CUED SPEECHES: THE EMERGENCE OF SHAURI AS COLONIAL PRAXIS IN GERMAN EAST AFRICA, 1850-1903 MICHAEL PESEK HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITÄT ZU BERLIN I In 1891 the German explorer Theodor Bumiller wrote an angry letter from the shores of Lake Nyassa (modern Lake Malawi) to the Committee of the German Anti Slavery Lottery, the financiers of his expedition. The goal of the expedition was to bring a steamship on the lake to fight alleged slave hunters. The initiator and leader of the expedition was no less a person than Hermann von Wissmann, then the empire’s most popu- lar explorer and conqueror and first Governor of German East Africa. Bumiller had been Wissmann’s long-standing friend and companion on several expeditions. Since the very first days, there had been disputes over the equipping and organization of the expedition. In all previous letters that Wissmann and Bumiller had written to the committee, they had responded to reproaches of throwing the lottery’s money around by argu- ing that Africa is not Europe and there were many eventualities with which nobody was able to reckon, if being on an expedition. However, a member of the expedition, a certain Captain Max Prager, whose duty was to navigate the steamer on the lake, had sent a report, in which he had sharply criticized both Wissmann and Bumiller. Bumiller answered with the argument that Praeger was not in a position to give an expert opinion on the expedition, because he was not a true Afrikaner,a person who has gained first-hand experiences of the African continent and its people. Praeger, Bumiller sneered, was only sitting on the steam- er’s deck and thus having no contact with Africans. 1 To Bumiller, what History in Africa 33 (2006), xx–xx 1 Bumiller to Bergrath, Berlin, 16 August 1891, printed in Ausführungskommission des Deutschen Antisklavereikomites, Die Akten der Ausführungskommission des Deutschen Antisklavereikomites betreffend Das v. Wissmann-Dampferunternehmen (Koblenz, 1893), 48. 16-pesek 7/5/06 09:44 Page 1