March 7, 2012

The Definitive Work on the Kanungu Tragedy?

As the March 17th anniversary of the Kanungu cult massacre approaches, readers seeking an authoritative analysis of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God should consult Ghosts of Kanungu: Fertility, Secrecy, and Exchange in the Great Lakes of East Africa by Richard Vokes.

The author
is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and a Research Associate of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford, UK. Adding to the weight of his research is his fluency in Runyankore/Rukiga, which enabled him to personally interview many key individuals in and around Kanungu.

Vokes also maintains an extensive multi-media web site of cult-related findings.

(Note: The edition of Vokes’s book produced by Fountain Publishers of Uganda is far less expensive than that generally available in North America.)