1.6 Historical background, geographical location and delimitation of the research area
1.6.4 A history of Tsonga people contact with world religions and ideologies Islam was the first non-indigenous religion to reach the Tsonga in southern
1.6.4 A history of Tsonga people contact with world religions and ideologies
in Mozambique (Butselaar 1987:16-17). Unfortunately, ABCFM had a very poor view of Africans. In their 1880 annual report they said: 'The African family is simply a cattle kraal on a slightly elevated scale' (Krass 1980:244). In this regard, both Catholics and Protestants were engaged in a civilizing mission better known as missdo civilizadora (Henrriksen 1978:100,143-44), combating superstition or ntumbuluko. In fact, it was under the pretext of civilizing mission that the Portuguese allowed Protestants to come to Catholic Mozambique and to open missions, comprising school, clinic and chapel complexes, a model that was used by the Catholics and Protestants alike. This went as far as prohibitions26 to converts and the outlawing of some legal, ritual and medical aspects of ntumbuluko by the Portuguese Catholic government. There was no forced abandonment of ntumbuluko in the way one would see later in the Mozambican revolution. These Christian encounters with ntumbuluko were soon followed by two remarkable primal religious movements which had a powerful impact on ntumbuluko.
The first of these movements was the Murimi movement (Junod 1962) which added to ntumbuluko new agricultural and anti-witch rituals, giving it an added value in life's activities. It made tobacco a sacred herb and the taking of snuff a religious act, as tobacco became an element of worship and ku tchela fole (to pour tobacco) synonymous with prayer, worship and libation. But the movement that had a lasting impact on ntumbuluko was Mutchapi. Prior to Mutchapi, there was no spirit- conversation27 through the mediation of a medium. Diviners sniffed and sneezed28
vure spirits without talking. It was in the teaching or doctrine of Mutchapi that the concept of life after death adopted the new notion of kupfuka (resurrection, rising up against, rising for vengeance). This notion indicated that, with mutchapi medicine, no
26 See Silva & Laforte (1998) on Christian prohibition of the traditional rituals among the Tsongas in their study of the rites of passage in southern Mozambique.
27 However, the phenomenon of alien spirits Ndiki, speaking Ndau, and Ndlozi speaking Nguni or Zulu afflicting people, most of the times, as a calling to these people to be diviners was already present when Junod did his study of the Tsonga people (1913:439-45).
28 My father, who lived some time before Mutchapi, says that before Mutchapi in our ntumbuluko people did not have a direct communication with the dead through mediums. He indicates that the known spirits were called vure and that the diviners sniffed and sneezed them out of their victims.
Sniffing and sneezing is described by Kiernan (1995:15-27,72-83) as the Khoi and San methods of dealing with spirits by the diviners before the settlers came to southern Africa. The notion of kupjuka (resurrection, or rising up against or in vengeance) which gave rise to the notion of talking with the risen spirits through the mediums, is based on Mutchapi notions and teaching.
one dies. After death the person continues to live and to control his family affairs (wife, children and goods), and that person can rise up as a vengeful spirit to strike the person's and the family's enemies, including witches. The spirits of the dead could now be contacted and talked to through a medium. Although Mutchapi is a witch- hunting and witchcraft eradication movement (Richards 1935; Willis 1968; Palian
1971; Ranger 1972; Stuart 1972;Mtenje 1976/77; Chakanza 1985; & Helgesson 1994), its notion of the power of kupfuka (Langa 1992:29-30,32) and its transmission through an initial mutchapi ritual and thereafter through blood transmission, the change of the function of diviners and new methods for mediums with the possibility and ability to connect the dead with the living, led to many new ntumbuluko rituals (such as bringing the dead home), with a lasting impact on ntumbuluko and Tsonga society. This strengthened ntumbuluko. Now the elders, both living and dead, could work together to preserve and enforce ntumbuluko in all spheres of Tsonga life. This helped ntumbuluko to counteract Catholic, Protestant and colonial attacks, Christians were even threatened with death if they did not take part in mutchapi rituals (Helgesson 1994:243). But, towards the end of the 20th century, ntumbuluko was to suffer the most aggressive attack from the Marxist revolution.
When Mozambique became independent in 1975 it embraced Marxist philosophy, also known as Communism; adhering to Scientific Socialism. Scientific Socialism views religion as superstition and as a dangerous opiate to the people. It is also seen as a stumbling-block to the revolution and even a counter-revolutionary ideology which serves the dominant class interests of Capitalism and Imperialism. On account of these views, religion came under stress, with a considerable degree of persecution.
While that was the general picture of the relationship between the Mozambican revolution and Christianity and Islam, Marxism was at war with ntumbuluko. The government organized national campaigns of witch-finding and eradication in the
same style as prophesied by the Mutchapi movement and in the Tanzanian fashion (Larson 191976:90-96). In the area in Tanzania where the liberation movement of Mozambique stayed there was a subsequent Mutchapi movement during their stay and, to a point that movement had links with Julius Nyerere and his movement (Larson 1976:88,95-96). Using the same style, they collected and burned all charms and artefacts of diviners and mediums. Diviners and witches were commanded to confess and to explain the function of each object and their magic or witch activities in public. Divination, incantation and consultation with spirits were prohibited. No one could be a diviner or medium. Libation and sacrifices were prohibited. Kingship and all traditional government systems were criminalized and abolished, and tipangu30
were destroyed and stopped. The kings and chiefs were replaced with political local leadership and militia replaced the traditional police. So there were no rain-making rituals or any form of public ceremony or libation. The diviners who replaced their confiscated bones and other objects were arrested. Anyone with the royal surname could not be elected to the new governing system. When he heard the new political order being read at a political rally, the supreme king of the Mabungele kingdom could not accept that he was no longer king. He said that it was impossible and was punished in public for that statement. On his way home, he had a stroke and died. It was too much for him.
