Page 34 - 2020 SoMJ Vol 73 No 2_Neat

John Chilembwe and Juma Chimwere 25

1
After. But none of the five hundred or so historical remembrances collected in
various forms during the project have actually been published as originally
transcribed. In seeking to remedy that situation, I recently began reviewing again
the many transcripts in my possession. And as a result, I offer here sections of my
13 September 1972 interview with Titus Chimwere (listed as Interview 27 in the
project records, and lightly edited with some parenthetical notes) as it involves
one of the most detailed memories of John Chilembwe unearthed during the full
2
project:

Name: Titus W. Chimweri
Date: 13 September 1972
Language: primarily English
Translator: Yusuf Juwayeyi
Place: Old Soldiers Memorial Home, Zomba

Q: Did your father ever tell you something about John
Chilembwe?
A: He was his friend.

Q: Really?
A: Yes. And when John Chilembwe attempted to have a riot, he
told him that he was playing with fire. He wouldn’t do anything
whatever with the British.

Q: How did your father come to know John Chilembwe?
A: Because—The original home of my father was in Mulanje
where the K.A.R. was first attached; that was Fort Lister. And
when the battalion moved here [to Zomba] the parents—my
grandmother, my aunt, my mother’s sisters—went and lived in
a village near where Chilembwe was establishing his mission.
That was in 1900.

Q: In Chiradzulu?
A: Chiradzulu. There my father’s young brother started at
school at Chilembwe’s kindergarten school in 1901. That is
why he knew John Chilembwe very well.

1
Melvin E. Page, The Chiwaya War: Malawians and the First World War
(Boulder: Westview Press, 2000); details of the oral history research project are
offered on pages 235-240. A second edition of the book is planned for publication
in 2020 by Luviri Press of Mzuzu.
2
The much longer interview with Titus Chimwere, as well as most of the fully
transcribed remembrances recorded for this project, will soon be published by
the Great War in Africa Association as Chiwaya War Voices: Malawian Oral
Histories of the Great War in Africa.