AFRICAN MYSTERY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 287, 15 September 1933, Page 8

AFRICAN MYSTERY.

SULTAN'S LOST SKULL. PEACE TREATY MATTER. Africa's "Sultan with Three Skulls," famous throughout the continent must wait a little longer for the restoration of his cranium, writes Eric Rosenthal in the "San Francisco Chronicle." Paragraph 246 of the Treaty of Versailles is again worrying the chancelleries of Great Britain, Germany and Tanganyika. During the last few days Mr Stanley Baldwin in the House of Commons was obliged to confess, like all African and European statesmen in the past, that no solution of the problem was yet in sight. "Within six months of the coming into force of the present Treaty," says the famous paragraph, "Germany will hand over to his Britannic Majesty's Government the skull of the Sultan Mkwawa which was .removed from the Protectorate of German East Africa and taken to Germany. The delivery of the article above referred to will be effected in such a place and on such conditions as may be laid down by the Government to which it is to.be returned.".

To-day, thirty-five years after his death, the cranium of Sultan Mkwawa (also known as Sultan Quawa Huhinja) is wandering across the face of the earth and keeping statesmen busy. In his liketime nobody outside Africa and colonial officialdom in Germany had ever heard of him. He was ISultan of the Wahehe tribe in the Iringa district of Tanganyika Mandated Territory (formerly German East Africa). Feared Leader. Ascending the throne of his warlike father Muyinga (who like him, was a Moslem of sorts) Mkwawa in 1878 established himself as a much-feared leader of the equatorial blacks. His rule was unchallenged from Zanzibar far inland, until in the 80'e, the first serious efforts at white settlement began. Sporadic 'campaigns took place between his fierce impis and the German soldiers that came to Africa in 1886.

In 1891 a punitive expedition under Lieutenant Zelewsky was ordered to subdue him. Down in the bushlands of the llufiji river, the howling army of the Sultan Hkwawa hurled itself upon the German invaders, who lost three guns and 200 men, ten of the casualties being European officers. So began a war that lasted seven years. After a fierce pitched battle in 1898 Mkwawa was found among the slain, a bullet in his skull. The witch doctors prepared the body of their monarch and treated his bones to prevent decay. His skeleton was solemnly laid out in a special tribal burying place where the younger generation went to do obeisance. Then two young German officers did a. very tactless thing. They carried oft' the skull of Sultan Mkwawa and it made its next appearance in Berlin.

No Satisfaction.

The Wahehes were greatly disturbed and sent deputation after deputation to the German Government which had not given them satisfaction when the World War broke out, but in 1918 a delegation of enterprising Wahehes, supported by competent legal advisers, set out for London and Versailles. Lloyd George met them and promised to' see that- Germany made reparation; and sure enough paragraph 216 of the Peace Treaty was the result, yet the trouble was not at an end. Germany could not find the skull. Circulars went to all the museums and a careful search was made. Nobody could identify the right one. Correspondence took place between London and Berlin and the foreign offices assured each other that isomethmg would soon be done. Sir Austen Chamberlain himself took a hand. Early in 1931 Germany made a definite move. She selected three skulls —all, of East African chiefs—and forwarded them to Downing Street askingGreat Britain or the AVahehe nation to make its own selection. Now there is a rumour that the right one is somewhere in Africa. The Wahehes have hopes, and Sultan Mkwawa (except' for his skull) sleeps with his fathers.