Competition and integration in the religious history of north-western Zimbabwe

Journal of Religion in Africa

Volumn 28, Issue 1-2, 1998, Pages 3-31

  Alexander, Jocelyn ^a   Ranger, Terence ^a  

^a St Antony College   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79959491987     PISSN: 00224200     EISSN: 15700666     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157006698X00116     Document Type: Review

References (74)

1. Adrian Hastings, 'Editorial,' Journal of Religion in Africa, XXV, 3, August 1995.
2. Hastings refers particularly to Marshall W. Murphree, Christianity and the Shona, Athione Press, New York, 1969
3. Peter Fry, Spirits of Protest, CUP, Cambridge, 1976
4. Martinus Daneel, Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches, Three Volumes, Mouton, The Hague and Mambo, Gweru, 1971, 1974, 1988
5. David Lan, Guns and Rain. Guerillas and Spirit Mediums in .i,nbabwe, James Currey, London, 1985. He adds, 'and so much more.'
6. Terence Ranger, 'Religious Pluralism in Zimbabwe'
7. Abraham Mawere and Ken Wilson, 'Socio-Religious Movements, the State and Religious Change: Some Reflections on the Ambuya Juliana Cult of Southern Zimbabwe'
8. Hezekiel Mafu, 'The 1991-92 Zimbabwean Drought and Some Religious Reactions'
9. David Maxwell, 'Witches, Prophets and Avenging Spirits: The Second Christian Movement in North-East Zimbabwe,' in Journal of Religion in Africa, 'Religion in Contemporary Zimbabwe,' XXV, 3, August 1995.
10. The single exception is M.E. Hayes' account of Nambiya religion in Hwange published in .1'/ADA, XI, 4, 1977. Hayes was a veteran administrator who served in the Native Affairs and Internal Affairs Departments from 1932 to 1970. In 1970 he retired as Provincial Commissioner, Manicaland, and was thereafter employed to visit every chief and headman in Wankie, Binga, Lupane and Nkayi districts to ask them about spirit possession and rain making. His reports are on the chiefs and headmen's files for Lupane and Nkayi. There is a great deal of information about religion and history in Gokwe district in Eric Worby's as yet unpublished doctoral thesis, 'Remaking Labour, Reshaping Identity: Cotton, Commoditization and the Culture of Modernity in Northwestern Zimbabwe,' McGill, July 1992.
11. CJ.K. Latham, 'The Social Organisation of the Mashona,' J'IADA, 1979, p. 7. By 1978 Latham had compiled a top-secret 'Shamanism Book,' informing District Commissioners of the politically significant religious centres in their districts. Terence Ranger has seen the entries relating to the rain shrines of the Matopos, but we have not seen Latham's text on Nevana. In the 1979 article he makes no further mention of Nevana's 'Commonwealth.'
12. For the Mwari rain shrines of the Matopos see M.L. Daneel, The God of the Matopo Hills, The Hague, Mouton, 1970
13. Richard Werbner, 'Regional Cult of God Above' in his Ritual Passage. Sacred Journey, Manchester, MUP, 1989
14. Terence Ranger and Mark Ncube, 'Religion in the Guerrilla War: The Case of Southern Matabeleland' in Ngwabi Bhebe and Terence Ranger, eds., Sociey in zimbabwe's Liberation War, Harare, University of Zimbabwe, 1995
15. Terence Ranger, Voices From the Rocks. A Modern History of the Matopos, forthcoming.
16. For Mutota/Nehanda see David Lan, Guns and Rain, London, James Currey, 1985
17. for Dzivaguru, see M.F.C. Bourdillon, 'The Cults of Dzivaguru and Karuva amongst the North-Eastern Shona Peoples' in J.M. Schoffeleers, ed., Guardians of the Land, Gwelo, Mambo, 1978
18. for Musikavanhu, see J.K. Rennie, 'Four Transformations of the Musikavanhu Territorial Cult in Rhodesia,' ibid. A splendid history which provides a deep historical context for Mutota/Nehanda and Dzivaguru is 51
19. G. Mudenge, A Political History of Munhumutapa, Harare, Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1988. By contrast, there are only a few scattered references to Nevana. The only mention of a wide spirit zone is in R.R. Tapson, 'Some Notes on the Mrozwi occupation of the Sebungwe District,' J'/ADA, 1944. Tapson says that 'natives from as far apart as the Matopos and across the Zambesi still send their wahosi [to Nevanaj piping and dancing and bearing gifts in their hands to appeal to the spirits for good rains.'
20. We are grateful for the very useful comments made at discussions of an earlier draft of this article, particularly at the Satterthwaite colloquium on African Religion in April 1996 and at the Yale Agrarian Studies Programme in November 1996.
