SAMUEL JOSIAH NTARA: Writer and Historian

Author(s): B. Pachai
Source: The Society of Malawi Journal , July, 1968, Vol. 21, No. 2 (July, 1968), pp. 60-
66
Published by: Society of Malawi - Historical and Scientific

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60 THE SOCIETY OF MALAWI JOURNAL

SAMUEL JOSIAH NT AR A:
Writer and Historian
By B. Pachai
?HE story of Samuel Ntara, one of Malawi's leading
writers, is the story of a self-made man who rose from a
humble background, came to grips with limited opportu?
nities, and finally made his mark by personal application and a
high sense of devotion to duty. His first book appeared in 1933, the
year in which the Nyasaland Government introduced indirect
rule in the country with a view to getting Ntara's countrymen
"to co-operate and enter into the corporate life of the com?
munity."1 But more significantly for Ntara's literary interest,
the same year was to see the appearance of another book by a
fellow-Malawian, A Short History of the Ngoni by Yesaya
Chibambo, which was translated into English by the Scottish
missionary, the Rev. Charles Stuart. Ntara received no govern?
ment funds for his first book or for any other book. If any
institution can lay any claim at all to having encouraged
Ntara it is the Dutch Reformed Church Mission at Mvera and
at Nkhoma in the Central Region. Mvera was the head?
quarters of this Mission in Nyasaland at the time of its es?
tablishment in 1889. It shifted to Nkhoma in 1912.2

Ntara's father, Josiah Kamfumu, a Mchewa, must have been

one of the first pupils at Mvera when it opened for he was
already a teacher at the Mvera Mission when Samuel Ntara
was born, at Mvera, on 24 September, 1905. Kamfumu had
rounded off his studies at Livingstonia Mission where he
obtained a teachers' certificate before returning to Mvera.
Ntara's mother was Margaret Sungani, also a Mchewa.
Ntara went to school at Mvera Mission and started teaching
in village schools after having passed standard three, such was
the great demand for teachers in those days. Had he stopped at

1 CO. 626; Legislative Council Extraordinary Session, 1933. Cited in Griff

Jones, Britain and My as aland, (1964) p.77.
2 The writer is indebted to Mr. Ntara for the many interviews granted him
both at Nkhoma and at Blantyre and for discussing many points of detail so
cheerfully; and to Mr. Lou Pretorius for commenting on the script, for bringing
to bear upon the article his personal insights and f@r making available copies
of Headman's Enterprise and Man of Africa.

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 SAMUEL JOSIAH NT AR AI 61

this point he would have continued to go ahead as one of the

more progressive persons in the village. He went on with his
studies, passing the next three standards by private study
whilst being engaged in full-time teaching.
In 1926 an education department was set up in Nyasaland
and government control over education was introduced for the
first time. Ntara, like others, took the opportunity to have his
past qualifications improved and endorsed by sitting an
examination set by the Education Department. To prepare
for this he went to Nkhoma Mission in 1927, the nearest
centre offering education of the standard Ntara sought. At the
end of that year he obtained what he had prepared for, a third
class teachers' certificate. Thereafter, for a few years, Ntara
attended vacation courses mounted at the Nkhoma Mission
between October and December annually. In 1928 he obtained
a second class teachers' certificate which was at the time, the
highest professional teachers' certificate obtainable.
For the next four years Ntara taught at various schools in the
central region, including Lilongwe. It was at Lilongwe that he
met Mr. Lou Pretorius, a missionary of the Dutch Reformed
Church, who had joined the Nkhoma Mission in 1929. It was
on Pretorius' advice that Ntara was posted to Nkhoma Mission
in 1932 as a teacher. Pretorius and others felt that Ntara's
undoubted ability and great potential could be best developed
at the Mission where he would receive the necessary help,
he material and the opportunity for further studies. This step
was the beginning of a long association between Ntara and
Pretorius which was to lead in 1968 to their working together in
a different office altogether and in work of a different kind as
oundation members of the Malawi Censorship Board.
At Nkhoma, Ntara enrolled with the Union College, a
South African correspondence college, for a course of study
leading to the South African Junior Certificate, which he duly
obtained after persevering for some years with history, geogra?
phy, mathematics, English, bookkeeping and. commerce.
The Junior Certificate, or the first stage in secondary education,
was to mark the highest point in Ntara's academic attainment.
It was to mark the end, too, of his exercises in formal education.

