Wiriyamu and the Colonial Archive: Reading It Against the Grain? Along the Grain? Read It at All!

Abstract

“The archives are silent.” The starting point of this article is the alleged non-existence of archival sources on the Portuguese massacre of Wiriyamu (1972). The article proves this claim to be false and shows how the available sources can be used to improve our knowledge of the massacre. The article suggests that scholars’ ignorance of these sources is connected to general misconceptions about colonial archives and their alleged silence on wartime atrocities, which are based on the belief that such atrocities do only appear in the sources, if they are read against the grain. Revealing the explicit presence of war atrocities in the sources, the article argues that the legitimate concern about reading such sources against the grain should not prevent us from reading them at all.