The Disciple and Sorcery : The Lunda-Chokwe View [1 ed.] 9781443883443, 9781443888295

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The Disciple and Sorcery

“Here the reader is given the rare opportunity to enter a world long since beyond the purview of post-enlightenment populations—a world replete with realities that Western cognitive and lexical domains can scarcely acknowledge, much less apprehend. The book is the culmination of its author’s decades of social, cultural and linguistic immersion in, interaction with, and deep appreciation for the Lunda-Chokwe. This extraordinary window into one distinctively African cosmology will be invaluable to theologians operating on gospel-culture fault-lines across the continent.” —Jonathan J. Bonk, Research Professor in Mission, Boston University; Director, Dictionary of African Christian Biography “Ben Eidse has written a book that displays his life’s work: his passion for learning and listening to local realities, and his experiences with Lunda and Chokwe societies in Bandundu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Part I, with his clear and comprehensive review of Lunda-Chokwe history, rituals, and worldview, including sorcery, will be of great interest to anyone interested in southern Congo, as well as scholars who study non-Western systems of knowledge. Part II will interest those involved in mission work in African societies. It is indeed rare to find a writer able to write a sensitive and respectful ethnography, and also play the role of North American missionary at the same time.” —P. Stanley Yoder, social anthropologist and specialist in health and healing practices of societies in Africa “This is a book by a man who has the courage to tackle difficult ideas, situations, and challenges—whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Of the many facets of Ben Eidse that stand out for me from the many ways I connected with him (as his student and college development officer), are his persistence in task, precision in interpretation, parsimony of expression, and positivity of spirit. This book exemplifies each of those characteristics. But most outstanding to me is its courage—in its interpretive narrative related to both Lunda-Chokwe and Christianity. Ben Eidse is truly a mukwa mana and a mbunge yibema.” —Lee Bartel, PhD, Associate Dean of Research; Director of the Music and Health Research Collaboratory, University of Toronto “Most seminarians in North America would not recognize the category of ‘sorcery’ in their study of theology, even when they take a course on a theology of evil. African Christians across the continent recognize this category and search for ways to respond in pastoral and Christian ways. Speaking out of many years of ministry in the Congo, Ben Eidse weaves together anthropological insights, biblical study and ministry experience to describe how to respond to the spiritual dynamics of the Chokwe worldview. We are all deeply in his debt.” —Daryl Climenhaga, Associate Professor of Global Studies, Providence University College and Theological Seminary “Ben Eidse is a dedicated follower of Jesus, articulate with a deep concern that people should understand the Bible and live by it. His Disciple and Sorcery is a study in crosscultural missions. He illustrates how it can be done effectively by understanding the culture one seeks to minister in. Especially noteworthy is the double focus on the practice of sorcery and its connection with spiritual warfare in the western world.” —Harvey Plett, Ph.D., past Steinbach Bible College President and Evangelical Mennonite Conference Board of Missions Chair (The EMC Board of Missions formed to send the Ben Eidses as its first overseas missionaries under the united Mennonite conferences to Congo with Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission.)

The Disciple and Sorcery: The Lunda-Chokwe View By

Ben F. Eidse

The Disciple and Sorcery: The Lunda-Chokwe View By Ben F. Eidse This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Ben F. Eidse All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7729-8 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7729-9

For daughters Hope, Faith, Charity and Grace

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations .................................................................. ix Foreword ................................................................................. xi Preface .................................................................................. xvii Abbreviations ........................................................................ xix Acknowledgments .................................................................. xx Introduction .......................................................................... xxii Part I: The Lunda-Chokwe Traditional Worldview Chapter One ............................................................................. 2 Myths, Narratives, Proverbs and Fables (Yishima) Chapter Two ........................................................................... 32 Rituals Venerating the Ancestors (Kukombelela) Chapter Three ......................................................................... 74 Sorcery Rituals Intended to Cause Harm (Kupanda Wanga) Part II: Implications For Biblical Discipleship Chapter Four ........................................................................ 100 Reflecting on the Lunda-Chokwe Traditional and Lunda-Chokwe Christian Worldviews

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Chapter Five ......................................................................... 111 Reflecting on Magic, Miracle and Medicine in Well-Being and Healing Chapter Six ........................................................................... 129 The Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ (Atonement) Chapter Seven ...................................................................... 149 Misunderstanding the Atonement Chapter Eight ....................................................................... 157 Magisterial Reformers and Radical Reformers Interact Chapter Nine ........................................................................ 164 Empowering the Powerless Chapter Ten .......................................................................... 175 Reconciling Leaders Chapter Eleven ..................................................................... 181 The Two Testaments: Conflict or Agreement Bibliography......................................................................... 193

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Table 1-1. Origin of People Fig. 1-1. Chibinda Ilunga and Luwej Fig. 1-2. Women working Fig. 1-3. Mortars Fig. 1-4. Woven baskets Fig. 2-1. Mwanangana Fig. 2-2. Mwata Muloj Fig. 2-3. Mukishi statuette Fig. 2-4. Village chota Fig. 2-5. Chihongo, male Fig. 2-6. Pwo, female Fig. 2-7. Ritual dancing at the circumcision lodge Fig. 2-8. Dancing around fire embers with akishi Fig. 2-9. Shamukishi (camp director) displays his authority Fig. 2-10. Ritual specialist applies clay and medicine Fig. 2-11. Camp directors at lodge arch Fig. 2-12. Neophytes prepare for emergence Fig. 2-13. A neophyte dances in the village Fig. 2-14. Neophytes sing and dance into the village Fig. 2-15. Neophytes dance in enclosure Fig. 2-16. Chokwe hunters Fig. 2-17. Palm nut harvester Fig. 3-1. Doctor vaccinates patient Fig. 3-2. Southern Democratic Republic of Congo Fig. 6-1. Chokwe Bible translators Fig. 6-2. Village greeting Fig. 6-3. Helen caring for orphan Fig. 6-4. A nurse in training Fig. 6-5. Churches united to deliver refugee aid

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List of Illustrations

Fig. 8-1. Dirk Willems rescues his pursuer Fig. 9-1. Zangio Kampew Fig. 9-2. Adele and children Fig. 9-3. Tshiwape Seraphin Fig. 10-1. Kakesa Samuel and family Fig. 10-2. Kabangy Moise and Kimbadi Bertine

FOREWORD

Charity Eidse Schellenberg addressed Chokwe Mutual wearing the Mwana Pwo Kalitoza embroidered on her outfit. (John Schellenberg photo). Sadie Wiebe, the first Ben Eidse great grandchild, created a Mwana Pwo mask for a school project.

The Chokwe tribe is present in nine countries of Central and Southern Africa. It crosses the whole continent like a belt, reaching from the Indian Ocean on the east to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. The Chokwe king over this whole empire has his throne in southern Congo, in the Province of Katanga. The Chokwe tribe has settled in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. On June 30, 2013, the Chokwe people organized a civic association called the Mutuelle Chokwe (or Chokwe Mutual).

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They want to unite this far flung people, promote its language and culture (for example its rich art and folklore), so this heritage will not be lost. They also want to develop economic opportunities to help pull the people out of poverty. In April 2014, the Mutuelle Chokwe prepared a huge reception in Kinshasa, the Capitol of the DRC, to receive and honor the king. Chiefs came from all around, dressed in their colorful regalia, wearing the hats and robes and carrying the symbols of authority vested in them. Since my parents, Ben and Helen Eidse, are considered Chokwe elders, John and I were also invited, among the thousands of other Chokwe people who attended. A green and blue print cloth was chosen as a uniform for the event and we all had outfits made from that fabric to wear to the occasion. On the front of my outfit I had the tailor, Andre Isanzu, embroider the kalitoza, the cross tattoo on the forehead of the “Mwana Pwo” Chokwe mask. In this way, I was identifying myself as a Chokwe mwana pwo, or daughter. When the king entered the hall, only women were allowed to make up his procession. The Chokwe have a tradition of "sango" (news). When you meet someone, you deliver in a formal way the news of your journey and the message you have come to bring. There are prescribed ways and rules of how and who gives the sango, and acknowledgement of its receipt. This is an effective way, in an oral society, to ensure that the message is communicated completely and accurately, even though it is not written down. Women are the only ones allowed to communicate sango to the king. We watched this happen at that ceremony. The women relayed the sango in music and dance before the king at the beginning of the program. I did not know that I would be called upon to address the king. When they did so during the program, I walked up to the podium and started by saying in Chokwe, "I am a Mwana

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Pwo." I brought the house down with that sentence because: (1) they didn't expect that a white person could speak Chokwe, which is one of the most difficult of the 400 Bantu languages, and (2) they immediately recognized and appreciated the double meaning. I was stating that I am a Chokwe daughter and at the same time I was identifying with the prominent and esteemed symbol of Chokwe culture, the mask of the Mwana Pwo. This mask is immortalized on the 50-franc bill of the Congolese currency. I delivered my whole speech in Chokwe, which pleased and honored this people greatly. I had with me the Chokwe Bible that was translated by my father and his team. They cheered deafeningly when I said that the Chokwe people are, of all the peoples of the world, among the most blessed because they have the Word of God in their language. The best way to make sure that their language and culture will endure is to read these scriptures and live by their wisdom. We belong to the Chokwe tribe, by the fact that our parents chose to integrate with the Chokwe, living like they live, learning their language, culture and proverbs and discovering together God's message for the Chokwe. We, their children were born and raised among the Chokwe, meaning that our descendants are also viewed as being Chokwe. Our children are their children; our grandchildren are their grandchildren and so on. The Chokwe tribe is matrilineal. The people trace their ancestry or family lines through the mother. This is different than we were used to in Canada or, for that matter, in many cultures of the world. The Mwana Pwo mask represents the esteem the tribe has for the woman. The name of the tattoo on the forehead of the Mwana Pwo is “kalitoza” (or kaditoza; the Chokwe pronounce the “l” more like an “ld”). According to Lambert Tshianze Kandala, Prince of the Chokwe empire, it stands for the four cardinal points,

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North, South, East and West, and symbolizes royalty. It also symbolizes the elevated view of woman, who is seen to incarnate royalty. According to Isanzu the tailor, who is also secretary of the Mutuelle Chokwe, the four points of the kalitoza represent four main roles of the Chokwe woman: (1) Esteemed symbol of royalty. The chief’s wife is the only one who has the right to transmit a message directly to the chief, face to face, or as demonstrated on the mask, forehead to forehead. As such, she occupies a place of highest value, considered more important than a man. Traditionally, women may also be chief. (2) Economic center. The woman is the central economic provider for the household and family. She knows how to do many kinds of work to meet their needs. She is farmer, fisher woman, crafter, business woman, etc. (3) Legal counsel, consultant. The woman is the primary counselor of the man. Before a man makes a decision, he is obligated to seek and listen to counsel from his wife. (4) The creation force of the people. As the creation force that ensures the continuation of our people, the Chokwe woman is expected to bear children. Great lengths are taken to help a woman who has not been able to have children. My father experienced healing prayer with Isanzu’s sister, Aline. She was unable to conceive and her husband was considering divorcing her. Dad prayed with her and encouraged her to take in a child who needed a home. Afterward she became pregnant, bore several children and led the women’s work for years. By the same token as a woman is the source of life, she must not die. So, if a man is married and his wife dies, he must fill her place that is now empty, by giving his niece to his in-laws. That niece then represents that daughter to the bereaved family.

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Recently my niece in Canada chose to research a school project on the Mwana Pwo mask. I called our friend, Prince Kandala, to tell him about it and he said to give her his email. She could ask him directly since he speaks English. I emailed her, saying, “So you are as precious to the Chokwe as their own child. They see you as Mwana Pwo, Chokwe daughter who incarnates royalty. You are a princess who carries the highest esteem! Pretty cool, hey? Your mom, as Grandpa and Grandma's grandchild, made the pilgrimage to her Chokwe roots (they called her by her Chokwe name, Lwecho). She brought them pictures of you, who are the first great grandchild, so the people always ask about you. They love seeing pictures of how you are growing into young womanhood. One day maybe, you may make a trip to Africa, to visit the DRC. Even if you have never been here and don't speak the language, you will sense that you really belong. You will be received by these, your Chokwe people, as a princess returning home.” In the same way, my father’s study of the deepest beliefs underlying the Chokwe worldview, reflects the nurturing of a tribe that received us. It marked us like the kalitoza, with its language, culture and values. They confided in us their troubles, hopes and dreams. This study resulted from their taking us into their confidences and us trusting their process. “Why did your parents choose to come to Africa?” a documentary photographer from Los Angeles, California, asked me recently. We were trekking together through Congo’s primary equatorial forest in this province of my birth. Back in the early 1950s, from their home in the farmlands of Southern Manitoba, Canada, my mother and father heard of a tribe in Congo that was eager to receive the “Sango,” the Good News of God in the Bible. This openness drew my parents across continents and cultures. The Disciple and Sorcery: The Lunda-Chokwe View, rises from a lifetime

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of mutual communion, a soil rich in respect and love, a love that ploughs deeper than all divides. Charity Eidse Schellenberg April 5, 2015

PREFACE

This project presents the Lunda-Chokwe view of sorcery (wanga) in the context of the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview and spells out its implications for a culturally relevant biblical discipleship. The basic assumptions of wanga are that there are spirits or forces in the universe that knowledgeable persons can manage for their benefit or their clients’, to harm or protect. This can be done by: (1) using objects that have been processed to be effective; (2) repeating formulas or gestures; or (3) appropriating psychic powers and projecting them on people, objects or situations. The thesis is designed to help Lunda-Chokwe Christians overcome the fear of wanga and the temptation to use it to cause harm or misfortune. The main body of the book is divided into two parts. Part I (chs. 1-3) describes the LundaChokwe traditional worldview with particular emphasis on what they consider to be a major source of evil. Chapter One focuses on information gained from Lunda-Chokwe myths, narratives, fables and proverbs. Chapter Two discusses the ritual veneration of ancestors and the nature and function of rituals. Chapter Three focuses on the destructive use of wanga rituals. Part II (chs. 4-11) spells out the implications of sorcery for the Lunda-Chokwe as biblical disciples. Chapter Four discusses how the Lunda-Chokwe people, as disciples of Jesus, should respond to sorcery. Chapter Five considers magic, miracle and medicine historically and as they relate to Lunda-Chokwe concerns. Chapters Six and Seven present the person and work of Jesus Christ (the atonement) and how the church should understand them. Chapter Eight considers the

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Protestant Reformation as a major influence on biblical discipleship. Chapters Nine and Ten show how Christ’s example teaches us to empower the powerless and reconcile believers to one another. Chapter Eleven shows how Christ’s life and work, as presented in the New Testament, fulfilled an incomplete covenant in the Old Testament. The heart of our faith is the person and work of Christ reconciling us to the Father.

ABBREVIATIONS

Bible Books and Translations KJV King James Version, 1911 NIV New International Version N/RSV New/Revised Standard Version NT/OT New Testament/Old Testament NEB New English Bible Select Books of the Old and New Testaments Old: Gen., Ex., Deut., 1 Sam., 2, Kgs., 2 Chr., Isa., Jer., New: Mat., Mark, Luke, NT: John, Acts, Rom., 1, 2, Cor., Gal., Eph., Phil., Col., 2 Thes., 1 Tim., Tit., Heb., Jas., 1 John, Jude, Rev. General Abbreviations C. Chokwe ca. circa. (Lat.), about ch. (chs.) chapter(s) ed(s). edited by, edition, editor(s) et al. et alii (Lat.), and others f. (ff.) and the following (verse(s), etc.) Fr. French L. Lunda ibid. ibidem (Lat.), the same work n.p. no page n.d. no date op. cit. opere citato (Lat.), in the work cited above tr. translated, translation vol(s). volume(s)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to the Lunda-Chokwe people of Kahemba, Tshikapa and Tshikaji areas who befriended us over a thirtyyear missionary career and supplied the stories of their traditional worldview and rituals. We also thank the Mennonite Church leaders of Congo who asked us to write lessons addressing sorcery and biblical discipleship. Their contributions to this study are significant. In addition, thanks to our many Lunda-Chokwe friends, such as merchant Zangio Kampew who hauled church supplies gratis, University of Moncton Professor Weva Kabule and fellow Bible translators Pastors Matunda Funda and Khege Andre Mwata-Swana. Also, deep thanks to proof readers Kakhenda Damien, Simplice Mbav' and Charis Schellenberg Kehler. Anthropologists Stan Yoder and Rachel Fretz joined us in research at Kamayala, Congo, and encouraged us to complete this work. Helen’s anthropology course at Wheaton College and her medical service alongside me provided invaluable support. Other colleagues and mentors in the field were James and Ginny Bertsche, Levi and Eudene Keidel and Mel and Elfrieda Loewen. Professors Archie Penner at Steinbach Bible College, Lawrence Burkholder at Goshen College, B. Michelson and K. S. Kantzer at Wheaton Graduate School and A.F. Walls, K. J. Vanhoozer and John Parratt at the University of Edinburgh also contributed greatly to my education and professional growth. Other colleagues encouraged my research during my years as Steinbach Bible College president and chancellor, including Jon Bonk, Stan Plett, Lee Bartel, Rob Reimer, Harvey Plett, Doreen Klassen, Daryl Climinhaga and Lawrence Klippenstein.

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Woodhaven Chaplain Bill Kehler stands out as one who encouraged me while I cared for my wife for 15 years after her stroke in 1995. During manuscript production, Kevin Wieler and Lenny Elliott dealt patiently with computer issues, and all four daughters contributed in many ways. Charity Eidse Schellenberg wrote the Foreward and helped Faith Eidse type, edit and format; Grace Eidse helped edit and correspond with the publisher and the University of Edinburgh; and Hope Wiebe and John Schellenberg scanned and supplied photos and slides. Niece Charis Kehler also completed a final manuscript edit. The editorial team at Cambridge Scholars Publishing saw a diamond in the rough and polished it to a fine finish. Special thanks to Christine von Gall, Sam Baker, Amanda Millar and Sean Howley.

INTRODUCTION

This introduction presents the problem of the discussion on sorcery, the research hypothesis, its objective, focus, methodology and the thesis structure or argument.

Background to this study Through the years, the Mennonite Church leaders in Kahemba territory (southwest Bandundu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo) have been concerned that there are many Christians who continue to fear sorcery and are tempted to use it to harm others. The church in that area of the southern Kwango has a mainly Lunda-Chokwe membership. This study presents the Lunda-Chokwe view of sorcery, which is ulaj in Lunda (L.) or wanga in Chokwe (C.). It examines its meaning within its cultural context, and spells out its implications for a biblical, culturally relevant, Christ-centered discipleship. The basic assumptions of wanga are that there are spirits or forces in the universe that knowledgeable people can manage for their own benefit, or for the benefit of their clients, to harm, to cause misfortune, or to protect. This can be done by: (1) using an object or objects that have been processed to be effective; (2) repeating formulas or gestures; or (3) appropriating psychic powers and projecting them on people, objects or situations. It is assumed that the right formula or action guarantees the intended result (Lima 1971, 401; Audio Tapes 1975-83). The recommended suggestions are designed to help LundaChokwe Christians overcome the fear of sorcery or witchcraft

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and the temptation to use it to cause harm or misfortune. Both English words “sorcery” and “witchcraft” are covered by the one term in Lunda and Chokwe. “Ku panda wanga” means to practice sorcery or witchcraft. A specialist who practices wanga or ulaj is called an nganga (C. sg. and pl.), or mulaj (L., pl. alaj), meaning either “sorcerer” or “witch.” Chilowa is a synonym for wanga and is derived from the verb kulowa, “to control someone else,” “to cast a spell on,” “to affect with wanga” or “to bewitch.” A person who intends to cause harm may either hire an nganga to do the deed, or purchase the power object(s) (in the past often referred to as “fetishes”) from the nganga and attack the victim personally. I agree with Victor Turner when he says, “Witch beliefs can no longer—if they ever could be—usefully grouped into two contrasting categories, witchcraft (in its narrow sense) and sorcery.” For a helpful discussion of this issue see Turner 1967, 118-127. I will use the word “sorcery” rather than “witchcraft” because it is preferred by the Lunda and Chokwe researchers I know best, as well as by my Congolese friends, whenever they communicate in English. When referring to articles by other authors, however, I will use their terminology. The sorcery problem was first impressed upon me in 1953 during my first year in what was then the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Church members frequently came to renew their Christian commitment, confessing that they had resorted to wanga because they wanted to get even with someone, or because they were scared someone was trying to kill them and they had purchased protective sorcery from a sorcerer. Non-Christian inquirers also frequently confessed having resorted to these practices, and then burned their power objects. Christians and non-Christians alike who were being treated at the medical clinic often were afraid they would die, since they were

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convinced that someone had cast a spell on them. In 1975, at the request of the administrative committee of the Congo Mennonite Church, a school teacher, a pastor and I met to prepare a booklet of lessons on the sorcery problem. These studies were well-received and provoked animated discussions, evidently meeting a strongly felt need. The neighboring Presbyterian Church requested permission to translate the lessons into Tshiluba with the understanding that they could change the illustrations to fit the expressions of mupongo (Tshiluba for wanga) that were more in keeping with the experiences of the ethnic groups of their provinces. Under the joint auspices of the American Bible Society and the Mennonite Church, a teacher, Bible translator and myself, translated the Bible into Chokwe. In the course of this project, many cultural word studies were done, including sorceryrelated concepts. Through the 13 years of translation, the persistence of this problem was evident. Therefore, when I was offered a sabbatical leave as President of the Steinbach Bible College in Manitoba, Canada, I decided to do a more indepth study of this topic. My African friends have been supportive of this project and I am in consultation with several of them. I have met African colleagues from various countries and have discovered that the great majority consider the sorcery problem to be a serious one in their countries as well.

Research hypothesis A biblical, culturally relevant guide for discipleship can be developed that will help Lunda-Chokwe Christians deal effectively with the fear of sorcery and the temptation to use it to cause harm or misfortune.

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Research objective The objective of this study is to examine the phenomena of wanga in the Lunda-Chokwe context and to propose a plan for biblical discipleship that will take the Lunda-Chokwe traditional view and the Lunda-Chokwe Christian view into consideration. This will help them deal effectively with the fear of wanga and the temptation to use it to cause harm or misfortune to other individuals or groups of people.