21. Annual Reports show that the single Primitive Methodist school reported for Binga in 1924 had closed by 1926
22. the three kraal schools recorded for the Shangwe chiefs in Gokwe in 1928 had closed by 1938. As late as 1947 a party of Methodist missionaries toured Sebungwe but 'found the population too widely scattered to justify schools.' (Annual Report, Sebungwe, 1947, 5 1051, National Archives, Harare).
23. Annual Report, Sebungwe, 1939, file S 235/502/5 17, National Archives, Harare.
24. Interview between Terence Ranger and Odilo Weeger, Mater Dei Hospital, Bulawayo, 7 January 1995. Father Odilo claimed that when he first went there Lupane, Mzola and Sebungwe were 'totally untouched' and he wishes now he had studied African society and culture. But he did not and others were even less ethnographically and historically conscious.
25. Nathaniel Mpofu's interview with Thabam Moyo, 6 December 1995.
26. Mpofu interviews with Mdala Ncube, 10 November 1995
27. Solomon Juba, 19 October 1995.
28. Mpofu interviews with Solola Edward Dube, 9 November 1995
29. Bezeniah Ncube, 13 November 1995.
30. J. Tulloch to Chief Native Commissioner, 8 December 1945
31. Native Commissioner, Bubi to Provincial Native Commissioner, 24 January 1946, 5 2588, 1978.
32. Interview by Nathaniel Mpofu with Elijah Mpofu, 17 November 1995.
33. Interview by Jocelyn Alexander with Joseph Mkwebu, Nkayi, 13 December 1995.
34. Interview between Terence Ranger and Dr. Davis-Ziegler, St. Luke's, Lupane, 24 January 1995. Dr. Davis-Ziegler remembers treating Tonga families at the clinic at Fatima Mission, and admiring their dignity, but also recalls that the new-corners responded much more readily to the modernising message of the mission.
35. Interview, Mbanjwa's kraal, Lupane, 19 November 1994. Interviews carried Out byJocelyn Alexander in November and December 1995 suggest that relations between earlier Ndebele settlers and resident Tonga were much closer. Paulos Mhlotshwa, whom she interviewed on 25 November 1995, described the settlement of Lobengula's son, Tshakalisa, and his followers as early as 1911. He insists that 'the Nguni/Tonga relationship was very friendly.' The Tonga looked to Tshakalisa for assistance in times of drought; Tshakalisa himself learnt Tonga and accepted Tonga rain rituals. 'The Ngunis were forced by Tshakalisa to go to the ceremony, so that we would all get rains.'
36. The first stages of the interaction of Tonga-speakers and missions, and the contrast between it and the response of the Ndebele immigrants, is recorded in the Binga Annual Report for 1957. The Ndebele of south Binga were well provided with schools and churches. Meanwhile 'the schoolless, missionless Batonka are rather bewildered by all this scholastic attention, but are accepting it as part of the new order.' S 2827/2/2/5.
37. Eric Worby, 'Maps, Names and Ethnic Games: The Epistemology and Iconography of Colonial Power in North-Western Zimbabwe,' Journal of Southern African Studies, 20, 3, 1994, p. 389.
38. in a paper-'Mirrors in the Culture of Modernity'- presented at the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, 4 December 1992.
39. Interview between Terence Ranger, Jocelyn Alexander and Nathaniel Mpofu, Somakandana school, 29 August 1995. A similar pattern of eviction to the periphery and of very late missionary activity is described in David Maxwell, Vie Cinderella People: Christianity and Chieftainship Amongst the Hwesa People of/forth East zimbabwe, IAI, Edinburgh, forthcoming. Maxwell describes how Christian Manyika from the eastern plateau were evicted into the 'remote' and mountainous Katerere area; how they asserted their identity as 'progressives'; and how they interacted with the Pentecostal and Carmeite missions which established themselves in Katerere only in the 1 950s.
40. Maxwell suggests that the periodisation of Zimbabwean mission history needs, to be adjusted so as to recognise the importance of the 1950s as marking a new phase of Christian penetration. A similar pattern and periodisation for another 'remote' eastern border community is described in Heike Schmidt, 'The Social and Economic Impact of Political Violence in Zimbabwe, 1890-1990: A Case Study of the Honde Valley,' doctoral thesis, Oxford, 1996.
41. For an account of these processes see Terence Ranger, Vowes From the Rocks, forthcoming.
42. This same combination of eviction, Christian penetration and nationalist fervour is described for eastern Zimbabwe by Maxwell and Schmidt.
43. Interview with Yona Sibanda, Faroni Ward, Nkayi, 19 December 1994.
44. Interview with Mbitshana Sibanda, Gampinya, 8 December 1994. Mbitshana emphasises how frightening the incomers were: 'they were rich, they knew how to buy maize seed, they came with ideas.' But the locals had the mutolo shrines, and the Nevana medium, and 'the ones who should go to Nevana should be the old ones.'