Already, a keen literary interest had begun to show its early

fruit. A new and promising career was already in train before
Ntara joined the Nkhoma Mission in 1932. While he was still

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 62 THE SOCIETY OF MALAWI JOURNAL

a teacher at Lilongwe, he had seen an advertisement in a

magazine entitled Listen announcing a literary competition in a
number of African languages, including Nyanja, the principal
language spoken in Malawi and in parts of the contiguous
areas. The competition was sponsored by the Institute of African
Languages and Cultures located in London. Founded in 1926,
the Institute aimed mainly at encouraging African author?
ship. It was only in the third year of the competition that
Nyanja was added to the list of African languages approved by
the sponsors.3
In 1932, now twenty-seven years old, Ntara entered the
competition submitting "a beautifully written manuscript"4
entitled Nthondo for which he received the highest award in the
biography section of the competition. T. Cullen Young writes
that "when the Institute's prize reached him he purchased a
cow for his mother, gave one-tenth to the Church, bought
himself a bicycle and went on with his teaching."5

In the same competition, a fellow Malawian, Steven

Kumakanga, a Yao from Zomba district, obtained a consolation
prize for his work Nzeru za Kale. Another Malawian is also
known to have taken part in the competition in 1932, a Tonga
by the name of George Simeon Mwase. Mwase's script was
read by Lou Pretorius and then posted to London by Pretorius
at Mwase's request. Pretorius recalls that the script appealed
to him but struck him at the time as being "too fanciful."
It is interesting to note that a typescript entitled "A Dialogue of
Nyasaland Record of Past Events, Environment and the
Present Outlook within the Protectorate" is lodged in the
Zomba Archives. It was published by Harvard University press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1967 under the title of Strike a
Blow and Die with an introduction by Professor Robert I. Rotberg,
who also edited the book. Ntara started work on Nthondo
when he was at Lilongwe. Mwase lived near Lilongwe. Rotberg
surmises that the Mwase script was completed by late 1932. It

3 S. Y. Ntara, Man of Africa, Preface by T. Gullen Young, p. 9.

4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 10. Ntara wrote the original in his own dialect, Chichewa, an effort
which pleased many of his colleagues including Pretorius but the head of the
Mission, Dr. W. H. Murray asked Ntara to rewrite the script in the accepted
"union*' form of Chinyanja, which is a compromise form of Chinyanja used in
a particular translation of the Nyanja Bible.

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 SAMUEL JOSIAH NTARA.' 63

is highly probable that the material, part or whole, of Strike a

Blow and Die is a translation of the competition script sub?
mitted by Mwase in 1932. Mwase did not feature among the
prize winners.

To come back to Ntara and Nthondo, we note that this

fictional biography was published by the Nkhoma Mission
Press in 1933. It was translated into English by Rev. T. Cullen
Young and published by the Religious Tract Society in 1934.
The English ver? ion is entitled Man of Africa. In the Foreword,
Julian S. Huxley sums up the value of the work in the following
words which appear at the beginning and the end of the
Foreward: "It is a liberating experience to obtain a glimpse
of another kind of life which is not as our life, which exists in its
own right and by its own standards.I am sure there will be
many who, like myself, will feel that after reading it they have
gained a new insight into African anthropology, African
psychology, African native problems: and equally sure that
many, again like myself, will enjoy the pure literary quality,
so simple yet so effective, of the story."

After this auspicious entry into the literary world, Ntara

became interested in the history of his own people. This
interest was further stimulated by several discussions he held
on the subject with Rev. Namon Katengeza who in 1926 had
become the first African to be ordained a minister by the
Dutch Reformed Church Mission at Nkhoma. In 1944 Rev.
Katengeza dictated a version of the history of the Chewa
people. Ntara got down to writing this on the lines suggested by
Rev. Katengeza, The result was the Mbiriya Achewa which was
published by the Dutch Reformed Church Mission in 1944.
Following on the criticism which he received after the
appearance of this book, Ntara launched himself on a
strenuous programme of research, revision and enlargement.
In 1949 a second and enlarged edition was published by the
Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland Literature Bureau. In 1965
a third and further enlarged edition was published by Mac
millans. This book has been widely cited by scholars of Malawi
history. Its fuller use and value would come once an English
version is published. This would give the book a wider reading
public and circulation. It is hoped that discussions which are
going on at present will result in an English translation being
available before too long.

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64 THE SOCIETY OF MALAWI JOURNAL

In chronological order, Nchowa comes next. It was the late

Professor J. P. Bruwer, one-time missionary of the Dutch
Reformed Church in Northern Rhodesia, who encouraged
Ntara to undertake this assignment. Bruwer worked for many
years among the Achewa people of Northern Rhodesia, as the
country of Zambia was then known. On one of his visits to Nkho
ma Mission Bruwer asked Ntara to write a fiction based on the
story of a lady in Nyasaland. This would then be the counter?
part to Nthondo, the story of a man. The result was the ap?
pearance of Nchowa which was published in abridged form by
Longmans, Green and Company in 1949.6

When in 1944 Samuel Ntara was transferred to Kongwe

School of the D.R.C, Mission in Dowa his attention was
drawn by Rev. J. J. D. Stegmann, Superintendent of the
Nkhoma Mission at the time, to an important historical
figure in the local history of the area. This historical character
was village headman Msyamboza. Ntara was asked to carry
out research into the life and work of the headman.

