ABSTRACT
Along with their parents and others from the villages along the colonial frontier between Nyasaland and German East Africa, Mfumu Mwakamowo and Matayi Mwalugali fled in what must have seemed to them a repeat of stories they had heard about other threats to their land. Chiefs and some village headmen were informed by European officials and government messengers; European missionaries, too, told many Africans and also tried to reassure those who did not understand. Ironically, among the last to learn of the beginning of hostilities may have been some of the askari mobilized for the trip to the German East African boundary. Eliot Kamwana, educated in the schools of the Livingstonia Mission, had broken with that institution over the imposition of school fees. Reports are meager, but it seems that despite Kamwana's claims for a later arrival of Armageddon, many who had apparently heard his teachings took the fiery display as a signal of an immediate conflagration.
