By Zeddy Chikukwa (with Terry Leahy), 2014.

 

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While I was staying at Chikukwa in 2014, Zeddy Chikukwa (a member of the chiefly clan of the Chikukwa villages) expressed his concern about the fact that “strong Christians” were tending to avoid various community ceremonies in which aspects of traditional religious ceremonial life were maintained. In particular, younger women were much less likely to be present as they were often strong Christians. I had attended some of these during my visit and was very much aware that during these ceremonies ordinary villagers would air their grievances and make suggestions about the running of the community. I spent some time interviewing “strong Christians” about their views of traditional religion and these ceremonies, a task which I had begun to undertake in my stay in the Eastern Cape in that same year. Zeddy and I decided to write this leaflet together. Our aim was to write this in English and translate it into Shona for a wider distribution. In any case, we hoped that it would clear our own thinking on these issues.

 

Often when there is a traditional ceremony called by traditional leaders, strong Christians will not take part. For example, to brew beer for a ceremony or to come along to join in. There are a number of things about traditional religion and its ceremonies that concern Christians.

They often think these ceremonies are devil worship. They think the people taking part in the ceremony are worshipping spirits, which are evil beings, or are maybe even worshipping the devil. For example, they can say that traditional leaders communicate with the spirits of ancestors, animals or plants. They sometimes think these are evil spirits. Or they may say that dead people cannot actually communicate with the living, so the voices speaking to traditional leaders are really coming from the devil.

As traditional religionists, we welcome the participation of people who are Christians in these ceremonies. We believe that the spirits of ancestors, plants and animals are quite real. Our leaders communicate with and respect these spirits; they do not worship them. Clearly ancestors, being humans, would have been both good and bad but they cannot all have been evil. Animals and plants are never evil in themselves; they just are part of nature. We respect and honour our ancestors as the people who created our culture today and gave birth to our parents. We respect the natural world as what we all depend on to live well, and as having a right to flourish today and in the future.

Clearly Christians cannot agree with all of the above. Yet is there a way in which they can accept these ceremonies? If Christians believe these ancestor spirits are not real because ancestors are really dead, why assume that everything that comes to traditional leaders in these ceremonies is from the devil? It is impossible to believe that all the ideas that traditional leaders draw from their ceremonies are evil ideas, which will only do harm in the community. Christians should consider this advice on its merits – is it good or bad advice? It does not make any sense to think that all this advice must come from the devil. It could come from traditional leaders themselves or from God or could come from the community and be reflected by what the leaders say in ceremonies.

Consider this example. In 2008, there was a lot of political violence in much of Zimbabwe. Here in Chief Chikukwa’s communal land we did not experience any. Our traditional leaders met and communicated with the ancestral spirits, asking for help and peace. From that gathering the decision was made to impose a fine of two goats if anyone got involved in political violence. This was a way of telling people not to be involved in this violence. It is hard to believe that this whole process was inspired by the devil.

Another thing to consider is this. Christians believe that when people die they are at rest. So they cannot possibly communicate with us now. At the time of the last judgement these souls may be raised to heaven. But does heaven really have any particular time? Surely heaven is timeless? Is it impossible for souls in heaven to time travel and communicate with us now?

What about the communications with the spirits of animals and plants? It is hard to see why this should be offensive to Christians. God created the natural world and the animals and plants and gives to us the responsibility of looking after them. Ceremonies in which traditional leaders honour and respect the spirits of animals and plants are one way of expressing our concern for God’s creation. We also know that traditional beliefs that certain places are sacred (such as indigenous forests) have helped our people to look after these places. This is something that Christians surely can support. Similarly the idea that certain human families have a connection with particular animals as totems also expresses respect for some aspect of the natural world that Christians believe has been created by God.

When Christians talk about this topic they often refer to aspects of traditional belief that are associated with bad deeds of various kinds. Let us mention a few things that people talk about. For example, the traditional practice was to expose twin babies to die. Traditionally, men were allowed to have more than one wife and often neglected their children. Traditional healers would talk to spirits and accuse a family member of witchcraft, having the effect of causing harm and division in the family. Traditionally, if a man killed someone, the ghost of the victim would be angry. The ghost could be appeased if he was married to a girl in the killer’s family. The girl’s happiness would be sacrificed because of some crime committed by her relative.

It is really important for Christians to understand that the people who are promoting traditional ceremonies for our clan today are not in favour of any of these old practices. Like Christians, we regard these aspects of our old culture as things that we need to oppose and give up. The aspects of traditional culture that we want to promote have no connection to these harmful practices.

Sometimes Christians say that the role of women in traditional ceremonies is a problem. They say that women are only “helpers” in these ceremonies and never have any authority. Actually, women do have some important roles in these ceremonies and fully take part with the rest of the community in the ceremonies. There are also some ceremonies that are only attended by women – for example taking army worms from the field crops to the pools. We think it is important for young women to be involved in ceremonies so the cultural knowledge that is held by older women can be transmitted down the generations. It is true that men hold the leadership in traditional ceremonial life. As well, it is only men who attend some ceremonies. In its more male-dominated aspects, the traditional ceremonial life reflects our patriarchal culture, which is only changing slowly. But of course the same is true of the Christian churches, which expect men to be the head of the household. In Christian churches too, it is much more common for men to be the pastors.

We are aware that the churches consider alcohol to be a problem. This can lead Christians to avoid ceremonies where drinking beer is a part of the proceedings. We want to reassure Christians that at all our ceremonies we also prepare maheu, which is not alcoholic and can be drunk by those who wish to avoid alcohol. There are also ceremonies where no beer at all is involved. The solemnity of our ceremonies and the presence of elders ensures that all people present, whether drinking or not, behave in a moderate and respectful manner.

At the end of the day, the aim of our traditional ceremonial life is to create the one community in which people have love and respect for one another. Given this aim we, as promoters of the traditional ceremonies, are very keen to involve all parts of our community, including Christians and younger women. This is our reason for wanting you to attend and help us.

What would motivate Christians to participate in these traditional ceremonies? The fact is that the traditional ceremonial life of this community and the traditional leadership are closely interwoven. What this means is that our traditional ceremonies are also a place where people from the community get up and speak on a variety of matters, not just on ceremonial matters. By doing this, members of the community have an influence on the decisions being made by the traditional leadership. We think it is important for you to be there to take part in this process, so that you can have an influence on the life of this community proportional to your numbers here. This will ensure that we hang together as a community, make decisions as a community, and look after each other.