45. Hayes' report in 1975 on Headman Goduka who then lived in the extreme north of Lupane, in Mzola and Dandanda, among Tonga speakers, recorded that Goduka descended from a long line of Nguni chiefs stretching back to Zululand. When they were in Insiza he and his people sent regularly to Njelele. But 'these people look to Nevana. They have been looking for a new envoy and have decided to enlist the services of Sigoliko [a Tonga]. He has been chosen because he is the senior member of the family of that name who were living in that area when Goduka moved in. . . There is a baobab tree near Sigolioko's kraal. He is the leader of the ceremony. Last year it rained so much that the people complained.' M.E. Hayes, 'Goduka,' file CH 6 (LU) Goduka, Provincial Commissioner's office, Bulawayo. This sort of response is supported by oral testimony. On 26 August 1995 we interviewed the Siziba family at Memuka dip, in the north of Nkayi. The Sizibas had been dumped there in 1952. They had been political activists in Filabusi. Sibangwa Siziba, now in his mid eighties, told us of their arrival: to take.
46. Hisson, Jaconia, who has been to Nevana many times since his first visit in 1977, added: 'We respected these people and accepted Nevana.'
47. For Mfunga see D.M. Coley, 'The Fate of the Last Bashankwe Chief' J'/ADA, 1927
48. delineation report, C.W. Collet October 1963
49. Memorandum by D.P. Abraham, 8 May 1964, PER 5 file Nemangwe, District Administrator's Office, Gokwe South. For Murare see Latham's account in the delineation report, September 1963, S 2929/7/3. Chapter Nine of Eric Worby's doctoral thesis, 'Journeys of Power, Gifts of Rain: Chireya's Land,' analyses Shangwe myths of conquered rain-makers. He analyses the Mfunga path on pages 402, 406 and 408. Pages 391-2 recount the story he was told by headman Tazivana in Goredema chiefship about the fate of 'the owner of this land,' Mavhumba Nyamasasa, at the hands of Chireya's soldiers. Nyamasasa tilled the land and made rain. When Chireya's men came to attack him, he and his wife, children and animals sank into the ground at gomba remhere, the pit of screams, where today stand perennial pools. In this version, Worby comments, Chireya fails to capture either Nyamasasa or his rain-making cow or his daughters. 'Chireya gains the land but neither the rain nor the women. Fertility of both crops and persons remains a prerogative of the autochthons.' (p. 421) In another version, Nyamasasa is stabbed and 'the salt water that poured forth from his body forms the Bari Salt Pans.' (p. 412) Worby comments that 'after Nyamasasa dies, Chireya's people become political victors, but in a land that remains ultimately under the control of ancestors who are not their own. . . Nyamasasa swells[s] with water after death. Like [a] true ancestral owner of the land [he] plays a role as bringer of fertility. His death brings a flood of mvura (water/rain).' (p. 421).
50. The present Nevana, Samson Tewasira, told Jocelyn Alexander on September 19 1995
51. Interview with Samson Tewasira, Gokwe, 19 September 1995. hii is the name given to the period of radical mass nationalism in the early 1 960s. Many informants in Nkayi also testified to Samson's links with ZAPU.
52. Latham's delineation report on the Mfunga headmanship in October 1963 recorded that Mfunga had ruled a large area until he was overthrown by Chireya and Nemangwe. But he 'is still an important figure in spiritual matters [and] the leader of the area when going to Nevana.' 5 2929/7/3.
53. R.R. Tapson, 'Some Notes on the Mrozwi Occupation of the Sebungwe District,' XADA, 1944, drawing on the Chireya tradition, writes that it was Nyamuswa 'who appointed the Nebana family to be rain-doctors to Chireya.'
54. See also F. Man, 'Some Notes on Chief Sileya.' J'/ADA 39, 1962. When we visited District Administrator M.D. Dzinoreva in his Gokwe South office on 28 August 1995, he introduced us to an old man who acts as an intermediary between the Chireya chiefs and Nevana. The old man told us that Nevana is possessed by the Tembasvika spirit which was given to him by Nyamuswa. Tembasvika, he said, is very powerful. No other informant mentioned this spirit about whom we as yet know nothing more. The name means 'We have been here.'
55. The closest parallel of all, however, is with the Mbona cult as described by Matthew Schoffeleers in River of Blood The Genesis of a Martyr Cult in Southern Malawi, c. A.D. 1600, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1992.
