Religion of the Shona

Anyone who studies the Shona religion will soon discover that he is dealing with a deeply religious people. So complex and developed in fact is this cult that one day the Shona religion may come to be accepted as a form of monotheism.

The Shona admit a Creator, an omnipotent spirit whom they call Mwari, Chikare or Musikavanhu. The Christian faith, like that of the Shona, has its own great spirits like the angels and the different saints who can be appealed to and from whom help and comfort can be sought.

On the other hand, whereas the Christian approaches God directly, this is not the case with the Shona. They do not pray to God himself but always contact the lesser spirits, who, living as they do in the spiritual world, are in communication with all the other spirits including God.

Mwari has made them all and everything in this world, the good and the bad. God is responsible for the good ancestral spirits as well as those of the evil ones. Therefore it is much better to appeal and place one's trust in the good spirits in the first instance.

The Shona believe that their tutelary spirits (mhondoro) can prevent and facilitate the fall of rain, that their vadzimu (family spirits) can cause sickness and that they can protect them from harm, sickness and from a witch entering their homes. When they pray in order to ask for something they do not address God directly but pray to the spirits.

Music is an important element in the inducement of possession. Special tunes of a lively tempo are played to the medium. The most usual instruments employed in Mashonaland are musical gourds (mbira) and drums. The medium or mediums as well as the congregants join in the dancing which goes on for minutes or for several hours until the possession takes place.

Even an onlooker is carried away by the swift rhythm, the patter of bare feet on the ground and the shrill cries of the women. The whole ritual dance is very entertaining and the physical efforts so hypnotic that all who take part seem to be borne away towards the spiritual world. The living and the departed are all joined in unison.

The Shona show no concern over retribution in the world to come. Punishment for ritual offenses is meted out in this world. Once a person dies, no matter what his record on earth, his spirit does not suffer in the next world, except by being forgotten by the living. Shona ceremonies are not complicated; they are easy to follow.

No elaborate setting is required for services. No church or ornate building is required. If prayers are to be made to the family spirit (mudzimu) these are said before the rukuva (pot shelf) in the main hut (imba) of the family. They are very much a family affair with the family spirits close at hand in the home. Even their graves are just outside the family village. No special day is set aside for prayers to the ancestral spirits of the family.

Most Shona who have had experience of western teachings maintain that it is more comforting and real to pray to their ancestral spirits than to a remote Creator. "Honour thy father and thy mother" is a primary Shona commandment. Failure to observe it will turn a beneficent mudzimu into an angry ngozi. Inculcated too, is the interdependence of all the members of the family and their ritual knits the family closer.

The importance of such a solid unit in a harsh menacing world need hardly be emphasized. Even the modern Shona has experienced the advantage in a difficult economic world of knowing that he can rely on his family.

So deep and close is the attachment of the Shona to the spirit of his dead grandfather (sekuru) that he follows in his footsteps throughout his life, believing it will please his ancestors to live just as they did in the same village, growing the same crops, wearing the same clothes and living in the same huts, never changing or acquiring more than his ancestors before him. The result is a compulsory uniformity, a philosophy which tends to encourage normality.

WITCHCRAFT IN DAILY LIFE
Although a serious accusation is a comparatively rare phenomenon among contemporary Shona, the belief in witchcraft is very real and very strong. Many hamlets in the rural areas and not a few urban homes are protected against witchcraft by ritual and charms.

Persons often wear charms and take medicines to protect themselves from witchcraft. It can be argued that the Shona believe there is a continual threat from persons endowed with evil just as every European today accepts that we are continually exposed to germs.

The belief in witchcraft has an influence on attention to good manners and etiquette. No one would want to show the unlikable characteristics associated with a witch. Certain customs, such as sharing food or eating and drinking from the same pot or plate, reflect a fear of witchcraft or of being suspected of witchcraft or sorcery: thus a traditional host should take a taste of any food or drink offered to a guest, kubvisa uroyi, "to take away witchcraft" (to show that there is none).

Also the fear that discarded property or anything coming from the body could be used to bewitch a person results in a high standard of cleanliness and hygiene.