Research focus The primary focus of this study is the sorcery problem among the Lunda-Chokwe, a Bantu people of central Africa, residing together mainly in the southern Kwango, in the territory of Kahemba in the southwest Bandundu Province. These ethnic groups originated in the Katanga region in south central Congo, migrated to Angola, and then arrived at their present location. Some researchers will question why I refer to them as one group, since there are linguistic, historical and even cultural differences between them. The reasons for my decision are as follows. The Lunda and Chokwe people have the same historical roots, both claiming to have the same “mother.” They have inter-married so freely that many families are a mixture of both, and have been referred to as Lunda-Chokwe métis (Lima 1971:93). I recognize that in actuality their relationship has been ambivalent, alternating between amiable political and military alliances and open warfare, and that political opportunists have repeatedly attempted to exacerbate this uneasy relationship to their personal advantage. This was often unsuccessful because the groups did not want to be divided. Furthermore, in the spirit of the New Testament, the church has worked to consider them as one people, and I could not

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see myself addressing only one group. In my references to sorcery-related concepts held by the Kahemba Lunda-Chokwe people I have not discovered any major differences. In ethnographic research on the topic, I interviewed a number of them and despite differences in details, none were mentioned that were of major significance. Then too, in my private interviews with either Lunda or Chokwe people, they always gave me the impression that their views on the traditional interpretation of sorcery were identical. Since it would be too confusing to constantly use both the Lunda and Chokwe languages, I have chosen to use the latter more frequently, because I know it better. However, Lunda words are mentioned at particularly relevant points. The abbreviations “L.” and “C.” are used for Lunda and Chokwe words respectively wherever they are referred to secondarily. Scholars have used a considerable variation in spelling to designate the two ethnic groups and their languages. I have chosen the words “Lunda” and “Chokwe” to designate both the ethnic group and the language because that is the common usage in Kahemba territory.

Research methodology The nature of a field of study provides the principal control over methodology. Since religion involves all aspects of life, all the human sciences may be involved sooner or later. However, I will focus on those disciplines used most widely. Cultural anthropology has been particularly relevant in studying Lunda-Chokwe ethnography through my years in Congo and continues to be so. It has been helpful to look at the data from both the “emic” and the “etic” perspectives. The emic endeavors to describe the world from the standpoint of the culture being studied without passing judgment as to whether its views are right or wrong. The etic examines another culture in terms of the analyst's own basic

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assumptions and conceptual categories (Hiebert 1983:50-54). Such explanations may not agree with the way the people themselves explain events, but they can be helpful because they account for findings from an external perspective. I also believe that explanations of religious phenomena from the perspectives of various disciplines can be enlightening. However, I reject any interpretation of religion that questions its ultimate reality in human experience. Throughout our time in Congo, I tried to be open to what was happening around me and kept on gathering information. Occasionally I observed actual practices of rituals, but when this was not possible, I recorded and transcribed interviews with those who had observed or experienced them. I also received a number of tapes from P. Stanley Yoder, a social anthropologist who did some of his doctoral and postdoctoral research at our home in Kamayala, territory of Kahemba. Our time together afforded many opportunities to discuss the people of the area. Fieldwork interviews, both those recorded by him and by me, include texts on the following topics: narratives of origin and history, childbearing, initiation rites, marriage, death and burial, economics, divining, testimonials and ethnic songs. In the bibliography, his tapes are designated, “Yoder Audio Texts 1979-1982”; mine are “Eidse Audio Texts 1975-1983.” Biblical hermeneutics and theology have informed my approach to the thesis in articulating a program for effective discipleship. Several case studies illustrate the applications I have made on biblical discipleship in later chapters.

PART I: THE LUNDA-CHOKWE TRADITIONAL WORLDVIEW

CHAPTER ONE MYTHS, NARRATIVES, PROVERBS AND FABLES (YISHIMA)

Chapter one examines the Lunda-Chokwe worldview with particular emphasis on sorcery. It focuses on information gleaned from their myths, historical narratives, fables and proverbs (yishima). Chapter two focuses on kukombelela (rituals venerating the ancestors), and chapter three on kupanda wanga (sorcery rituals that are intended to harm individuals or groups of people).

Historical developments A basic chronology of general events and trends helps locate the Lunda-Chokwe in their historical context. The Bantu peoples of the southern savanna of central Africa believe they inherited their land and their foundational culture from the immigrant ancestors, as related in their oral traditions. The spread and establishment of Bantu culture has been dated to the first millennium of the modern era; the emergence of agriculture, metallurgy and sedentary societies AD 500-1000; extensive acceptance of patrilineal political organization during the second millennium; the introduction of New World crops in the 17th century; the spread of the Luba and Lunda political and commercial networks in Central Africa 1700-1850; and the decline of these networks 18401900 (See J. Yoder 1992:3, 12, 151-158; Vansina 1966:). Vansina gives this significant summary:

Myths, Narratives, Proverbs and Fables (Yishima)

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It could be said that the history of the peoples in the savanna in the five centuries preceding 1900 is the story of the development of the Lunda-Luba culture in the East, and of a Kongo and Portuguese culture in the West. In between these areas the regions known as Kwango, Kasanje and Ovimbundu, influenced both by Western and Eastern cultures, produced a number of mixed cultures (Vansina 1966:5).

These states fell around 1900 through European colonization. The Chokwe and the Lunda both accept that they were one people in the past and that, according to their mythology, mankind originated in the Nkalaany or upper Mbuji Mayi River Valley. This implies that the ancestors of the LundaChokwe people lived in that general area for many years. Both accept the interpretation of several generations of brother-sister marriages up to Yala Mwaku. The LundaChokwe history may be divided into five periods: 1) Era of the Tubungu, 2) Secession from the Tubungu by the Chokwe, some Lunda groups, the Pende and others (more on this later), 3) Establishment in the areas of dispersion, 4) Occupation by European colonizers and 5) Independence from the European colonizers. The period of the Tubungu may be dated before the 16th century, if Lima's arguments (1971:52-62), which seem reasonable, are accepted. Hunting methods during this time were rudimentary, using sling shots, snares and pitfalls. Basic agricultural produce consisted of sorghum and millet. Forging metals was still not known to the Tubungu (the Chokwe learning its usage from the Pende when the latter were invaded by the Chokwe). Politically the Tubungu were organized in villages or groups of villages whose leaders were called miata (chiefs)

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Chapter One

but also tubungu since they were the counselors of Yala Mwaku, who was considered to be the leader among equals. That is why he wore the most prestigious lukano (bracelet). From this it can be deduced that each kabungu headed up a sub-clan. Concerning social organization, there is little information but possibly it was some sort of patrilineage. The end of this period was marked by difficulties in the home of Yala Mwaku (or Nkonde, according to Vansina). Chinguli and Chinyama had a quarrel with their father and beat him up badly. That is why he decreed that his daughter Luwej should succeed him, rather than one of his sons. (Some narratives describe them as twins, others present them just as brothers.) Traditions differ as to whether this beating led directly to their father's death, but according to one widely accepted version, it did. Evidently the brothers never really accepted the decree that Luwej succeed her father, and there seems to also have been a generational conflict. In any case, the brothers repeatedly stirred up trouble, and the Tubungu society was in a general state of crisis when the hunter Chibinda Ilunga and his entourage appeared on the scene. In fact, the second period of Lunda-Chokwe history may be said to have been precipitated by the arrival of the hunter Chibinda Ilunga and his subsequent marriage to Luwej, which was intolerable for Chinguli and Chinyama and many of their partisans. (Chibinda was the brother of Ilunga wa Lwefu, the chief of the second Luba state.) Chibinda's marriage to Luwej marked the beginning of revolutionary changes in the traditional Tubungu society. He introduced new hunting methods, notably the bow-and-arrow and charms, as well as the social system of patrilineage. A royal bureaucracy on which the Lunda would depend in their territorial expansion was established. Vansina states:

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This myth obviously means that the Luba Balopwe conquered the area, and this hypothesis is much strengthened by the fact that many Lunda titles are derived from Luba land (Vansina 1966:78).

Vansina (1966) dates the Luwej/Chibinda Ilunga coregency at 1600-1630; Ngandu Yetu (1965) after 1600; and Nsang Ja Uruund (1969) at ca. 1600 (Bastin 1961:8-9). Chibinda's coming also brought internal divisions and the birth of new ethnic groups. The movements of people during this period are difficult to establish. Evidently some migrations had taken place earlier, though most likely the numbers were small. More is known about the movements of Chinguli than those of Chinyama. Among the ethnic groups who left were Chokwe, Pende, Minungu, Lwena (or Luvale), Songo, Luchazi, Shinji and some Lunda groups, including the Lunda Ndembo, and the Lunda of Kazembe. For the Chokwe, a period of long treks began, and of migrations to the West in search of a promised land, including forcible conquest to carve out their own territory. We are told that Ndumba wa Tembo, who is referred to as one of the brothers (in whatever sense) of Luwej, known as the father of the Chokwe, settled in the Saurimo area of Angola. From there they spread southward, westward, and especially northward. The third era is characterized by the establishment of the Chokwe in their new land, further expansion, and “Chokwisation” of peoples they conquered. These people were required to learn Chokwe language and culture. Contacts continued with the Portuguese on the coast, with whom they had already established a relationship. Slaves, ivory and wax were bartered for guns and other products. In acquiring guns, their power in war, raids, and hunting were greatly increased. In their raids and in war, they would take men as slaves, keeping the women and children to

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integrate into Chokwe society through marriage. The conquered peoples were matrilineal and that was the social system the Chokwe adopted, though in modified form. Their political structure resembled that of the Tubungu before the arrival of Chibinda. During this time, cassava and corn were introduced into people's diet. This period could be said to extend to the end of the nineteenth century when the occupation by the European colonial powers was effected. The Chokwe moved into what is now Shaba province in the 1880s when the Lunda hired Chokwe troops to fight for them. Later they turned on the Lunda and gained victories over their state for a brief period, 1880-1887. This facilitated Chokwe expansion into Shaba. Meanwhile, they continued their push northward from Angola until the late 1930s (Miller 1970:175-201; S. Yoder 1981:17-25) Bastin observes that the Belgians found it easier to control Shaba through the Central Lunda because of their more centralized and hierarchical political organization. They frequently established Lunda chiefs to rule over largely Chokwe populations (Bastin 1975:51-64). The fourth epoque, European colonization, brought an end to open inter-ethnic warfare, but led to exploitation by a much greater power than the peoples of central Africa had ever faced. As unrest increased in the colonies, the European imperialists were forced to give independence to the African territories. Independence was the fifth period. However, continued economic exploitation from world powers and misrule and corruption by indigenous leaders have resulted in continuing impoverishment of a large percentage of central Africa, as well as in most of the rest of the continent. We turn from a survey of historical developments to the Lunda-Chokwe use of proverbs, fables, songs and dance.

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Proverbs, fables, songs and dance Proverbs generally encourage people to maintain good social relationships. They encourage people to be genuine, to avoid deceitfulness, and to follow the mores of society even though they may seem too demanding. Here are a few examples: Chili kaali, ndando komba; Mwamushiko yalowa maya jenyi. (“It is two-sided, the price is in-between; Mwamushiko [a renowned Chokwe chief] practised sorcery on the hunters he had sent out.”) The implication of the last clause is that Chief Mwamushiko turned himself into an animal, most likely an antelope, and appeared in front of the hunters. They tried to kill the animal, but were unable to do so because of its superior powers. Finally, the hunters realized that the antelope was not real; it was the chief himself. So, if you identify with the hunters, the moral of the proverb is “be aware of persons who are more powerful than you; they may deceive you.” If you identify with the chief, it signifies that you should not be a deceitful person as this proverb presents him. Another example is Chifuchi cha mukwenu, mutanda wa kayi (“The region of another chief; the spine of an antelope”). If you kill an antelope in another chief's territory, you have to give him the best chunk of meat. Two possible interpretations come to mind. First, it is best to follow the mores of society even though it may be difficult. Second, do not give in to personal desires; practice selfdiscipline. Lunda-Chokwe fables, in common with those of many African cultures, cover a variety of topics and seem to focus more on entertainment than on teaching morals. The ethics in these fables are regarded as crude by the people in sharp contrast to the stringent norms of society. The fables seem to offer an escape from the tensions and fears of daily events. When the main characters are animals, they frequently

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demonstrate how the weak out-maneuver the strong. The hero is generally Rabbit (Mbalu), representing the weak, who through his cunning is able to outwit the strong. An animal, much like him, is Turtle (Fulu), but he succeeds through his directness and courage rather than through his slyness. Often he outwits Rabbit when the two compete. Lion (Ndumba) is the powerful, oppressive authority figure who is repeatedly brought down by Rabbit or Turtle. Serpent (Toka or Chihili) is another strong authority figure who often succumbs to Rabbit or Turtle (Marwick 1965:229-232). Hear the story (in abbreviated form) of Lion, Rabbit and the Serpent. Lion built a dam and caught many fish. Rabbit passed by and, seeing all the fish, was about to help himself when he spotted Lion's tracks. He had a plan. Early next morning, when the rooster crowed, he sounded the alarm that many hunters were on their way. He mimicked the noise of hunters approaching and urged all to be at their posts. They all rushed away, including Lion. Rabbit conveniently took off with the fish. This happened repeatedly. Then Lion went to consult a diviner who informed him what was happening and told him to hide at the dam. He did this, and when Rabbit arrived, he pounced on him and was about to kill him. However, Rabbit persuaded him to stop and to calm down. Rabbit proposed that he would tie a leash on Lion, and would call all the other animals to come see his dog. When Rabbit would cut the leash, Lion could pounce on them and kill them all. That is exactly what happened. Lion then delegated Rabbit to go cut some bark and make a container so that Lion could carry all the meat home. Rabbit had just begun cutting the bark with his hatchet when suddenly Serpent appeared, threatening to bite him. Rabbit convinced Serpent to reconsider and let him fetch Lion instead. Rabbit then persuaded Lion that someone as strong as he was needed to cut the hard bark. Lion consented, returned

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with Rabbit, and struck the tree. Immediately, Serpent bit him and he died. Serpent wanted to have roast lion, so he delegated Rabbit to get some fire from several women nearby. Rabbit, however, was not successful. Instead he urged Serpent to tie a leaf to his tail and go get the fire. Serpent came back with the leaf aflame, but soon he himself caught fire. Rabbit put Lion into the fire as well, roasted them both and took all the meat with him (Barbosa 1992:91-95). Songs and dance cover a variety of subjects and styles, ranging from the ancient traditional to modern, up-to-date themes; from simple to complex, to highly symbolic. They may be a part of rituals or may express the clash (especially among the younger generation) between traditional village ways and rapid urbanization, and between differing world views. They may be laments over difficult economic situations, lack of employment, or break-down of values. On the other hand, they may be sheer entertainment, a reprieve from the hard realities of everyday life. (Lima 1971:41-65, 80; Bastin 1988:35; Bastin 1978:51-64; Audio Texts 1977-1983). Yishima The word yishima (sg. chishima) includes proverbs (yishima yipinji), myths, narratives and fables (yishima yisuku). “Originating with the forefathers, both the stories and proverbs are supposedly based on real events which the ancestors (ashakulu) experienced and reported to others” (Fretz 1988:3). Since the word “myths” has so many different interpretations I will either use the word “narratives” or the inclusive Chokwe word yishima in referring to oral traditions that have been passed on through the generations. The yishima in this chapter discuss: the origin of people and nature; (the) divine being(s), names and characteristics; human beings: body-self, social body, and body politic

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interconnected in life transmission and well-being; the natural and supernatural environments; the origin of Lunda-Chokwe culture; historical developments; and the nature of proverbs, fables, song and dance. The origin of people and nature According to Chokwe narratives of origin, in the beginning there was only the great serpent, Yanvwa Ngombo (Chianza Ngombe in some versions), also known as Mama Naweji. She made everything that we see in this world. This includes human beings, to whom she gave birth; and fire (kahia) and water (meya), two essential elements in the life of people, and of important symbolic significance. One day Yanvwa Ngombo married Njaji (Thunder) who ascended to the sky above. Statements are also recorded that she married the sky (Lilu). In other words, Earth and Sky were united. He lived in the sky with their children. Tangwa (Sun), the fire of Thunder, daily moves across the sky from the East (Kungangela) to the West (Kutokelo), and Kakweji (Moon) does likewise. Both die and are born again daily (afwa ni atetama nawa). Matongonoshi (stars) are also the fire of Thunder. Thunder commands the rain (mvula), which makes the trees (mitondo) and seeds (mbuto) grow. Yanvwa Ngombo lived on the earth below (mwishi), so everything on earth belonged to her: streams, rivers and all the waters and things under the earth (mu kalunga). The first people were Shamutu and Namutu, the prefix shameaning “father of,” and na- “mother of,” while the root mutu meaning “self” (preferable to “person,” which is discussed later). They were born from the womb (mujimo) of Yanvwa Ngombo. This brother and sister got married and had a son named Yala and a daughter Konde ya Matete. They in turn married and also had a son and a daughter, Mwaku and Naweji. They married as well and again had a son and a

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daughter, Yala Mwaku and Konde. Stories vary. One version presents each pair only as brother and sister; another version maintains that in each case they were twins. Another variant concerns the question of how many brother and sister sets were born, just three, or many more? According to one version, a son of Yala Mwaku and Konde, named Mwaku ya Konde, had a son called Yala Mwaku, like his grandfather. Yala Mwaku (L. Mwaaku) is the first person with specific historical connections. Yet there is considerable ambiguity as to whether he represents one person only, or several successive leaders. Some scholars evidently believe the name became a title. He is described as one among the original Tubungu (L. mwaantaangaand) “counselor chiefs,” though he was their chief. They are considered to be the forerunners of the fifteen counselor chiefs belonging to the Lunda king's court. Some scholars consider the Tubungu to actually be the tribe from which the Lunda and Chokwe originated. According to one version, it was either Yala Mwaku or one of his descendants with the same name who was the father of Chinguli (L. Kinguri) and Chinyama (L. Cinyaam) and a daughter Luwej (C. Lweji, also L. Rweej) who are significant in Lunda-Chokwe history. Vansina, however, says Konde (L. Nkond) the son of Yala Mwaku was their father. These versions of the origin of human life do not give the location of the sacred place where life was transmitted (as they would say) to human beings, but another version does. I had the opportunity to see the reputed spot in the valley of the Mbuji Mayi (Kalaanyi) River. The Lunda capital Musuumb (C. Musumba) has always been located close to this spot. (Audio Texts 1975-1983; Vansina 1966:78-79; Bastin 1978:67; Lima 1971:42-44; S. Yoder 1981:17-18). We move on to consider the divine beings or being, depending on which interpretation one accepts.

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Divine beings: names and characteristics Our next focus is on the various names of deity and the characteristics that they reflect. First of all, let us consider the names of the Great Serpent. Ngombe means "cow," but this is the one name that does not seem to fit. The cow is certainly not very significant among the Lunda-Chokwe as a whole. The alternative version, Ngombo, meaning "divining basket," is much more basic in their culture. In fact, the figurines that go into the divining basket are considered a microcosm of the whole culture. The divining basket is also a vital instrument for obtaining superhuman or esoteric knowledge. This name could well symbolize the esoteric knowledge and power of the Great Serpent. Yanvwa was part of the title later given to the Lunda king, Mwata Yanvwa (L. Mwaant Yaav). The head chief of the Lunda diaspora carries the title Chianza or Kianza. Now concerning the name Mama Naweji, as noted earlier, na- means “mother of,” and “lweji” is the root name of the princess who played a major role at a crucial juncture in Lunda-Chokwe history. As we have seen, the Great Serpent gave birth to, or created, everything, including the first man and woman. In Lunda-Chokwe history the snake is the classic symbol of fecundity. A wrong encounter with a snake, however, is believed to make a woman infertile, as happened later to Mama Luwej (or Rweej; C. Lweji). Through the years, as people's experiences and contacts change, languages also change. Some narratives substitute Shakatanga for the Great Serpent, and others Kalunga. This is significant because Shakatanga means "father of creation," or "creator." Kalunga is a name that occurs in many myths and proverbs, reaching to the distant past. Kalunga is associated with things that happen on earth and is basically a superlative denoting special size or power. Lwiji is a river; kalungalwiji,

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“mighty river” or “sea.” Mu kalunga means "in the earth," “deep hole,” or “abyss,” denoting the place where the dead go. It becomes the personification of death. No one can stand against the power or force of death. Kalunga is the first term the Chokwe used (as far as we can tell) to designate the Supreme God, apart from the Great Serpent. Bastin observes that the Chokwe consider Kalunga as living on earth, like deceased ancestors do, and as someone whom the dead go to join after death (Bastin 1988:11). It will be recalled that the Great Serpent is also associated with the earth. Njaji (Thunder), however, went to live in the sky and the term Zambi (or Nzambi, L. Nzambi), now most frequently used for God, has always been associated with the sky. The Chokwe say, Zambi katwama mu malilu ("God dwells in the skies"). In one of the ancestral veneration rituals, Kalunga is addressed in prayer as being on earth and Zambi is addressed as being in heaven (see ch.2). Interviews in the Kahemba and Shaba areas, however, imply that the people generally now consider Kalunga and Zambi to be one and the same being. Where Zambi dwells, there Kalunga dwells. “They (Kalunga and Zambi) do not go to greet one another in each other's villages” (implying that they are the same being, Audio Texts 1975-1983). Often they refer to Zambi Kalunga. Evidently this reflects a later development. Zambi Kalunga is the Creator of all that exists and is considered to be good, although he is not thought to be that concerned about the daily affairs of human beings. The name Zambi is not prominent in rituals, although he is addressed in prayers. Zambi is used throughout central Africa, and the switch from Kalunga to Zambi is widespread and could well be due to Christian influence. Zambi is now variously rendered: the High God (Ger. der Hochgott), the Supreme Being (Fr. l'être Suprème), or the Supreme God.

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From the discussion of the Lunda-Chokwe view of divinity we proceed to their view of humanity.

Table 1-1. Origin of (the Lunda-Chokwe) People

The origin of Lunda-Chokwe culture According to yishima, Zambi cared for the first parents and provided for them by giving them many different edible, and otherwise useful, plants that reproduced. He gave them instructions on how to make and fix tools and how to use them in agriculture and construction work, even showing the first parents how to work with iron. The narrative also makes the point that of necessity, the first brother and sister had to marry, but that with the increase of population this is no

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longer necessary nor preferable. After that, some customs are outlined regarding marriage and kinship mores. The story also relates how the first man mistreated his wife and how he then paid her by giving her a little hatchet to make up for his misdeed. At the conclusion, husbands are urged not to insult their wives like the first husband did. This narrative seems to be of later origin than the Great Serpent myth of creation (Audio Texts 1975-1983).

