WHEN THE BRITISH VISITED TOMBURA

BLACK HISTORY MONTH


I come from the Azande tribe which is a tribe found in the South of Sudan, North of C ongo and Central Africa. Our Clan is the Avungara Clan which is the ruling Clan of the Azande.
The short story I am going to tell is about my great grand father Chief Tombura. Few years ago my father was given a book about the Sudan by one of his English friends; the book was called Our Sudan It’s Pyramids and Progress. The book is telling a story of the how the British colonials travelled through the Nile and also described the places and the people they visited. I read some pages of the book at the time and got me very interested to know the history of my ancestors.

When I came to England I started to look for that book, it took me more than seven years to acquire the book. The British colonials travelled to through the Nile and visited almost all the part of the Sudan. When they arrived to the village of Tombura, My Great grand father who is also called T ombura welcomed them and asked them whether they came in peace or not because the were armed, they said they were. H e offered them his personal chef to cook for them. They stayed in the village of Tombura for some days and travelled to another village where another cousin of T ombura rules. Chief T ombura sent messengers to his cousin telling him the white people are coming in peace, they were given gifts of elephant’s tusk , honey and food for the road. Chief Yambio(Tombura’s cousin) was always very suspicious of foreigners and was not really sure of the intentions of the white people.

Chief Y ambio was right; eventually the British destroyed the Azande Kingdom. It is still there, we still have the tribal chiefs and the respect is still there for the clan.
The Azande are well documented by the famous anthropologist Sir Evans P ritchard who went and live among the Azande to study their Kingdom behaviour and way of life.


CATHERINE TOMBURA