A few years after independence, the country faced the most severe of natural calamities. There were successive droughts resulting in severe and prolonged famine for more than a decade, which intensified in the 1980s. As if natural calamities with
29 According to Richards (1935:449), Mucape (Mutchapi): 'was nothing less than the complete removal of witchcraft from the territory. A man who had drunk the Mucape medicine, and returned to his evil practices, was liable to instant death - a grisly death in which he was to swell to enormous proportions, his limbs crinkled with dropsy, and his body too heavy to be carried to the grave. Nor could a cunning sorcerer escape by refusing to pass in front of the magic mirror. He would merely be caught at a kind of second coming of the founder of the movement, who was to return beating a mysterious drum outside each village at night. At its sound all witches and wizards as yet undetected would be compelled to follow to the graveyard were their crimes would be finally unmasked. Some told of the coming of a mythical woman with one breast in front and one behind, the good she would snekle (sic) in front, while the wicked would find themselves following willy-nilly behind'.
30 Tipangu is plural of Lipangu. It is a place of public religious activity in Tsonga culture. One Lipangu exists in each community where there is a king or chief, and is the place where sacrifices and prayers, libations, presentation of seed, first fruits gifts and harvest presentation are done for the community.
many plagues were not enough (one of my cousins lost six children in two days), civil war whipped the country brutally. For all these, the people blamed the government's assault on ntumbuluko. Interestingly enough, even Christians said that. As part of their preparation for peace talks, in 1990 the government changed the Constitution and abandoned Marxism, giving freedom of religion. With this change, the government restored traditional leadership. Through its Ministry of Culture it urged traditional leaders to restore tipangu and to offer sacrifices and prayers for their community and the nation for rain, productivity and prosperity. Nowadays, project inauguration ceremonies are combined with libation and it is common to see the President pouring libation in a community. Mediums and diviners now work under a government umbrella in the Associacao dos Medicos Tradicionais de Mozambique, which is now represented in all communities. Tipangu and diviners are now sponsored and protected by the government. This change was followed by good rains from 1992 to 2001 which climaxed in the floods of 2000. People feel vindicated in what they were saying about the causes of the droughts of the 1980s. The President is reported to have said that it rained in 2000 because people went to their tipangu and offered libation and sacrifices for rain-making, called ku phahla pfula. However, in the year 2002 there was a severe drought in the whole of the Tsonga area in Mozambique, and it will be interesting to hear what people's understanding and interpretation of that will be.
It is against this background that I decided to divide my informants into five categories. The traditional category includes those with MwfcAap/-influenced notions of ntumbuluko; the modernist category includes members of academia or intellectuals, whose education has exposed them to enlightenment and Marxist philosophy; the artist category deals with those expressing their notions of ntumbuluko poetically and lyrically (songs) which represents both traditionalist and modernist influences; the Christian practitioners' category includes those with a distinct Christian influence on their notions of ntumbuluko; and finally the Bible translators' category is comprised of those directly and indirectly involved in the translation of the 1989 Tsonga Bible and those working in translation of other southern languages in the United Bible Society of Mozambique.
PART TWO:
DESCRIPTION
We try hard to find ways to express our thoughts in our own languages. And it is Jesus himself who puts us into this problem by becoming human, taking on our nature and communicating with us. We used ntumbuluko [as nature] to demonstrate that it is in human nature that Jesus wants to communicate.
(Nhagumbe 2003, interview)
CHAPTER TWO
2 NTUMBULUKO: Towards a Definition 2.1 Introduction
This chapter presents a detailed description and analysis of the data collected on the concept ntumbuluko from different categories or segments of the Tsonga society.
Tsonga society is grouped into five categories in this study, as indicated below.
Researching ntumbuluko by means of these categories of Tsonga society afford the study a variety of Tsonga perceptions and descriptions of the concept, which would be impossible if one was to work with only one category or segment of Tsonga society.
Thus, the understanding of ntumbuluko that emerges is more comprehensive in the sense that it takes into account diverse and complex situations and contexts of Tsonga society.
As we aim to find a comprehensive picture of what ntumbuluko is we need to uncover different perceptions and understandings of the concept, with varying degrees of insights. With this in mind, the research targeted:
1) the traditionalist to find the traditional perception of ntumbuluko;
2) the academics or modernists to find the educated perception which blends modern sciences, ideologies like Marxist philosophy and democracy;
3) artists who sing about the theme of ntumbuluko to express their feelings, thus revealing their understanding of it;
4) the Christian practitioners, principally those with an evangelical bias in their perception of ntumbuluko; and
5) Bible translators with linguistic, theological and conceptual awareness;
Interviews with societal categories one to four were tape-recorded and transcribed.
Each category makes a distinctive contribution to the understanding of ntumbuluko.
After the description, using the interviews and songs, the chapter analytically presents and assesses the importance or place of ntumbuluko in everyday life, based on the information from the data. The chapter finally gives an appraisal of the impact of ntumbuluko on Tsonga consciousness in general and in particular on Tsonga
apprehension of the Christian faith, as reflected in some aspects of their Christian daily living, ethos and doctrine. This brings us back to the basic question in this thesis - the relationship between ntumbuluko and the gospel.