What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tribe That Lost Its Head #1
The Tribe That Lost Its Head
Five hundred miles off the southwest coast of Africa lies the island of Pharamaul, a British Protectorate, governed from Whitehall through a handful of devoted British civilians. In the south of the island lies Port Victoria, dominated by the Governor's palatial mansion; in the north, a settlement of mud huts shelter a hundred thousand natives; and in dense jungle live the notorious Maula tribe, kept under surveillance by a solitary District Officer and his young wife. When Chief-designate, Dinamaula, returns from his studies in England with a spirited desire to speed the development of his people, political crisis erupts into a ferment of intrigue and violence.
Paperback
First published February 1, 1958
15 people are currently reading
124 people want to read
About the author
Nicholas Monsarrat
92 books89 followersBorn on Rodney Street in Liverpool, Monsarrat was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. He intended to practise law. The law failed to inspire him, however, and he turned instead to writing, moving to London and supporting himself as a freelance writer for newspapers while writing four novels and a play in the space of five years (1934–1939). He later commented in his autobiography that the 1931 Invergordon Naval Mutiny influenced his interest in politics and social and economic issues after college.
Though a pacifist, Monsarrat served in World War II, first as a member of an ambulance brigade and then as a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). His lifelong love of sailing made him a capable naval officer, and he served with distinction in a series of small warships assigned to escort convoys and protect them from enemy attack. Monsarrat ended the war as commander of a frigate, and drew on his wartime experience in his postwar sea stories. During his wartime service, Monsarrat claimed to have seen the ghost ship Flying Dutchman while sailing the Pacific, near the location where the young King George V had seen her in 1881.
Resigning his wartime commission in 1946, Monsarrat entered the diplomatic service. He was posted at first to Johannesburg, South Africa and then, in 1953, to Ottawa, Canada. He turned to writing full-time in 1959, settling first on Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, and later on the Mediterranean island of Gozo (Malta).
Monsarrat's first three novels, published in 1934–1937 and now out of print, were realistic treatments of modern social problems informed by his leftist politics. His fourth novel and first major work, This Is The Schoolroom, took a different approach. The story of a young, idealistic, aspiring writer coming to grips with the "real world" for the first time, it is at least partly autobiographical.
The Cruel Sea (1951), Monsarrat's first postwar novel, is widely regarded as his finest work, and is the only one of his novels that is still widely read. Based on his own wartime service, it followed the young naval officer Keith Lockhart through a series of postings in corvettes and frigates. It was one of the first novels to depict life aboard the vital, but unglamorous, "small ships" of World War II—ships for which the sea was as much a threat as the Germans. Monsarrat's short-story collections H.M.S. Marlborough Will Enter Harbour (1949), and The Ship That Died of Shame (1959) mined the same literary vein, and gained popularity by association with The Cruel Sea.
The similar Three Corvettes (1945 and 1953) comprising H.M. Corvette (set aboard a Flower class corvette in the North Atlantic), East Coast Corvette (as First Lieutenant of HMS Guillemot) and Corvette Command (as Commanding Officer of HMS Shearwater) is actually an anthology of three true-experience stories he published during the war years and shows appropriate care for what the Censor might say. Thus Guillemot appears under the pseudonym Dipper and Shearwater under the pseudonym Winger in the book. H.M. Frigate is similar but deals with his time in command of two frigates. His use of the name Dipper could allude to his formative years when summer holidays were spent with his family at Trearddur Bay. They were members of the famous sailing club based there, and he recounted much of this part of his life in a book My brother Denys. Denys Monserrat was killed in Egypt during the middle part of the war whilst his brother was serving with the Royal Navy. Another tale recounts his bringing his ship into Trearddur Bay during the war for old times' sake.
Monsarrat's more famous novels, notably The Tribe That Lost Its Head (1956) and its sequel Richer Than All His Tribe (1968), drew on his experience in the diplomatic service and make important reference to the colonial experience of Britain in Africa.
Though a pacifist, Monsarrat served in World War II, first as a member of an ambulance brigade and then as a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). His lifelong love of sailing made him a capable naval officer, and he served with distinction in a series of small warships assigned to escort convoys and protect them from enemy attack. Monsarrat ended the war as commander of a frigate, and drew on his wartime experience in his postwar sea stories. During his wartime service, Monsarrat claimed to have seen the ghost ship Flying Dutchman while sailing the Pacific, near the location where the young King George V had seen her in 1881.
