3.3 Phenomenological interpretative approach to the study of ntumbuluko According to Smart (1983), phenomenology has its origin in the 19 th century in the
3.3.1 Understanding ntumbuluko as construction of reality (Berger)
In the title of this thesis I mentioned an encounter between Christianity and culture in the interaction of Christian and Tsonga theoretical constructs of reality. This wording in the title was an attempt to use Berger's (1966) theory of the social construction of reality as an interpretative approach to ntumbuluko as expressed in The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Excluding its introduction and conclusion, the book is divided into three parts. The introduction presents and discusses the problem of the sociology of knowledge. It points out the problem of "reality" and "knowledge" in relation to the "man in the street" (ordinary people), the "philosopher" and the "sociologist". According to the author, the sociologist's understanding of "reality" and "knowledge" falls in between those of the
"man in the street" and the "philosopher". After presenting this complexity of different degrees of apprehending reality, he lists various scholars in the field of the sociology of knowledge, pointing out their particular contributions to the discipline.
He attributes to Max Scheler, a German philosopher, the genesis of the discipline and, in its development, he acknowledges the contributions of many others including Marx76, Nietzsche, Weber, Derkhein, Pareto, Mannheim, Mills etc. These names became important in the theorizing of the sociology of knowledge.
Part one of the book discusses the foundations of knowledge in everyday life. The author discusses themes like the "reality", "social interaction", "language" and
"knowledge" of everyday life. He stresses the importance of "common sense knowledge" in conducting or directing everyday life, and the influence that these theoretical constructs have upon this "common sense". Part two analyses various
76 Marx is the father of Marxism. His sociology of knowledge was more concerned with the study of
"ideology" which he defined as: 'ideas serving as weapons for social interests' and "false consciousness" defined: 'thought that is alienated from the real social being of the thinker' (Berger
1966:18). However, Lenin was more fascinated by Marx's concepts of "substructure/superstructure (: 18). It is out of this fascination that Marxism Leninism was born and changed the history of Russia.
This brand of Marxism is the background of the Mozambican revolutionary history referred to in the introduction to this thesis.
models and processes of "institutionalization" of the society and the
"legitimation"(sic) of such institutions. One of the author's main arguments in this part is that Man (human being) is a social product (Berger 1966:79). Part three presents the "internalization" of the reality process through "socializations"(sic). The
"internalization" incorporates a possible "transformation" of the "subjective reality", which could theologically be called "conversion". The section also discusses theories of "identity". The conclusion sums up the theoretical issues of sociology in general and of the sociology of knowledge in particular.
It is not in our interest to discuss each and every aspect or theory presented in this book, but to pick up some issues relevant to the thesis, especially those parts that can help in the interpretation and understanding of ntumbuluko from a sociological perspective. According to Berger (1966), the book is intended as: 'a systematic, theoretical treatise in the sociology of knowledge' (1966:7) and that its basic argument is that: 'reality is socially constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyse the process in which this occurs' (: 13). The question then is: "can we say that ntumbuluko is a Tsonga social construct? If yes, can the analytical theories of the sociology of knowledge help us understand ntumbuluko?" In what follows, I attempt to test this hypothesis.
To analyse ntumbuluko in this perspective we must assume that ntumbuluko is a
"reality" around which a body of "knowledge" is constructed in the Tsonga context.
Then we need to see how "reality" and "knowledge" are defined by Berger (1966).
Berger (1966:13) defines "reality" as: 'a quality appertaining to phenomena that we recognise as having a being independent of our own volition (we cannot "wish them away")' and he defines "knowledge" as: 'the certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess specific characteristics' (:13). In my opinion the basic meaning of the two definitions is that: phenomena have a being independent of human will, and that phenomena are real. This definition of "reality" and "knowledge" can be compared to the definition of ntumbuluko by Mundlovo and Khosa, based on the kanyi tree phenomenon at Magude and the ancestral spirits phenomena among the Tsongas of Mozambique.
