Growing Up Exposed to Syncretism

Here is my two-bits I contributed to the discussion initiated by Bruce Tendai Mubayiwa --- see this link. It is rather too long for a response.

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A comparative study of Christianity and our modes of spirituality shows that there are numerous areas of congruencies. This may account for the manner we quickly embraced Christianity in its second coming.

Let me share with you a summary of my personal experience over the years. Like most Zimbabweans of the colonial era and its educational system that was essentially run by Christian churches, I was exposed to both school-enforced indoctrination and the passive participation in traditional spiritual customs. At home, my rural home, I witnessed traditional customs that were simply too robust to be swept away by Christianity. Having been exposed to both sides, I was pretty much a product of syncretism.

A particularly intriguing case of this dabbling into both worlds was my maternal grandmother. She was a devoted Roman Catholic. Grandma had rosaries, and crucifixes of all varieties, Roman Catholic bibles, hymnals and an assortment of of religious books. You can imagine how much fun I had reading those books at a tender age. These books were everywhere, the very thing that I seem to have recreated --- acquired habits, you may say.

Anyhow, my grandmother was a serious Christian woman by all accounts. What made her a curious personage, however, was the fact that she was also a traditional priest. Please note that I did not call her a priestess for a simple reason; she was not one. She was a priest in that she was the carrier of the spirit or soul one of her transfigured male ancestors who was a traditional healer and a priest during his life. The fact that she was a woman was inconsequential since she had been chosen by the spirit to be the homwe. Here is a case whereby our customs were devoid of gender discrimination. The best qualified person for the job was simply assigned the task. Whereas the celebrated religions are still grappling with issue of incredible gender discrimination and membership into the priesthood, we have had no such problems for as long as we can recall. In the case of Islam and Orthodox Judaism, the relegation of women way deep into the periphery smacks of incredible backwardness of the mind. I saw none of this when my grandmother was transformed into a priest. Her people, the Nyamweda people, had profound respect for her.

I recall one gathering for a traditional thanksgiving festival in her village. The bira was an all-night scene of drinking and singing and dancing and offering of gratitude to the transfigured ancestors and our one and indivisible Mwari who is without peer or fractions of personalities. Early in the morning, immediately after the highly spiritual revelry of the bira, grandma came back into the hut where my cousins and I were tucked under the blankets. Grandma was immaculately dressed in her paraphernalia of true African spirituality. She poured some water into a wooden plate, quaffed a substantial mouthful, which she did not swallow, and showered us with that water. It was Holy water, if you ask me. As all this was going on, I pretended to be asleep, but I pulled the tsuro-tsuro trick of feigning kukotsira asi zvese zvaive mumaziso.

Once she was through, grandma took her bath and dressed herself in her Roman Catholic regalia. Without missing a beat, off she went to church. She did not seem to be bothered by her syncretism at all. For years, it had me puzzled to no end.

I am not going to say that what I saw in my grandmother adherence to our ancient ways and the concurrent devotion to the Christian faith planted a seed of doubt in my mind. My mind was too callow to have reached that state of mind. What I will say, though, is that I grew up observing this kind of syncretism. As a matter of fact, there were occasions I was conscripted into active participation. At school, both during midweek and on Sunday, we were forced to recite the so-called Lord's prayer, bow down before the graven image of Jesus, who we were told was the son of God but that he was also the same God himself. This peculiar concept was beaten into us, I mean it figuratively and, at times, literally.

Having been named after my late paternal grandfather, I also found myself the occasional subject of honouring him in which I played the role of the proxy. My mother used to place me on a rukukwe/rupasa before some traditional items were placed on the reed mat right in front of me. My three grandmothers, my namesake was a polygamist in his life, came before me in the order of seniority, knelt and made petitions while looking me in the eye as they called me their husband. You know, I suspect I may have truly enjoyed the whole thing since I never protested. The only aspect that kind of bothered me was being forced to eat sadza rezviyo and nyama yehuku while my age mates feasted of mealie meal sadza and nyama yemombe garnished with nothing else but salt.

At any rate, I was brought up in a spiritual environment wherein Christianity and our ancient spirituality not only co-existed but were subject to co-practice. In the village, it can be said that the two were not in conflict. At school and in church, the matter was of an entirely different complexion, so to speak. African spirituality was denounced militantly using the most insolent words Christian zealotry had ever coined. It was rather bizarre so much so that the whole religion made very little sense to me, a problem that only worsened as I matured.

My only wish is to have an epoch whereby Christians and Muslims leave us alone so we can freely go on with our lives --- Black Technocrat.