Witchcraft beliefs act as a deterrent to crime. A man may be afraid of picking up objects found lying around in case they have been bewitched; this applies particularly to wandering domestic animals which may have been involved in an exorcism bringing evil and calamity to anyone who took possession of them.

The fear of being bewitched encourages good relations within a community, and the fear of revenge or protective medicines makes crime against members of the community seem dangerous even when detection is escaped. Also a reluctance to wander late at night for fear of being suspected of witchcraft or, worse, for fear of meeting a witch on her nocturnal escapades, minimizes the possibility of petty theft and like crimes.

It has been argued that witchcraft beliefs comprise a barrier to material progress. A man who has significantly altered his life style in accordance with technological and economic advancement is endangered in two ways: he may readily be suspected of using witchcraft to obtain the wealth necessary for his change of life and, secondly, he is likely to arouse envy and so become the victim of witchcraft or sorcery.

A man who through hard work is slightly better off than the common run is usually respected, but in a traditional community there is little incentive to outstanding success, and if it is achieved it should not be openly displayed and flaunted.

In communities which have had more contact with European ways, however, people are not so afraid to stand out from the rest: indeed this has become the ideal for most, but they must still take precautions against jealous witchcraft.

In practice most communities have members who are conspicuous for the material progress they have made, so belief in witchcraft is not so much a barrier as a slight deterrent to material progress.

The Shona belief in witchcraft is also relevant to their general reaction against the white people. Some of the older people blame chirungu (meaning anything associated with the whites) for the troubles of present times ranging from bad crops and poverty to various social tensions.

They base this vague and not always justifiable opinion on the law preventing the conviction and punishment of witches who are consequently believed to be more numerous and more free in their activities than they were in the past and certainly some people who foster the reputation they have as witches, flaunt this freedom.

The actions of the muroyi (witch) can cause severe illness in a person, and in some instances this illness is induced by poison introduced into the victim's food or beer by being carried in a fingernail and tapped over the edge of the container. This poison, known as chipotswa, has a rapid physical action, the victim becoming ill at once, and vomiting.

It also has a violent psychological effect; let a man believe he has been fed chipotswa, and he will die from fright as much as from the effects of the poison.

The nail used is that of the little finger on the left - the unclean hand. The nail is allowed to grow to a great length, so that it curls back slightly and makes a receptacle for a powder. The accusation of witchcraft was made by the placing of ashes on the doorstep of the accused. To disprove it was a difficult and costly business.

WITCHCRAFT ERADICATION
There have been various attempts from outside Shona society to eradicate the belief in witchcraft and the practices associated with it. Prominent among these was the early attempt by the colonial administration to eliminate accusations of witchcraft.

The government was convinced that belief in witchcraft is basically false and that the process of discovering and trying witches through divination and ordeal is thoroughly unreliable, often resulting in the conviction and punishment of innocent persons: accordingly an ordinance was introduced to convict any person who tries to injure another or his property by means of witchcraft, and also any person who imputes to another the use of non-natural means to cause disease or injury to person or property.

The law was normally applied only against those who made accusations of witchcraft: witches have escaped conviction, even on some occasions when clear and concrete evidence of witchcraft practice was produced against them. Although people undoubtedly need to be protected from false accusations of witchcraft, there is some justification for the Shona view that the law provides protection for witches.

Certainly the law has failed in its aim of diminishing witchcraft beliefs. Besides government administrators, many European missionaries have denied or ignored the Shona belief in witchcraft and have forbidden their converts to take part in associated practices. None of these measures have been significantly successful in destroying the belief in witchcraft, and the forbidden practices have on the whole merely become clandestine.

Within traditional African society there have been periodic attempts to eradicate witchcraft, but these attempts have been concerned with curing witches of their evil ways and in no way question the validity of the common beliefs.

One such attempt was made through the famous Mchape movement in the 1930s, which originated in Malawi and spread throughout central Africa. The agents of this movement were young men, dressed in European clothes, who claimed to be followers of the founder of the movement.

They would arrive in a village, assemble all the inhabitants, give them a sermon on the evils of witchcraft and then line them up for the witchcraft ritual. In this, witches were allegedly detected with the aid of small mirrors and were ordered to give up their hoards of harmful "medicines". If they refused, the witch finders were reputed to find with unfailing perspicacity where these medicines were hidden.