Resigning his wartime commission in 1946, Monsarrat entered the diplomatic service. He was posted at first to Johannesburg, South Africa and then, in 1953, to Ottawa, Canada. He turned to writing full-time in 1959, settling first on Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, and later on the Mediterranean island of Gozo (Malta).
Monsarrat's first three novels, published in 1934–1937 and now out of print, were realistic treatments of modern social problems informed by his leftist politics. His fourth novel and first major work, This Is The Schoolroom, took a different approach. The story of a young, idealistic, aspiring writer coming to grips with the "real world" for the first time, it is at least partly autobiographical.
The Cruel Sea (1951), Monsarrat's first postwar novel, is widely regarded as his finest work, and is the only one of his novels that is still widely read. Based on his own wartime service, it followed the young naval officer Keith Lockhart through a series of postings in corvettes and frigates. It was one of the first novels to depict life aboard the vital, but unglamorous, "small ships" of World War II—ships for which the sea was as much a threat as the Germans. Monsarrat's short-story collections H.M.S. Marlborough Will Enter Harbour (1949), and The Ship That Died of Shame (1959) mined the same literary vein, and gained popularity by association with The Cruel Sea.
The similar Three Corvettes (1945 and 1953) comprising H.M. Corvette (set aboard a Flower class corvette in the North Atlantic), East Coast Corvette (as First Lieutenant of HMS Guillemot) and Corvette Command (as Commanding Officer of HMS Shearwater) is actually an anthology of three true-experience stories he published during the war years and shows appropriate care for what the Censor might say. Thus Guillemot appears under the pseudonym Dipper and Shearwater under the pseudonym Winger in the book. H.M. Frigate is similar but deals with his time in command of two frigates. His use of the name Dipper could allude to his formative years when summer holidays were spent with his family at Trearddur Bay. They were members of the famous sailing club based there, and he recounted much of this part of his life in a book My brother Denys. Denys Monserrat was killed in Egypt during the middle part of the war whilst his brother was serving with the Royal Navy. Another tale recounts his bringing his ship into Trearddur Bay during the war for old times' sake.
Monsarrat's more famous novels, notably The Tribe That Lost Its Head (1956) and its sequel Richer Than All His Tribe (1968), drew on his experience in the diplomatic service and make important reference to the colonial experience of Britain in Africa.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 4, 2022
Mid 1950s British colonialism in Africa comes under examination in this work about race, the role of an exploitive and hypocritical press, and political opportunism in a British colony as well as back in London. Nicholas Monsarrat wrote this novel in the shadow of the Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya in the early 1950s. At the same time, Britain also faced an uprising in Malaya as well. Monsarrat and Britain can see that the end is coming. The question is how it will be handled. Monsarrat, despite the bloody and savage scenes he describes essentially is optimistic. Still the world he foresaw, with a gradually enlightening number of colonies slowly but steadily transformed into peaceful democratic entities, proved to be something of a fantasy. In the end, almost no newly founded country was willing to take lessons or orders from Britain, whatever British intentions.
The value of the book historically, however, is that it gives a perfect snapshot of British colonial attitudes at a certain transformative time in world history. This book could not have been written ten years earlier or ten years later, although Monsarrat would write a sequel, Richer Than All His Tribe, twelve years later, in 1968. Beyond that, of course, The Tribe That Lost Its Head is also a superb work of literature. Monsarrat is more known for adventure and nautical fiction, and perhaps this story belongs in the first category. But there is so much more than mere adventure, here. The characterizations are as thorough a photograph of the colonial soul and the opposition to it that is likely to be found. Naturally, interest in this book has tended to wane since the events it describes have faded into history. Still, even without the historical context, it makes for fascinating reading. Monsarrat is a terrific stylist and, although as with many of his works, this one is a bit longish, it is not something noticeable. Reading it is fast and quick.
The value of the book historically, however, is that it gives a perfect snapshot of British colonial attitudes at a certain transformative time in world history. This book could not have been written ten years earlier or ten years later, although Monsarrat would write a sequel, Richer Than All His Tribe, twelve years later, in 1968. Beyond that, of course, The Tribe That Lost Its Head is also a superb work of literature. Monsarrat is more known for adventure and nautical fiction, and perhaps this story belongs in the first category. But there is so much more than mere adventure, here. The characterizations are as thorough a photograph of the colonial soul and the opposition to it that is likely to be found. Naturally, interest in this book has tended to wane since the events it describes have faded into history. Still, even without the historical context, it makes for fascinating reading. Monsarrat is a terrific stylist and, although as with many of his works, this one is a bit longish, it is not something noticeable. Reading it is fast and quick.