56. J.H. Tapson to Provincial Commissioner, 13 April 1971
57. J.M. Takavarasha, Senior Administrative Officer, 'History of Nevana,' 8 February 1987, PER 5 file, Nemangwe, District Administrator's Office, Gokwe South. Worby, who was resident in Goredema's area during his research, gives an account of the interaction of chiefs and spirits which focusses on lesser mediums. Worby was not taken to meet Nevana and has little to say about him. In his view the people of the Shangwe area, both Shangwe and incoming Shona, negotiated their relationship to the land at the more local level. He believes that few ordinary people go to Nevana who is consulted mainly by the chiefs. Worby certainly understands the dynamics of Shangwe society better than we do and this view is a useful corrective to our emphases. It remains to be seen, however, what sort of synthesis might emerge if he were able to interview Nevana and his adepts and we were able to carry out field work in Gokwe.
58. F. Man, 'Some Notes on Chief Sileya,' JVADA, 29, 1962.
59. Delineation Report, Mkoka, October 1963.
60. Report by Land Development Officer, 4 September 1956, 5 2808/1/4.
61. Eric Worby, 'Maps, Names and Ethnic Games,' p. 390.
62. Interview with Samson Tewasira, 19 September 1995.
63. Interview with Father Rossento, Kana, 26 August 1995.
64. E.R. Morkel, 'The Mondero or Ancestral Spirit of the Wabuja, Mtoko,' NADA, 1930, p. 12.
65. Worby, 'Remaking Labour, Reshaping Identity,' p. 408, notes that individual seeds of the grain used for ritual beer-making in the Shangwe area are called vana.
66. Easack Serewende's account of Nevana, 1983, PER 5 file Nemangwe, D.A's office, Gokwe South.
67. R.R. Tapson, 'Some Notes on the Mrozwi Occupation of the Sebungwe District,' J/ADA, 1944, drawing on local tradition, asserts that the Chireya chiefs were part of the same Rozwi movement which also set up the Nemakonde chieftaincy to the east and that it was the Nemakonde medium, Nyamuswa, 'who appointed the Nebana family to be rain-doctors to Chireya.'
68. Hence Nevana is 'junior' to Nyamuswa. F. Man, 'Some Notes on Chief Sileya,' .J'/ADA, 39, 1962, says that the current chief, describing his own accession, told how messengers were sent both to the 'the great mondoro,' Nyamuswa, and also to Nevana. There is no doubt that the Nyamuswa medium was widely influential in an extensive zone to the east of Nevana's 'commonwealth,' but his influence was far exceeded by Nevana's own.
69. David Beach, The Shona and their Xeighbours, Blackwell, Oxford, 1994, p. 186.
70. Many of the dynasties involved are now thought of as 'Shona' but some were originally Tonga. Beach writes that the Tonga dynasty of Ngezi-one of those described as Roro-'represented the easternmost extension of Middle Zambezi settlement' in the seventeenth century, 'but most of its early history was forgotten following the Ndebele raids.' David Beach, A Zimbabwean Past, Mambo, Gweru, 1995, p. 52. In a letter to Terence Ranger, Beach remarks that 'it is possible that there is a stronger pre-Shona element in this Roro area than I thought.' One conjecture is that first the Nemakonde dynasty and then the Shangwe chiefs were incursions into a largely Tonga zone. Nevana's forbears may have lived in one of the Tonga zones of Baroro.
71. Interview with Jaconia Siziba, 26 August 1995. On 30 August we interviewed Wilson Mlilo at the Nkayi administrative office. Wilson has visited Nevana several times, first to ask for a child and then to thank the spirits for the birth of his son. He says: They always say Usalukazi when you go. I believe they are saying it of a spirit. The spirit has the power to advise on rains; to help people receive forgiveness for whatever wrongs they have done to their elders; and also people ask for a better life. When you get there Nevana's-you are received as one of the family. You go to the special house; you sit outside and you report to Nevana inside. I am sure Salukazi should be the spirit. Nevana is the medium.
72. Interview with Alexander Mabhena, Sub-deacon, St. Peter's, Somakandana, 5 October 1995.
73. Interview with Timothy Gumede, UCCSA, Sivalo, 3 October 1995.
74. The life-story of N.T. Mpofu, November 1995. An equally extraordinary account of Christian sufferings was given by Joseph Linus Mkwebu to Jocelyn Alexander in a series of interviews in December 1995. Mkwebu was ordained a Catholic priest in April 1974. He was assigned to Kana Mission on the border of Nkayi and Gokwe. On 18 August 1978 a ZIPRA band came to the mission. 'They shook me and said I was giving services which showed the government was in control, when they were in control. I said we appreciate the struggle, that's why we're here.' He was ordered to burn the buildings and vehicles. The mission was looted and abandoned. But he returned in order to provide some medical services and to re-open the primary school. But 'it didn't take long for me to be attacked by the other side.' Two white soldiers came to arrest him. They knocked him down, 'calling me a terrorist, a communist, a helper, a sympathiser.' They beat him: 'I wasn't feeling anything below the waist. I was useless. I was half of what I was.' He lay there, hearing the screams of Catholics and others being tortured with electricity. fterwards he felt useless. 'I was thinking of leaving as a priest and working as a man.'