After detecting the witches, the witch finders proceeded to cure them by giving each a sip of the famous mchape medicine which, it was claimed, would cause any witch who returned to her evil ways to die. It was believed that any witch who escaped detection by refusing to pass in front of the magic mirror would be caught and exposed at a second coming of the founder of the movement.

In addition, the witch finders sold protective charms against witchcraft. Although from the point of view of the officials this movement may have been primarily a money-making racket, for the people who welcomed it (including many Shona communities) it was an opportunity to rid the community of the troubles and tensions associated with witchcraft. They were ready to pay well for such an utopian situation.

There have also been a number of lesser movements acting in different ways but to achieve the same end. The Mai Chaza Church is a quasi religious movement named after its founder who was said to have come back from the dead to cleanse the country of witchcraft. The movement started in the early 1950s; it was popular in central Shona country for 10 years until the death of the founder, and it still has some adherents today.

The officials wear a uniform for ritual occasions at which they cure witches. Witches are invited to confess their witchcraft and to throw away all their charms into a pit; an official of the movement (in the old days usually the founder herself) cures witches by touching each and sprinkling her with consecrated water.

Many people traveled spontaneously to a cult centre to be cured of their witchcraft, and many communities got temporary relief from suspicions of witchcraft through the activities of this movement.

Now prophets of the new independent Christian churches are often asked to cleanse a community of witchcraft. A prophet might be invited into a homestead, where he finds hidden medicines and charms in and around the houses and "sees" any witch in the community. He destroys the charms and exorcises the witches, usually by commanding the evil spirit to leave its host in the tradition of the Christian gospels.

The attitude of the independent churches towards witchcraft is one of the reasons for their popularity vis-a-vis the mission churches: as the Shona people explain, you can belong to a mission church and still be a witch, but you cannot be at once a member of an independent church and a practising witch.

Witchcraft is considered to be the worst evil in Shona society, involving deliberate harm to members of a community, and yet it is ignored in the moral teachings of most mission churches, which claim to emphasize love of one's neighbor as a cardinal value.

So, even in a changing situation, the Shona remain convinced of the real evils of witchcraft, and they wish to be free of these evils. Especially in times of tension and stress in a community when suspicions of malevolence readily arise, members of the community may take active steps in the wishful hope that they can rid themselves of witchcraft and the evils associated with it.

But the state of supposed freedom from witchcraft cannot last long. Even in the congregation of a church which emphasizes eradication of witchcraft, members of the congregation are believed to lapse occasionally into the practice of witchcraft and have to be cleansed.

No utopian ideal can eliminate the evils of disease and death, or social conflict and frustration in a community. From the Shona point of view, these evils are evidence of the practice of witchcraft, so no eradication of witchcraft can endure.

NEW RELIGIONS
The God of Christianity is concerned with the details of the lives of all men and dictates a moral code that all must obey, whatever their race or tribe. Christianity thus provides a religion that stretches beyond the limiting boundaries of kinship group or chiefdom.

This is a significant change from traditional religion which was little concerned with what we would call ethics. It is concerned primarily with respect for spirit guardians, and has very little to say on people's relations with strangers or anyone outside their communities.

As the Shona break out of their small local communities and have dealings with an ever widening society, many have joined the various mission churches, to the effect that in 1974 about seventeen per cent of the black population claimed some affiliation to one or other of them and a further eight per cent belonged to the numerous new independent churches.

The overall figures show that Shona religion has been significantly affected by the advent of Christianity. Some families have now been Christian for a number of generations. The highly paid teaching posts in church schools were often reserved for church members. So many Shona have become at least nominal Christians, either through education or in order to be able to profit financially from it.

In spite of the advantages offered by the Christian churches, adherence to orthodox Christianity poses a number of serious problems. The most significant arise from the fact that most missionaries either ignore or deny the powers of ancestral spirits and of witchcraft.

When a man and his family are in good health, spirit elders and witches may be forgotten in the face of a new religion, especially if its preachers show themselves capable of rapidly curing minor ailments.

