The Sawa Chiefs, Christianity and African Traditional Religions

In the first week of August 2009, the traditional rulers of Cameroon's Sawa ethnic and linguistic group organised a march through the streets of Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon, angered by a government decision allocating a piece of land - located at Besseke in the city's Plateau Joss area - as State property,local media reported. The Sawa want to build the headquarters of the Ngondo, their 300 year-old cult, on this site.

What caught my attention in this protest was the form it took. There was the march, a petition to the President of the Republic and (more interestingly) a church service at the Native Baptsist Church, which was followed by a ritual which included the burial of a goat (or sheep) on the site. It was the stark depiction of the African caught between living his/her old ways and being the reverent Christian in a modern world.

Is such open reliance on both the God of the missionaries and that of their ancestors a sign of Africans ready to openly live their multiple beliefs?  

Since the arrival on the African continent of Christianity and Islam hundreds of years ago, the African has struggled to within himself to construct a solid spiritual identity. In a landmark series - the Story of Africa - presented by Hugh Quarshie, the BBC World Service explores religion in Africa and points out that: 

"Many communities mixed Muslim or Christian practices with traditional ones. The Wolof, in Senegal, might go to the Mosque to pray for rain. If that failed they would ask the women to do a rain dance. In Calabar, in south eastern Nigeria, there is a mixture of Christian and traditional practices living side by side."

This has been most confounding for those Africans who have professed conversion to Chritianity.  For many, life (issues of faith in particular) is a daily balance and management of being Christian but also participating in all traditional religious rituals without psychologically breaking down.

How does a Mokpwe (Bakweri) of Cameroon's South West region assume and practice the Sassa ritual after the death of a loved one, which involves cooking food and serving some to the spirit of the "hungry dead" and also fully attend the memorial and thanksgiving service or Mass in the local church?

Indeed, for most sub-Saharan Africans the issue of conversion has not been a small matter. Wholly living their faith is rather winding as Christopher Ejizu, a Nigerian with a keen interest in African Religions writes in the article"Conversion in African Traditional Religions: 

"Religious conversion is such a complex and fluid matter. Particularly in Africa, with the tremendous resilience and adaptability of the indigenous religions, the persistence of vital beliefs among many converts to Christianity or Islam, it is extremely difficult to be categorical about the state of religious conversion of the majority of people. The astonishing stories of phenomenal achievements of the missionary religions and of heroic lives of faith by numerous converts to Christianity or Islam ought to be taken together with the constant complaints against shallowness of faith, nominal membership, syncretic practices among a large segment of the population of new converts. The traditional world-view, including a strong belief in the dynamic presence and activities of spirit beings and cosmic forces in people's lives, belief in re-incarnation persist among most Africans."

Hence, many of those who (in the case of the Sawa protest) were at the ecumenical thanksgiving service for peace for the Sawa people, were also present at the ritual which (some newspapers said) lasted for 13 hours involving songs, libations and animal sacrifice on the disputed land.  The words of the paramount chief of Bonamikano in Bonaberi could be a measure of how deep these beliefs sit in the minds of the people. “Those who think this is just folklore should try to continue building here,” he said.

As Adebari Adeolu writes:

"In the African world, spirits are everywhere--in persons, trees, rivers, animals, rocks, mountains, and even in automobiles and other personal effects. The presence of these spirits in the African society offers a serious challenge to the behavior patterns of the people on the continent and elsewhere because traditional religious practices permeate every aspect of life on the continent. These spirits in many ways act as moral entrepreneurs of the African society. They abhor crimes like adultery, stealing, cheating, and suicide. These spirits communicate their wishes, demands and prescriptions to the larger society through the traditional priests. These traditional priests are able to satisfy their clients through the performance of rituals. On the African continent, every major event has its own ritual, a ritual that may never be overlooked for any reason. The rituals are often performed through a dance, music, libation or art. In the presence of other religious practices on the continent, these rituals have survived in one form or another."

So, was it wrong for the Sawa men and women to openly show that they believed in both their ancestral African religions and Christianity? Is there no compatibility? Are such people candidates for a direct ticket to hell?

Or, is this the way for the African of the future: finally able to assume his multiple religious identity? For how long shall Africans persist with this balancing act? What option is the Christian faith in African countries ready to take: outright dismissal, distortion and dismissive containment of the reality of African religions in the lives of their faithfuls or an adaptation and open accomodation of the fact?

Should Africans continue to live in denial of their traditional beliefs because these have been presented as mere superstition, uncivilised and inferior? Will these traditional African religions, rituals and beliefs survive, at all?  

Comments

[DANGO TUMMA]

YU SHOULD BE ASHAME OF YOURSELF. SOUTHERN CAMERONIANS HAVE LEARNT THIS FRAUD ANDLIES FROM LA REPUBLIQUE DU CAMEROUN, POSTING A FLASE PHOTO OF SOUTH AFRICAN RITUAL FOR SAWA CHIEVES.

[George Esunge Fominyen]

Dear Dango Tumma,

Thanks for visiting Gefs Outlook. All feedback and discussion is useful.

This post draws from the action of the Sawa (Cameroon) dignitaries to discuss the way Africans (not just Cameroonians and/or Sawas alone) are dealing with their traditional belief systems vis-a-vis other religions (Christianity, Islam, etc) which they have adopted. South Africa being Africa, the photo of South Africans in a traditional ritual fits the general sense of the article. I included the tagline (Ritual in SA) to describe the photo and inform you and other readers that it is from South Africa. Besides there is no caption that says this is a photo of a Sawa ritual.

I hope you will have a second reading of the piece and maybe post your point of view on the issue of blending traditional African religions and other faiths.

Cheers.