April 6, 2010
This long novel was the #8 bestseller in 1956. Set on a fictitious island off the west coast of Africa, it is a story of trouble between the British Empire and the natives on the island, which Great Britain has ruled for 100 years.
Troubles have erupted before because just about anything can set off the natives who become savage and violent. This time the catalysts are the death of the tribe's chief, the return of the chief's son from England where he has been getting an education and the descent on the island of the worst kind of news reporters.
The overall tone is pro-Empire and conservative. The British residents on the island (the Governor, the Resident Commissioner and the head of police) see no other solution than the use of military force to put down the violence and take out the few key natives who are fomenting the situation. Due to the meddling of a sensationalist press, who run around stirring up trouble between the two sides, the outside world is on the side of the natives, wanting to see them have their freedom. The line of the British government is that the tribe is not "ready" for self-government and won't be for a long time.
I was of course annoyed by this conservative view but by the end of the book I realized that once any white "advanced" civilization subjugates a more primitive people, there are several things at stake. Primarily it is an economic problem, because the subjugators are there for their own profit. In their view, the natives are "ready" for self-government when they have been sufficiently "civilized," meaning they can enter into the economy of the rest of the world as players rather than as workers/slaves within the system.
Now I understand the "white man's burden" and I must thank Nicholas Monsarrat for making it clear to me. It was created by the white man as an explanation. We will plunder the natural resources of primitive areas and in return we will "teach" the natives how to play the game, but we do not really envision ever giving them as much power as we have. What a world.
fic-guided
August 29, 2020It is one of the privileges of fiction – its licence so to call it – to advance very unfashionable causes. Monsarrat’s novel is one such. In this regard it’s of a piece with his other (more famous) novel, The Cruel Sea, whose subtext was that, however beastly the Germans were, Britain was a country which may not have been worth making the ultimate sacrifice for.
Monsarrat was, in the early 1950s, a Foreign Office official – moderately highly ranked. The five years he was stationed in Johannesburg, as Africa seethed in turmoil, had been formative. It was the period of what Harold Macmillan later called ‘the wind of change’ (the actual speech was delivered, bravely, to the South African parliament, in 1960). What Macmillan – arguably the last great orator to hold the prime ministerial post – told his largely unsympathetic, and that time wholly windproof, audience was:
The wind of change is blowing through this [African] continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.
Monsarrat had resigned from the Colonial Service in 1956. It was, with the inexorable process of decolonisation (‘the end of empire’, as it was grandly called – others called it a ‘scuttle’), a rational decision. He was earning enough from his fiction not merely to get by, but to be interested in locations such as the Channel Islands and Malta, where he could evade the punitive exactions of Britain’s Inland Revenue.
He could not anyway have stayed on in the service, what with the novel he published that year. The Tribe That Lost Its Head is far and away Monsarrat’s best, and his most contentious. It is set in an imaginary island, Pharamaul, off the west coast of Africa, and allegorises the tensions resulting from old, complacent British colonial rule (more benign than that in the nearby Republic of South Africa) in the aftermath of Kenya’s Mau Mau insurgency – on which Monsarrat had views which would have made Sanders of the River look namby-pamby.
The story’s black hero, Dinamaula, is the Oxford-educated chief-in-waiting of the Maula tribe who returns to take up his position. He is clearly based on the occidentalised, Oxford-educated Sir Seretse Khama, who returned after the independence struggle to take up the leadership of Botswana. Monsarrat had personal dealings with Seretse Khama and despised him. Like Khama, Dinamaula has chosen to marry a white woman, which complicates things. His prospective subjects, the Maula – a childlike people who have lived quite happily under a regime which has not changed since the rule of their ‘Mother across the Sea’ (Victoria) – are inflamed by ideas of self-determination fed to them by mischievous British newspapermen and doltishly doctrinaire Socialist politicians. Rebellion ensues and the tribesmen, whose pagan Christianity demands blood sacrifice, ritually crucify and rape some luckless missionaries and white women. Summary executions follow and a press conference is given by a wholly disillusioned young administrator, David Bracken:
‘You mean that they actually crucified him [Father Schwemmer]?’
