Elliot Kenan Kamwana

Who was Elliot Kenan Kamwana?

Elliott Kenan Kamwana Achirwa was a preacher in Nyasaland who popularised the Watch Tower movement into Southern Central Africa, and subsequently created his own independent Church, the "Mlondo" or Watchman Mission.

Elliot Kenan Kamwana was a Tonga born in Mpopomeni village, Mzimba District in 1872. His father had been a tribal chief who was murdered, and Kamwana suffered a dislocated childhood as he continually fled with his mother from Ngoni raids. He attended the Mission school at Bandawe between 1898 and 1901 distinguishing himself until frustrated in his repeated attempts to attain baptism and ordination, he left. Moving to South Africa, he was baptised there and worked as a hospital attendant and preached, experiencing the harsh conditions of migrant labour, before he met an itinerant preacher, Joseph Booth, missionary, in Cape Town in 1907, who introduced him to Charles Russell’s Watch Tower teachings.

He subsequently returned to Nyasaland offering baptism and entrance to the church, bypassing the restricted entry procedures imposed by the Scottish and English missionaries such as William Percival Johnson. Approximately 10,000 people were baptized under his direction.