Julius Kambarage Nyerere was to travel far from home during his early life. This was unusual for most young men born in Tanganyika Territory. But if at one level Nyerere was an unusual young man – thanks largely to the privileges that came with his father’s chiefly status – then at another level his early life was fairly ordinary. Butiama, the village of Nyerere’s birth, was little different from any other rural settlement in north-western Tanganyika. The Zanaki tribe into which he was born was so small and unremarkable that most inhabitants of Tanganyika Territory did not even know of its existence. Yet it was Butiama village and the wider lands of Uzanaki where some of the young Kambarage’s beliefs were instilled; and it was to Butiama – and often further afield – where President Nyerere’s mind constantly returned when he thought of the idyllic ‘traditional’ Africa towards which he encouraged all modern Tanzanians to aspire.

This opening chapter engages with the physical and mental geography of the place that first created Nyerere. It is essential background in understanding his formative years, and sets the stage for the subsequent chapters that cover his life before he formally entered politics. It begins by locating the Nyerere ancestral home geographically, outlines the social relations of the Zanaki, and situates these within the traditional spiritual environment of supranatural beings and ancestor worship. It then considers understandings of ‘traditional’ governance structures in Uzanaki, and the impact of colonialism on local political leadership. The necessary interrogation of some academic sources (principally in the ‘Lives of the Living’ section) is then followed by a more narrative charting of the rise of the favoured chiefs in Butiama: Nyerere Burito (Julius Nyerere’s father), who was succeeded by the formally-educated Edward Wanzagi Nyerere (Julius’s half-brother). The chapter draws on new information provided in a correspondence from Joan Wicken, as well as on perspectives offered in interviews with some of Julius Nyerere’s childhood friends, and with Maria Nyerere.