But should the new medicine fail, or should some serious or permanent trouble his the family, traditional spiritual powers are not so easily put out of mind and a new Christian may readily fear that the he has incurred the displeasure of his ancestors. It is difficult in such a situation to refrain from reverting, at least temporarily, to traditional religious practices.

The Shona often remark that their rituals in honour of deceased relatives are essentially similar to the European practice of putting flowers on a grave on, for example, the anniversary of the death of a close relative.

Some missionaries appreciate this point and have made attempts to incorporate traditional respect for deceased ancestors into their Christian rituals, but most regard traditional religion as the antithesis of Christianity and adamantly refuse to admit any influence from the traditional reverence of ancestral spirits.

In practice, many Christians believe in the power of witchcraft and of their ancestral spirits and see no conflict between these beliefs and official church doctrines, though they may accept that church discipline prevents them from meddling with these powers and prudence may dictate that they do not speak about them to church authorities.

Indeed an exclusively orthodox body of belief seems relatively unimportant to the Shona and one often finds a casual mixing of the tenets of different faiths. They do not find it extraordinary to find a professed Christian who claims to heal by the power of God and who also obtains help and advice from a traditional spirit medium.

As one traditionalist who also believed in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit explained, "It is best to believe it all."

NEW INDEPENDENT CHURCHES
Christian views on marriage have provided another stumbling block for many would-be Christians. Firstly, there is the problem of understanding the nature of Christian marriage. White missionaries usually regard marriage as a sacred union between husband and wife, in some cases an indissoluble union, which is enacted through a religious rite. This rite creates the union with all the rights and duties it involves: in particular, sexual intercourse is licit only after the marriage ceremony.

Central to Shona marriage is the payment of bride-price for the right to children, negotiated possibly over a number of years. Many Shona are not prepared to go into a monogamous marriage, especially if there is no possibility of subsequent divorce, without first ascertaining that the proposed wife can bear children. The result is that many enter a church marriage only after the birth of the first child, a practice that conflicts with the morals taught by the churches.

Instead of being central to marriage, a church ceremony is to the Shona often merely an extra rite in the long process of marriage, the central feature of which remains the negotiation of bride-price payments.

Then there is polygamy. A man may want a second wife simply for status, or because a single aging wife is not sexually satisfying, or to provide more labour for his farm. At the death of a brother he may find himself under obligation to take responsibility for the deceased's widow and family, in which case in Shona eyes she becomes a second wife to him.

Whatever the reason, many men find the insistence of Christian missionaries on monogamy too restrictive.

In spite of difficulties, many Shona retain their membership of Christian missionary churches through deep conviction and staunch faith. Others have foregone attractions held out by missionary bodies to maintain piously the traditions of their ancestors.

And there are those who retain their church membership for reasons of convenience and prestige, and many others after dabbling in Christianity have returned to their traditional religion. Others still have found an intermediate form of religion in the new independent churches.

Shona labour migrants working on the mines in South Africa in the early years of this century met new African independent churches which were growing out of contacts with similar movements among American negroes.

On their return to Zimbabwe, some founded independent churches in their home communities, mostly in southern Shona country. The movement did not gain much momentum until the 1930s when the independent churches, which had acquired by now a character distinct from that of their South African counterparts, began to multiply and to spread throughout Shona country.

As a church acquires a following and grows in size, fission is likely to take place with sections hiving off to found new churches. Fission is often the result of conflicts over leadership, which become most acute at the death of the founder of a church, when his principal assistants are likely to vie with each other and with the sons of the founder to succeed to his position of leadership; but at any stage a church official with a large personal following might break away from the church to which he belongs and start his own sect.

Now there are hundreds of independent churches or sects in Zimbabwe with a total following in the order of half a million. The churches vary considerably in size. The largest is the African Apostolic Church of Johane Marange (whose members are commonly known as Vapostori — "Apostles") with over fifty thousand members in Zimbabwe and half as many again in neighboring territories. A smaller church may extend no further than the neighborhood of its founder.