So far, I think, based on the fact that ntumbuluko is a body of "knowledge" that came to be socially established as "reality", sui generis, in Tsonga society (Berger 1966:15), we can say that ntumbuluko is a socially constructed reality; although we cannot account for the whole process of such construction. But the story of the Murime and Mutchapi movements, and the taboos and rituals thereafter, which caused a radical change in the areas of divination and which introduced a new dynamic into the relationship between the living and the dead (the living-dead theory) is an example of such processes. These phenomena created a body of knowledge and reality that is given to Tsongas as: 'a priori to individual experience, providing the latter with its order of meaning. This order, although it is relative to a particular socio-historical situation, appears to the individual as the natural way of looking at the world' (:20) this is what Scheler called: the 'relative-natural worldview {relativnatiirliche Westanschauung) of a society' (Berger 1966:20).
In the same way that Berger (:20) thought that the Weltanschauung concept could still be regarded as central to the sociology of knowledge, I also think that it could be regarded as helpful, if not central, for the interpretation of ntumbuluko from the point of view of the sociology of knowledge. For it does include common sense knowledge and social construction of knowledge, which is the theorizing of ideas called Weltanschauugen (everyday life and reality) in the sociology of knowledge (:27).
According to the author, the reality of everyday life is 'reality par excellence' (:35), in which one is attentive in the fullest way, and it is experienced with full consciousness of the "here and now". What is "here" and "now" becomes one's consciousness realissimum and one's world par excellence. Similarly, one's "here" is others'
"there" (:36-37). Since one's own world is not that of others and one's experience of reality is not that of others, there are multiple realities and therefore one needs to interpret one's reality. When this experience is not everyday experience, e.g.
religious or mystical experience, when one tries to "translate" it into everyday reality the process of translation suffers "distortion" (:40). In this process, language plays an important role (: 52-53).
What does this say in terms of our topic? We must take ntumbuluko as the reality par excellence for the Tsonga people and, from that, understand why they are more
attentive to ntumbuluko than to the gospel. Ntumbuluko is their consciousness realissimum of "here" and "now", and even of their "then", and it is their world par excellence. We must acknowledge that their "here" is ntumbuluko and that Christian faith is their "there". Ntumbuluko and Christian faith are two different theoretical constructs of reality. Their interaction requires the translation of both the Tsonga
"here" {ntumbuluko) and the Tsonga "there" (Christian faith), a process which is fraught with distortions. This calls researchers and students of ntumbuluko to caution themselves in their analysis of it, giving attention to the vernacular language.
Berger (1966:66-67) argues that human instinctual organization is underdeveloped, compared to that of other mammals, that they are unspecialized and undirected and that this problem is compounded by the fact that humans are born before the foetal period has been completed. This period takes the first year of the child's life to complete, in terms of organism development. Some significant organism development that takes place in the womb of an animal takes place outside it in the human infant. This, then, provides the humans' plasticity and flexibility to human biological constitution: 'as it is subject to a variety of socio-cultural determinations' (:66). It follows that there are numerous ways of becoming and being human. All this leads to the argument that: 'man constructs his own nature, ... man produces himself (:67).
Although this theoretical assumption can be seriously theologically questioned, it does reveal in its context that experienced phenomena, which become a body of knowledge and the de facto reality in a given society, become deeply and intimately attached to the very fabric of that society and become part of their relative nature, which is part of their peculiarity. Applying this to ntumbuluko, we must think of it as being intimately attached to the Tsonga experience and understanding of humanness, which is what in fact I observed in my fieldwork. Within this reality Tsonga people find ntumbuluko to be their "nature", and so the Tsonga response to whatever may be labeled
"ntumbuluko" or "of ntumbuluko" can well be described as what Berger calls
'reification' (:108) by means of which the individuals may disclaim responsibility for what they do or say (:108). One example of "reification" among the Tsonga is the way men disclaim responsibility for polygamy and how women accept it, although they suffer a great deal, and also in the way rituals and taboos are undertaken and revered.
