Customs and beliefs of some African peoples – Part 2

The Spirits

Africans living in Zimbabwe, as in most African countries, are powerfully influenced by their spiritual beliefs. They believe in God, or the Great Spirit who created and controls the heavens, the earth and the elements. He is called Mwari, or Umlimo and he is thought to have little concern with the affairs of particular tribes or of men. He has never been mortal. Of course there are many Africans today who have come to accept the Christian faith and who know that Mwari is deeply concerned with the lives of individual men and He is approachable through the Church.

It is Mwari’s sons who are thought to be almost as powerful and who “possess” the bodies of mediums through which they communicate with man. Many of these have the power to make rain. Some of their names are Chaminuka, Nehanda and Nyamuswa. When the powerful human medium (host) dies, the spirit may not choose another for a long period of time but it will “come out” later in another human who will be recognized as the temporal home of the spirit and who will be revered by others.  The power of these individuals to sway opinion and direct the affairs of vast numbers of people should not be underestimated.

Tribal spirits are all ancestral and of a lower order.  These are spirits of the first chiefs, who look after the interests of the tribes and punish their transgressions. Their relationship with the tribes is linked through the present day Chiefs, but they communicate through mediums (called swikiros). Hallowed as these swikiros may be, it is the family spirits which hold paramount importance in the traditional tribes-people’s lives. 

A family does not consist only of its living members. Departed male ancestors are still a part of the family and are concerned with the health and well being of those on earth. They watch over them and guard them unless they themselves are neglected and forgotten. The living therefore worship their ancestors and consult them in all important family matters. Some families will use the services of diviners, while some may have their own medium in the family through whom the spirits speaks. The medium may go into a trance and may not remember afterward what he said or did. 

There are many more aspects of the spiritual influences on traditional Africans.  Some spirits, such as the “shave” (sha-vee) might be the graveless wandering shade of a person who was not afforded customary rites on his death.  Another is the “Ngozi, or the spirit of a man or woman who died with a grievance and who might be seeking revenge.” These multiple spiritual influences are very powerful and even highly educated and “modern” Africans will defer to their relatives' beliefs in many aspects of their lives.

The Chiefs

The Chief is the most important man in his tribal area. His election to the chieftainship has the full support of his followers and their tribal spirits. He becomes the intermediary between the people and their ancestors seeing to the peoples’ welfare and maintains order. His role is spiritual, judicial and administrative. Selection of the chief differs for the Matabele and the Shona tribal groups.

The Matabele chief who passes away is replaced by his oldest son - a primogeniture system, similar to that of the succession, for example, of the English monarchy. This system may, quite possibly, result in the selection of a young king. In a warrior tribe, this system would give rise to a brave warrior chief who could lead the tribe in battle.

The Shona custom is a system of “collateral succession” which, in most cases, will provide an elderly man.  The Shona regard maturity as equal in value to bravery, and this system ensures that grey-haired rulers will assume the Chief’s role.

In the book referred to in Part 1 of this blog there is a good example of how this system works. Say Chief Goredema was the first chief of the nucleus of a tribe.  He has four sons by his first (senior) wife and the oldest is Mutsvago, then Marimba, then Ningi and finally Tsuru.  When Goredema dies, the chieftainship passes to Mutsvago.  When Mutsvago dies he is succeeded, not by his son, but by the oldest surviving male of the house of Marimba, then to Ningi and finally to the oldest surviving male member of the house of Tsuru.  When the houses of all four brothers have held the chieftainship, it passes back to the house of Mutsvago and the whole complicated process is repeated down through the generations.

As there were no written records before the early 1900s, and no birth records, this system would often result in many old men laying claim to the chieftainship. So how would this succession riddle be resolved? The spirit mediums would consult the old chief Goredema, who died many generations ago. He will tell the people who the rightful successor should be.

In Zimbabwe Africans can decide whether to have their grievances aired in the Government court system or whether to have their problems resolved in the tribal courts. Both verdicts are given legal recognition. Unlike government courts, tribal leaders are more likely to go out of their way to bring about reconciliation between the parties. Under the British system, as in the American system, a confessed murdered, for example, might be found not guilty due to a legal technicality. Tribesmen would consider this grossly unjust. It is worth noting that Africans in Zimbabwe can also choose to be married in the Christian faith, and having done so, they cannot then decide to return to the village and acquire other wives.

It is worth noting that since the earliest occupation of Zimbabwe by the British, the government has left the selection of Chiefs to the tribal members according to their age-old customs. Once an heir has been accepted then he is given recognition by the Government.

These days, the administrative responsibilities of Chiefs have grown enormously and include local government, community projects, establishment of business centers and rural schools and hospitals and so on. As one would expect, many of the Chiefs today are well-educated and more capable of dealing with these responsibilities than they might have been 50 or more years ago.

Marriage

The traditional African tribesman does not regard himself as an individual in the way that a European does, but rather as part of a greater whole. His continuing existence after death is achieved through having children. His oldest son will replace him and take his name and perhaps even having children with his wives, except for the son’s own mother.

The oldest surviving son is responsible for the debts his deceased father may have had, for the care of his family, and for maintaining the good will of his ancestral spirits. Continuing the life stream beyond death has given rise to the forms of marriage that have evolved over centuries.  When a couple marry, a very close relationship is established between their two families; much closer than is generally the case in a “western” marriage. The marriage contract is between families, not between the husband and wife as individuals. If the couple quarrels, their families may go to great lengths to prevent the union from dissolving.

There are several forms of traditional marriage, two of which have not been permitted for over a century. (One is the taking of a wife by a captor during a tribal war; and the other is pledging of a child for the payment of a debt.) The most common forms of customary marriage, recognized in law in Zimbabwe, involve the payment of “lobolo,” generally in cattle, by the groom’s family to the bride’s father. When a father accepts lobolo in respect of his daughter he undertakes to furnish the bridegroom’s family with the children who are so necessary for a continued existence.  In some tribes it may be the custom to withhold lobolo until the wife has proved herself by producing an infant.

After payment of lobolo, if the wife proves to be unable to bear children the husband has the right to claim a refund or another woman of his wife’s family, often a younger sister. If the husband proves to be sterile his brother may be called upon to father a child by his wife.

What happens to the lobolo that the father of the daughter receives? To ensure against the possibility of having no grandchildren, he may use this lobolo to purchase a wife for his son. In the past, and probably today, it was common to pair off his sons and daughters so that each son knows from which sister his own lobolo will come.

Lobolo serves in many ways as an insurance policy. It insures that children will be born to them to carry the family into the future. It helps assure a successful marriage by encouraging good conduct on the part of the husband, for it he ill-treats his wife she may leave him and he forfeits the right of any refund of the lobolo his family paid. On the other hand, the father is responsible for the good behavior of his daughter. If she is lazy, or a bad cook, of nags and scolds her husband, she may be sent back to her father to learn how to behave.

Polygamy is still practiced in Zimbabwe although many Africans enter into marriages solemnized in the Christian Faith. Even in these marriages however, lobolo will generally pass between families. The High Court of Rhodesia ruled that such payments are permissible in a Christian marriage as far back as 1912.

The death of a husband does not necessarily end the marriage for his widow.  She remains with his family and is later inherited by his brother or one of his sons. This is a custom similar to that illustrated in Chapter 25 verse 5 of Deuteronomy.

In Part 3 of this series we will discuss the relationship of the African man and his children, his home and labors, his manners and his environment.