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I was stunned to learn about Peter Rigby's sudden death at a tender age of 59 years. With his passing, I lost a friend, brother, and one of East Africa's greatest sons. I first met Peter in 1987 when I accompanied Philip Kilbride (Bryn Mawr College) on a visit to Temple University, where he taught anthropology. I had just read his second and much acclaimed _Persistent Pastoralists_ (Zed Books 1985) and expected to meet a pompous 'bearded' and incoherent Marxist scholar who spoke in tongues about the Ilparakuyo Maasai, I found Peter to be a down-to-earth, passionate, and astute scholar. Peter took me under his wing and for the next six years, followed my graduate career with the keenest interest. His house in Germantown, Philadelphia became mine away from home. His wife Zebiya became my mother in the African sense of the word. Both my wife and I were frequent visitors at the Rigbys residence. As a student, I took two seminars with Peter: one at Temple University and the other at Bryn Mawr College. These seminars easily rank among the best I ever took as a graduate student. I choke when I recall the animated, yet collegial discussions we had in his class particlarly the seminar as Temple University which had many Third World scholars. We had a lot of fun! Peter did not merely teach abstract ideas and concepts, he lived them. His modest house in Germantown was constantly raided by thugs as well as men in uniform. He was an avowed Marxist. He refused to move to 'safer neghborhoods' even when it was clear that his own family: Zebiye and Kimuli(daughter) may have been at risk. At the urging of Peter, I attended my first academic conference the African Studies Association Meeting in Chicago in 1988. The highlight of this conference was when V.Y. Mudimbe devoted his entire paper on the review of Peter's _Persistent Pastoralist_. Peter responded by presenting a long version of an essay which eventually led to his second last book--_Cattle, Capitalism, and Class: Ilparakuyo Maasai Transformations_ (Temple University Press, 1992). His final book (and I believe there was another one that he had began working on) was published last year while he was at Moi University (I havent read it yet). [*see editor's note below] I am an archaeologist and will not pretend to have understood Peter's intellectual project entirely. I knew him as a friend, a brother, and in the African sense of the word, a father (he and my father are agemates save for a slight edge enjoyed by my biological father). In many discussions and conversations quite outside the realm of science, we talked about home, the crisis facing the African continent, the colonial project, the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, the failed independence movement amongst many other things. We talked about our childhood and found out that, although quite distinct from each other, our lives and experiences were quite similar. Peter was born in India and raised in Southern Africa. He received his BA with first class honors (Summa cum laude) from the University of Cape Town. He later enrolled at the University of Cambridge where he studied social anthropology under the late Sir Edmund Leach. His first book _Cattle and Kinship among the Gogo of Central Tanzania_ (Cornell University Press, 1969) was written when he was teaching at the East African Institute of Social research, Makerere University. He moved to the University of Dar es Salaam in 1974 when it became clear that the government of Idi Amin had no intentions of respecting human rights and the sanctity of intellectual freedom. There was also a real danger that he may have been assassinated. Several of his close colleagues were swiftly disappearing. I met Peter after he moved to Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. At the time of his death, he was teaching at Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya. As a son of Africa, Peter was a fearless advocate of total liberation of Africa and the decolonization of the Africa's colonized mindset. He was an ardent believer in fair play. His credentials speak for themselves. He actively participated in the liberation of Zambia alongside Kenneth Kaunda and other Zambian nationalists. As a son of British colonial subjects in the service of the empire, his project met with dissaproval and harsh rebuke from whites who made it clear that he was a traitor. He eventually took up a teaching position at Makerere University, where he met and later married Zebiye. With others, they built the East African Institute of Social Research into a world class research and teaching center. Many a young East African trained in this institute now form the bulk of the civil service in the three East African nations and beyond. Peter's devotion and committment to Africa and to his motherland Uganda was total. His fervent conviction that Africa would eventually liberate itself even whilst most prevailing evidence pointed to the contrary often puzzled me. In many ways his frustration can be detected in some of his writings beginning with his project on the Ilparakuyo Maasai. His powerful critique of development strategies in areas inhabited by the Maasai in _Persistent Pastoralists_ and _Cattle, Capitalism, and Class_ are cases in point. Some may disagree with his ideas and solutions. Few, however, will question, his commitment. He spoke as a Maasai whose people were constantly being disenfrachized. A son's duty and responsibilities are to defend and protect his parents and people. He did this to the best of his ability. In this sense, the Maa speaking peoples of Kenya and Tanzania have lost one of the most important spokespersons and defenders of their rights. As an emigre living in the USA, Peter always yearned to return home to Uganda. He often talked about a piece of land he had bought in Kampala which he hoped one day to build as his final resting place. He and Zebiye eventually began to build a house on this property in the early 1990s. When I last spoke to Peter and Zebiye in 1994, they had sold their house in Germantown, had completed building their home in Kampala, and were planning to return home to Uganda. I moved to Chicago the same year and was planning to visit for a reunion in the Summer of 1997. My brother, my teacher, my friend, my colleague, my role-model Peter always taught us to be sincere, truthful, and committed. He believed in the ability of all humans to conquer poverty and live in harmony with each other, a lesson he always insisted that he had been taught by his adopted father, his uncles, and brothers of Arusha. He tried to live his life transparently. Perhaps he was naive and certainly many took advantage of him. For example, when we were in Chicago, someone came into our room, searched it, and perhaps out of frustration, stole our tickets. Peter later mentioned to me that the incident was not the first and that many a time his house in Germany had been bugged. Such were the times and the fear of Marxists. I choke at the thought that my brother has left us forever and that I missed the opportunity to see him finally back home. As anthropologists, we have lost one of our finest minds. As Africanists, we have lost a fearless advocate of the true recognition of the humanity of African people as dymanic and complex even in their currently economically deprived conditions. This loss hurts. However, I know that Peter is happy and restful having taken his rightful place among our ancestors. He now watches over us with much interest and amusement. There is no way he can be a vindictive ancestor. He was not the kind. I expect he is definitely happy to be finally at rest in a country he loved so dearly, on a continent whose rights he advocated. Such was the man, I knew. [editor's footnote: Peter Rigby's _African images : racism and the end of anthropology_ was published by Oxford : Berg, 1996 - P.L.]
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