/ARTS WEEKLY/BOOKS-LESOTHO: Author Resurrects the Past

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Yolandi Groenewald

MASERU, Lesotho, May 27 2003 (IPS) - When visiting old mission museums, portraits of the unflinching unsmiling missionaries that once occupied their walls often greet you. Their black and white eyes always seem to be gazing into the distance, focusing on a reality that is gone forever.

These men came to Africa on a divine mission, sacrificing an ordinary life to do a greater work. But all they seem to leave behind are a few mouldy photos about a life forgotten in the mists of time.

The photo of Edouard Jacottet, a missionary at Morija in Lesotho, is no different. He and his family lived at the remote missionary station at the beginning of the last century. Now all that remains of him and his companions are a few photos of his life in Africa in the Morija museum and an ageing rumour about his death.

His death is more of a mystery than his life ever was. The Swiss-French missionary came to Lesotho in 1884 and lived with his family in the country until his death. His wife only died a year or so before him. He was left with his three daughters – and a bombshell that could destroy his mission.

But that bombshell destroyed him first. On Dec. 22, 1920. Jacottet, together with five other people, was poisoned while having lunch. The other five recovered, but the missionary died.

No one doubted that he was murdered, yet no one was ever tried and convicted for his death. Three people though were arrested for his murder and even spent a few days in Maseru’s gaols before they were released.

The suspects were none other than two of his daughters and a colleague at the mission at Morija. At one time even the king of Lesotho, Griffith, was a suspect.

Now, 83 years after the murder, Tim Couzens, a self-styled academic detective and acclaimed writer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg traces the life and death of this extraordinary missionary who walked with kings.

The author is known as time traveller throughout South Africa. He has the talent to journey into the past, but more importantly take his readers with him. In ‘Murder at Morija’, his time machine, otherwise known as a novel, transports readers to the turn-of-the-century Lesotho.

Couzens’ success as both historian and writer reaches new heights in the novel. The success of the novel lies in two elements, excruciating research and a wonderful narrative. Couzens loves detail and Jacottet’s life, not only his death, is exposed in the 400-page documentary.

To digest the delicately woven novel, patience is needed. ‘The Sunday Times Newspaper’, based in Johannesburg, reported that Antjie Krog, author of ‘Country of my Skull’, flung the book across the room after 300 pages. But she picked it up again and finished it.

She then phoned publisher Stephen Johnson and exclaimed in Afrikaans: "Wat ‘n fokken boek!" ("What a f