ABSTRACT
The short period between 1898 and 1906 was the most productive time in the career of Br. Aegidius Muller, the photographer of the Catholic Mission Mariannhill in colonial Natal. African chiefs and diviners had a textual presence in the mission’s periodicals since the 1890s but only emerged in photographs with the arrival of Br. Aegidius, as he sought to profile the essential themes of mission life for the jubilee celebration. Beginning with the separation of Abbot Franz Pfanner's heart and body, the process of beatification involved the production of various types of relics, photographs and statues. A. Gell describes this phenomenon as 'personhood distributed in the milieu, beyond the body-boundary'. If the beatification would be granted, the beatified personhood of Pfanner would be transferred to the cards and they would rise along with the person. The personhood of Lokothwayo, similarly to that of Pfanner and Ugitschigitschi is distributed over several images and objects, which signify him in combination.
