Mathias E. Mnyampala (1917–1969) was a Tanzanian writer, lawyer, and poet. Mnyampala was born on 18 November according to a personal record form of 1956, but he wrote in his autobiography that he only knew the year with accuracy. He was born in the hamlet of Muntundya depending on the village of Ihumwa in Chamwino District in

Dodoma region Dodoma Region (''Mkoa wa Dodoma'' in Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative regions. The regional capital is the city of Dodoma. The region is located in central Tanzania, it is bordered by Singida Region to the west; Manyara Region ...

at the time part of

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mo ...

. He died on 8 June 1969 in Dodoma city, Tanzania. Mnyampala wrote in Swahili, the ''lingua franca'' of East Africa, not Cigogo, the native language of his ethnic group. Mnyampala wrote more than 25 books. Among them was ''Historia, mila, na desturi za Wagogo'', a history of the

Gogo people The Gogo/Gongwe (singular: mgogo, plural: Wagogo) are a Bantu ethnic and linguistic group based in the Dodoma Region of central Tanzania. In 1992 the Gogo population was estimated to number 1,300,00The Gogo have historically been predominantly p ...

commissioned by the British colonial government. This book was translated into English by Gregory H. Maddox and published in 1995 as ''The Gogo: History, Customs, and Traditions''. Mathias E. Mnyampala was working as a Tax Clerk for the Native Treasury in Dodoma during the colonial rule. He was intended to travel the whole Ugogo region in order to collect the tax and establish a census of the populations and their belongings. This is why he entered into contact with the ''Watemi'', the gogo traditional Kings and Rainmakers, who allowed him to write this historical book by giving him the oral sources of his ten years long work. The author was pioneering in Kiswahili in the early 1940s the ethno-history trend and in the same time was a faithful messenger for special correspondences between the then Freedom Fighters Movement called Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) and the ''Watemi''. After the Independence of Tanganyika in 1961, Mathias E. Mnyampala continued his administrative career in the Judicial system as a Magistrate. His former pro-TANU sympathies and his literary talent allowed him to become the national chairman of the association of Kiswahili poets called ''Usanifu wa Kiswahili na Ushairi Tanzania'' (UKUTA). This association was in charge to promote the diffusion of Kiswahili, the official language of the new Tanzanian Nation, by teaching to the Tanzanian masses the classical forms of Kiswahili poetry and their conservative transformations.

Selected bibliography

* * * * * * * * Mnyampala, M. E. (2014). ''Ugogo na ardhi yake''. DL2A - Buluu Publishing. France. . 112 p.

References

External links

Portrait of Mathias E. Mnyampala (c.1960)Grave of Mathias E. Mnyampala (Dodoma - Tanzania, 2008)

Relevant literature

*Arenberg, Meg. "Tanzanian Ujamaa and the Shifting Politics of Swahili Poetic Form." ''Research in African Literatures'' 50, no. 3 (2019): 7-28. *Longinus, Ponera Denice. "Nafasi ya ukristo katika ushairi wa Mnyampala." PhD diss., Chuo Kikuu cha Dodoma, 2015. *Mathieu Roy, Warren D. M. Reed. 2014. The woman hidden in the Diwani ya Mnyampala. 2014. ffhalshs01052772
website
*Rettová, Alena. "A solitary war? Genre, community and philosophy in Swahili culture: The Literary fortunes of Mathias Mnyampala." ''Journal of African Cultural Studies'' 28, no. 2 (2016): 209-224. *Roy, Mathieu. "Mathias Mnyampala: poésie et politique en Tanzanie." ''Études littéraires africaines'' 24 (2007): 30-35. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mnyampala, Mathias E. 1917 births 1969 deaths People from Dodoma Swahili-language writers Tanzanian poets 20th-century poets