Fig. 1-1. Carvings of crowned Luba hunter Chibinda Ilunga, holding male and female mahamba (ancestor figurines), and Luwej (C. Lweji, L. Rweeji). (Earth Metropolis.)

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The second major section of narratives centers on the arrival of the Luba hunter, Chibinda Ilunga (L. chibiind = hunter) in the Lunda homeland. It also focuses on the beginnings of crucial aspects of the culture. Some versions of the Ilunga narrative report that he arrived at the edge of the river the evening before he met Luwej. In his preparation for night he cut a forked branch from a mwehe or mukaji tree, representing the hamba (ancestral spirit) named mwina. This he stuck into the ground and then hung on it all his yitumbu (charms or power objects), as well as the rest of his hunting equipment. He then went to sleep with his head resting on a termite hill, which represents the ancestral hunters (yimbumba). Luwej's father used to sit on a particular stone close to a tree near the ancestral shrine. When Luwej was preparing to receive Ilunga, she had people move the big stone to her courtyard so that he could sit on it beside her during his first audience with her. As a token of appreciation and as a gesture of good faith, Ilunga planted trees around the place of their first meeting. The trees are called mujangana or muliangana, which according to Carvalho means to receive in audience (cited by Lima 1971:300). To reciprocate, Luwej arranged for the area around the place to be swept daily. Before deciding to accept Chibinda as her husband, Luwej consulted her ngombo and spoke with her hamba. She was convinced that her father had sent him to her. The son born to Luwej, was named either directly or through another woman (most likely the latter), depending on which version of the narrative one accepts, Mwachiyanvwa (or Mwata Yanvwa; L. Mwaant Yaav), the founder of the Lunda Empire. He is also honored by the Chokwe for these links with their past. His name Yanvwa, we recall, is the same as that of the Great Serpent, the creator of all things, and stands for fecundity, which is a basic concern for the Lunda-Chokwe people.

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The arrival of the Luba hunter, Chibinda Ilunga, was significant. He is said to have introduced a new hunting technique, the bow-and-arrow, and to have affected the entire structure of the society of the counselor chiefs. He evidently put in place an entire political and social system. The former one must have been in a state of crisis at the time. This is generally interpreted as a Luba takeover of the Lunda state and is given as one of the reasons for the departure from the Lunda homeland by the Chokwe, some of the Lunda, and other groups. This view is confirmed by the introduction of many Tshiluba titles (Vansina 1966:78ff.; Lima 1971:43ff.; 297-302; Bastin 1978:7-11; 223). Human beings: Body-self, social body, body politic– interconnected in life, transmission and well-being The Lunda-Chokwe people greet one another with “Mwoyo!” (C.) or “Mooy!” (L.), “Life to you!” This is followed by various inquiries about the person’s or family's health and well-being, equivalent to bodily, socio-political and cosmological interactions that are all related to wellbeing. The greeting, the questions and the responses thus reflect two key concerns of the people, which are also reinforced in the narratives and in the rituals as will be seen in the rest of part one , well-being and interconnectedness (see S. Yoder 1981:9; De Boeck 1991a:8ff.). “Well-being,” as we will see, is a widely encompassing term. It includes fertility, fertility in the family, on the hunt, among livestock, in the fields. It is one of the major concerns of their society. Unlike the Judaeo-Christian concept in which life is viewed as coming into being, the Lunda-Chokwe see life more as something that is transmitted, passed on. As already mentioned, fertility and well-being, to be realized in the biological, sociological and cosmological realms, must be knit together. When a sorcerer attacks, he seeks to break that

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connection between victim and environment. What Filip de Boeck found among the Lunda is also true among the Chokwe. He observes: Among the Lunda, for instance, a sorcerer's attack makes one ill because it disrupts this interconnectedness and “ties one with cords” (udi wa kukas) or “ties one with knots” (udi kal ni nkat, mapuund mayiksailay), into a separated or disintegrative and negative bond that counters and undoes or unties the vital integration between the corporeal, social and cosmological fields. Being in good health is thus conceived as being “whole,” in the sense of being knotted into this vital triple consonance (Ibid., 9-10).

De Boeck deduces from observations such as these, that the Lunda have a three-fold view of the body: 1) the bodyself, 2) the social body and 3) the body politic. These are not to be viewed as separate entities, though, but are closely interrelated, each body achieving its full importance in its relations with the other bodies. The body-self De Boeck adopts the term “body-self” from Lock and Sheper-Hughes who state that it renders, “the being-in-theworld as separate and apart from other beings” (1991c:14). They also insist that “self” should be differentiated from "person," which they consider a “uniquely western notion of the individual as a quasi-sacred, legal, moral and psychological entity” (ibid.). It is more a social concept, whereas "self" is more private and intimate. In this they follow Mauss ([1938]1985). The growth of the body-self is the development of selfidentity; the growth of the social body is the development of social skills, or mature personhood. This integrative process

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differs with the genders, and is vitally related to the transmission of life. Among the Lunda-Chokwe a person is believed to be born with a particular kind of heart (mbunge), with a certain temperament, which compels him/her to a particular kind of behavior. A person with a good heart (mbunge yibema) is thoughtful of others and considerate. A person with a bad heart (mbunge yibi) is inclined to be mean, to lie and to steal. A person may be spoken of as being a mukwa mana, an intelligent or wise person, though usually that is developed through the instruction of ancestors, elders, grandparents, and parents. If a child is described as keshi mana, it means that he/she does not follow directions; if referred to as keshi vumbi, he/she is not respectful. A mukwa vumbi respects other people whoever they are, takes social responsibility seriously and is able to control his/her feelings, even in stressful situations. Parents do not consider themselves responsible for children born with negative dispositions. They are just responsible to try and make them act rightly and welcome others helping them in the nurturing process. Public expressions of intense feeling, i.e. anger, sorrow or joy, are not frowned upon as long as wrong things are not said to people in that agitated state of mind (Fretz 1987:67-70). The social body The social body is considered from three angles: gender roles, matrikin-patrikin relationships, and practicing the presence.

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Fig. 1-2. Women work in concert, pounding manioc into flour and roasting an animal, in this lacquered bamboo and grass depiction of village life in Congo.(Ben Eidse collection)

Gender roles In describing the social body, De Boeck examines two alternative models of gender ideology and relations. One is masculine dominance and female subordination, the other feminine power, vigor and vitality. In a sense, they complement each other and in another sense they tend to result in antagonism. The male model focuses on the man's public authority, economic control and the body politic. He is expected to assume one or more of the following roles: family or lineage head, hunter, elder or judge. These activities occur in the public eye and require the necessary social skills. The female model dominates the domestic domain including power over agricultural resources, with men being dependent on female nurture and regenerative powers. Both

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male and female, of course, participate in the transmission of life. In regard to society, lineage is traced matrilineally but residence is patrilocal or virilocal (in the vicinity of the husband’s father’s group). There is a definite interdependency, yet also considerable possibility for tension. Repeated efforts are made to reestablish the interdependence and the oppositions of gender relations through daily interactions and in ritual. Let us briefly examine the role of an elder to see what the characteristics should be for that position. Pertinent qualities including relative self-sufficiency, ability to take responsibility, communication and negotiation skills, courage, diplomacy, uprightness, development of social skills—not only involving verticality but also being a life-transmitter.

Fig. 1-3. Women use mortars of all sizes in the rigorous pounding of manioc into flour and herbs into spices. (Ben Eidse collection)

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Metaphors denoting these ideal attributes depict verticality. Examples include: the source of the river upstream; the lightening stroke; the ascending sunrise; having teeth in one's mouth; having a taste for the bitter; being like the rain, a tree or a rooster. A hunter requires the same characteristics. In fact, Chibinda Ilunga, the founding figure, was both hunter and statesman. The female body-self development into personhood occurs earlier, being ready for motherhood and what it entails by age fifteen, whereas the male must be older before he gains social stature. Her role as mother is seen physically in that her breasts look at the legs while those of a girl without children look at the mouth. Her body-self is relational and horizontal instead of vertical and autonomous like the male body-self. Metaphors that become motherhood include: the needle, small yet vital to well-being, useful in repairing and nurturing; the fertile field, the receptacle, the gourd, the cooking pot—all signifying the womb; the abdomen being the focal point instead of the head as in the case of the male; the trunk and branches of a tree; the banana tree, signifying the union of male and female and children. The older woman, past the child-bearing stage, becomes more like the man, a public figure, more vertical. She is often respected and even feared by men as she begins to express her opinions more publicly, often with considerable medical knowledge because of experiences as a midwife and looking after a sick family. The space she occupies, shifts from the back to the front of the house, especially if her husband has married additional wives—since she would be in charge of them and of the household. The older women take more active part in rituals, leading singing and dancing groups, which younger women participate in as part of their communicating activities.

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Fig. 1-4. An intricate woven basket and lid for sifting flour or keeping food warm. Female roles are symbolized by receptacles and fertile fields, the body-self relational and horizontal. (Ben Eidse collection)

Cosmologically speaking the older woman may be compared to the mythic serpent, Yanvwa Ngombo, who gave birth to the first human beings. The woman who is not able to have children (mumba) is said to be closed or blocked off, and is marginalized in her hearth and her lineage. She is considered to lack relational capacity (De Boeck 1991c:171-265). Not only are gender roles important in the development of the social body but so are matrikin-patrikin relationships.

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Matrikin-patrikin relationships Social relations in a village unit fluctuate between general over-all harmony to considerable conflict. Residents in a village have a dual affiliation with loyalties being divided between the patrikin and matrikin. The Lunda-Chokwe consider descent matrilineally with residence being virilocal or patrilocal. In a typical village you would find several brothers, their wives and their children and their sisters' sons, their wives and children. When a young man marries he usually goes to live in his maternal uncle's village, or he may stay in his father's village. His wife, on the other hand, moves away from her dual lineage. The husband who goes to live in his mother’s uncle's village, strengthens his matrilineal attachment because he makes his home with the matrikin. If he remains in his father's village, as some do, he continues on with the patrikin. The wife's situation, however, is much different. True, her maternal uncles arranged the marriage with her husband's maternal uncles, but she has to live either with her husband's matrikin or in some cases his patrikin. She may feel as if she has been sold as a slave. There is little likelihood that she will feel at all connected until she has given birth to children. After that, she will gain respectability among her husband's relations and in her lineage. Frequently, there is considerable competition between the opposing lineages, and the children may feel they are mere pawns in the hands of vying adults. Father and mother may have differences over matrikin or patrikin loyalties. A brother is interested in his sister's children because he is responsible for them. A father prefers for his children to live with him as long as possible, but invites his sister's children to spend time with him so that he can look after them better. Even though a mother wants her children around she also wants them to live with her relations at times in order to strengthen those ties.

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There is much extended visiting back and forth with opportunity to build up and to break down relationships depending on the nature and strength of feelings. Marriage is certainly not a private matter; it links two lineages for better or worse. The maternal uncles on both sides have a major concern for the success of a marriage and are hesitant about getting involved with unknown lineages. Most likely cross-cousin marriages are preferred because the uncles know what kind of people they are negotiating with. However, it would be difficult to divorce such a wife because she could not be sent away. That is why some young men seek strangers instead. When a marriage falters, the wife has fewer acceptable reasons to give for the break-up than the husband. She may accuse him of not providing utensils, of beating her, or of causing her illness with his sorcery. His list of complaints could include sterility, lack of respect for him or his relatives, suspected adultery, poor nurturing or cooking. Initial difficulties may develop into major disputes, leading to extended court cases that may end not only in the disruption of the marriages but also of lineages. The maternal uncles bear the major responsibilities and must act with wisdom, tact and patience. In court, the respective maternal uncles act as lawyers on behalf of their clients. Getting along from day to day in the home, however, is a personal matter, and friends, neighbors and family are glad to help people in the difficulties inherent in human relationships. Codes of acceptable conduct are known as are the consequences of breaking them. For example, to have good relationships with fellow villagers, the Lunda-Chokwe have an accepted system of borrowing and lending. If a person does not participate in the system, when misfortune or sickness strikes, that individual will most likely be identified by the diviner as having practiced sorcery, and will have to accept

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the consequences. As we have seen, gender roles and matrikin-patrikin relationships are crucial in the proper development of the social body. Another critical development of the social body is "practicing the presence." Practicing the presence Harry Sawyerr observes that clan systems “may be depicted in terms of a three-tiered hierarchy of relations embracing 1) the living, 2) the dead, and 3) the unborn” (Sawyerr 1968:26). Factors that seem to contribute to the belief in living ancestral spirits and their continuing influence on their descendants are: (1) the intimate relations people have had with family members, especially parents, leading them to believe that the deceased still have a concern for their well-being (a sense evidently widespread throughout the world); (2) the hierophanies (sacred manifestations) people experience appearing to confirm this belief; and (3) the practice of the presence of the ancestral spirits also making them seem to be living and interested. Generally in primal African societies, people assume the presence of the deceased and invoke their blessing and help, as will be illustrated later. A more tangible attitude of presence, however, is being practiced in relationships among the living. J. V. Taylor, in his book Primal Vision (1963), states, "Africans believe that presence is the debt they owe to one another" (Cited by Sawyerr, op. cit. 26). Practicing this presence is seen as follows: extended family members being expected to be concerned for all others; sharing one's food and belongings generously; children of an extended family being considered as belonging to all the adults in that family who are expected to help raise them; strict instructions being given from childhood on how to greet, treat, and not treat people on the basis of relationships, status and the nature of the

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friendship, etc.; cooking extra food in case visitors drop in, inviting them to join in if they appear and expecting acceptance of the invitation (op. cit. 26-30); and among the Lunda-Chokwe participating in their borrowing-lending system, according to the understood rules. Having considered the body-self and the social body, we briefly focus on the body politic, which has not actually been excluded from the discussion so far—since all three are interrelated. The body politic De Boeck explains the responsibility of the political body as follows. The political body, as an institution of the social body, generally refers to the regulation and control of bodyself and social body in those domains that directly bear upon the “fertility,” continuity and survival of society as a whole: sexuality, gender, natural reproduction through labour, regeneration or the transmission of life, illness and health. The body politic should enable the community to operate in good order (De Boeck 1991c:28; cf pp.11-27). This description applies equally to the Chokwe. Our attention now shifts from human beings to their larger environment. The natural and supernatural environments As already stated, Kalunga created the world of nature. He also gave people knowledge of nature, including knowledge of edible or medicinal plants; knowledge of animals: their characteristics, color, size and habits (that they, like humans, have breath, mwono, which is exhaled when they die); knowledge of natural phenomena: lightning, the rainbow, rings around the sun, the sources of rivers, etc. Striking characteristics, whether in animals, plants or natural

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phenomena serve as metaphors in stories, rituals and medicines. Here are examples: (1) parts of the chikole (civet cat) being used to treat a sickness called yikola ya afu (illness believed to be caused by a spirit of a person that has recently died), the cat's unpleasant odor preventing the spirit from returning at night to agitate the patient; (2) parts of the panga (sheep) being used in treating kuzaluka (severe mental disturbance, "madness") and chikonya (epilepsy) because the patient must be calmed down like a sheep, which does not cry when it is being killed; and (3) njaji (lightning) being employed in treating yanga ya kubaza (severe headaches), by using an object or substance taken from a tree that has been struck by lightning or from its trace in the ground (S. Yoder 1981:46- 47;315;317;321). Kalunga is also believed to have given people knowledge of the supernatural environment, including: supernatural creatures, supernatural events, and the supernatural social realm. According to tradition, there are supernatural creatures that are considered difficult and dangerous to see, that have special powers to kill. These include: muhangi, a man-like creature of the forest, having long hair, walking on one leg with the help of a pole, a honey-eater; and kalulu, a creature the size of a young child, living in the forks of trees, flying around at night. It is also believed that powerful sorcerers can cause supernatural events (yipupu) to happen by using power objects, sometimes called fetishes (pelo). Ordinary people cannot see these happenings, but sorcerers supposedly can see many things in the daytime, and even more at night that others cannot. Examples include: small “masks” (akishi) and unusual animals that threaten human beings. Dogs and roosters are believed to be aware of such phenomena, barking and crowing at night often being signs of such a presence. Children, before they can speak, are thought to be able to see

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these creatures. Individuals, we are told, may have this sight restored through special treatment of the eyes (kuzoza meso). The supernatural social realm includes ancestors (malemba) and the spirits of recently deceased relatives (afu). There seem to be no clear concepts of other spirits. The living have certain responsibilities in regard to the ancestors. Maternal ancestors must be honored and invoked at birth, circumcision, marriage, death, the founding of a village and especially at a time of misfortune or affliction. Ceremonies use carved figurines (mahamba), symbols of ancestral presence and power, to re-establish relationships with lineage ancestors. One of the key concerns of the LundaChokwe, as we have seen, is individual and clan well-being and prosperity, and this is believed to be dependent on honoring the ancestors. The criteria of well-being include: health, fertility, hunting success, accumulation of goods and livestock. Recently deceased relatives are believed to be near the body, hovering in the air, until burial. Their activity is feared and it is believed that they seek to enter the body of the mourner for harm, either through a body opening, i.e. when the mourner looks up, or in a dream. The illness caused by the recently departed (yikola ya afu) is characterized by troubling dreams, dizziness and involuntarily falling asleep in public. A recently deceased person (mufu) who has entered the body at night can be evicted and the body can be purified through treatment (S. Yoder 1981:47-50; Audio Tapes, 1975-83).

Summary In the yishima on the origin of people and nature, and nature of (the) divine beings(s), we noted that only one being is spoken of in relation to creation, the female serpent who is mentioned as having created everything and as having given birth to the first parents. This seems to point to monotheism.

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However, her marriage to Thunder, the Sky God, raises the question: was one of them superior to the other or were they equals? Does this reflect a belief in a supreme God and a lesser divinity? Or are they equals, thus implying a belief in polytheism? A similar question comes to mind in the presentation of the central ancestral shrine in chapter two where we find Kalunga addressed as being on earth and Zambi in heaven. There does not seem to be a clear answer. However, we observed that now the two names refer to only one being. We noted that the serpent (divinity) is associated with fertility (so important in Lunda-Chokwe culture) from the start. But we also learned that wrong encounters with a serpent by a woman are believed to result in infertility, as Mama Luwej experienced at a crucial juncture in their history. In the narratives on human beings, we were introduced to the concept of “interconnectedness” as a condition essential to the transmission of life and continuing well-being, and also the pivotal observation that the sorcerer's attack, if successful, disrupts that interconnectedness. It is also significant to recognize the importance of the proper development of the three selves and their inter-relatedness. The way of dealing with children with varying dispositions, or with conflicting gender roles, matrikin-patrikin rivalries, and “practicing the presence” reflect a keen awareness of the importance of the whole clan taking responsibility for maintaining “interconnectedness.” The yishima on the natural and supernatural environments, and the origin of Lunda-Chokwe culture, took us further into the world of magic or esoteric forces. The yishima of historical developments reflected large scale conflict situations such as the slave trade and war. We learned that proverbs encourage people in maintaining good social relations, being genuine, avoiding deceitfulness and continuing to follow

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society's mores. These are intended to counteract friction that might encourage use of sorcery. We learned, too, that fables are intended more for entertainment and are also excellent for diffusing built-up resentment or tension, and that songs and dance have great versatility in contributing to the creation of a smooth-running community. Having considered the natural and supernatural environments, we now consider the origin of Lunda-Chokwe culture.

CHAPTER TWO RITUALS VENERATING THE ANCESTORS (KUKOMBELELA)

Foundational to understanding Lunda-Chokwe interaction with their total environment is a comprehension of their traditional rituals. This section examines veneration rituals by defining and explaining two basic terms, hamba and mukishi, and considering the nature and functions of rituals in general. This is followed by descriptions of the central ancestral shrine, a special sacrifice to ancestors, dancing masks, life cycle rituals, and daily life rituals.

Definitions At the beginning of this discussion on veneration of the ancestors it will be helpful to define two basic terms, hamba and mukishi. Hamba (C. and L.) The word hamba (pl. mahamba) occurs frequently in the interpretation of rituals. Lima briefly defines it as, "a figurine of worship [or veneration], object, force, spirit, quality, etc." (Lima 1971:303).

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Fig. 2-1. Chokwe Chief Mwanangana, wearing a crown and holding male and female mahamba, ancestor figures. (Stanley Collection)

But explaining this complex term adequately is difficult. For a start, it may refer to any of the following:

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1) a variety of figurines a) forms of people or animals carved out of wood, either placed in divining basket or for other use b) shaped termite hills c) models of people and animals molded of clay 2) miniature tools for agriculture and hunting 3) miniature musical instruments 4) dolls dressed in raffia from palm trees 5) tree trunks coarsely sculptured 6) certain dead trees or parts of trees (roots, leaves, branches and fruits) 7) pieces of certain animal skins 8) turtle shells 9) medicines, charms or amulets, usually referred to as yitumbo (medicines), which are also referred to as mahamba. However, mahamba are not just physical objects; they are objects of reference to the spirit world. A person may be possessed by a hamba, a spirit in this case. We are informed that this refers to an ancestral spirit, and discover that such an experience may be interpreted either positively or negatively, depending on the circumstances of the event. The possession, it is said, may be willed either directly by the hamba, or by an agent who is manipulating it. A hamba may deliberately take possession of a person and cause her or him to become sick or even to die. The ancestral spirit may do this because it may feel neglected by the living or because the ways of the ancestors are being ignored. Even when this happens, the purpose is considered to be positive. A diviner will then be consulted to determine who is responsible for this possession and the reason for it. The problem must be identified and dealt with, and the hamba exorcised for health to be regained.

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Fig. 2-2. Carved Mwata (Chief) Muloj, one of the important chiefs of the Kahemba area, wearing a horned chief’s hat and large medal, symbolizing authority. (Ben Eidse collection)

On the other hand, the spirit of divination may take possession of a person in order to use her or him for a particular purpose, e.g. to become a diviner, which will be discussed later. It becomes evident, as one observes rituals, and discusses them with the Lunda-Chokwe, that the objective artifact and subjective wisdom and power work in tandem. However, the artifact must be made effective by a specialist (mbuki, tahi, kabuma or nganga, i.e. hearer, diviner, discoverer of witchcraft, sorcerer) before it produces any results (see p. 1). It can also be made ineffective by a specialist. In a case study I will present later, a pastor was asked to neutralize a sorcerer's artifact.

