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Volume XVI (2005)
Book Review: Murder at Morija
Paul A. Williams
Department of Philosophy and Religion, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182-0265
Tim Couzens. Murder at Morija. Johannesburg:
Random House, 2003. 468pp. $25.00 (paper).
Tim Couzens’ Murder at Morija is both a fascinating
story and also a contribution to a larger discussion among
historians and anthropologists of Christianity in southern
Africa, particularly those interested in the colonial period.
The works of Elizabeth Elbourne, Jean and John Comaroff, Norman Etherington, and others have brought the stories of
various Protestant mission societies, especially the London
Missionary Society, into academic debates about missionaries
and colonial societies—the cultural meanings of time
and corporeality, the social and ideological dynamics of colonial systems, and the role of missionaries and their local
co-workers as agents in the development and transformation
of those dynamics. Employing distinct methodological
stances and different theoretical constructs, those scholars
nonetheless share a concern for not only the missionaries’ stories but also the Africans with whom they worked
and their role within the socio-economic and political dimensions
of the colonial context.
While not directly commenting on the work of historians
and anthropologists, Couzens certainly employs the
fruits of those discussions in his telling of the story of Paris
Evangelical Missionary Society (PEMS) missionaries in
Lesotho. Taking advantage of a rich set of archival resources,
he describes in thick detail French-speaking Protestant missionaries
reaching through an English-speaking colonial environment
to a Sesotho-speaking people who were asserting
an emerging cultural identity and political aspirations
against an expanding Dutch-speaking state until the British
took charge of Basotholand (Lesotho) as a British territory
in 1868, setting the political context within the mission
worked and the central event took place.
Tim Couzens’ approach fits well within this larger conversation;
however his presentation is not academic history,
interpretive or otherwise, or theoretical debates about
economy and society, discourse and agency. He writes as a
novelistic historian weaving a complex story of murder and intrigue around the death by poisoning of a prominent
French-speaking Swiss missionary (Édouard Jacottet) in his
own home at the Morija mission station in Basotholand
(Lesotho) in late 1920. The murder with which he begins
provides a point of entry into and the justification for exploring
a longer and more complex story of a particular
mission society. In a sense, Couzens simply reports an early
twentieth century murder mystery and then traces the characters
and their religious confrères back to the early nineteenth
century. Without claiming to present a comprehensive
perspective, he includes an historical depth and great
sensitivity to the individuals and the groups inhabiting the
mountainous landscape of that developing nation, exposing
greater complexity than characteristic of “mission history.” Thus, by digging beneath the surface of the unsolved crime,
Couzens presents a compelling story of the PEMS in Lesotho
from the 1830s until the 1920s. Couzens’ careful biographical rendering of the more
prominent missionaries emphasizes their individual characteristics
and opinions, as well as their national, cultural,
and theological origins, as French-speaking Protestants of
Swiss origin, heirs of the Huegenots. Church-state relations
in the canton of Neuchâtel, the Réveil of the 1820s, and the
imposing influence of the great Protestant teacher Godet
are some of the key elements that give shape to the thought
and practice of the missionaries from Arbousset and Casalis
in the first generation to Mabille, Duby, Jacottet, and others
in succeeding generations. The biographical sketches go well
beyond the public relations biographies many societies provided;
Couzens explores the interior struggles of many of
the missionaries, as well as the tensions between them. The
letters he uncovers and the motives he traces explore a view
of the missionaries no official history would care to reveal;
however, in Couzens’ hands, the petty scandals and blemished
characters give life to a missionary community that
would otherwise be lost in the pious platitudes about the
purpose of the mission and in the record of administrative
adjustments of personnel and strategy.
This work is also a contribution to the history of a mountain
kingdom that confronted and resisted both Boer and
British colonial intrusion. They succeeded in holding back
Boer control by falling under the sovereignty of the British
crown. Tracing relationships between missionaries and the
successive generations of chiefs and kings from
Moshoeshoe, the founder of the Sotho nation, to his greatgrandson
Griffith, Couzens highlights the critical role that
the missionaries played in the development of Sotho national
identity and the political semi-autonomy they
achieved. Part of Édouard Jacottet’s own story concerns his
unparalleled contributions to the study of Sesotho, a Bantu
language closely related to Setswana, and more distantly
related to the Nguni languages of southern Africa. Another
important thread in the story is the role of the Sotho converts
in the development of the mission organization and
work.
In addition to the sweeping narrative history (448 pp.),
this work includes the following: at the beginning of the
book, maps/drawings of Lesotho, the Morija station, and
the Jacottet house; in the middle of the volume, photographs
(#147) of the principal European and African characters and
locations; finally, endnotes and an index provide helpful
guides into the sources upon which Couzens relied and into
the text, respectively. These reader friendly aids manage to
avoid the danger of overweighting the text with the frequent
footnotes normally employed by professional historians and
anthropologists.
In conclusion, in addition to those interested in the
PEMS and/or Lesotho, this study of missionary history
should draw the attention of historians of religion and students
of colonial societies from a variety of disciplines. I
highly recommend this book both for general readers and
professional scholars. Simply put, Couzens tells a fascinating
story set against the long backdrop of the nineteenth
century and any reader interested in a good murder mystery
might relish the tragic implications of Jacottet’s death and
the rich detail of Couzens’ interpretation. Volume XVI |