‘Yes,’ said David.
‘A deed of madness!’ exclaimed Father Hawthorne. ‘Those poor, misguided children.’
David looked at him. ‘Yes, indeed. Misguided, greedy children.’
‘What do you mean by “greedy”, Mr Bracken?’
‘I should have told you that they ate him as well.’
That had been the end of the Press conference.
It echoes the blackly comic ending of Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief (1932), when Basil asks the chief what was in the delicious stew they had last night and is told, ‘Your girl friend.’ But Monsarrat’s view was not – like Waugh’s – that of the satirical tourist. The novel expresses radical uncertainty about whether Empire was worthwhile, and whether letting go of it so precipitately was morally right or wrong. Monsarrat was no Blimp. Nor did he believe, like the novel’s senior colonial official Macmillan (mischievously named after the PM), that in a couple of centuries or so the Africans might conceivably be about ready for emancipation. It was, he believed, all a mess – but the Englishman’s mess. This novel was, in the context of 1956 (and with the Belgian Congo independence riots imminent), explosive. It offended, and was intended to. Novels are free to do that.
Monsarrat was, in the early 1950s, a Foreign Office official – moderately highly ranked. The five years he was stationed in Johannesburg, as Africa seethed in turmoil, had been formative. It was the period of what Harold Macmillan later called ‘the wind of change’ (the actual speech was delivered, bravely, to the South African parliament, in 1960). What Macmillan – arguably the last great orator to hold the prime ministerial post – told his largely unsympathetic, and that time wholly windproof, audience was:
The wind of change is blowing through this [African] continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.
Monsarrat had resigned from the Colonial Service in 1956. It was, with the inexorable process of decolonisation (‘the end of empire’, as it was grandly called – others called it a ‘scuttle’), a rational decision. He was earning enough from his fiction not merely to get by, but to be interested in locations such as the Channel Islands and Malta, where he could evade the punitive exactions of Britain’s Inland Revenue.
He could not anyway have stayed on in the service, what with the novel he published that year. The Tribe That Lost Its Head is far and away Monsarrat’s best, and his most contentious. It is set in an imaginary island, Pharamaul, off the west coast of Africa, and allegorises the tensions resulting from old, complacent British colonial rule (more benign than that in the nearby Republic of South Africa) in the aftermath of Kenya’s Mau Mau insurgency – on which Monsarrat had views which would have made Sanders of the River look namby-pamby.
The story’s black hero, Dinamaula, is the Oxford-educated chief-in-waiting of the Maula tribe who returns to take up his position. He is clearly based on the occidentalised, Oxford-educated Sir Seretse Khama, who returned after the independence struggle to take up the leadership of Botswana. Monsarrat had personal dealings with Seretse Khama and despised him. Like Khama, Dinamaula has chosen to marry a white woman, which complicates things. His prospective subjects, the Maula – a childlike people who have lived quite happily under a regime which has not changed since the rule of their ‘Mother across the Sea’ (Victoria) – are inflamed by ideas of self-determination fed to them by mischievous British newspapermen and doltishly doctrinaire Socialist politicians. Rebellion ensues and the tribesmen, whose pagan Christianity demands blood sacrifice, ritually crucify and rape some luckless missionaries and white women. Summary executions follow and a press conference is given by a wholly disillusioned young administrator, David Bracken:
‘You mean that they actually crucified him [Father Schwemmer]?’
‘Yes,’ said David.
‘A deed of madness!’ exclaimed Father Hawthorne. ‘Those poor, misguided children.’
David looked at him. ‘Yes, indeed. Misguided, greedy children.’
‘What do you mean by “greedy”, Mr Bracken?’
‘I should have told you that they ate him as well.’
That had been the end of the Press conference.
It echoes the blackly comic ending of Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief (1932), when Basil asks the chief what was in the delicious stew they had last night and is told, ‘Your girl friend.’ But Monsarrat’s view was not – like Waugh’s – that of the satirical tourist. The novel expresses radical uncertainty about whether Empire was worthwhile, and whether letting go of it so precipitately was morally right or wrong. Monsarrat was no Blimp. Nor did he believe, like the novel’s senior colonial official Macmillan (mischievously named after the PM), that in a couple of centuries or so the Africans might conceivably be about ready for emancipation. It was, he believed, all a mess – but the Englishman’s mess. This novel was, in the context of 1956 (and with the Belgian Congo independence riots imminent), explosive. It offended, and was intended to. Novels are free to do that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 4, 2009
"The Tribe That Lost Its Head" and MacKinlay Kantor's "Andersonville" are the most difficult and distressing books I have ever read. So intense and so graphic.