In such a situation it is helpful to explore the notion of "internalization", through which one absorbs into oneself the world in which others live. This notion gives us a sociological approach to understanding the world of ntumbuluko in which the Tsonga people live (:150). This process calls for "participation" in the Tsonga being (: 150).
For the Tsonga, their "internalization" of the world of ntumbuluko occurs through what Berger calls 'primary socialization' (: 151,154), but, for the understanding of ntumbuluko by the student of ntumbuluko, there is a need to undergo "secondary socialization", "internalization" and "identification" (: 151-52). It is from this theoretical thought that one can see the position of the Christian faith in Tsonga thought.
To the Tsonga, Christian faith always comes as secondary socialization (: 158) and this process requires training (: 159), since the secondary socialization must encounter the self and the already-existing world {ntumbuluko), which resists (: 160) the secondary one. Thus, the encounter of the Tsonga people with the Christian faith is an interaction which must integrate different bodies of knowledge (:160), namely ntumbuluko and the gospel. Only in this way, under a mutual "identification" process of the Tsonga and the Christian witness, does a new constructed reality (: 177-78) emerge ("Tsonga Christian construct of reality"). This process, called "alteration"
(: 177-79) is "conversion" in theological language. In this "alteration" a new perspective (:179) of ntumbuluko is built up, thus leading to reinterpretation and reconstruction of reality de novo (:181), in which the past or ntumbuluko becomes praeparatio evangelii (: 179).
Berger (1966) gives an example of the effect of reification saying that: 'a peasant couple being married may apprehend the event with a similarly reifying shudder of metaphysical dread. Through reification, the world of institutions appears to merge with the world of nature. It becomes necessity and fate, and is lived through as such, happily or unhappily as the case may be' (: 108).
To sum up, we must ask whether Berger's "Sociology of Knowledge" insights can help us understand ntumbuluko and, if "yes", can we consider ntumbuluko to be a sort of social construct of reality among the Tsongas? Taking into account the definition of "reality" and "knowledge" and what is meant by "construction" with reference to everyday life and phenomena experience as known to be real by the people and the way they apprehend and interpret it, I am of the opinion that from a sociological point of view we can consider ntumbuluko as a social construct of reality. The analysis of the social impact on humans, reification, socialization, internalization, identification, etc. help us to understand the depths of ntumbuluko and the process through which such depth is achieved, as well as the process through which ntumbuluko is continually being constructed as a "relative natural worldview" or Weltanschauung for the Tsongas. But, it also provides us with theoretical approaches and frameworks for research, secondary socialization and mutual identification in the process of understanding Tsonga people for the sake of the gospel. It also gives us a theoretical notion of alteration, reinterpretation and reconstruction of reality, which allows Christian conversion, new creation, new identity and appropriation of faith in the Tsonga context. This allows a possibly unique expression of Christianity in the Tsonga context.
Finally, we must suggest that, to understand ntumbuluko as a theoretical construction of reality, we must consider four axioms, namely:
1) ntumbuluko is a form of theoretical thought
2) ntumbuluko is a social construct of the Tsonga people
3) its construction is based on the experience and knowledge of the reality of everyday life among the Tsonga people, and
4) these experiences and realities of everyday life self-authenticate the recognition of the being(s) that are behind these experienced realities of life, being(s) that are independent, powerful and beyond their full understanding and control.
Therefore, to understand ntumbuluko as a construction of reality does not mean that ntumbuluko is an imaginary reality. It is an experiential reality. So, all the religious life, rituals, ceremonies, divination, magic, etc. are a response, dialogue and coexistence with the transcendence of the being(s) behind all their experiences and the
reality in which they exist and live. The being(s) and the phenomena they experience are independent of them, are powerful and beyond their full understanding and control. If this is the picture we have of ntumbuluko, could Horton (1993) help us see if ntumbuluko is also a theoretical framework for the explanation, prediction and control of reality in the Tsonga context?
3.3.2 Approaching ntumbuluko as explaining, predicting and controlling reality