The churches also vary in kind. The most common and most popular are the "spirit-type" churches, which emphasize inspiration and revelation by the Holy Spirit. Prophecy under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is a dominant feature in these churches and the phenomenon of speaking in tongues is common.

Another central feature in most spirit-type churches is faith-healing. Historically, these churches are related to the "Zionist" movement in South Africa and ultimately to Zion City, Illinois, in the United States of America.

The names of the spirit-type churches usually refer to Zion or to the Apostles in order to establish an ideological association between the new independent churches and the founding of Christianity.

A number of independent church leaders broke away from the mission churches to which they had belonged after a clash with mission authorities or on account of frustrated ambition to positions of leadership within the mission churches.

A situation favorable to conflict and independence is created by the contradiction between love for all men taught by the missionaries and the poor treatment that their African congregations received from the white community as a whole.

The realization that the expensive education of the missions does not bring rapid advancement and the practice of racial discrimination on the part of missionaries themselves reinforced the climate of opinion favorable to independent churches.

As the Bible became readily available to the Shona in their vernacular, and as more and more of the Shona learnt to read, they became less dependent on the white missionaries for a knowledge of the Bible. In particular the accounts of many of the Old Testament figures with their numerous wives and concubines belie the insistence of white missionaries on monogamy. A desire to preach and apply interpretations more in accordance with traditional Shona values is another reason for the rise of independent churches.

Another factor which attracts followers to independent churches is their ritual. This applies particularly to spirit-type churches with their music, the emotional out pourings of the Holy Spirit and their colorful uniforms for the different ranks of members, all of which contrast sharply with the austere services of some of the Protestant denominations.

The attraction of the gift of prophecy in these churches can be understood in terms of the parallels between prophets and traditional Shona spirit mediums. Some prophets borrow much from traditional rituals of spirit possession, speaking in the lilting voice typical of lion spirit mediums and uttering groans, sighs and other sounds associated with lion spirits.

A prophet when possessed by the Holy Spirit may twitch and shake as possessed mediums do. When he begins his prophecy, a prophet may utter an incomprehensible jumble of names and phrases from the Bible just as a medium at the beginning of a stance may utter a jumble of names from the traditional history of the chiefdom to which he belongs.

In the institution of prophecy the Shona find something closely allied to, and a substitute for, their traditional spirit mediumship. Apart from the ritual surrounding prophecy, the activities of some prophets closely parallel those of traditional spirit mediums.

As one aspect of communicating with the spirit world, some prophets acquire a reputation for divining. Their field is more limited than that of traditional diviners since they do not co-operate with communications from ancestral spirits. But many claim to be able to discern witches, and occasionally a prophet may be called into a hamlet or village to expose all witches in it and to seek out and destroy their secret medicines.

Sometimes too a party may consult a prophet of repute to decide on a case of suspected adultery. The prophet becomes possessed by the Holy Spirit through whose power he is supposed to be able to see the miscreant. A number of prophets also acquire reputations as faith-healers together with the large clienteles which a reputation for healing naturally brings.

Akin to prophecy, the Holy Spirit is believed to bestow on certain people (including most prophets) the gifts of "speaking in tongues". At the services of spirit-type churches, a number of people may enter into a kind of trance, partly induced by the rhythmic singing and the emotional preaching and praying of the assembly, in which they jabber in incomprehensible "tongues".

The phenomenon to some extent replaces spirit possession on such traditional occasions as a dance in honour of alien mashave spirits, when a number of people may become possessed without any serious mediation from the spirit world.

These churches accept that the spirits of the dead can influence the physical world, especially to cause sickness, and they certainly accept the belief in the evil influence of witchcraft.

But they maintain that spirits which cause sickness are evil spirits whose power can be overcome by faith in God. Thus if a man believes himself to be troubled by a spirit which wants to possess him and accordingly he asks for help from the church officials, they do not deny his explanation of his trouble as a white missionary is likely to do; instead they accept his understanding of the situation with all the implied anxieties, and they perform a rite to exorcise the spirit by the power of the Christian God.

They offer a way of coping with sickness and trouble that is in accordance with the traditional Shona understanding of the world and yet purports to transcend it.

