LITMIR.BIZ

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constituency, within various African communities. In the pages that follow, I center the leadership of (fe)male gendered spiritual forces such as goddesses, oracles, female medicines, and their human helpers (e.g., priestesses, diviners, spirit mediums, and prophetesses)—the real rulers of African kingdoms, paramounts, towns, and communities. I anchor my discussion in regional case studies that speak to the power, gender, and metaphor of God, the ultimate leader of the spiritual political constituency, and the power, authority, and influence of (fe)male lesser deities, rain queens, spirit mediums, priestesses of the gods, priests of the goddesses, and traditional medicine workers and healers. First, we must understand how African society is organized politically.

       The Female Principle in African Politics: The Female Spiritual Political Constituency

      In Africa, there are basically two political constituencies: the spiritual and the human. The spiritual political constituency is made up of divinities: male and female functionaries who derive their political power from an association with the spiritual world. These spiritual functionaries or leaders are organized in a hierarchical manner (see worldview diagram, figure I.1, in the introduction).

      The human political constituency (see chapter 2) is made up of executives who achieve their political potential as human actors in the physical realm. The text that follows delves into the spiritual political constituency, starting with the most powerful of these spiritual entities, the African Great God.

       The Power of God

      African cosmological accounts submit that God is the origin of all things. All-knowing and all-powerful, Great or High God is the supreme being who created the world, nature, animals, and humans. The 512 nations that make up present-day Nigeria have descriptive names for God. The Igbo, for instance, call God Chukwu, which means “the Great One from whom beings originate.” They also call God Chineke, “The Creator of all things.” The Edo refer to God as Osanobua (or Osanobwa), meaning “the Source of all beings who carries and sustains the world or universe”; and the Nupe call God Soko, meaning “the Creator or Supreme Deity that resides in heaven.” Other West African groups like the Mende of Sierra Leone also have descriptors for God. For them, God or Ngewo is “the Eternal One who rules from above.”²

      Ngai is the Supreme Being of the Gĩkũyũ, Maasai, and Kamba people of East Africa. Although Ngai’s abode is in the sky, Ngai’s special dwelling place on earth is the Kirinyaga mountain ranges; hence the Gĩkũyũ also refer to God as Ngai wa Kirinyaga. In Tanzania, there is no equal to the Ruanda people’s Supreme Being Imana. The southern Sudanese Dinka call God Nhailic (“That which is above”) or Jok, meaning “Spirit” or “Power.” To the Nuer of Sudan, God is Kwoth, and Kwoth is not the sky, the moon, or the rain; Kwoth reveals Her-/Himself through these natural phenomena.³

      Among the Batswana of southern Africa, God is Modimo (Molimo), meaning “One who dwells on high or the High One.” Among the Zulu, Great God is called uNkulunkulu, meaning “Great, Great One” or “Old, Old, One.” The Zulu regard God, also called Mvelinqangi (the First Out Comer), as the ancestor of all. Some southern African Nguni groups call God Qamata (The First One), and Umdali (Creator).⁴ Among the Baila and Botanga of northern Zambia, God is known as Leza (the One who does what no other can do).

      African peoples believe that God is eternal and immortal. One of the names that the Kono of Sierra Leone call God is Meketa (the Everlasting One).⁵ God is also invisible, incomprehensible, mysterious, beyond understanding, and unpredictable. God may never be questioned or cursed. Radically transcendent and immanent, God is above and greater than all else. God is not limited to a particular place or time, God cannot be confined to heaven or earth. God is everywhere. God dwells among us and within us. The Kono of Sierra Leone express this reality in another one of the names that they give God, Yataa, meaning “God is the One you meet everywhere.”⁶

      In spite of these attributes, God is not usually worshipped directly, but is paid high respect. In some African nations, God does not have any priests or dedicated shrines, hence the intimation by some scholars that the African God is a distant God. This assessment is, however, simplistic and does not read entirely true. The African understanding of God is more complex and nuanced than mere binary classifications. In reality, God is distant, or separated from the affairs of human beings, only in the sense that God is perceived as being too big to behold by these humans, and therefore they cannot understand God. This paradoxical complementarity of the closeness yet distance of God is expressed by the Nupe in their conceptualization of God (Soko). They say, “God is far away. God is in front. God is in the back.”⁷

       The Gender of God in Africa: How God Became He

      In the Judeo-Christian framework God is presented as male. In this Western patriarchal religious tradition, the female persona of God in Africa is suppressed. In addition, African theologians and scholars have attempted to prove that the European missionaries did not introduce the concept of God to the continent; thus, many of them equated the belief in an African Supreme God in all three thousand–plus nations in Africa to belief in a Christian God who is imagined as male. This assessment spilled over to their non-African counterparts, who in their writing and interpretations of God also necessarily adopted male pronouns and gender. P. J. Paris, a theologian specializing in African religion, for instance, argues that the African God is the same as the Christian God, who is regarded as the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not His mother.⁸

      The true conceptualization of God in Africa is actually much more nuanced, much more complex. In several African societies, the supreme divinity is neither male nor female. However, referring to God in English has been complicated by the fact that African languages do not have gender-specific pronouns—African pronouns are gender-neutral. This gender neutrality has however been lost when African names for God have been translated into European languages. The result is that the genderless African Creator God has been written about with the pronoun “He,” a handicap that owes its origins to the gender-specific nature of these languages. In consequence, translations of African theology into the missionary/colonial languages of English, French, and Portuguese produced a discourse about God in Africa in which God became male.

       The Metaphor of God

      Nevertheless, African metaphors for God do not necessarily reflect the ways in which theologians or religious historians of Africa write about God. For the Zulu, Swati, Xhosa, Basotho, Batswana, Bapedi and Barotse, Shona, Kalnga, Ndau, Sena, Venda, Tsonga, Ihambane, Herero, and Ndebele, and the three thousand–plus peoples that inhabit the African continent, the names for God are gender-neutral. Indeed, most African societies believe that the world was created by a genderless Creator God. Among the Diola of present-day Senegambia, the genderless Great God is called Emitai. The Igbo Great God of eastern Nigeria, Chukwu (or Chineke), is likewise neither male or female. The Ewe and Fon Creator Deity, Mawu (female) Lisa (male), exhibits both male and female qualities or principles. For the Ga of Ghana, Ataa Naa Nyonmo is a combination of Ataa (old man) and Naa (old woman). Thus, Ataa Naa Nyonmo translates into “Father Mother God.”⁹ The Akan also believe in a genderless God, Kwasi Asi a daa Awisi (“The Male-Female One”).¹⁰

      Some African societies regard their Creator God as female. For instance, the Creator God of the Tarakiri Ezon of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Tamarau, is considered female and her name means “our Mother.” She is sometimes also called Ayebau, which means “the Mother of the world.” For the Krobos of Ghana, God—Kpetekplenye—is also female. She is considered to be the “Mother of all big and wonderful things.”¹¹ The southern Nuba, who have a matrilineal system of descent, also personify the Supreme God as female. According to comparative religious scholar Geoffrey Parrinder, “The southern Nuba . . . refer to God as ‘the Great Mother’ and when praying beside a dying person they

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