The bishop who never reached new home - Part II

The Bishop Hannington Shrine in Budimo, Busia District. PHOTO BY DOMINIC BUKENYA

What you need to know:

Buried thrice. Within a space of seven years, the body of Bishop James Hannington was exhumed twice and buried thrice. In this episode we look at the events after his death and the journey to his final resting place on Namirembe Hill, Kampala

As the bishop and his Goan cook fell down after being speared, the other soldiers turned against his remaining porters, stabbing them with great ferocity, one man after another. Every time a stabbed man fell down, he was presumed dead and the man who struck him left him to attack another.
Christopher Boston, another member of Hannington’s caravan, explains what happened to him:

“All was dark to me until I woke up around 3am the following morning. It was very cold and the cold had revived me. I sat up and found that my bowels were coming out of a wound in my side. I picked a broad plantain leaf and put my bowels in. I bound the leaf over the wound, to keep them inside. I saw my dead comrades around, but did not look for the bishop’s body. I was too ill to do that. I could not stand up but crawled away in the direction of the country where we had left the Rev Jones.

I also knew that some of our people had not been brought to the slaughter house, these were Ibramu (Ibrahim) Mukanyaga and Hamis Turki, but I thought that all the others were dead. I struggled along for some days. I saw many people, the women pitted me and gave me food, of the men some said ‘kill him’ while others said ‘No we don’t want his blood on our land let him go and he will die somewhere else’.

I found a man who was so kind to me and let me live with him for a time, he knew all about the murder of our people and he used to tell lots of things.
I asked him why they had to kill the bishop with spears, and did not shoot him.

He said, ‘Ah! The gun is the weapon of the White man, they make it and they know what charm to use so that it will not kill them. So it would be of no use trying to kill him with a gun, but the spear is our weapon and the European has no charm against it, therefore the White man was killed with the spear.’

After many days, I don’t know how many, I reached Kaunyi, where the bishop slept on the 19th. Here I was treated very kindly and stayed for some time. After several days, two of my comrades, Ikutu and Almasi, came and found me there, they said just as the soldiers were attacking the party, a messenger came from the king saying some young men were to be saved, therefore 10 were snatched away and the rest were killed. Of these 10 were Ikutu and Almasi. They said they made their escape and came here hoping to look for Mr Jones.

I heard that Ibramu, who was saved and was told to make guns, said he would and they gave him ground and a house. After a short time, Ibramu ran away and they did a few days after.

We stayed in this place for many days, and then a Swahili man who was hunting came across the lake in a canoe. He took me across the lake in the canoe. We landed on the south side of the lake and then sent a letter to Mackay and told him where I was.
He sent me some clothes and told me to go to Mr Gordon (The Rev E. C. Gordon was at Msalala). I went to Mr Gordon and after eight days I went to Uyui (Church Missionary Society station near Tabora) where Christopher ended.”

According to the Church Missionary Intelligencer (CMI) of July 1888, which quoted the last journals of Bishop Hannington basing on the first hand witness account given by Ikutu, Hannington’s chair bearer, Ikutu was with Hannington constantly during his imprisonment and undid his hands when they bound him to lead him off to the spot where he was murdered.

Ikutu told Rev J. Blackburn in Usambiro where he arrived in January 1886 what happened to them while in captivity. Ikutu told Blackburn that when Hannington was being led to the spot he was to be killed, he kept singing hymns though he never understood what the hymns were. What he recalls hearing constantly was the word Jesus.

However, writing in the CMI of October 1890, Rev R. H. Walker describes how the remains of Hannington were recovered.

“When Bishop Hannington was murdered the same day, his body was carried to another place because the people feared that the dead body of a White man might bring evil to them. But the people of the next village refused to have it, so it was carried from place to place, each refusing to allow it to remain in their country.

Coast man
A coast man who we understand was one of Bishop Hannington’s porters accompanied the corpse. At last it reached a place on the boundary of Busoga, or in the country of the Bakedi. Here they agreed to build a house for it and on a framework of a bed stead such as the one they make for smoking meat and fish on, the body was laid and left to decay. An agreement was made with the coast man to live at this house and to take care of it. And in return the people would give him food.”

Writing in the book Early days in East Africa, Sir Fredrick Jackson of the Imperial British East Africa Company describes how he got to the place where Hannington’s remains had been kept.
Jackson says a message came to him on December 1, 1889, from Tungu that the bones will be brought to him the next day by one of the men from Kwa-Sundu who had been taken a prisoner from the Bishop’s porters.

The Intelligencer went on to explain that Bishop Hannington’s body was identified from the skull. “His skull was easily identified by some stopping in one of the upper teeth. Curiously enough though, nearly all the teeth were missing, this one had remained.”

Extracts from Rev John Roscoe’s journal printed in the CMI of June 1892, gives a detailed account of how the body of Hannington was handled soon after his death.

According to Roscoe’s recollection from a one Osore who belonged to the Mumia of Kavirondo and Ochola from Samia Lunyo who had been kept as a slave for two years, Roscoe quotes Osore telling him that “during this time there was a famine in the area and the medicine man attributed the famine to the presence of the Whiteman’s remains on the land that had never been buried”.

With famine hitting the area hard, Chief Luba ordered for the release of the two former porters turned slaves, they were also given Hannington’s water bottle and a pair of boots.

The duo exhumed the body and embarked on the journey to the coast with the tin containing the bishop’s remains.

However, at one fortress in Budimo, they were allowed to rest outside the fortress for the next four days with the tin containing the bishop’s body kept up on a tree away from the preying animals.

On the fifth day, they proceeded across River Sio on the present day border between Uganda and Kenya and reached Mumias. The king of Mumia allowed the body to be buried in his land.

Writing in the Uganda Journal of September 1940, H. B. Thomas says, “Bishop Tucker got the tin containing Hannington’s remains from Mumias in 1892, on his way from the coast to Uganda and he brought them with him back to Uganda, and he was buried at Namirembe Hill on December 31, 1892, and among those who attended the burial included Mwanga.”

Chief Peter Mumia II’s comment

Chief Peter Mumia II of Wanga Kingdom in western Kenya is the great grandson of Paramount Chief Nabongo Mumia, who allowed Hannington’s remains to be buried in his territory, from where it would have been taken to Britain.

“It gives me pleasure seeing this great man of God being celebrated. He was a good friend of my great grandfather. When he came to Mumias, my great grandfather gave him escorts and guides. To him Hannington was a missionary and a friend.

The level of their friendship is best shown when the king allowed the bishop’s remains to be buried in his territory knowing what that meant for his people.

A series of catastrophes hit the kingdom with the worst being jiggers which claimed many people. But instead of sending away the body, he decided to have a cleansing ceremony to purify the land because it was hosting a foreigner’s remains. This he did because he didn’t want to abandon his friend. He had to keep the friendship in life and death.

Back home in Mumias, we constructed a 5,000-seater cathedral which we dedicated to him as Bishop Hannington Cathedral.

Personally, I have attachment to Hannington’s death not because of his connection with my great grandfather, but also because I’m a Christian.
Bishop Hannington was killed by those who did not understand him or his message.