This book was the first in a series of two. In 1968 he wrote "Richer Than All His Tribe".
From Fantasticfiction.com about "The Tribe That Lost Its Head":
Five hundred miles off the southwest coast of Africa lies the island of Pharamaul, a British Protectorate, governed from Whitehall through a handful of devoted British civilians. In the south of the island lies Port Victoria, dominated by the Governor's palatial mansion; in the north, a settlement of mud huts shelter a hundred thousand natives; and in dense jungle live the notorious Maula tribe, kept under surveillance by a solitary District Officer and his young wife. When Chief-designate, Dinamaula, returns from his studies in England with a spirited desire to speed the development of his people, political crisis erupts into a ferment of intrigue and violence.
This book was the first in a series of two. In 1968 he wrote "Richer Than All His Tribe".
From Fantasticfiction.com about "The Tribe That Lost Its Head":
Five hundred miles off the southwest coast of Africa lies the island of Pharamaul, a British Protectorate, governed from Whitehall through a handful of devoted British civilians. In the south of the island lies Port Victoria, dominated by the Governor's palatial mansion; in the north, a settlement of mud huts shelter a hundred thousand natives; and in dense jungle live the notorious Maula tribe, kept under surveillance by a solitary District Officer and his young wife. When Chief-designate, Dinamaula, returns from his studies in England with a spirited desire to speed the development of his people, political crisis erupts into a ferment of intrigue and violence.
November 1, 2013
Very odd book. Some embarrassingly bad patches. Characters a bit wooden. Interested to see newspaper scribblers of 50-60 years ago were almost as disgustingly biased and mischievous as they are today. Not for PC-whipped readers. Sorta sad in a way that the type of English patriot that Monsarrat was is today as dead as the Dodo - nothing to be proud of now, of course: Just a nation of hustlers & slobs. Also, I guess the dedicated civil servants of that era have TOTALLY disappeared. Book is too long. Won't be looking for any other of the author's works. He writes better than I do, mind.
November 6, 2013
One of those books that you read with a horrible fascination because it makes you cringe to be British. British Colonial life may have had some things going for it in a rather paternalistic way, but it could regard "The Natives" as if they were very immature children. And the Press!!
November 25, 2024
This was very slow moving in the beginning but I did find some interesting things in it. It was written in 1956 about a fictional African country and tribe who basically was manipulated and poisoned by the media and everything goes downhill from there. I saw some parallels from then and today.
Another neat thing mentioned was when a Christian missionary was telling a story of how they drew a fish in the sand for meetings because the Greek word for fish was ichthus, and the Greek letters of that word stand for ‘Jesus Christ the Son of God the Saviour’. I knew the fish sign was a Christian symbol just didn’t know why.
Another neat thing mentioned was when a Christian missionary was telling a story of how they drew a fish in the sand for meetings because the Greek word for fish was ichthus, and the Greek letters of that word stand for ‘Jesus Christ the Son of God the Saviour’. I knew the fish sign was a Christian symbol just didn’t know why.
Read
June 12, 2020all countries are like that
December 10, 2012
This book made a deep impression on me as a young woman in the 1960's. But I could only bring myself to read it once.
It made me admire Monsarrat as a brilliant author unafraid to dig deep, even though I was utterly revulsed. I cannot say I enjoyed it, which is why I have only rated it a 3, but it is a "must" for any student of the dark side of human nature.
It made me admire Monsarrat as a brilliant author unafraid to dig deep, even though I was utterly revulsed. I cannot say I enjoyed it, which is why I have only rated it a 3, but it is a "must" for any student of the dark side of human nature.
March 24, 2015
Professional writing but not my scene.
Read
September 13, 2023The fight of the people on an island off Africa under British Colonial rule, for independence. The interference of the irresponsible media reporters exacerbate the problem, leading to deaths.
September 1, 2013
A superb book, excellently written.. terrifying but true!
Read
December 24, 2018Pulls no punches. But a realistic criticism of both the old and the new and the good guys of both regimes. Sobering!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews