. This resistance was fought against German colonisation in the southern and eastern regions of Tanzania. As popular media of remembrance, photographs are used in public and private commemoration of the Majimaji war. As historical resources and objects of investigation, however, Majimaji photographs remain untouched. In presenting an insight into the photographic record of Majimaji and focusing on a selection of individual photographs, this article shows that the consideration of historical photographs in exploring the Majimaji war and its commemoration offers new results as well as new questions for research. As a pioneering study on the subject of Majimaji war photographs, this article is not a closing study but rather a plea for more attention to visual sources in Tanzania's historical and archaeological research.