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Possession may be sought deliberately to gain more wisdom (mana) than the living have. Wisdom from the ancestors or the hamba within, which seems to have become dormant, may be revived (e.g. in the case of a diviner) by following a specified procedure. Possession may also be solicited to procure more power (tachi, ndundo) than living people have—the power of the ancestors. In other words, this reflects a desire to overcome human limitation, a desire for transcendence. Other words that refer to ancestors are: makulwana (elders), malemba (uncles) ajimo (clan leaders) akulu (people of long ago). These spirits are numerous and are considered to play a variety of roles in the lives of their people including: protecting the community, fecundity, helping with the hunt, procuring wealth, preventing or causing catastrophes and assisting in divining. Spirits of other peoples may also become part of the retinue of ancestral spirits. According to Bastin, mahamba may be either nature spirits or ancestral spirits. She observes that nature spirits are thought to reside in prominent rocks and waterfalls, and that if they are not honored, they can bring about sickness and misfortune (Audio Texts 1975-1983; Lima 1971:79-83; Bastin 1988:13). In my experiences in Congo among the Lunda-Chokwe, however, I do not recall any clear statements concerning nature spirits residing in particular natural sites, though people do speak about spirits other than ancestral spirits who either cause misfortune or can be manipulated to do so. We do not recall that any of them have been referred to as nature spirits. Social anthropologist Stanley Yoder also argues that among the Chokwe, "There is no notion . . . of spirits residing in certain sites in nature" (Yoder 1981:47). How then do we account for Bastin's assertions? Possibly this apparent variance in Lunda-Chokwe beliefs is due to the

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people in our area not living close to impressive mountains or waterfalls, nor do they have close contact with neighboring ethnic groups who hold such views. It is also possible that researchers have just assumed that the Lunda-Chokwe believe in nature spirits, without critical investigation, because other ethnic groups do.

Fig. 2-3. Chokwe mukishi statuette, carved from balsawood, with painted mask, animal skin loin cloth, woven raffia bodysuit, raffia fringe and feather headpiece. (Ben Eidse collection)

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Mukishi (pl. a-) (L. Mukish a-) Mukishi figures appear prominently in ritual. They most often represent specific ancestral spirits incarnated, though they may represent other spirits as well. They are always presented in the form of masks for certain well-established functions in rituals, especially in circumcision ceremonies for boys. According to the Lunda-Chokwe only an initiated person can wear a mukishi costume, without being cursed. However, an initiated man is afraid of dressing in the costume unless he has been authorized to do so. Even then he will first spit into the headgear before putting it on. The saliva is a purification offering for the purpose of avoiding a curse. Having defined the basic ritually related terms mahamba and akishi, we are ready to elaborate on the nature and function of ancestral rituals.

Nature and function of ancestral rituals There are three main categories of akishi: dancing masks (akishi a kuhangana); the sacrificer mask (mukishi a chikungu); and the initiation rite masks (akishi a ku mukanda). Ajimo (clan leader, as we have seen) is a designation for ancestors. The ancestors, as ajimo, are a source of keen interest in lineages that take people back to a common ancestor and are foundational in veneration. The LundaChokwe practice religious ceremonies, with a strong mystical power element. The ancestors are the main focus, although Zambi or Kalunga is addressed as well. A ritual specialist directs the activities, which include prayer, sacrifice, offerings, singing and dancing. Let us begin with a description of the ancestral shrine in its village setting.

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Central ancestral shrine in its village setting A basic component in the traditional Lunda-Chokwe interaction with their total environment is the shrine of the spirits of the elders (chipanga cha mahamba a makulwana, or mahamba of the nation).

Fig. 2-4. Sitting around the perpetual fire in a village chota where elders gather to talk. (Ben Eidse photo c. 1961)

Traditionally, whenever a head chief (mwanangana) was enthroned who reigned over an area extending 50-60 kilometers (usually along a river) a new capital (limbo) was constructed. At the center of this capital a large fenced-in enclosure was built. Within it were constructed the chief's residence, the houses of his wives, and the shrine of the ancestral spirits of the nation, all located around a chota. A chota is an official meeting place, a circular structure with a conical roof within which a perpetual fire burns. This

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was the place where distinguished people were received, the council of elders met periodically and the supreme tribunal held its sessions. The village plan was circular, oriented from the east to the west. On the periphery were the homes of the village people, each being quadrangular with a hip-roof. The first building erected was that of the chief and his principal wife (namata)—on the eastern edge of the site selected. Soon after that, the shrine of the ancestral spirits was erected under the supervision of the head chief. The shrine fence consisted of hard wood pickets stuck into the ground in a circle. The gate, made of branches, had two rings of entwined grass (kata), suspended from the top to keep away angry spirits. The most sacred mahamba were located at the eastern edge inside the enclosure. The actual ceremony began by installing the ajimo (or soko) who symbolized the ancestors of the whole village community. They were represented by two small hemispheric termite hills (matumbo) that had been found in the bush and were then shaped with water. The male hill (tumbo lia tata), representing male ancestors, was placed on the right, and the female hill (tumbo lia mama), symbolizing the female ancestors, was placed on the left. For the sacrificial (chisukulu) ceremony, a vegetable-based purifying liquid was prepared. First, part of it was rubbed on the bodies of representatives of the families, and the rest was poured over the symbols of the ancestors. The next step was planting two miyombo trees, green stakes of the mukumbi variety, which form roots quickly and grow leaves after one or two months. The leaves are a sign of satisfied spirits. These trees were dedicated to the deceased chiefs of the land, the one on the right symbolizing the masculine lineage, the one on the left the feminine lineage. Close to these trees, a termite hill was placed, symbolizing

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deceased women (tumbo lia tuzaya a mapwo). Two termite hills, with mushrooms on them brought from the bush, were formed into cubes having two eyes and a mouth and then positioned on the ground to honor the mayanga, representations of famous deceased hunters. Next, two forked sticks were stuck into the ground with another stick placed in the forks. A miniature boat was attached to this stick, representing the ancestral spirit of the white man who traveled into the interior of the continent along the waters of the Kwanza River, bringing previously unknown riches. This hamba wa Kwanza is designed to produce wealth, promote fecundity and aid hunters to be successful. Then a specialist made the chitamba cha shamukishi, a small table of lattice-work with a stick stuck into the center. On the top end was attached the headgear of the mask Chikunza, representing the ancestral spirit of the person in charge of the circumcision camp. This structure was made of mwehe wood. Its function is to bring health to the community. Finally, the tumbo lia ngombo, the termite hill representing the divining basket, was installed beside a stake, taken from a musuwa or mukumbi tree, symbolizing the munengo wa ngombo (the figurines belonging in the divining basket). These figurines, as already mentioned, are a microcosm of Lunda-Chokwe culture. Meanwhile, hunters who had gone to procure an antelope, returned, slaughtered it and applied its blood to the newly installed mahamba. While this was being done, the head chief addressed the ancestors. He also invoked Zambi in heaven, Kalunga on earth (reflecting a very old tradition), and the makulwana, one of the words for ancestors, here referring to the lineages whose names were being remembered. (Assuming that a people's more complex, more protracted rituals in primal religions are a primary factor in reflecting

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their major concerns regarding the supernatural world, it is significant that so little attention is given to Zambi.) At each rebirth of the moon (kakweji ha tetama), the ritual of invocation to Zambi and to the ancestors was renewed by the head chief of the region, for the good of his people. White clay (pemba), was sprinkled on each sacred emblem. This ritual was also performed whenever unexpected catastrophes hit the community. In times past, the head chief (mwanangana) of a region, was the only one authorized to keep mahamba a makulwana. In recent times, each family member head may have them; he is also their priest. Things are presented to most of the mahamba, whether in the official shrine of the ancestral spirits or in shrines in or around the homes of the people. These offerings are made close to alters or niches where ancestors are addressed in prayer or where incantations are spoken (Bastin 1988:14-17). Having been introduced to the central ancestral shrine, we begin by reviewing a crisis sacrifice. Special sacrifice to ancestors (chikungu) Traditional Lunda-Chokwe people venerate their ancestors and give them their regular offerings. From time to time, though, when the situation in the country is considered to have deteriorated unusually, the head chief of an area, as representative of the ancestors, dresses in the most important mask, the Mukishi wa Chikungu wa Mwanangana. This is vital to make an offering to the ancestors of the dynasty to reestablish order in Lunda-Chokwe land. The chikungu mask, which only he is entitled to wear, represents supreme authority. He also wore it on the occasion of his investiture as head chief. The face mask is of black resin with a huge, winged headgear. On the headgear are cosmic and esoteric symbols of the stork, the sun, the moon and the stars.

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At the ceremony, his arrival is preceded by a ululation like that of a blowing wind. The atmosphere is reverent and tense. With a sword in each hand the mukishi moves to the center of the assembly with long, deliberate strides. (It is said that in the past the mukishi might decapitate an overly-curious onlooker in passing.) He heads for the tribunal center where a sacrificial goat is waiting. He slashes its throat and drinks blood from the gash. After that he returns to a hut in the bush. From the crisis sacrifice, our attention focuses on two of the principal akishi dancers. Dancing masks (Chihongo and Pwo) There are many dancing masks representing incarnated spirits. Some of the more important are Chihongo and Pwo (woman). They promote prosperity and fertility in the course of their circuit to the villages, which used to continue for several months at a time. Chihongo is the spirit of wealth incarnated. Originally, he was a tax collector for the chief or a kind of administrator of justice whenever he discovered any dishonesty among the chief's assistants. His masks are usually made of resin, though some are made of wood. The headgear was traditionally full of plumes, though now often it is made of fine cloth. This mukishi represented by a vigorous young man is dressed with a large hoop with grass attached to it, which twirls around whenever he gyrates his hips. He may carry a fancy hatchet or bells. Using the name Chinyanyi this spirit may act like an ancestral hamba in that he may cause a member of the family to become sick if they have not honored him as they should. When that is the case, someone may have to dance wearing the mask after having sacrificed a chicken to appease the displeased spirit.

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The pwo (woman) mask is responsible for bringing many good things to the lineage, especially fecundity. The face of the mask, formerly made of resin, is now carved of wood. It has a wig on top, so that many traditional hair styles can be arranged. The dancer tries to imitate the traits that are admired in beautiful women, even though it is always a man who portrays the Mukishi wa Pwo. He wears false breasts and is dressed like a woman. Generally, dancers do not speak, but they are often accompanied by an orchestra that uses a variety of drums, thus attracting considerable attention (Bastin 1988:38-41). The cross tattoo on the forehead of the pwo (or mwana pwo, daughter) mask is "kalitoza" (or kaditoza; the Chokwe pronounce “l” more like an “ld”). According to Chokwe Prince Lambert Tshianze Kandala, it indicates the four cardinal points and symbolizes the elevated view of women as incarnating royalty. The four points further represent four main roles of the Chokwe woman: (1) Royalty. The chief’s wife is entitled to transmit a message directly to the chief, face to face, or as demonstrated by the mask, forehead to forehead. As such, she occupies a place of value, considered more important than a man. Traditionally, women may also be chief. (2) Economic center. The woman is an industrious provider for household, an experienced farmer, fisher, crafter and business entrepreneur. (3) Legal counsel or consultant. The woman is the primary counselor of the man. Before a man makes a decision, he is obliged to seek counsel from his wife. (4) Creation force. As child bearers, women ensure the continuation of their people. Great lengths are taken to help a woman bear children, as addressed in the next section.

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Fig. 2-5. Chihongo spirit of wealth and strength, is the male counterpart to pwo, woman. The pigmented wood and raffia mask features a jutting disk beard, filed teeth, tear track scarification, and cross, considered a Christian influence or cosmology sign. (University of Iowa Museum of Art)

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Figure 2.6. Pwo, spirit of woman, brings good things including fertility, and is made of pigmented wood, fiber, and reed beads. It is worn by a man in women’s clothing, who imitates feminine movements. The mask features nearly closed oblong eyes, a narrow nose bridge, broad mouth, filed teeth and tear track scarification, as well as a cross. The symbol is known as kalitoza and points to the four cardinal directions and four esteemed roles of women. (Photo used by permission of Genuine Africa)

We move on from the two dancing mask rituals to consider five life cycle rituals: child birth; two male initiation ceremonies (circumcision and joining a secret society); marriage; and death and burial.

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Life cycle rituals The transitions of life are especially important for individuals and members of the matrikin and patrikin that are participating in them. Though the maturation process is important, the change in relationships between the individual and the group seems even more so. Transitions are known as times of uncertainty and vulnerability as well as of joy, especially if things are going well for those involved. Jealousy because of prosperity and well-being may prompt a sorcery attack, so that the occasion becomes not only a celebration but also a concerted effort to provide the necessary protection. Childbirth (C. and L. kusema) For Africans, children are essential to happiness and success. They are a witness to the goodwill of ancestors and the permanence of the family. Parents expect that after they die their children and grandchildren will honor them. A woman's inability to have children is often considered to indicate displeased ancestors. When diviners identify this as the problem, the reason they usually give is the failure to perform certain required rituals. If that is the case, a particular ritual is prescribed, and the woman is authorized to fabricate a hamba, which she is expected to attach to her body. One such hamba is called Jinga, another is Chisola. A woman in our village was named Chisola. An informant told me that she was given that name because her mother was carrying that kind of a hamba when she got pregnant—and carried it until the baby was born. When a baby is being born, besides the midwife, there are usually a number of women around for support and encouragement. The father usually waits, possibly in the chota, the men's meeting place, until the delivery is completed, when he is notified. He comes with a gift for the

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mother and then leaves. After the baby has been born, there are implications for the mother, father and the lineages on both sides. For the mother, giving birth in a sense takes its toll of her vital life force, but on the other hand, it also rejuvenates. She is experiencing fulfillment in bearing a child and in furthering the matrilineal lineage. For the father, it means gain for himself and for his descent group, in that he is able to perpetuate the names of his agnatic ancestors (Fretz 1987:79-81; De Boeck 1991:240; Audio Tapes 1975-83). Initiation: Circumcision (mukanda, L. mukaand) The most elaborate public ritual is mukanda. The root of the word is kanda, which means “to prohibit, to forbid.” The word refers to the circumcision rites for boys, which involve many prohibitions, or taboos, especially for them. But there are also some for the members of the villages involved. This initiation event marks the transition from boyhood to manhood for the candidates. The initiative for staging the ritual is normally the decision of the chief and the elders. Preparations consist of notifying the next of kin and the general public, enlisting the personnel needed for the necessary tasks, selecting an appropriate site for the lodge, preparing the site itself step-by-step as required, setting the dates, and arranging for a plentiful supply of food, drink and firewood. Key people in the initiation ceremony include: the nganga mukanda or shamukishi, the person in charge of the camp (the ritual specialist may be shamukishi or another person); the circumcision candidates (pl. tundanji); the circumcisers; the masked people (akishi), representing incarnated spirits and performing different functions depending on which masks they wear; the assistants of the candidates (one young man for each kandanji, sg.) to supply the necessary firewood, food and water; a woman well past menopause, in charge of cooking

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the food and bringing it to the lodge; and the drummers. Concerning the lodge site, the entrance faces the rising sun, and it includes the right kind of tree where the tundanji urinate. The site is not near any path used by women, yet close enough to the village to facilitate reciprocal singing and to get village assistance in case of unforeseen need. Specially medicated pegs are submerged at various places to keep away sorcerers (nganga). The day the rites commence, several archways are constructed, one at the spot where the circumcision is to be carried out, another where the tundanji eat outside the lodge. Several rings of entwined grass (kata) are attached to each arch, which are also nganga deterrents. Behind the scene, activities prior to the actual commencement of mukanda include: village leaders reincarnating the mukishi spirit (kuvumbula mukishi); the mukishi, the tundanji and other people singing, drumming and dancing to a clearing to pick some seeds for the ritual specialist's medicine; the ritual specialist preparing his protective medicines (yitumbo); and the tundanji and village people all joining in an enthusiastic community dance (chisela). Contents of the protective medicine include: the seeds that were brought and pounded; the blood and beak of a sacrificial rooster; a whitish mushroom (kuliya); bits of a scaly ant-eater (lukaka) and of an elephant (njamba); bits of a white heron (nange) and a laughing bird (sehelela) or Prinops policephala, all three associated with innocence, health and purity. The laughing bird is also associated with happiness. These items are all well-known medicines (kau) used by healers. Incidentally, while the tundanji are dancing, the ritual specialist puts the container of medicine on each of the dancer’s head in turn. The circumcision activities can be divided into three parts: circumcision, separation and emergence. We begin with part one, circumcision.

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Circumcision When at the circumcision site, the heads of the tundanji are shaved. The first period of dancing begins in the evening and lasts all night. The tundanji and their assistants gather around a separate fire, and from time to time they are taken to the village center to dance in pairs while their mothers also dance and ululate. When the ritual specialist displays his protective medicines in a flat basket, a particularly high point has arrived. Numerous sexually suggestive songs are sung through the night. Early in the morning dancers stop to rest and eat. Around noon, however, the dancing and drinking resume. By late afternoon the tundanji eat their last meal before being circumcised. The mothers are getting more and more worried about their sons. The lead drummer starts up the dancing again. Suddenly a cry rings out and the first mukishi appears, usually this is Chihehu, the joker, who is there to relieve the mounting tension by flirting with the women. He is followed by raving Katoyo, who is armed with a sword and possibly a spear. This introduces an element of terror, and is a signal for women and children to scatter, as well as for the assistants of the tundanji to be especially vigilant to make sure that their charges don't run away scared. Katoyo starts relaxing after he has thrust his sword or spear into a goat or sheep. Then Katoyo and the mother of the recognized leader of the tundanji puts medicines together in a mortar and pounds them. The ritual specialist rubs white clay and medicine on each kandanji (sg.) The mukishi then hurries off with the mortar and pestle to the circumcision place (fwiyo, “dying place”). The time of the symbolic dying of the tundanji has come. Katoyo is back quickly and takes the leading kandanji to the fwiyo.

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The assistants start guiding their respective charges to the spot as the drummers turn up the volume to drown out the cries of the neophytes. Each person is held firmly and circumcised swiftly. The assistants (yikolokolo) make sure to get the foreskins; none must be retained by the circumcisers. To make sure no blood falls on the ground a piece of hollowed-out anthill is put in place to catch the drips. After the operation, the tundanji are taken to a secluded spot where a ritual fire is already burning. (The lodge is yet to be built.) The tundanji shout and sing; the women respond with ululation. The tundanji, however, are too exhausted to continue long. They sleep on their backs, prepared for an early rising, their feet propped apart with a stick. They have been warned that they must be up and singing before dawn to make sure they don't become impotent. That is a brief survey of part one, circumcision. We now turn to part two, separation, which can be sub-divided into two phases. Separation The first phase is the most restrictive part of the entire ceremony and continues until the tundanji are all healed. It is referred to as tundanji kali ha mafwo (the neophytes are on leaves). Each one carries a pouch of protective medicines and a whisk to keep flies off his wound. By dawn they are all singing already and accompanying themselves by beating sticks together to a rhythm. These sticks are described to outsiders as bones of the dead. At dawn they move away to enable the men to construct the lodge with leafy branches. It is built without a roof yet tall enough to hide the occupants from the view of people passing by. A tree inside the lodge is designated as the place where the neophytes urinate, a similar one being outside. The flat basket of protective medicine, called mwima (which was

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prepared by the ritual specialist as already described), is put on a stake in the lodge. The neophytes, however, have been told not to look at it. At another stake, which symbolizes leprosy, they are warned not to reveal the secrets of the mukanda under threat of getting leprosy (mbumba). There is a third stake at which the ancestral spirits are approached for their benediction. During the day, the neophytes meet in a secluded spot where they sit on blocks and are instructed, led in singing, and eat their meals. They learn a new vocabulary for many things, which serves as a simple new language. Taboos to be observed, until the time they are annulled, include avoiding contact with fire, touching sharp objects and abstaining from various foods. Specific rituals govern the bringing, receiving and eating of food. They are taught clan values, using a variety of methods, and are hit with sticks on specific occasions as part of the program, or whenever they have not followed instructions. When everyone is healed, it is officially announced, and part two of phase two of seclusion begins. The announcement is a gala event in the village with singing and response. The initiates in kilt-like garments of grass, are taken to the river for a ritual purification. They are rubbed with ash and escorted to the river by men in new masks with switches whose job it is to keep the trailing women from getting to the neophytes until all arrive at the river. When they arrive, the women go to their own separate place along the river. The neophytes remove their kilt-like garments. A thicket is then set on fire and each of them jumps through the fire, runs through a gauntlet of men with switches and plunges into the water. After that the men join them and all wash themselves. Another ceremony is held to mark the end of observing the various taboos. The ritual specialist prepares a medicinal solution and splashes it on the people designated to observe

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them, and on the lodge. Restraints are dropped as men and women approach each other in sexually suggestive dances. When the person in charge decides that enough time has been spent in seclusion, part three, emergence, begins. Emergence Among other activities, the lodge is burned and a final washing ceremony is performed at the river. Concluding activities vary. The one I witnessed had the neophytes and the person in charge of the camp come singing, drumming and dancing to the village center where an enclosure of blankets had been arranged. The neophytes all entered the enclosure, and while the singing and drumming continued, they came out one by one to dance, being joined by jubilant family members who danced beside them for several minutes. When the ceremonies were completed they had passed from what has been called a “liminal period” to full adulthood (Audio Texts 1977-1983; White 1961:1-17; S. Yoder 1981:315-322; Fretz 1987:81-85). We continue with the second male initiation ritual, which is both a cleansing process and an initiation into a secret society. Initiation: Secret society (C. nzembe, L. nzeemb) A second initiation ceremony for males is mungonge or nzembe. Nzembe, in the general sense, means fecundity. I am not certain about the meaning of mungonge, but mungonga means thorns, and it could be derived from that word since the initiates (miaali) are given a working over with thorns or brambles on their bare bodies during the ceremony. Young men frequently decide to go through this initiation after having been circumcised. Whereas the ritual of mukanda integrates men into society, the ritual of nzembe prepares

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them to accept the social and political responsibilities of adult manhood. One of the goals of this ritual is purifying men and making them a part of a secret society. It involves an admission and confession of offences (milonga) and a desire for cleansing. The confessions are made to other men who have already experienced this initiation. The ritual develops mainly on the body-self level through agonizing experiences signifying: (1) impregnation and death by descending into the underworld; (2) a time of gestation bringing about a metamorphosis; and (3) a corporeal re-birth that also re-vitalizes the socio-political body and the cosmology. The main personnel in the ceremony include: Shamanzembe, an older person in charge of the initiation; Shamakolo, the head sponsor; yikolokolo, the sponsors of the miaali (the initiates), who prevent their charges from running away but also protect them from their torturers; Chimbungu, the chief of the recently deceased spirits; afu, the recently deceased spirits who torture the initiates; and Mwinda, a mask on stilts often more than three and a half meters high, representing death and a monstrous bogy. Those who go through this initiation can swear by this initiation (Kayanda ka mungonge) and every person is expected to believe them. It is accepted that this ritual causes such a transformation that the initiates will never trouble people again. It is believed that they have a special status in this life and also in the hereafter. All important chiefs have to go through this initiation (Lima 1971:308, 343-345; White 1961:25; Eliade 1958:2; De Boeck 1991c:285-312; 1993:915; Audio Texts 1977-1983). From the two male initiation ceremonies we proceed to another rite of passage, marriage.