As one man who lived in the vicinity of a Roman Catholic mission remarked,

The "Apostles" are better than Roman Catholics: you can be a Catholic and at the same time a witch, but you cannot be an "Apostle" and a witch.

The popular independent churches have managed to combine traditional ways of thinking and acting with the new international religion based on a high god who cares for all people and who can be approached by anyone. They are thus well able to cope with the transition from traditional tribal communities to contact with the wider international world.

THE AFRICAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH OF JOHANE MARANGE
One independent church stands out as the most popular and widespread in Zimbabwe. Also known as the Church of the Apostles, whose members are commonly known as Vapostori ("Apostles").

The founder of the church, Johane Marange, was born in 1912, the grandson (on his mother's side) of a chief. Johane attended four years of schooling at a Methodist mission, where he was baptized into the church. While still a boy, he started having dreams and visions, the most important of which are recorded in the Umboo utsva hwavaPostori, regarded by the "Apostles" as a canonical addition to the Bible.

In the book of his visions, Johane claims to have received a full charter for his church with all its rules and practices through the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The news of his revelation spread rapidly through his extended family to others in the neighborhood and at the first sabbath meeting, only three days after the revelation, about one hundred and fifty people were baptized into the church at a nearby river.

The ceremony took place amid chanting, speaking in tongues, and exorcisms. Some of the new members were consecrated to offices: evangelists, prophets, healers and an elderly judge (Johane's father) to settle the domestic disputes of church members.

The key positions were given to relatives of Johane who became senior figures in the more detailed hierarchical structure of the church which was elaborated (reputedly under directions of repeated revelations to the founder) as the church grew in size.

The new church quickly came out against traditional religious practices, associating ancestral spirits with evil demons. Johane's father killed without ritual the bull dedicated to his spirit ancestors, and his mother, a senior spirit medium, burnt her regalia. She however, after some oscillation between traditional religion and her son's church, finally broke with the church to continue to practice as a diviner and the medium to a senior spirit of her father's chiefdom.

There were two early schisms within the church. One of the earliest evangelists broke away with a small personal following, and later a senior prophet-healer broke away with some local support after a conflict over the use of church funds.

A more serious schism took place in 1963, shortly after the founder's death. There followed a struggle between Johane's elder brother and his maternal relatives who had held positions of leadership within the church. One of the latter, Simon, who claimed he had always been second to Johane in the church hierarchy, was suspected by some people of bewitching the founder in order to take over his position in the church (the two were traveling together immediately before the founder's death).

In the end, the traditional rule of inheritance won the day and Johane's sons succeeded to the key positions in the church with Johane's elder brother (their 'great father') maintaining his influence. The two senior sons also inherited two Landrovers for their official church visiting, an arrangement which Simon's followers opposed on the grounds that they were church property and not part of Johane's personal estate.

When the elder brother tried to manoeuver Simon and his son out of office and ordered a change of venue of the annual Paseka ceremony from its traditional site near Simon's home, Simon took his grievances to the chiefs court. The chief evaded the issues by allowing Simon to found his own church, which he did reluctantly; it became a refuge for any who were dissatisfied with the organization of the principal body.

The 'Apostles' set themselves apart from their neighbors in many ways. On Saturday afternoons they don their church uniforms for the sabbath service. For girls and women this is usually simply a white veil tied to the head with a red ribbon. The men wear white tunics, each with an embroidered decoration including a badge indicating the person's office in the church; men also carry long wooden staffs, wear their beards long and shave their heads.

All go barefooted at a service. 'Apostles' may not drink alcohol, nor smoke tobacco, nor may they eat pork. They may take no part in the rituals of traditional Shona religion and they taboo traditional musical instruments which are used at these.

They may not use any medicines, neither traditional nor European; some would rather die than receive medicinal treatment, though a temporary lapse from the church in order to receive medical treatment in times of severe sickness may be readily condoned. When 'Apostles' have functions to perform at traditional rituals by virtue of kinship or friendship, they usually find pagan acquaintances to stand in for them.

'Apostles' may temporarily leave their church while seeking treatment for disease, whether from a mission hospital or from a traditional healer, and a person may become a temporary member of a spirit-type church while seeking a cure.