CHAPTER 6: DISSEMINATION OF KNOWLEDGE ON INDIGENOUS RAIN MAKING
6.7 Discussion
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Abioye et al. (2011) notes that oral means of disseminating knowledge puts it at risk of extinction.
Kothari (1995) postulates that oral paths are being blocked and that people are no longer stay in homogenous community blocks. Warren (1993) posits that disruption of information within one generation puts knowledge at risk of being lost forever. It was noted that there are now few elders in the community who have full knowledge yet one respondent said “The young do not care. They do not listen to us, they say we are old fashioned (zvave zvenguva yenyu) they spend time at school and are pre-occupied with their education”.
In order to improve the effectiveness of the oral path of knowledge dissemination, there was need to look back and re-consider the dare/inkundhla/imbizo concept. Marango (2011) notes that Afrocentricity is anchored on the principle of dare (singular tense) matare (plural tense). Dare provides a platform for checks and balances thereby allowing total participation by all members in arriving at consensus on a common issue. The dare concept exists in the family, community, business, and government, civic, social and global organizations in African settings. From history books the flaws with oral tradition are distortions and forgetting. The library of this type of knowledge are people.
Secondly there was need to consider the school curricular and modern information communication technology (ICT) to improve knowledge dissemination. Marango et al. (2016:119) argue that today the importance of investing in modern communication systems cannot be overemphasized in disseminating ideas and building social capital. It is important to incorporate ICTs in disseminating knowledge because today people’s attitudes are shaped by them. Naanyu (2013) ICTs have the potential to foster inclusiveness and participation in the design and implementation of adaptation processes through accessing relevant information & social networking.
There was a total absence of knowledge dissemination technology in Chimanimani District. This is despite the existence of elderly people who still have the right knowledge. In their study on indigenous knowledge and its role on sustainable agriculture in Samoa. Tikai & Kama (2010) argues that it is important to get people with knowledge about the past people who know in order to tap the right source for data to truly reflect indigenous knowledge in the community when documenting.
Abioye et al. (2011) argue that documentation can be done in the form of descriptive texts such as reports, inventories, maps, matrices and decision trees; audio-visuals such as photos, films, videos or audio cassettes as well as dramas, stories, songs, drawings, seasonal pattern charts
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and daily calendars. This can then be stored in local libraries and museums. These were absent in Chimanimani.
Lwoga et al. (2010) observe that research libraries have not been particularly active in documenting indigenous knowledge. Nakata & Langton (2005) assert that libraries have to incorporate indigenous knowledge not simply part of history, but as contemporary body of active and useful knowledge.The informants revealed that influence of the church system, Chirungu (westernization) and the education system, lack of technology and lack of government support militated against effective dissemination of indigenous knowledge. Marango (2011) posits that western development models tend to disregard the social fabric of African societies. Western thinking tends to leave out the local people and their cultures when making decisions on development issues. This is particularly so in rural areas where most poor and disadvantaged people reside.
Haumba (2014) argues that lack of information on indigenous knowledge systems has resulted in its low acceptance. This has disoriented the local people to the extend they became ashamed of their own traditional practices. This has resulted for example in some people to despise traditional medicine during the day yet they secretly visit traditional healers at night (Haumba, 2014).
Semenya (2013) notes that when a drought is severe, even the religious people also approach a chief for a mass prayer for rain in a village. The visits are done in private for fear of being associated with pagan practices. According to sankofaism there is nothing shameful about grazing back to the past that has sustained the community over time (Quan-Baffour, 2012).
In this study the elderly respondents blamed the young for neglecting their traditional practices whilst praising the former colonizers (white farmers) for respecting and supporting the rain making rituals. Interviews with the some Zimbabwean white farmers affirmed that the whites in the country never supported indigenous practices. If ever they pretended to support it was for ultra-motives.
The whites took the serious and revered practices by Africans as entertainment and as security of their entrepreneurship. They did it with egocentric motives. It was for their capitalistic gain. The result like this demonstrate the need for phenomenological enquiry rather than making judgments by actions only. For the white farmers indigenous rainmaking was primitive and a form of intertainment. Plockey (2015:32) asserts that past colonial rulers, missionaries, and Eurocentric intellectuals have created the impression that African indigenous knowledge is inferior, primitive, heathen, barbaric and simply not worthy of preserving.
Based on this the young and the old Africans should critically look back to their traditional practices and revive it. No other people can genuinely support other people’s tradition if the owners of the
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tradition themselves do not revere it. Quan-Baffour (2011) argue that in order to achieve stability, peace, progress, educational, socio-economic and political development, Africans must have to revisit their indigenous thoughts, knowledge systems and practices and integrate them into their adopted western ways of life.