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Marriage (kumbata) Lunda-Chokwe societies are matrilineal but with virilocal or patrilocal residence, as already noted. Cross-cousin marriage is preferable, with exogamy (out marriage; outside one’s own group) being practiced in regard to lineage, but often endogamy (inside one’s own group) in regard to village. An informant relates this account of the marriage of his daughter. Before she has reached puberty, a young man comes and asks if he can marry her. Usually an uncle or elder comes with the suitor to make arrangements. The parents think he would be a good husband for their daughter, but unfortunately she is not interested in him. She thinks her father is just trying to sell her. He realizes that this negotiation calls for tact and encouragement. So when the time comes for her to take a prepared meal to her suitor, her father asks one of her friends to accompany her, and encourages her saying, "Take it, mama; take it to father" (title of respect for her suitor). They go and she finds a well-built table. On it she places the basket of delicious mush and the container of freshly fried fish. She returns to her parents’ house to get a beautiful container of water, but as she goes, she is still fearful and apprehensive; it seems as if her father is selling her. The young man arrives, the one whom her father has described to her as "your father, a man from our tribes" (tata weno, lunga wa ku mavungu ja akwetu). She shows him the food she has brought for him in the nicely decorated containers. He invites the other young men from the nearby gathering place (chota) to join him. They wash their hands with all respect and enjoy the meal. On another occasion, she stops by after he has finished eating. This time he says to her, “My wife, I love you very much, but you refuse to love me, what is the matter? Come let's talk things over.” But she refuses. As she returns home

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she still thinks her father is trying to sell her. Days and even years pass by; she matures, she reaches puberty. One day her father sends word to her suitor, "Your wife has reached puberty. Kindle the fire." He lights a big fire (signifying life and warmth) at the house where he and his wife will be living. Various taboos are put on her. At this point the father comments, “Puberty does not come from a husband; it only comes from God (Zambi).” After five or six days, the parents send word to the young man saying, “Today we are beginning to rub red dye (mukundu) on your wife.” She is tattooed as a sign that she has reached puberty and is now experiencing the initiation of women (sometimes referred to as the circumcision of women, mukanda wa mapwo). Her whole body is rubbed with mukundu; she is given an elaborate hairdo, and dressed from head to toe with beautiful clothes and jewelry. When she is finally ready, the women accompany her to her husband’s house with singing and ululating. The next morning early, the grandmother of the young wife comes to find out how things went at night. She asks, “Did the fire catch?” (Kukahia ka kwata?) The response, “Yes, very much so” (Aha ngengo lume). The chicken that was brought for this purpose is killed and eaten; the marriage has been sealed; everyone is overjoyed. This is how one person described the negotiations and the consummation of the marriage of his daughter. There is, of course, a considerable variety of details in the actual proceedings. Regarding the bride price, if it is a cross cousin marriage, which is the Lunda-Chokwe preference, what is given initially is negligible like a cup or a plate. Otherwise a goat is often satisfactory. Additional gifts are given when children are born. We proceed from this description of a joyous marriage

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celebration to the final solemn rite of passage, death and burial. Death and burial (kufwa ni kufunda) Death and burial rituals shed light on a people's view of what happens to a person immediately after death and the immediate and long term relationships between the living and the dead. A man's wife has just died. Suddenly it strikes him that he is now a widower (Yena lunga wabwa tuliwa). The bed the couple used to sleep on is destroyed, and the body is put on a bamboo cot (mukango). Her husband, sits at the head of the cot, which is located on fresh red ground. Protective medicines (yitumbo) are prepared for him consisting of leaves picked from the mulombe tree, an aromatic myrtle herb (lwenyi) and other leaves (mwandumba). The husband puts a small cloth between his legs (mulamba) to symbolize that he is closing his body to the entrance of the deceased spirit of his wife, and puts on shorts. A reed-like protective plant (lukochi) is put on his head. He is then given a corn cob (the corn having been removed), with a knife stuck into it, to hold in his hand. Red clay is rubbed around his eyes. Then he gestures with the knife as if he is cutting something away from the eyes. He repeats this several times at short intervals. He is cutting away the image of his wife. If he does not do this, he will dream about her, which is considered dangerous. Nobody offers him food; he does not eat nor does he permit himself to sleep. The next day, men come to take away the body for burial. As the body is lifted up, the husband rises, and someone turns to the corpse and says: “Waya kabema kuze waya. Yatwe twasala. Kanda uhana yinyengo kuli ana; kanda uhana lamba kuli lunga; kanda uhana lamba kuli ana, ana ja ku nzuo lie.” Go well where you are going. We are staying. Do not give sorrow to the children; do not trouble your husband; do not

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trouble the children, the children of your family. While the men leave with the body, another widower stays with the husband and takes him to the river. The husband leads the way. As he walks along he keeps repeating, "Don't come to me so that I see you again." When they reach the river, the leaves are thrown away on which the husband has been sitting. He submerges himself four times and comes out of the river. He tears up his underclothes, throws them into the water, and puts on a good pair of pants. When he arrives at the village he sees that those who went to bury his wife are back. The widower who has been assigned to him, then prepares a meal of mourning for him in a symbolic broken pot. The meal consists of a bowl of mush, a mushroom and four mashed beans. The widower pinches off a piece of mush, offers it to the husband, and says: “Bite into it.” He does so, but throws it on the ground saying, “This is yours” (addressing his deceased wife). He does this three or four times and then begins to eat. After he is done, the drummers begin to play. The husband forces himself to stay awake all night. If anyone sees him nodding he is warned, “No, no, don't fall asleep. If you do, you may dream of your wife as if she is still with you.” At the crack of dawn, the husband is taken down to the river again. He removes the clothes associated with death and washes. Then he dresses in white cloth (unbleached cotton), and leaves the old clothes there. He keeps using the medicines with their strong aroma so that if his wife's spirit tries to come back it will be repulsed by the smell. He keeps this up for about three days so that the spirit will be removed from him (akangutambula mufu). Then it is time to bid farewell to the dead woman's relatives so that they may return to their village. The husband takes a hen (symbolizing his wife) to give to the relatives as well as beads. He and his relatives go to meet his wife's relatives at a cross-road just outside the village. While they

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are standing there, the husband steps forward with the chicken and the necklace saying, "I married this woman from your family, but now she has died." Both families then step forward and a representative of the wife's family says, “You , woman, leave this man and come with us. We take from you (the man) the images of her and take them along to her relatives.” After that they take the hen and the beads and leave. The husband and his family return to the village, making sure not to look back. The husband takes off his unbleached cotton clothes and puts on his regular clothes. The matter is now finished and he shaves his head. A final settlement with the woman's family will be made later. If it has been a good marriage and there are children from the marriage, the man may be asked to bring a goat. The goat will be killed and a front and hind leg will be given to the wife's family, and a front and hind leg will be kept by the husband. Arrangements will be made for him to help with the children’s schooling and they will have a meal together to signify agreement. On the other hand, if the marriage has not been a happy one, a divining session may be arranged and the resulting accusation of sorcery may spoil relationships for years to come. Having considered the life cycle rituals: child birth, two initiations, marriage, and death and burial, we turn to daily life rituals dealing with: individual and clan health and wellbeing; cleansing; hunting; productivity of fields and livestock; political stability; art production, especially sculpturing and blacksmithing; and divination.

Daily life rituals Individual and clan health and well-being (kuhinduka) One of the main concerns of the Lunda-Chokwe, as we have seen, is health and well-being. But how is well-being

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attained and maintained? What is the cause of sickness and misfortune? The Lunda-Chokwe know that you have to eat well to be in good health. They also are aware that there are natural causes for certain health problems. For example, they recognize that being scantily clad in cold, windy weather brings on colds. However, they, and most Africans we know, believe that there are beings that affect our lives, either displeased ancestors or people who resort to sorcery. When either one or the other is suspected, traditionally the Lunda-Chokwe consult a tahi (diviner) to discover the cause and to recommend a cure. The diviner uses his divining instrument to identify who is responsible, so that he can prescribe a remedy and give suggestions for future well-being. Divination is discussed in greater detail later. The causes of illness are divided into three categories by the Lunda-Chokwe: (1) yikola ya Zambi (illness of God), (2) yikola ya mahamba (illness caused by ancestors), and (3) yikola ya chilowa (illness caused by sorcery). By category 1, they do not mean that God maliciously causes illness, but rather that this particular illness has natural causes. Category 2 is caused by a dissatisfied ancestor, most often because certain obligations toward him or her have not been met, or because traditional ways have been discarded. This category is now named much less frequently than it used to be. Category 3 is caused by a malicious person (sorcerer, or another angry person) who has decided to manipulate forces for his or her personal advantage or to take revenge. It is recognized to a greater or lesser degree, depending on who you talk to, that natural causes may be combined with either of the other two, or that all three may be contributing factors in any particular illness. Stanley Yoder, in his doctoral dissertation, Disease and Illness Among the Chokwe: An Ethnomedical Perspective, has

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done a detailed study of the Chokwe approach to determining the causes of diseases, prescribing cures and administering them (S. Yoder 1981). Related to rituals that seek to identify the cause of illness are cleansing rituals, part of the treatment for illnesses diagnosed as caused by personal agents. Cleansing rituals (kukosa) Whenever personal agents (sorcerers, ancestors, or recently deceased spirits) are suspected of being involved in an illness, treatment entails both herbal plants (or drugs) and rituals of cleansing. The former counteract the negative disturbance in the body while the latter deal with the threat on the victim's health caused by the agent. These rituals differ from those administered in illnesses treated with medicine only in that these are performed only when personal agency is suspected. They deal with the patient's lineage conflicts that require resolution for healing to happen. They require the healer's personal knowledge and power to be pitted against the agent; and demand more time, effort and means from the patient's lineage as well as from the healer (mbuki). The purpose of the cleansing is to remove the trace (chikupu) that is left on the body by the attack of the personal agent. The first step in the treatment is usually the cleansing ritual, frequently even before the identification of the attacker is known. After the agent has been identified, through divination, more specific terminology is used. In a wanga attack, the aggressor is believed to shoot tiny objects into the victim's body with his sorcery gun (uta wa wanga). First, these bits (whatever they may be) are removed with cupping horns; then the cleansing ritual (kukupula wanga) is performed. If the agent is an ancestor, the force (hamba) of that ancestor is thought to have entered the body

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causing the illness. The cleansing ritual (kusula mahamba) causes that force to leave the body and go into the bush. If the problem is a recently deceased person troubling the patient in dreams, known as yikola ya afu, the cleansing ritual (kutangumuna afu) removes the “shade” from the patient. Participants in the rituals include the healer, the victim and one or more relatives. The cleansing ceremony begins by choosing the proper location and preparing it if necessary. In case of a wanga assault, the healer selects a site from which the nganga are most likely to shoot their guns, such as a place where two paths cross, or a site where there is usually some kind of human activity. The healer neutralizes what the sorcerer did by repeating certain of his actions. For the other two cases (an ancestor or recently deceased person) the healer prepares the place in order to facilitate the departure of the hamba or mufu from the patient's body into the bush. The second step is preparing the medicine (chikose) to be used in the purification of the client. Ingredients include pieces of bark, objects having metaphorical association with the illness, white clay and water. The third step is the ritual proper. The patient turns East and the healer begins by popping a leaf he holds on his left hand over his thumb and forefinger. Next, he pronounces an invocation in which he mentions the name of the healer who taught him his medical knowledge, comments on his case, and states that he will neutralize the force that is producing the illness. The beginning and end of the invocation are the same repeated formulas. The relative is then asked to speak while the healer wipes the medicine on the patient's forehead, then from both shoulders to the navel, and down the arms and legs, finishing at the feet. Among other things, the kinsperson will ask the attacking agent to neutralize the harmful effects of the attack (S. Yoder 1981:161- 167). From ritual cleansing for illness, we move on to hunting.

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Fig. 2-16. Chokwe hunters display their rifles, a civet cat skin, while a basenji hunting dog follows. (Ben Eidse photo c.1956)

Hunting (Uyanga) The Lunda-Chokwe people are renowned for their hunting skills, and the professional hunter is a highly respected member of the community. In years gone by, when there was still considerable venison available, his vocation was crucial in the community's search for food. With diminishing wild life, the economic contribution of the hunter is not as large a factor anymore, yet culturally it has not lost its appeal. There are hunters who are especially renowned for their skills, and are said to possess the spirit of some famous deceased hunter. I recall a few hunters who could be expected, when hunting season came, to return consistently with delicious venison. In the circumcision camps, if one of the neophytes shows a

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special aptitude for hunting, or possesses the right kind of spirit, he is chosen to be part of the professional hunters who are directed by the father of the hunt (tata ya uyanga). We have already been introduced to the famous hero of the hunt, Chibinda Ilunga, and have read of his equipment, and his preparations for night. The hunter is a specialist in the use of mystical power. He prepares his medicines (yitumbo), makes sacrifices, prays to his ancestors to help him have a successful hunt, and brings offerings to them after he gets his prey. And so besides his skill there are religious and mystical aspects of his trade. Here is a typical hunter's prayer, made in the presence of the people of his village: We come to you, ancestors, grandparents, uncles, fathers, mothers. We have not come for nothing. Do not let our opportunities pass by unrewarded, in hunting, in mothers bearing children. May we all remain well, may the children be born well, may we raise them well, may the food be cooked well, may we succeed in getting venison, may we experience prosperity, may the cassava grow well, may the wild animals stay in their holes in the forest because they destroy and eat the fruit of the forest, may the millet ripen well, may all the seeds grow well and may everyone be in good health ( Lima 1971:102-103; see also Bastin 1988:1721).

Productivity rituals are also concerned with a successful outcome. Productivity (kwima mihuko) As the people depend on the good will of the ancestors to bless them with children, so too they depend on them to make the ground fertile and to enable their livestock to reproduce. Traditionally, medicines (yitumbo) are put on gardens and if a

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hail storm has just devastated the crops, half a dozen men may be sent to put medicines on all the fields of their village so that the ground will be refreshed and reproduce again like a fertile woman. At the beginning of seeding, people dedicate their hoes to the ancestors as they pray for rain and good crops. When harvest comes, first fruits are offered to the ajimo (Audio Texts 1977-1983). Without political stability good crops are not enough. Political stability (kuyula) The Lunda-Chokwe in Bandundu do not have a centralized political system with a head chief who exerts political power over all villages as do the Lunda of Mwachiyanvwa in Shaba province. Each group of villages has an independent organization. The head chief (mwanangana) is the senior of the lineage, though, which goes back to the forefathers (malemba) or the chiefs of long ago (makulwana) who led the Lunda-Chokwe people to the territory they now occupy. He is the keeper of the two termite hills (matumbo) which represent the chiefs of long ago (also called miata akulu). He is frequently the oldest person of the local lineage, and is considered to be the most capable maternal uncle (matu). This chief wears the sacred bracelet (lukano), which is the primary symbol of power. It is an institution that has been kept by the Lunda-Chokwe since the time of the counselor chiefs (tubungu) before the arrival of Ilunga in the Lunda-Chokwe homeland. The bracelet is made of animal sinews today, though it formerly consisted of the sinews of slaves who were sacrificed at the installation ceremonies of a political chief. This bracelet symbolizes the territory of the clan, the people in it, and the fecundity of the group as a whole. Above all, the chief had to be a hunter who had submitted to the two initiation ceremonies of Lunda-Chokwe males, mukanda and mungonge or nzembe, which we described above.

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Fig. 2-17. A palm nut harvester with climbing rope, drinking gourd and palm nut cluster on kata (grass ring head pad); balsawood and paint. (Ben Eidse collection)

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The ajimo, who are honored in the ceremonies represent the ancestors of this head chief, and are expected to stabilize the political institution (Lima 1971:71,335-337; Audio Texts 1976-1983). Important as political stability is, the Lunda-Chokwe people are especially renowned for their art productions, which play a major role in their rituals, and are themselves a ritual. Art production: Sculpturing and blacksmithing (kusonga ni kufula) Sculpturing and blacksmithing are economic activities (kubita) but the items that are produced are often used in rituals. Lima states: In the field of art the Tshokwe stand apart as sculptors and blacksmiths in their part of Africa. They own masks of all varieties...a style of dancing mask that is truly remarkable.... Besides the production of masks which is, in our opinion, the most important art work of the Tshokwe, their statuettes also are remarkable.... One perceives that they [the art forms] constitute certain fundamental traits of the Tshokwe culture: vigor, internal strength, power and even 'aggressiveness' (Lima 1971:75).

This is all part and parcel of their ritual and is copied and distributed far and wide in a variety of ways. From art production we turn to basket divination, the most involved approach to divination. Divination (kutala ngombo) In the crises of life (e.g. infertility, severe illness, death, etc.), as we have seen, traditionally the Lunda-Chokwe, like other Central African Bantu, sense the need to find out who caused the problem in order to resolve it.

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Call and initiation of a diviner On such occasions a diviner (tahi) is consulted since he is believed to be able to contact the ancestors on behalf of the living. In order to qualify as a diviner, a person must have been chosen by an ancestral spirit of divination (ngombo), and have successfully gone through a confirmation initiation. The initial indication that a person may be destined to become a diviner is an ancestral spirit taking possession of him (or her, occasionally). First of all, the spirit must be identified. Through the use of medicine, drumming and singing, often including masks, the spirit suddenly speaks out identifying itself and stating its purpose in taking possession of a person. If the spirit identifies itself as a divining spirit, the person chosen can decide whether he is willing to become a diviner. If the individual is unwilling, the process is stopped right there. If he accepts, he becomes a candidate diviner (mwana wa ngombo, “child of the divining spirit”). To signify that he has accepted the vocation he wears a white pendant around his neck. This quiets the spirit within the candidate because the latter now accepts to be the spirit's servant. On a certain day after that, a rooster is killed and the candidate diviner swallows its heart. This is done to reawaken the divining spirit within him. He is then taken by his divination teacher (tata ya ngombo), together with several witnesses, into the bush. They go to a place where two paths cross, both of which provide access to the village. The teacher has previously hidden some objects (chisweka) in a little mound (hungu) of dirt, which may be shaped like an animal. These objects relate to hunting or to things in the forest that cause illness. The candidate is then asked to locate and identify the objects. He takes his teacher's divining basket, ngombo ya chisuka (the divining basket that shakes). Soon he and the basket both begin to shake rhythmically under the same force. One by one

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he names each of the hidden objects and digs them out in succession, to the cheers of the witnesses. The final step, back in the village, involves finding hidden things among the villagers who all gather to watch. This time he looks for an object hidden among the women, possibly a knife; and something else hidden among the men, possibly a small hatchet. Everyone applauds when he succeeds. The initiation ceremony is then concluded with a ritual meal, involving the eating of the sacrificial rooster. Preparation of a diviner and his divining basket There are a variety of divining techniques, the most elaborate and best known among the Lunda-Chokwe being the divining basket. Its usage closely parallels divination among the Lunda-Ndembu described by Victor Turner (Turner 1968). Here is an illustration of how it is used. The diviner prepares carefully before the divining séance. Anointing rituals are of primary importance. If he is to determine the cause of an illness, he rubs his eyes with white clay (pemba). If he is to identify the cause of a death, he adds red clay (mukundu) as well. Frequently he also rubs a white streak across his chest. This is intended to awaken the divining spirit within him, for although the spirit is considered to be always present in the diviner, it may not be awake and ready to assist in the divination ritual. The divining basket must also be anointed with white and red clay. It is divided into two parts: favorable (white) and unfavorable (red). So, on the rim of the basket facing the clients, he puts a white point on one side and a red point on the other. These are known as the eyes of the ngombo, or the masculine eye and the feminine eye. The diviner may mark white and red points on his side of the basket as well. His task is to determine the good and the bad. At first they are mixed up. The divining is terminated when the diviner and the

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clients (generally) agree on the cause of the calamity. It is believed that a basket that has not been anointed since a previous divining session at someone's death will confuse the cause of the previous death with the current one. The anointing of the basket is repeated every month at the appearance of the new moon. The diviner must also take the necessary precautions to overcome any interference by a sorcerer who may be among the clients, and may seek to sidetrack him. If he is to determine the cause of death, he constructs what is called a hanga (ridge of protection or chasing away) between the divining basket and his clients. He forms a mound of dirt and in it he hides a needle, an egg and a knife. On top of the mound he puts a piece of cloth, the kind that a mask dancer's suit is made of. The needle is an important item for the sorcerer. He uses it as a fork to (symbolically) "eat" the flesh of his victims. The diviner uses the same weapon to thwart the sorcerer in any deceptive designs he may have. The egg is an object that is completely closed, with no door to get in or out, totally inaccessible, symbolizing that the divining process is secure and that the sorcerer will not be able to interfere. The knife, which may be replaced by a razor blade, reinforces the protection offered by the needle. The cloth, like that of akishi, is used for protection because just like sorcerers operate at night when no one can see them, so the mukishi also hides behind his mask (Rodriguez de Areia 1976:105-111). A divining basket séance Here is an account of a well-organized divining basket ritual that I witnessed in Congo. A famous diviner had been called from Angola in order to determine the cause of a certain man’s death. The diviner had brought four drummersingers along to assist him in the ceremony which lasted close

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to two hours. A light grey blanket was hung behind the diviner's seat so that his shadow would fall over his medicines, which were lined up in front of him. After all, he would be consulting the shades or ancestral spirits. When all was ready, the diviner sat holding the divining basket on his lap with the drummersingers to his right. A group of relatives, one of whom might be pronounced guilty, sat immediately in front of him. Another group of village people sat to the left of the kinship group, close to the drummers. The divining basket was flat and round, and had an animal hide attached to it in such a way that the basket could be easily covered or uncovered. It contained many different objects and figurines. The diviner began the divining ritual by shaking the basket and saying: “Yaya!” The people repeated “Yaya!” after him. Then he removed the skin covering, inspecting the location of the contents, and giving his assessment. The people either approved or disapproved. His commentary included references to the history of the people and important ancestral names, as well as his eager anticipation of soon eating goat meat. Whenever the drummers felt significant progress had been made, they broke out in drumming and song, relating what stage had already been reached in the process. Occasionally, the diviner examined the medicines in front of him and made additional comments. Gradually he narrowed the possibilities, geographically and in terms of lineage, as to who the guilty person might be. Eventually, after about an hour and a half, he announced that he knew who the guilty person was, but that more money should be given before he would disclose the name. This request the drummers put into song, and while they sang and drummed people placed money before the diviner. Then he called the relatives one by one, marking each

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forehead with white clay to indicate innocence. The marked person danced joyfully and went back to his place. On this occasion no one was marked with red clay to indicate guilt, but the diviner announced that the guilty person was the mourning widow. This was an extended divining service because it dealt with a very serious issue, death. Other divination sessions are simpler and shorter. But basically the principles of divination are the same.