Five years later, in 1949, the biography Msyamboza was

published by the Nkhoma Mission Press. Its English translation
was undertaken, again, by Rev. T. Gullen Young then on
retirement in Britain. The English title is HeadmarCs Enterprise:
An Unexpected page in Central African History, published by
Lutterworth Press, London in 1949. This is excellent history,
giving an account of a headman's reactions to the forces around
him, the forces of Islam, the forces of Christianity, the forces of
the whiteman's administration, the forces of the belligerent
Ngoni, all coming heavily to bear on Msyamboza's settlement
at Chibanzi. The book abounds in proverbial wisdom, the
first of which the reader encounters on the opening page of
the Foreword in which Ntara, speaking philosophically of the
book as a whole, writes: "An old proverb of our ancestors says
It is people who make the world; the bush has wounds and scars."

Msyamboza was a village headman at Chibanzi, a few miles

from Kongwe, and lived a long life between 1830 and 1926.
His life and achievements cannot be placed into a stereotype
model. Gullen Young writes very aptly in his Translator's
Preface: "That Msyamboza was a man of great originality

6 The manuscript containing the full text of Nchowa is in the possession of Mr,
J. Lou Pretorius.

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 SAMUEL JOSIAH NTARA i 65

and intelligence is clear from the story here told. Let it speak
for itself. It will not fit wholly into a prevalent theory that
individualism, initiative and experimentation are impossible
within the early communal groups.".7

Two years after the apearance of Msyamboza and Headman's

Enterprise Ntara returned to Nkhoma Mission. He was now
commissioned to work on the biography of Rev. Namon
Katengeza who we have already noted was the first ordained
African minister at Nkhoma Mission. The biography was
published by the Nkhoma Mission Press in 1964 under the
title of Namon Katengeza.

In the same year Ntara branched into language study and

produced Man Okuluwika, a book on Nyanja idioms, published
by the Northern Rhodesia Publications Bureau in 1964.
Ntara is today one of ten Malawians who have been short
listed as finalists in the Kamuzu Ghinyanja competition. This
is a competition which is aimed at compiling a comprehensive
Chinyanja word list. More than one thousand Malawians
entered the competition. Out of this number ten candidates
now face the final lap. The result is expected to be announced
sometime in 1968.

Ntara was a member of the Nyasaland African Congress

since its inception. He attended the meeting held at Blantyre in
1944 at which Levi Mumba was elected first chairman of the
Congress. The five delegates who represented Lilongwe at
this meeting were Levi Mumba, Samuel Ntara, George
Simeon Mwase, Gresham Masanghe and one Mr. Phiri
who, according to Ntara, is now settled outside Malawi.
Ntara recalls that one of the topics discussed at the meeting
was the absence of public road motor transport in the country.
As a result of representations made by the officials after this
meeting the first public transport buses were started in the
country. Ntara was a member of the Dowa District Council in
1946. He has been an active member of the Teachers' As?
sociation. He is a much respected and valued Elder of the
Church of Central Africa Presbyteiian, having served on many
important committees of the C.C.A.P.

7 S. Y. Ntara, Headman*s Enterprise. Translated and edited with a preface by

Cullen Young, pp. 13-19.

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66 THE SOCIETY OF MALAWI JOURNAL

A married man since 1934, Mr. Ntara heads a family of

eleven children, one of whom works in the Office of the
President in Zomba. This quiet and unassuming man of sixty
three lives today in the fast-developing city of Blantyre. He is
attached to the staff of the Malawi Censorship Board whose
chairman is Mr. J. Lou Pretorius, the man who was
instrumental in taking Ntara to Nkhoma in 1932. Even now
Ntara continues to be busy. In conjunction with the writer, Mr.
Pretorius and others, he continues to delve into Malawi history,
conscious of a resurgence of interest in Malawi history and in the
deeds of men who helped make history, always displaying a
keenness to play his part in recording and interpreting the
events of the past. For Ntara has not only recorded history; he
has played a small part in it too.

Borrowing his ancestors' proverbial wisdom, we can say

with them of Samuel Josiah Ntara: "It is people who make the
world; the bush has wounds and scars."

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