Nyabingi and the colonial rule

Nyawingi and her katikiro

The picture is from the expedition of the Duke of Mecklenburg in 1908. The term "Nyawingi" refers to what is today known as the Nyabingi movement or sect. Thís religious movement got some popularity all over interlacustrine Africa in the last decades of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. Its main center was the Kigezi-District of Uganda and Northern Rwanda. In Rwanda the Nyabingi movement was to some degree a reaction to the growing expansionism of the kingdom of Rwanda. With the arrival of the Europeans in the region and the support of the Rwandan King by the German colonial government, the Nyabingi came increasingly in conflict with the Germans. This was also the case in the British protectorate of Buganda, where the movement was generally mistrusted by the colonial authorities as being against colonial rule, whatever that was in Buganda at that time, when the court of the Buganda king used the support of the British to extend their influence over most of the protectorate. The movement was therefore mainly a reaction to the centralisation of power in the region either by African rulers or by colonial government.
Some Germans developed a remarkable or even bizarre attitude of curiosity towards the Nyabingi priests or priestesses. Knowing not much about the political structures and agency of the region's societies, they often regarded them as a kind of aristocracy or rulers. They heard of some rumours of hidden or shadow rulers who were contesting the power of established monarchies. 
Germans therefore were eager to look beyond the veil that the interlacustrine elites had put before their eyes. The search for Nyabingi became somewhat a desire for German travelers like Czekanowski and Max Weiß from the Mecklenburg expedition.
Another interesting term is that of the katikiro. This term is interesting for several reason. First of all, it documents the influence of the Buganda court in the region. The term was used at the court for high ranking officials or advisers of the king. The term made an astonishing career in the later part of the 19^th century in many region beyond Buganda. It even became a title within the German colonial administration, where it was used for the advisers or minister of local chiefs. The Germans indeed became a driving force for the spreading of the term in the interlacustrine region and even in Nyamwezi.

The photographer is, with some  certainity, Max Weiß, who made another photography of the priestess some years before.