Summary This chapter has focused on kukombelela, the ritual veneration of ancestors. After defining two key terms: hamba (an ancestral spirit or its representation) and mukishi (a mask representing a specific ancestor), the nature and function of rituals were described under the headings: the central ancestral shrine in its environment; a special sacrifice to the ancestors in a time of crisis; dancing masks; life cycle rituals; daily life rituals. Key concerns addressed in these rituals include: (1) the erection and dedication of the central ancestral shrine, Chipanga cha Mahamba, with the establishment of a new capital (the head chief being in charge of proceedings); (2) an unusual deterioration in the land (the supreme authority, Mukishi wa Chikungu, making a special offering to the ancestors); (3) the promotion of prosperity and fecundity in the villages by two dancing masks: Mukishi wa Chihongo (the spirit of wealth incarnated) and Mukishi wa Pwo (the spirit of fertile womanhood incarnated); (4) the uncertain, vulnerable transitions of life: (a) child birth (sterility often requiring the fabrication of a hamba), (b) circumcision (involving numerous akishi, incarnated spirits), (c) male purification and initiation into a secret male society (involving the recently deceased, afu, and a mask representing death and a monstrous

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bogy, Mwinda), (d) marriage (proper procedure and choice of partner being essential to assure success), and (e) death and burial (proper procedure again being essential to prevent the recently deceased, mufu, from harming widows or widowers immediately and clan relations in the future); (5) happenings of daily life: (a) individual and clan health and well-being (honoring ancestors, observing clan mores, consulting a specialist to determine the cause of illness and the prescription for a cure), (b) cleansing whenever personal agents are responsible for illness (consulting a specialist, following the prescribed procedure), (c) hunting success (the blessing of the spirit of a renowned ancestral hunter, powerful charms, divining sessions), (d) productivity of the land and the animals (medicine for the fields and the animals, dedication of the cultivating equipment), (e) political stability (honoring the ancestors, keeping the mores, wise leadership), and (f) divination when special wisdom is needed (consultation of a specialist, following the directives).

CHAPTER THREE SORCERY RITUALS INTENDED TO CAUSE HARM (KUPANDA WANGA)

Chapter one presented information on the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview, which was gleaned mainly from their myths, narratives, fables and proverbs (yishima), while chapter two discussed rituals venerating the ancestors (kukombelela). This chapter focuses on sorcery rituals intended to cause harm (kupanda wanga). In the introduction of this study (p.1) we pointed out that the basic assumptions of wanga are that there are spirits or forces in the universe that knowledgeable people can manage for their own benefit, or for the benefit of their clients, to harm, to cause misfortune, or to protect. This can be done by using an object or objects that have been processed in order to be effective, by repeating formulas or gestures, or by appropriating psychic powers and projecting them on persons, objects or situations. It is assumed that the right formula or action guarantees the intended result. Traditionally, when sorcery is used for protection it is not considered wrong. For example, according to the traditional world view, a chief is expected to have sorcery that is strong enough to protect the people of his village from the attacks of a sorcerer. The same would apply to an individual. If he used sorcery only for self-protection and not for harmful purposes, he would not be considered to be doing wrong. These actions would not be wrong because they promote a key concern, well-being.

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Our concern in this chapter, however, is the use of sorcery for harmful purposes. That is, when it undermines well-being. A review of the key concerns of the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview helps to better understand the negative use of sorcery. We have identified one of the key concerns as personal and clan well-being, the term well-being including: fertility, health, power, positive social relationships, effective political control; productivity of fields and livestock; success in hunting, fishing and commercial endeavors; and freedom from misfortune. This state of well-being includes the interconnectedness of the body-self, the social body, and the political body, or of the physical, socio-political and cosmological realms. We also noted that a successful sorcerer's attack disrupts the interconnectedness of the physical, social and cosmological realms and ties the victim(s) into a disintegrative bond, thus causing ill health, or death, or misfortune (see pp. 45ff.). Our discussion begins with four examples of sorcery with a brief clarification of each case; a comparison of hamba and wanga; a description of lineage conflicts that may precipitate sorcery-related problems; the concept of the limited availability of power and sorcery; the world of the sorcerer; sorcerers committed to practicing their craft; an explanation of a successful sorcery attack; a comparison of diviners and sorcerers and of ancestors and sorcerers; and a discussion on the morality of sorcery.

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Fig. 3-1. A doctor in lab coat and shoes vaccinates a barefoot patient in wraparound, who grips his stool and looks away. (Ben Eidse collection)

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Four examples of sorcery Example one: A student and his illness, yikola ya afu (sickness caused by the spirit of a deceased person) A student on a university campus, became ill with a severe headache and fever. He first took anti-malarial drugs and improved somewhat. However, a few days later he had trouble seeing and felt weak all over. He went to a hospital for treatment and was discharged, but the symptoms persisted. While he was in the hospital, his friends had consulted a diviner who belonged to a neighboring ethnic group. The diviner had diagnosed him as having yikola ya afu, an illness usually characterized by disturbed sleep, dreaming of spirits of the deceased (afu), and by a feeling of heaviness in the shoulders. The diviner had explained that someone in his home village had sent a deceased spirit to bother him at night because he never sent any money home, and because even though several of his kinsmen had died since he had left home, he had never returned to pay his respects. The diviner sent him to a traditional healer from the diviner's ethnic group, who performed a cleansing ritual using a chicken, but the treatment stopped when the healer himself became ill and was hospitalized. Since the symptoms persisted, his friends found a healer belonging to the student's own ethnic group who prepared medicine for the patient to take orally, and administered another cleansing ritual for his ultimate problem, the sorcerer's attack. But still the symptoms persisted. The student then returned to his home village for treatment from another healer (also from his own ethnic group) who accepted the diviner's diagnosis. This healer also treated both the immediate and the ultimate cause. The overall ritual cleansing consisted of: (1) an initial invocation in which he declared

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that he was a healer with effective medicines, that he was acquainted with this particular case, and that the deceased spirit would leave his patient alone; (2) a statement that his medicines included mitondo (plants) and kau (bits of some creature known for a certain characteristic), items regularly used by sorcerers, though this sorcerer was reversing the effect due to his knowledge of healing; and (3) the completion of the cleansing ritual by removing the object that had been fabricated (which the patient had been wearing) to represent the deceased spirit within him. Of the plants he used, three were regularly associated with sorcerers (mutete, mulombe, musala); four others (muhonga, muhota, muneku, mutongo) expressed his intention to heal the patient through using verbal puns; and eight kau were used in dealing with deceased spirits. The patient did recover (see S. Yoder 1981:210-226). This example illustrates the identification (by a diviner) of a sorcerer and the cause prompting his attack, and the attempts by various healers, who accepted the diagnosed cause and tried to cure the illness. Example two: Chumu, an "empowered" statuette Chumu is a statuette in the making. Its creator, Nganga is carving it in human form with great care to give it all the qualities necessary to bring it alive and to perform his bidding as effortlessly as possible. He transplants a soft object into the statuette’s chest for a heart (to make it docile) and fills the eye sockets with red berries (to enable its vision, especially at night). As Nganga surveys his work of art he feels positive. It should carry out his orders well. Then he rubs blood into the Chumu from a chicken he has killed. Next, he takes red and white clay and mixes it with pelo (medicine) that he has prepared from a bee, a wasp, part of a field mouse's heart, and a black mushroom.

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Now Nganga is ready to bring Chumu to life. He has prepared a liquid solution consisting of water mixed with pounded leaves and grass, which have been gathered from the fwiyo, the place where boys were circumcised, or the enclosure where men have submitted to the painful ordeals of mungonge initiation rite (see Chapter Two). These are places that are off limits for unconsecrated people. Chumu is said to come to life and grow until he is as tall as a little man. Nganga then sends him to eat the soul of a person whom he has targeted in order to drink his blood so as to make the victim miserable and eventually cause his death. Chumu is thought to be invisible as he moves around by day or night. After he returns from the secret mission, his master uses the same liquid with which he supposedly brought Chumu to life to restore him to the original wooden statuette. Nganga attaches Chumu under his arm with a strip of hide so that he won't go off on his own to kill someone without Nganga ordering him to do so (Bastin 1988:44-45). Note: Among the Lunda-Chokwe, as among many Africans, the eating of the soul and drinking of the blood is mystical rather than literal. Here we see a clear example of magical thinking and activity for the purpose of causing harm. The procedure involves a careful preparation of a statuette which is “made effective” through a special ritual. The one who prepares it is convinced of his power to manipulate the necessary forces or spirits for his own personal gain to cause harm as he pleases. Example three: Firing a kalihozi gun A woman showed me the place where she and a male acquaintance had been standing when they together pulled the trigger of a kalihozi (wanga) gun, made of a human thigh. The

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gun had supposedly discharged and killed a person in his house about one eighth of a mile away. Did the gun discharge any material substance that reached the house, penetrated the walls, and entered the victim's body? No, it is believed that an invisible force was released that caused the pelo to penetrate the body and cause the person’s death. If the woman’s interpretation was correct, here is a clear case of murder by intent. Example four: A chief laments the effects of sorcery Old chief Shamatangwa is lamenting: "We go away to start our own villages because of our sorcery. Here is a person you know; he is bewitched. There is person you know; he is bewitched. A person leaves his own nephews and goes away. He leaves his own grandchildren and goes away. He says: 'I am going far away; that is where I am going to have my children.'" The accusations the chief refers to here are not directed against regular sorcerers but against ordinary village people who get the necessary sorcery from sorcerers to kill their own clan members. On the basis of our presentation in chapters one and two, and these four examples, we turn to a comparison of hamba and wanga; ajimo and nganga.

Ancestral figurines and sorcery figurines: ancestral heads and the sorcerer (hamba and wanga; ajimo and nganga) In Chapter Two we defined hamba as, "a figurine of worship (or veneration), object, force, spirit, quality, etc." Wanga can also be defined as a figurine (though of attack or of defense rather than of worship or veneration), object, spirit, quality, etc. For a more detailed definition of wanga, see page

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1 or the second paragraph of this chapter, but for the sake of comparison this succinct definition is more helpful. See Lima 1971:315-325 for a comprehensive discussion of this topic. In relation to the figurines and objects described so far, there is a force that can be manipulated by human beings. That force is related to a certain spirit or to an ancestor who may be either historical or mythical. If he is a historical person he is tied to a well-defined lineage. However, if he is a mythical ancestor “this force represents the ancestor in a global manner” (Lima 315). The ancestors, who are considered powerful and able to do everything, stand behind the force of hamba. Though they are not believed to be omnipresent, their attention can be gained for desired benefits by going through the proper procedures. These include: seeking the advice of a diviner, making the required figurine, consecrating it, and presenting the necessary offerings and prayers. For the hamba to function, the diviner's prescriptions must be followed to the letter–in this way the will of the ancestors is imposed on the living. The ajimo (ancestral heads), whether mythical or historical, stand behind the hamba with their force. We are told that those mahamba that are under the control of the lineage heads are not manipulable. In the hamba approach, the emphasis is on submission, agreement, presenting offerings and prayer. We have observed that certain figurines, mahamba, have only positive functions. Others can have their positive functions transformed to negative ones with the addition of certain charms or filters. If the figurines and objects are used to harm others or to protect people from the attacks of sorcerers, they are called wanga and are considered part of the occultic forces of the cosmos. Thus certain hamba figurines can be changed to wanga figurines. This change could consist of making a hole in the abdomen or head of the figurine and inserting such things as

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magic powder, a magic filter, a horn, or clothing from certain deceased people, etc. These forces, whether of hamba or of wanga, can be released and controlled by a single person. The hamba figurines (whose forces come from known ancestors), however, oppose the wanga figurines (whose forces come from the nganga). A single person, the nganga or sorcerer, can release and command wanga forces. The nganga is an ambiguous person in Lunda-Chokwe society, a kind of legendary, half-human, half-animal cosmic being who can transform into certain animals or birds. He is frequently associated with strange noises, such as croaking frogs and toads, hissing snakes, mysterious night birds, particularly at sources of streams, in isolated places, in small forests located in large plains, etc. He never seems to be completely identified; the people usually speak of a specific person as having wanga (sorcery) rather than as being an nganga (sorcerer). In fact, he seems to have cosmic dimensions. Lima states: It seems to us that nganga in the full sense of the term is a person who is almost metaphysical, an extra terrestrial being who possesses and collects the mysterious forces of the universe; he has the gift of releasing them and manipulating them for his own pleasure, but generally for evil intentions. He is both an omnipresent being and force who acts only because he is asked to (Ibid., 316).

Generally, I agree with this paragraph, but I believe the last statement puts the nganga in a more positive light than the Lunda-Chokwe would. In my opinion, they view him as being evil-bent, having a disposition to do evil and doing so at every opportunity, as do those who regularly use wanga for destructive purposes. In some of his other statements Lima says as much himself. For example, he refers to the nganga as “a sort of metaphysical merchant of evil” and mentions “the

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evils of the nganga” (116). I admit, however, that views regarding the nganga are somewhat of a paradox. For instance, when people imply that the person who uses the forces of the nganga is guiltier than the nganga. Although the nganga is considered an omnipresent personage and force, real people on earth can also be nganga who can make and manipulate wanga figurines for harmful purposes. Or they can be intermediaries who can contact nganga without suffering harm. These include discoverers of sorcerers, diviners, healers and circumcision surgeons (tubuma, tahi, mbuki, nganga mukanda). Because these specialists can do this with impunity, people often suspect that they may also use their powers negatively at times. Whereas the hamba approach is one of submission, seeking agreement, etc., that of wanga is forced compliance and subjugation; whereas hamba works for a harmony in society, wanga is anti-society. We turn now to conflict situations that frequently lead to sorcery attacks or to sorcery accusations.

Lineage conflicts and sorcery One's uncles, both on the mother’s and father’s sides, take responsibility for their people and strive to do whatever is necessary for their well-being. It is through the interconnectedness with both lineages that one becomes a mature person. However, those on whom a person is most dependent, one's blood relatives, may well pose the greatest threat to an individual through negative ritual means. Independent, close relatives are usually feared most. A sorcery assault is generally considered to be “an inside job” with the target being one's own line of descent. That is why the wise person seeks to avoid conflict with both paternal and maternal groups, but especially in regard to

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the elders since they are the ones that can put a curse on their descendants or bring negative ritual to bear on them. Actually the one who provokes the sorcery attack and the one who carries it out are considered to be equally responsible. That is why unacceptable behavior either from an individual's lineage or household is taken very seriously. This includes withholding items from deserving relations, disrespect, inhospitality, neglect of responsibilities, lack of cooperation in the lending-borrowing complex of village life, insults, threats, jealousy, vengeful attitudes, etc. It is a good idea to frequently honor both paternal and maternal elders with small gifts. The sorcerer is not expected to attack the person who is guilty of provocation directly but one of the offender's relatives, a child, a husband, a wife, but preferably that person's maternal uncle. Yet there is a difference between maternal and paternal relatives. A father is generally not suspected of attacking his child (though such accusations do occur), but maternal uncles are regularly suspected, especially a maternal uncle “eating” his sister's son. The reason is that he is the crucial link in the lineage through whom life is perpetuated. As maternal uncle, he has the main authority over his sister's children and may well choose to demonstrate that authority if provoked. Diviners as a rule, look for people with wanga among those from the mother's side. The person identified as provoking the attack must make restitution to be freed from the ill effects of sorcery. The one who has used sorcery is frequently reprimanded for being so rash (De Boeck 1991:227-230; Fretz 1987:72-79). However, some attacks are not caused by indifference or careless provocation. We turn from conflict situations to the concept of limited availability of power, which also frequently motivates people to resort to sorcery.

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Limited availability of power and sorcery According to Lunda-Chokwe thinking, there is an interrelatedness between well-being or prosperity in the various domains of life, i.e. fecundity in women, productivity of fields, hunting success, commercial progress, and health. Power can be transferred from one realm to another. The esoteric power and knowledge of a sorcerer covers all of these domains. Related to this outlook, there is a sense of limited availability of the resources of power and prosperity within the lineages. When someone dies, people often wonder, will this enable certain individuals to become personally more powerful and successful? A sorcerer, for example, greatly increases his power by taking his kau (power objects) from a corpse. He or she may have caused the death for personal gain, since that is usually considered to be the reason for death. There was a very successful business man among the Lunda-Chokwe who had a sickly son. It was thought that the father's success was at the expense of his son's continuing illness (S. Yoder 1981:50-53; Personal Interview). We shift from considering the temptation of a limited availability of power to discuss the world of the sorcerer. The world of the sorcerer Traditionally, most Lunda-Chokwe believe that sorcerers can see things during the daytime that others cannot, and that they can see even better at night. As we have seen, this includes strange animals and small masks that seek to harm people. It is said that dogs and roosters are aware of these phenomena when they bark or crow at night. Children are thought to be able to see them until they learn to speak, at which time they lose the ability. Treatment of the eyes with a special medicine is believed to restore this capacity.

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It is generally accepted that sorcerers can perform all kinds of supernatural events, such as causing lightening to strike out of a clear sky to kill people, producing and sending poisonous snakes, transforming themselves into animals and killing people while in animal form, flying on their own special birds or airplanes, and other similar activities. Sorcerers are said to kill mainly for personal gain. It is believed that if they take any parts of a person's body, they get power over that person to kill him or her. Our daughters had long hair, and friends would carefully dispose of any hair hanging loose on their clothes. Sorcerers are especially interested in killing people who have a lot of potential to increase their life force in various ways. Boys at a circumcision camp are a special target because they are potential fathers. That is why special precautions are taken to dispose of their pubices and shaved hair so that no sorcerer can gain power over their owners for the purpose of killing them. Pregnant women and newlyweds are also special targets because of their prospects of having children. In fact, anyone who is successful in any area is a potential target for the designs of a sorcerer. It is believed that power can be shifted from one domain to another. The more important a person is, the more life force he has, and the more power can be gained from parts of his body, especially after the person dies (S. Yoder 1981:48-52; Audio Tapes 19751983). Having considered the world of the sorcerer we next consider the person who is a committed sorcerer. Sorcerers committed to practicing their craft The Lunda-Chokwe also believe there are sorcerers who have a strong urge to kill without provocation. They are said to gather secretly in groups in order to symbolically eat the flesh of people. Some seem to believe that sorcerers also

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literally eat people's flesh, but this is not generally accepted. These sorcerers are dealt with ruthlessly when they are identified—often being bound, beaten, and having pepper put into their eyes (White 1961:60-67; Personal Interviews and Observations). Next, let us consider how a successful sorcery attack is explained. An explanation of a successful sorcery attack In our discussion of human beings and their maturation into personhood (pp.15-16), we noted that well-being depended on the interconnectedness of the body-self, the social body and the body politic, or to put it another way, the connectedness of the biological, the socio-political and cosmological realms. In Lunda-Chokwe terminology when a sorcerer succeeds in his attack on a victim and causes him to become ill, the interconnectedness of his victim and his environment is interrupted and he is tied into a negative bond of destruction. This is what brings about the negative effect on the victim. From an explanation of what happens in a sorcery attack we turn to a comparison of the motivation of diviners and sorcerers.

Diviners and sorcerers (tahi ni nganga) Both divination and sorcery involve a dialectic between the divine or cosmic will and personal will. In divination, the diviner and the person who consults him submit their personal wills to the divine or cosmic order as they perceive it. This amounts to a decision to sustain the cosmological order. The divining process confronts a disintegrative, insensible dilemma and intends to make sense out of it. If it is successful, what was hidden before is now made plain and the

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requirement for normalization is revealed. Usually a sacrifice is required of the inquirer to reestablish harmony with the powers that control his life. Sorcerers, on the other hand, opt for their own personal wills as opposed to the cosmic order. They refuse to submit to the divine order. They also demand a sacrifice of their clients, but ignore the clients' wills completely. The sacrifice is the clients' own lives. Sorcerers take vengeance, giving in to their passions, thus withdrawing from the mutuality of the cosmic order. This is a rather ideal view of divination. Actually divination and sorcery are frequently associated with each other. Lunda-Chokwe people have told me that only a sorcerer can identify another sorcerer. In other words, they suspect that a diviner is also a sorcerer. They seem to reason, though, if he can curse successfully, then he can also get another sorcerer to withdraw his curse. Thoughtful LundaChokwe observers ask, “How different is the diviner from the sorcerer? Is he really committed to sustaining the cosmic order? Or is he just an opportunist, being a diviner today and a sorcerer tomorrow? Then too, could divination not go wrong? Could it not turn out to be sorcery in disguise?” On the whole, though, diviners are considered to be doing something positive in identifying the agent who has caused the harm. Another comparison of motivation may be helpful between ancestors and sorcerers. The morality of sorcery In determining the morality of sorcery rituals we need to consider both the motives behind them and their effects within the Lunda-Chokwe context. We must ask, “Do the LundaChokwe consider them to be right or wrong? Are the sorcery rituals prompted by positive or negative motives from their perspective? Do they agree with the Divine ‘ought’ as they

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perceive it?” We must also ask, “What are the effects of sorcery as they perceive them? Do the perceptions behind these rituals conform to reality?” We must ask this last question because wrong perceptions can result in increased conflict and tension. First, let us consider the views of several reputable anthropologists. Bronislaw Malinowski, a functionalist, discussing sorcery, declares: In whatever way it works, it is a way of emphasizing the status quo, a method of expressing the traditional inequalities and of counter-acting the formation of any new ones. Since conservatism is the most important trend in a primitive society, sorcery on the whole is a beneficent agency of enormous value for early culture (Malinowski 1926:317).

