Kamuzu Banda Early Years To Adulthood

How Young Kamuzu Banda Was Dismissed From Participation in An Examination in 1915 in Kasungu

One feature of the missionary regime, in church and school, which deserves examination is its characteristic Scottish discipline and the emphasis which it placed on a proper course of training, with no short cuts, before baptism and graduation. Revolt against this was one element in the growth of independent African churches in Nyasaland.¹ And then, in 1915, there was the case of the youthful African pupil-teacher, small in stature, at the Livingstonia examination for entrance to the teacher's training center who, because he had to sit at the back of a crowded hall, was forced to stand up to see the questions on the blackboard. The Scottish missionary in charge, with the full rigor of traditional examination invigilation, "misconstrued the action and debarred the boy from further participation in the examination."² His career being apparently nipped in the bud, three weeks later he left home and did not return until July 9, 1958. His name was Hastings Kamuzu Banda.

"the son of an aristocratic family in my tribe"


George Shepperson says the following about Kamuzu's Uncle Hannock Msokera Phiri: 


"Meanwhile, the young Hanock Msokera Phiri was receiving the education, formal and otherwise, that would in due course lead him to membership in the ministry of the A.M.E. Church. Born near Kasungu in 1884, a grandson of the then reigning Chief Mwase Kasungu, Phiri, in the same year that witnessed Bishop Turner's visit to South Africa, entered the local village school, at that time administered by the Livingstonia Mission of the United Free Church of Scotland.16 Following only two years' study, young Hanock was selected to proceed to the Mission's Station (or full primary) School for further education. In 1903 he was admitted to the prestigious Overtoun Institute, pinnacle of the Livingstonia Mission system. There he remained for about seven years, successfully completing Standard Extra-6, the highest then available in the country."


To be continued Page still under construction

Footnote

1. E.g., George Shepperson and Thomas Price, Independent African (Edinburgh, 1958), p. 158, to which reference may be made, through the index, for documentation of most of the following points unless otherwise stated.
2. Cullen Young and Hastings Banda, Our African Way of Life (London, 1946), pp. 26-28.