In other words, he considers sorcery to be “of enormous value for early culture” because it emphasizes the status quo, it expresses inequalities, it counteracts the formation of new inequalities and reinforces conservatism. We notice that Malinowski does not address the question of motivation in this passage. “Whatever way it works,” he says. I believe he has not thoroughly investigated the way sorcery works. “Benefits” do not justify killing, nor are they worth the false accusations that are frequently made and the subsequent unjust punishments. Sorcery causes more social stress than it resolves. See example four of sorcery given earlier in this chapter. There must be better ways of enforcing conservatism and dealing with inequalities. Anthony F. C. Wallace sees both the practice and fear of witchcraft as positive because they tend to curb trespasses. He states, “The practice of witchcraft, and the fear of it, tend to curb precisely those trespasses which the social structure fails to prevent” (Wallace 1966:196). Again there is no reference to motives here. The “trespasses” that Wallace refers to are

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not worse than those of individuals taking the law into their own hands and killing others, nor are they worse than wrongfully accusing people of crimes they did not commit and punishing them (which we have noted often happens). Functionalistic anthropologists tend to consider a particular cultural practice right just because it performs certain functions. Our newspapers are filled with accounts of killings, and they may also curb certain trespasses that our social structure fails to prevent, yet we do not consider them right. Writing on Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa, Mary Douglas quotes Max Marwick approvingly: Cewa witchcraft beliefs help to ‘dissolve relations which have become redundant’; they have a ‘socially cathartic nature’; they ‘blast down the dilapidated parts of the social structure and clear the rubble in preparation for new ones’; they ‘maintain the virility of the indigenous social structure by allowing periodic redistribution of structural forces’ (Middleton and Winter 1963:124).

Again there is no reference here to motives. These are sweeping generalizations. Do families have “redundant” relationships? Most accusations are within the family. Are there actually “dilapidated parts of social structure” that need to be blasted down? According to our experience, sorcery is not prompted by bad social structures that need revamping, but sorcerers have not been willing to live according to the good structures that exist. Is taking the law into one’s own hands the best way to maintain “virility”? A personal illustration should be instructive. A young development worker came to the area where we lived, learned the mother tongue of the village people and made many friends. After he left he got word of the accidental death of a young man from the village and returned for the funeral. Day

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by day as he sat with the mourners he heard the accusations and counter accusations of sorcery between the paternal and maternal lineages. He became discouraged to see the breakdown of formerly good relations between the father's clan and the mother's clan because of sorcery accusations. Victor Turner, in my opinion, has a more realistic assessment of sorcery beliefs and accusations. He presents a corrective to Max Marwick and Mary Douglas’s overly optimistic views on witchcraft in East Africa. He suggests that future analyses of witchcraft should include statistics on illness and death because it is sudden and unexpected appearance of serious illness “which partly accounts for the random and motivelessly malignant character ascribed to many aspects and types of witchcraft.” He considers his suggestion to be obvious and a good corrective to the optimism expressed in what Douglas describes as an “obstetric view.” Turner believes that her view is “based too narrowly on a study of Central African cycles of villages development,” which Max Marwick has argued for (1952: 120-135, 215-230). Turner contends that Douglas’s assessment of the witchcraft of the Lele in the Kasai is more realistic when she states that it is “an aggravator of all hostilities and fears, an obstacle to peaceful cooperation.” He continues: This statement holds good for all disease-ridden societies where most deaths are attributed to witchcraft.... A major feature of witchcraft beliefs, as Evans-Pritchard (1937) has so memorably demonstrated, is that they are attempts to explain the inexplicable and control the uncontrollable by societies with only limited technological capacity to cope with a hostile environment. If witchcraft beliefs were solely the products of social tensions and conflicts, they would betray their origins by possessing a more markedly rational form and content. Constant exposure to ugly illness and

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sudden death, and the need to adapt to them swiftly have surely contributed to the formation of these ugly and irrational beliefs. Once formed, the beliefs feed back into the social process, generating tensions as often as reflecting them (Turner 1967:113-14).

Fortunately, Turner refers to motives, mentioning “the random and motivelessly malignant character ascribed to many aspects and types of witchcraft.” People may actually have “malignant” motives or be falsely accused of having “malignant” motives. This is an indictment from the moral point of view. The Lunda-Chokwe people have often said the same things. The conclusion of Mary Douglas’s more thorough study of the Lele, among whom we worked as well, agrees with our findings among the Lunda-Chokwe people. Let us recall the other question we asked: “Do the perceptions behind these sorcery rituals and activities conform to realities?” Unfortunately they often do not. Our experiences confirm the opinions expressed by Turner and Evans-Pritchard. I should add, however, that just as the misguided European approach to witchcraft from the 16th to the 17th century produced actual assassins, so it does among numerous ethnic groups in Central Africa today. From anthropological studies on sorcery we turn to the phenomenological study of religion’s approach to the subject. To date I have been able to locate only one article on witchcraft or sorcery in the African context from the phenomenological perspective. It is that of Evan M. Zuesse, “On the Nature of the Demonic: African Witchery,” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions, XVIII, 1971, 210-230. Zuesse regrets that, in the phenomenological study of religions, witchcraft has generally been considered a peripheral matter, and that often it has not been deemed

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worthy of serious study because it is regarded as mere “magic,” not having “expressive” substance. In his essay, Zuesse seeks to make a case for the “expressiveness” of witchcraft praxis, its direct relatedness to basic religious life and its disclosures of new connotations and aspects of religious reality. He then expresses a concern about the limitations of the phenomenological study of religion’s approach to witchcraft. He believes a person cannot help but misunderstand witchcraft if the traditional phenomenological methods and categories are applied to it. He goes on to explain: It is not merely a matter of the inanity of the intellectualistic term ‘magic’, which so effectively separates knowing from doing. It is a part of phenomenological method itself to locate the unitary ‘essence’ behind all historical appearances of phenomena. This in itself is valuable, and this essay will attempt much the same thing, but it has not been sufficiently understood how easily this approach tempts the researcher to ignore actual cognitive contexts.... The result has been that the researcher is quick to disregard the unique contexts shaping and determining such a phenomenon as witchcraft in order to assimilate it to some other more ‘spiritual’ or congenial ‘essence’ as its perversion, degeneration, or meaningless ‘application’. The whole problem of ‘survivals’ has not yet been adequately dealt with in the research into the history of religions, due to its manner of understanding essence (p. 210).

I gather from Zuesse’s discussion of the phenomenological study of religion that scholars tend to view witchcraft or sorcery as a positive phenomenon, whereas he concludes that it is negative. He argues that the witch pits his/her personal will against the Divine or Cosmic Order. He says, “I am indebted to Hans Schärer’s penetrating applications of the concept of the ‘Divine Order’... for much of my own

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understanding of the concept, though modified and deepened through contact with the thought of Mircea Eliadé” (p. 215). I found the concept of the relationship of the personal will to the Divine or Cosmic Order helpful in the discussion of morals, especially regarding the morality of sorcery. From views expressed on sorcery in anthropology and the phenomenological study of religion, we turn to a philosophical interpretation. First of all, here is a word from Placide Tempels, Bantu Philosophy, Paris: Présence Africaine, 1959. Tempels did a detailed study of the Luba people in Central Africa, an ethnic group we have worked with for a number of years. He and his disciples, such as Alexis Kagame, had a strong influence on African thinking in the 1940s and 1950s. His ideas have received both support and criticism from Africans. However, he has widespread African support on his assessment of sorcery as being immoral. Tempels states that according to the Bantu view: Life belongs to God. It is he who summons it into being, strengthens and preserves it. His great and holy gift to men is the gift of life. Every act, every detail of behavior, every attitude and every human custom which militates against vital force or against the increase of the hierarchy of the muntu [person] is bad. The destruction of life is a conspiracy against the Divine Plan; and the muntu knows that such destruction is, above all else, ontological sacrilege: that it is for that reason immoral, therefore unjust. According to the Bantu, the most degraded crime, the most cynical prostitution of the laws of nature, is the voluntary and conscious crime of destruction by bolaji [sorcery] (78, 79, 82).

Stephen Okafor, an African philosopher, in an article titled, “Bantu Philosophy: Placide Tempels Revisited,” is both appreciative of Tempels and critical of him. Concerning the witch, he concurs with Tempels that he or she is considered to

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be “wicked,” or an “evil doer,” causing “chaos in the community” (Okafor 1982: 95f). Philosophers Wiredu (1980), Hountondji (1983), and Appiah (1992) consider that much of what has been written on themes like sorcery are ethnophilosophy, not critical philosophy, not material that has been demonstrated to conform to reality. Charles Nyamiti, a Roman Catholic theologian, views sorcery as being among the negative aspects of the African worldview. He considers the “belief in magic and the power of malevolent spirits” to be a “superstition,” that leads to “passivity and...irresponsibility,” as well as a false notion about God (Nyamiti 1990:58f.). Having briefly examined views expressed in anthropology, the phenomenological study of religions, philosophy and theology, here are some concluding personal remarks on the morality of sorcery. On what basis do we decide whether a particular action is positive or negative, right or wrong, whether it “ought” or “ought not” to be done in the traditional Lunda-Chokwe context? The answer is to ask them whether they consider it to be right or wrong. Can examples one to four of sorcery earlier in this chapter be condoned? In the second example, the sorcerer deliberately plans to kill people. In the third example, the woman tells how she and another person took the law into their own hands and deliberately fired a sorcery gun to kill someone. If sorcerers really do kill people, whether good or bad, and Africans and others are convinced they do, is there any question as to the morality of that? Old Chief Shamatangwa, in example four earlier in this chapter, lamented the evil results of sorcery. Was he wrong in his assessment? Our African friends, Christian and nonChristian alike, often speak of destructive sorcery, but never have I heard of them speak of it as something positive. It is

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reasonable to suppose a culture is best understood by those within it. They also know that people are often falsely accused of being sorcerers or killing someone. Many have been killed or ostracized as a result, and still are. It is estimated that between 1500 and 1700, around 100,000 people were executed in Europe because they were thought to be witches (Monter, 2002, 12ff; Levack, 2006). What percentage do we estimate were innocent? What percentage of innocent people made confessions because the system demanded it? I wonder how many people would rationalize that system as being good. Recently I shared with an African friend, a perceptive essay on the nature of European witchcraft from 1500 to 1700. After reading it he commented, “This is just like it is in Africa today.” While there are others who would dispute his conclusion, he saw enough similarity to give that assessment. To sum up this evaluation, I have tried to demonstrate that the motivation behind sorcery is morally wrong from the Lunda-Chokwe viewpoint, and that the results of sorcery are mainly negative. They include: murders of bad and good people by sorcerers; the execution or ostracism of real and suspected witches; wrong views about God, the on-going divisions of families and villages in an atmosphere of bitterness; and the spread of suspicion, fear and hatred. Then too, the perceptions of the causes of death often do not conform to reality, since most deaths are attributed to sorcery. Finally, the overall thrust of chapters one to three, which present the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview makes it obvious that sorcery is viewed as something negative and morally wrong. For example, in Chapter One we were introduced to the concept of “interconnectedness” as a condition essential to the transmission of life and continuing well-being (pp.18ff), and also the pivotal observation that the sorcerer’s attack, if successful, disrupts that interconnectedness.

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In Chapter Two, the rituals that promote the key LundaChokwe concerns of well-being and “interconnectedness,” repeatedly seek to counter the negative effects of potential or actual sorcery attacks. And the presentation in Chapter Three leaves no doubt that the Lunda-Chokwe are constantly concerned about the negative effects of sorcery and how they can be countered.

Summary In this chapter our discussion began with four examples of sorcery with a brief clarification of each case. This was followed by a comparison of hamba (the spirit and representation of the ancestors) and wanga (the spirit and representation of the sorcerer), ajimo (the ancestral heads) and nganga (the sorcerer); a description of lineage conflicts which may precipitate sorcery-related problems; a consideration of the concept of the limited availability of power and its relation to sorcery; an overview of the world of the sorcerer; a note on sorcerers committed to practicing their craft; an explanation of a successful sorcery attack; a comparison of diviners and sorcerers; and an evaluation of a variety of views on the morality of sorcery. Finally then, here is a brief recapping of the LundaChokwe view of ulaj or wanga. The basic assumptions of wanga are that there are spirits or forces in the universe that knowledgeable people can manage for their own benefit, or for the benefit of their clients, to harm, to cause misfortune or to protect. This can be done by using an object or objects that have been processed to be effective, by repeating formulas or gestures or by appropriating psychic powers and projecting them on persons, objects or situations. It is assumed that the right formula or action guarantees the intended result. We have identified one of the key concerns of the LundaChokwe traditional worldview as personal and clan well-

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being, the term well-being including: fertility, health, power, positive social relationships, effective political control; productivity of fields and livestock; success in hunting, fishing and commercial endeavors; and freedom from misfortune. This state of well-being includes the interconnectedness of the body-self, the social body, and the political body, or of the physical, socio-political and cosmological realms. We also noted that a successful sorcerer’s attack disrupts the interconnectedness of the physical, social and cosmological realms and ties the victim(s) into a disintegrative bond, thus causing ill health, death or misfortune (18ff; 72).

Fig. 3-2. The Southern Democratic Republic of Congo (GMMS © 1994-1997).

PART II: IMPLICATIONS FOR BIBLICAL DISCIPLESCHIP

CHAPTER FOUR REFLECTING ON THE LUNDA-CHOKWE TRADITIONAL AND LUNDA-CHOKWE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEWS

Part I (chs.1-3) described the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview with particular emphasis on the sorcery problem. Part II (chs. 4-12) spells out the implications of the LundaChokwe view of sorcery for biblical discipleship. Chapter Four reflects on the Lunda-Chokwe Christian view and then compares them in order to find enlightenment in solving the sorcery problem. This is based on the assumption that since the sorcery problem arose out of the Lunda-Chokwe traditional context, that outlook has a weakness in this area that needs to be identified so that we may learn to deal with it effectively. On the other hand, that view may also have strengths, which if emphasized more might contribute to the solution as well. At the same time we bear in mind that the Lunda-Chokwe, for whom the Christian discipleship is proposed are also Christians. Therefore we are also exploring what the Lunda-Chokwe Christian view can contribute to the solution of the sorcery problem. We are reflecting on the following themes: (1) the key concerns of the Lunda-Chokwe traditional view and factors related to it, and the key concerns of the Christian faith and factors related to it; (2) the factors that tend to undermine the key concerns in both faiths, and (3) the role of magic, miracle and medicine either positively or negatively in realizing these concerns. On the basis of the Lunda-Chokwe narratives and

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rituals we have analyzed, and our experiences among these people over a period of thirty years, I assume that I have identified the key concerns accurately enough to have a relevant discussion on these themes. Other topics could be added, but we will focus on these.

Key concerns of the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview We have identified the key concerns of the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview as personal and clan well-being. The term well-being includes: personal and clan fertility, health, power, positive social relationships, effective political control; productivity of fields and livestock; success in hunting, fishing and commercial endeavors; and freedom from misfortune. This state of well-being includes the interconnectedness of the body-self, the social body, and the political body, or of the physical, socio-political and cosmological realms, which may in a sense, be considered a more fundamental concern than well-being.

Key concerns of the Lunda-Chokwe Christian worldview The key concern of the Christian faith can be stated as the union of human beings with the one eternal God, revealed in Scripture as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This union or interconnectedness also results in well-being, which is described by expressions like: “eternal life,” “salvation,” “wholeness,” “abundant life,” “blessedness,” “living in the kingdom” or “living under God's rule,” the Hebrew “shalom,” or the Greek “eirene,” meaning “peace” and “harmony.”

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Well-Being in the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview First of all, we note that there is concern for both individual and clan well-being. Both are important though, ideally, clan interests are to be put first. This is good since the individual and the group cannot really be separated without negative consequences. The Christian Scriptures also emphasize both. A major concern is fertility, the transmission of life. The Christian Scriptures endorse this view of well-being also. Next, we notice a concern for health. This too is prominent in the Scriptures, and especially in Christ’s ministry; it is clearly a universal concern. Good social relationships and political control are also both noble goals and endorsed in Scripture. Finally, there is concern for prosperity, also a valid concern, though expressed more prominently in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. Now let us examine the Christian view of well-being. Well-Being in the Lunda-Chokwe Christian worldview Let us examine one word for well-being that Jesus explains in the beatitudes, namely “blessedness.” He lists the following qualities that are expressions of a state of blessedness: “being poor in spirit” (having a feeling of total dependency on God); “being mourners” (grieving over one’s sins and those of others); “being humble;” “hungering and thirsting for righteousness;” “being merciful;” “being pure in heart (disciplining our thought life); “being peace makers;” and “being persecuted for being righteous.” All of these are personal characteristics, actually Christ-like qualities. Students of the New Testament have affirmed that Jesus had these qualities, which he wants us to have as well. In other words, Christ-likeness is the Christian view of blessedness. The material things, of course, are needed and Jesus

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recognized that, for he said in the same sermon: It is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Mat. 6:3233 NRSV).

Could one of the weaknesses of the Lunda-Chokwe traditional outlook in overcoming sorcery be the lack of emphasis on these spiritual qualities? This is a positive dimension that the Christian faith can contribute. In fact, we are told that it is God’s purpose to make us Christ-like: “Those God foreknew he set apart to become like his Son” (Rom. 8:29); and “We are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). Furthermore, the God with whom believers are united through Christ offers to produce these qualities in us. “God works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil. 1:13). “I am crucified with Christ,” Paul wrote, “and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). So the basis on which this spiritual level can be attained is the work that God the Father did through Christ the Son on the cross. This will be further discussed in Chapter Five. After Jesus’s resurrection he sent his Spirit, and we are now urged to “be filled with (or controlled by) the Spirit” to produce these qualities, which are called the “fruit of the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18; Gal. 5:22-23). The Christian view of well-being also includes an attractive future aspect, eternal life. This, the traditional Lunda-Chokwe view addresses negatively, since they are taught to be afraid of deceased family members. The Christian after life dimension finds a positive response among the LundaChokwe, especially in the hardships and disappointments of life. Revelations 21:3-4 (NIV) describes the future well-being

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of God’s people as follows: I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with people, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Though Christian well-being is expressed more in transcendental terms it does not lack the physical dimension, as was seen in Jesus’s healing ministry. In the traditional statement, “clan well-being” refers to the biological clan, and that continues to be important to the clan members when they become Christians, but believers also call themselves “akwa Kristu,” which means “members of Christ's clan” (i.e. members of the Christian church). In other words, the interconnectedness of the social realm of the Christian includes Christ’s clan as well as the biological clan. As the group of believers after Pentecost was of “one accord” so Lunda-Chokwe Christians today find themselves to be of “one accord” with believers worldwide. They make a practice of sending greetings to their Christian “clan members” near and far. Then too, people who have a genuine conversion experience have the urge of the Holy Spirit within, like the New Testament Christians, to proclaim the good news of forgiveness and eternal well-being to people wherever they go (Acts 4:31; 8:4). Thus in its broadest sense, they want people everywhere to experience this new dimension of living. I have seen this phenomenon repeatedly.

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“Interconnectedness” in the Lunda-Chokwe traditional worldview Let us look next at the “interconnectedness” of the LundaChokwe traditional view. This state of well-being includes the interconnectedness of the body-self, the social body and the political body, or of the physical, socio-political and cosmological realms (see pp. 18ff). This enlightening, comprehensive statement is described in greater detail in pp.18-22. On the social level the way the whole clan takes responsibility for all the children is certainly laudable, especially if it concerns children born with negative dispositions. Being conscious of gender roles, having concern for matrikin-patrikin relationships and “practicing the presence” are intended to contribute to social harmony. “Practicing the presence” is a desire to be present for anyone in need, especially for dependent children. The LundaChokwe traditional view of human connectedness adds a positive dimension to the expression of the Christian faith and to solving the sorcery problem—provided these values receive the proper emphasis. Is this possible, though, if there is a lack of positive connectedness in the cosmological realm (compare the definition of sorcery pp.1; 18ff)? If the sorcerer can really manipulate spirits, as the definition states, victory needs to be won in that realm. If the sorcerer can also manipulate spirits, whom the living clan members look to for help, and God is not significantly involved in daily affairs, who then can protect them from sorcery? Mahamba figurines are supposed to do this, but repeatedly they fail, so that people have to look for other sorcerers to protect them. We will return to this theme later in this chapter and also in chapter five. Let us turn next to the cosmological interconnectedness of the Christian viewpoint.

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“Interconnectedness” in the Lunda-Chokwe Christian view As already mentioned, this is the union of human beings with the one eternal God, revealed in Scripture as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The basis of this union, according to the Christian Scriptures is Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection, which must be appropriated by faith. The sorcerer, we believe, cannot manipulate the triune God. The Bantu generally have no problem identifying their traditional God, Zambi, with the Christian God. However, since he is not considered to be significantly involved in the daily activities of human beings they seem to feel the need of consulting other spirit beings to interpret the crises of life. This may also be one reason why there are Lunda-Chokwe Christians who still sense the need of knowing how other spirit beings interpret life’s crises for them. There are Lunda-Chokwe Christians who find Zambi vitally involved in the crises of their lives. Generally, mature Lunda-Chokwe Christians find that Jesus is the only mediator they need, as the Christian Scriptures state, “For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and human kind, Christ Jesus, himself human” (1 Tim. 2:5 NRSV). The Gnostic-like people mentioned in Colossians, for instance, are severely criticized for depending on intermediary spirit beings. We will discuss this in greater detail shortly. By saying this, of course, I am not implying that we do not need human beings who are specialists, like elders, uncles, priests, prophets or pastors, to interpret the puzzles of life for us. Several Lunda-Chokwe people have said recently that formerly they themselves had not been genuinely converted and had not really understood the Christian message. However, since they have understood and have become genuine Christians, they have found that their new belief meets their needs. They believe many people today resort to

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sorcery-related approaches to life because they have not understood the Christian message well enough. If the observation of my Lunda-Chokwe friends is correct, a genuine conversion experience helps overcome sorceryrelated problems. There is a need for authentic indigenous models of conversion that address people’s felt needs within their cultural contexts. If a non-indigenous model is impressed upon a people, they may not fully understand it, and may be in danger of trying to conform outwardly to Christian expectations without having experienced the necessary inward change. Concerning the cosmological realm, regarding the ancestors, Idowu wonders whether people anywhere actually “worship” ancestors. Yet he notes that the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Westminster Abbey Churches have “veneration” for the dead, and asks whether that is actually different from “worship.” According to Geoffrey Parrinder (1954:64), Cullen Young considers the clause “ancestor worship” to be highly misleading and then quotes J. H. Driberg as saying: What we have mistaken for a religious attitude is nothing more than a projection of social behavior.... For no African prays to his dead grandfather anymore than he prays to his living father. In both cases the words employed are the same: he asks as of right, or beseeches, or he expostulates with, or he reprimands, or he gives an address to his ancestors, as he would to the elders sitting in conclave; but he never uses in this context the words for “prayer” and “worship” which are strictly reserved for his religious dealings with the Absolute Power and the divinities.

Parrinder then adds Kuper’s comment regarding the Swazi: Ancestral spirits are not worshiped. Swazi address them in much the same way as they speak to the living.... Swazi rarely express gratitude when they think the ancestors are

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blessing them, and they are more indignant than humble when they find they are being punished (Idowu 1973:18384).

I agree that the people often address the ancestors in a very critical way, but in the Bible, King David also was very critical of God at times. Generally mature believers speak to God very much like they speak to respected members of their families. The references we have heard about first fruits being dedicated to the ancestors and requests made for good crops in the future, and thanksgiving being offered when receiving them, surely sound like communication with a deity. I know Lunda-Chokwe Christians who now direct such communication to God instead of to the ancestors (see previous chapter). So how do Lunda-Chokwe Christians deal with deceased family members? Commemorating and honoring them (particularly exemplary believers) seems acceptable to most of them. I recall how during an annual nation-wide conference of Protestant Churches in Congo (then Zaïre), representatives from each church were asked to hand in names of committed Christians who had died recently, so that we could honor them, thank God for their lives, and pray that we might follow their examples. The service was especially meaningful to me because we remembered a good friend and faithful servant of the Lord, Shangangula. A Congolese Christian observed recently that for the first time since his father died many years ago, he had taken time, on the anniversary of his death, for personal devotions—to worship the Lord, though not to communicate with his father. In other words, he now felt moved to worship Zambi as he recalled the life of his father. In Chapter Five we will present more details on what happened in the physical, social and cosmological realms, through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, which has a

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direct bearing on the sorcery problem. Let us turn next to the factors that undermine the key concerns of both faiths.

Factors undermining key concerns of the LundaChokwe traditional and Christian views For both traditional and Christian views, whatever undermines the key concerns of well-being and interconnectedness is considered to be evil and needs to be confronted. One of the major hindrances to clan well-being is putting personal well-being, prosperity and power ahead of the clan. The belief in the limited availability of power often tempts individuals to usurp that power selfishly and take advantage of powerless clan members. We have observed that, according to the Lunda-Chokwe view, a successful sorcerer’s attack disrupts the interconnectedness of the physical, social and cosmological realms and ties the victim(s) into a disintegrative bond, thus causing ill health, or death, or misfortune. Usually the responsible uncles or clan leaders try to deal with misunderstandings before they get out of hand. However, failing to deal with tensions adequately may provoke a sorcery attack or result in accusations of sorcery when things go wrong in the clan. In such cases, the sorcerer and the one who provoked him or her could well be considered equally guilty. In determining blame, specialists, like diviners, are called upon for direction. On the other hand, clan interest, though generally positive, can also militate against well-being. People with a vision for progress, tend to be critical of the generally overly conservative outlook of clans. A school director told me, regretfully, “The clan outlook militates against progress.” The discussion in chapter three on ancestral figurines and sorcery figurines; ancestral heads and the sorcerer is especially relevant at this point. In that section we observed

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that the mythical ancestral heads are viewed as cosmological beings though there are also historical ancestors. The sorcerer is also viewed as a metaphysical extra terrestrial being, although there are also terrestrial sorcerers. The victory over sorcery must be won in both the metaphysical realm and in the historical realm. Members of the Christian faith also have their share of social conflicts, which undermine the key Christian concern of well-being. The availability of the kind of “peacemakers” Jesus mentioned often is a major factor in how satisfactorily conflicts are resolved. According to the New Testament teaching, evil may come from within, out of people’s hearts, or from other people or from the adversary Satan. The Lunda-Chokwe, whether Christian or not, have generally accepted the teaching on the existence of Satan and evil spirits under his control as portrayed in the New Testament. This is understandable especially when one considers the similarity in their view of the sorcerer and the biblical view of Satan. Both beings are seen as working against human well-being. This is what makes Christ so relevant. He is both a historical and a cosmological person. According to the Scriptures, he has overcome the evil powers whether they operate in the physical or in the cosmological realm. Let us examine the phenomena of magic, miracle and medicine in relation to well-being and healing in the Old Testament, the inter-testamental period, the Greco-Roman world, and in the New Testament.

CHAPTER FIVE REFLECTING ON MAGIC, MIRACLE AND MEDICINE IN WELL-BEING AND HEALING

Asian scholar Stanley J. Tambiah, in his book, Magic, Science and Religion and the Scope of Rationality, carefully analyzes the animated discussion that has continued for eleven decades regarding magic, religion and science and how they are related. Among other observations, he points out that those who have been engaged in this exchange now accept these categories as being relevant “in virtually all societies.” He adds this: theorists have taken different positions regarding the three domains: their substantive contents, their boundaries, their development stages, and the quality of ‘rationality’ they portrayed (Tambiah 1990:2).

It is acknowledged, though, that magic (or esoteric power) plays a much larger role in African thought generally than in other cultures, particularly than in present day Western thought. In a helpful book titled, Medicine, Miracle and Magic in New Testament Times, Howard Kee substitutes “miracle” for “religion” and “medicine” for “science” in referring to these three domains. Since both the Lunda-Chokwe traditional view and the biblical view are concerned about “well-being” and “healing” this vocabulary shift is helpful for the discussion of this section.

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Let us first consider the approach of magic to health and well-being. The basic assumption of magic is that there are esoteric forces which people, with the proper know-how, can take advantage of for personal profit or protection. These forces can be addressed with a variety of names, which are believed to have inherent power, and can be used to achieve the desired results. These can be used either for personal or group benefit or for overcoming one’s foes. There is actually no need to understand the nature of the powers themselves, but just a practical knowledge by the operator of how to use them. Even when medicine is used it is often handled like magic, not as being governed by scientific laws (see pp.44ff.; 55f.). The basic premise of those who claim to experience miracle is that there is a God or gods who are in control of the cosmos and work things out for the benefit of the inhabitants of the world. God, or the gods, disclose their purposes through revelation in one form or another, to the faithful adherents of the faith. In case of illness, healing can be obtained by asking God (or the gods) for it, and subsequently having him (or them) perform it, either directly or through a chosen intermediary. The healing may be interpreted as merely personal or as being part of a larger divine plan, such as Jesus’s healings and exorcisms indicating the defeat of the powers of evil and the inauguration of God’s Reign in the world. The difference between the miracle approach and medicine approach to health is that with miracle, the divine is perceived as personal and therefore believers seek harmony through conforming their lives to the will of the divine. By contrast, the medical approach is interested in finding the natural order and seeking to maintain it. Medicine is based on the natural order of the cosmos. The doctor seeks to determine how the human body functions by

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direct observation whenever possible, by experimentation with other organisms, or by inference from accepted philosophical principles. The environment is also studied for clues as to what aids or hinders health. The physician diagnoses the illness and prescribes the remedy on the basis of a combination of theory and observation concerning the body and what happens when it functions normally or abnormally. It is tacitly acknowledged that there are limits to therapy and surgery, beyond which things are outside human control.

Magic, miracle and medicine in the Old Testament period In Sumero-Akkadian and Canaanite literature, the gods and people portray the use of magic. No individuals were thought to control the entire universe, so in order to make things run well the gods had to acquire powers that they did not posses. The Babylonian gods used spells and talismans on each other during the creation episode. It is impressive that the biblical account of creation has no trace of magic about it (C. Brown 1971:553). The biblical law prohibits magic in its various forms, though occultic powers are not denied. The Israelites were commanded: When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. No one shall be found among you who makes a son or a daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God. Although these nations that you are about to

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dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the Lord your God does not permit you to do so. (Deut. 18:9-14 NRSV). .

There are people who claim that the late twentieth century is “post Christian.” They maintain that: while the presuppositions and concepts of the historic Christian faith remain intelligible to modern man, they are no longer foundational to our view. They claim that man has now ‘come of age,’ that we now have a scientific and empirical world view that is obviously linked up with reality and which cannot take miracles seriously. In fact, this perspective finds the biblical emphasis of miracles to be somewhat offensive (J.D. Spiceland, Elwell).

Orthodox Christians cannot accept a worldview that suspects miracles. That is the core of our faith. If the first Easter had never happened, Christianity would have disappeared long ago and would not be around to offend the “modern” person. J.D. Spiceland offers the following explanation regarding miracles: In understanding miracles it is important to bear in mind that the biblical concept of miracles is that of an event which runs counter to the observed processes of nature. The word “observed” is particularly important here. This was emphasized as early as Augustine who stated in City of God that Christians must not teach that miracles are events which run counter to nature, but rather that they are events which run counter to what is known of nature. Our knowledge of nature is a limited knowledge. Clearly there may be higher laws which remain unknown to man. In any case, miracles are not correctly conceived as irrational disruptions of the patterns of nature, but as only the known parts of that pattern.

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This understanding of the biblical conception may well erode some of contemporary man’s objection to miracles. It is purely a corrective to the erroneous view that miracles are complete violations of nature (J.D. Spiceland, Elwell, 243).

This worldview is a part of the cultural milieu in which modern man finds himself. The objective of biblical miracles is clear: to bring the glory and love of God into bold relief. They are intended to draw people’s attention away from the mundane events of everyday life toward the mighty acts of God. In the Old Testament miracles are seen as the direct intervention of God in human affairs, and they were directly related to God’s redemptive activity of mankind. The most significant miracle of the Old Testament is God’s action on behalf of the Hebrew people in opening up the Red Sea as they escaped from the Egyptians. This miracle is the centerpiece of Hebrew history and Old Testament religion. It is a demonstration of God’s power and love in action. This action became the theme of much of the Hebrew religion and literature which came afterward. It was the Hebrew view that man does not know the being of God as much as he knows the acts of God. God is therefore known as someone who acts on man’s behalf, and the miracle at the Red Sea is the paradigm of God’s acting. This emphasis on miracles as the redemptive action of God is continued in the New Testament. There they are part of the proclamation of the good news that God has acted ultimately on man’s behalf in the coming of Jesus Christ into history. Miracles are a manifestation of the power that God will use to restore all of creation to its proper order, to restore the image of God in man to its full expression and to destroy death. Again we see the theme of biblical religion as centered not on theory, but on action (J.D. Spiceland, Elwell, 723). The ancient world was not suspicious of miracles. The

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people considered them to be somewhat extraordinary, but believed that God intervened in human affairs. The Egyptian diviners and magicians could not explain King Pharaoh’s dream about the seven fat cows being swallowed by seven lean ones, or the seven good stalks swallowed by lean ones. However, God gave Joseph the proper interpretation (Gen. 41:1-8). I observed that the LundaChokwe received spiritual direction in dreams and asked God to help me dream like they did, and to help me interpret their dreams. They believed that if I was a man of God, I would be able to interpret dreams correctly. They told me their dreams, I was able to interpret them and, repeatedly, they told me that my interpretation proved true. King Saul had supposedly banished all the mediums and wizards from Israel, but after Samuel’s death, when God wasn’t answering the king anymore, he disguised himself and visited a medium. Samuel appeared and told him that because he had done this the kingdom would be taken away from him (1 Sam. 28:3,7). God had sent one of his servants to tell King Saul that his disobedience would be punished. During the reign of King Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel, the palace was steeped in idolatry and sorcery (2 Kgs. 9:22). Wayward King Manasseh depended on the advice of magicians (2 Chr. 33:6). However, it was not the royals alone who were faithless in this regard. Jeremiah pleaded with the people saying, “You, therefore, must not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your soothsayers, or your sorcerers, who are saying to you, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon.’” (Jer. 27:9 NRSV). In regard to miracles, the first example of healing is found in Genesis 20. King Abimelech had taken Sarah as his concubine, because Abraham had said she was his sister. God appeared to the king in a dream saying, “You are as good as dead,” because she is a married woman. As a result of the

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king’s unknowing adultery, the Lord had prevented the women from becoming pregnant. After being warned by God in a dream, Abimelech made restitution to Abraham, who, as the Lord’s intermediary, prayed for their recovery and that of the king, and the prayer was granted. There is another example concerning King Saul. God had rejected him because of his disobedience, and allowed an evil spirit to torment him. When the spirit from God would come on him, David would play his harp and the spirit would depart. That is, the Lord would permit the spirit to come as a punishment, and then through his chosen agent David playing the harp, the spirit would depart. Elijah and Elisha performed numerous healings from God during their ministries. But the most striking miracles in the Old Testament were performed during the Exodus. The plagues of Egypt were lesser plagues, and were inflicted with preliminary warning that worse was to come if Pharaoh would continue to harden his heart. These were referred to as “signs and wonders” (Ex. 7:3; 3:20; 4:30). The theme of Yahweh’s healing nature and the hearts of repentant people, with references to establishing a new covenant, figure prominently in the Old Testament (Deut. 32; 2 Chron. 7:11-14; Isa. 19:19-22; 35:1-10; Jer. 31:31-34). Concerning medicine and physicians, they are generally referred to negatively in the Old Testament (2 Chron.16:1112; Jer. 46:11), a notable exception being the Egyptian physicians who embalmed Jacob and mourned for him for seventy days (Gen. 50:1-3). God’s people were expected to turn to Yahweh for help.

Magic, miracle, medicine in the Inter-Testament period In the post-biblical, inter-testamental period, we observe that the relationship between sickness and sin continues, as

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does the possibility of God healing directly or through an intermediary. In contrast to the Old Testament, the belief that illness and disabilities are caused by Satan and his accomplices (becoming dominant from the second century BC down into the first century AD). There is definite evidence that the Essenes of the Qumran community, practiced exorcism, and also developed a more positive attitude toward physicians and pharmacists who prepared the medicines, and used Hellenistic medical knowledge. So medicine was used by a people who also depended on God directly for healing. Scholars are convinced that if this remote group practiced Hellenistic medicine, then the Jews must have done so as well.

Magic, miracle and medicine in the Greco-Roman period Papyri from Egypt dating from the third and forth centuries AD furnish the most significant information of magical practices in Hellenistic culture. The Apology of Apuleius (from the mid-second century AD) is one of the important early sources of information. Colin Brown observes that Hellenistic magic was actually a combination of the Greek spirit and Egyptian influences, and he describes it as follows: The belief that magic words gained additional power if written on a gem; belief in monstrous beings, half animal and half human; the belief that whilst magic allows man to control the gods, it is at the same time a gift and revelation of the gods to men (Brown 1971).

He adds that there is also evidence of Persian influence in that there were also those who viewed magic “as a defense against evil spirits rather than a means of manipulating the high gods” (Brown 1971:II,556). Kee, emphasizing how

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seriously magic was viewed in the Empire, quotes Pliny, a renowned scholar, as saying, “There is no one who is not afraid of becoming the subject of lethal spells” (1986:106). In regard to miracle, historical evidence from the Hellenistic and early Roman periods witnesses to the existence of many popular healing shrines and a belief in the healing activities of the gods. The most prominent figure in the healing world from the time of Homer (seventh century BC) until Emperor Constantine, was Asklepios. He is portrayed in a variety of ways: as a human being, a healer passing on his skills to two sons; as founder of the medical profession; as a heroic figure; and as a god-physician. References to the goddess Isis cover many centuries dating to the fourth millennium BC, describing her undergoing many transformations. During the Greco-Roman period, myths presented her as a well-known agent of miracle (Kee 1983:7879;105). A brief overview of medicine in the Greek and Roman traditions is also instructive. Evidence confirms that in the fifth century BC physicians were well thought of in Greece. Physicians Hippocrates (460-350 BC) and Galen (130-200 BC) were influential in developing medicine in the Western world. In Greece, from at least as early as Plato (429-347 BC) until Galen, these medical practitioners were considered philosophers as well as physicians. The Hippocratic tradition emphasized maintaining health principally through diet (intended to balance “bodily humors”) and exercise, but the art of healing also included what would be known today as psychosomatic factors, e.g. coping with worry. Reasoning however, was largely by analogy with a tendency to gross oversimplification, and what earlier historians described as “fact” is now regarded as myth. Healing at their medical centers, however, did not exclude intervention by gods, nor by magic.

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During the first century BC, Roman medical tradition experienced renewal, particularly in the domain of surgery, though the impact of Greek medicine upon it was slow, since the Romans had greater confidence in the gods than in Greeks. The Romans had little regard for Greek theory but gradually accepted practical solutions. These included: (1) appointing administrators of military health services; (2) draining marshes and making safe water available through their famous aqueducts; (3) organizing and recording important results of medical learning, especially from the Greeks–the best known encyclopedists being Varro (116-27 B.C.) and Celsus (a contemporary of Jesus); and (4) fabricating catheters and forceps. Celsus, whose public career apparently ended with the death of Tiberius, was succeeded by another encyclopedist, Dioscorides, whose public service seems to have begun with the accession of Claudius and to have terminated when Nero died. Dioscorides gives no direct place to the gods, though his recognition of superhuman forces surfaces now and then, with remedies bordering on the magical and on the religious here and there. Rufus of Ephesus (ca.110-180), another important source of Roman medicine, depends on philosophical, biblical and biological knowledge in his approach to healing. Focusing on Galen, we note that he considers himself as recovering the Hippocratic tradition, consequently being a major influence on medieval Arab medical practice as well as in the post-medieval medicine in the West. No other doctor in the Roman world attained his stature and prestige. He considers himself operating in the realm of reason, making the results of therapy predictable. Still he believes in amulets that really worked, has confidence in the divine order of nature as opposed to the coercive manipulation of magical forces,

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though he considers the moon’s location as affecting disease patterns on earth. Among the people of the Roman Empire there were many who consulted reputable physicians, though there is evidence that the people considered them to be ostentatious and greedy. On the other hand, large numbers of people were taken in by quacks who practiced rampantly.

Magic, miracle and medicine in the New Testament period The practice of magic continued into the New Testament era. As we have seen, it was as much a part of the contemporary world as it had been in the Old Testament period. One of the practitioners of the magic arts was Simon (Acts 8:19-24) who had amazed the people of Samaria with his magic. He professed conversion, but when he saw how the Holy Spirit came upon the Samaritans through the laying on of hands by the apostles, he wanted to buy their secret technique. Peter rebuked him sternly for this, according to the author of Acts. Early Christian writers Justin Martyr and Irenaeus refer to him as an agnostic heretic. Another practitioner of magic arts was Elymas Bar-Jesus of Cyprus (Acts 13:6-12). The writer of Acts records that Paul confronted him forcefully, “You son of the devil. You enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?” (NRSV) Acts 16:16-24 relates the encounter Paul and company “had with a slave girl with a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune telling.” J. S. Wright comments: The word python is connected with the Delphic oracle, Delphi being the place where Apollo slew the mighty Python that guarded the oracle (Strabo 9, 3, 12). Later on python

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came to designate a spirit of divination and also a ventriloquist who was thought to have such a spirit inside of her belly (Wright 1971:558).

Evidently the spirit that possessed her enabled her to have a second sight, which the priestesses of the Delphic oracle possessed. The girl’s spirit had to admit the truthful nature of Paul’s ministry, just as the spirits had whom Jesus had confronted during his ministry (Mk.1:24; Matt.8:29, etc). However, neither of them could accept their witness so they exorcised them. To illustrate how “the word of the Lord grew and prevailed,” the author of the Book of Acts gives this summary: Many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices. And a number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly. When the value of the books was calculated it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed (Acts 19:18-20 NRSV).

Whatever the exact nature of the heresy being discussed in Colossians 2, the arguments against it are certainly relevant to the magic arts. Christ is presented as absolutely supreme and sufficient. Since believers are united with him, they share that supremacy over the spirit world with him, and certainly cannot expect to gain more power from intermediate spirits. Verses 8 and 20 speak of Christ having delivered us from “the elemental spirits of the universe” (RSV). Verse 15 declares that Christ “disarmed the principalities and powers,” and verse 18 insists that the “worship (service) of angels,” and induced “visions” disqualifies people. Finally, vs. 21-23 sound like the rigorous rituals that a magician observes to

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assure his continuing contacts with spirits (Wright 1971:559). New Testament miracle contrasts sharply with coercive magic since the Scriptures present God alone as in control of human destiny. The great miracle, or the Christ event, parallels the Exodus in the Old Testament as we have already seen. As in the Exodus the decisive defeat of Pharaoh, was preceded by the lesser judgments of the plagues of Egypt, so the healings and exorcisms (miracle) described in the Gospels are the lesser judgments on the powers of evil that preceded their decisive defeat through Christ’s death and resurrection. As the plagues were called “signs” in the Old Testament of God’s Rule, so Jesus’s miracles are called “signs” of God’s Rule in the Fourth Gospel. As the Exodus liberated Israel from her oppressors, so the Christ event liberates the new people of God from the evil powers. The healings and exorcisms (miracle) in the Gospels and in other parts of the New Testament are part and parcel of primal Christianity and are not later additions as form critics argued. Briefly stated, these critics contended that as the early Christians moved away from their Jewish roots they added the miracle stories so that Jesus would compete better with Hellenistic wonder workers. The Book of Acts, though, does reflect the influence of magic in people’s thinking. For example, Peter’s shadow is said to have effected healing (5:12-16), and handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched Paul’s body were used as healing devices (19:11) (Kee 1190:418). God could have honored their faith in spite of their magical outlook as he did for a friend of mine who slept on his Bible to relieve his headache. What is the place of medicine in the New Testament? The New Testament emphasizes miracle as evidence of the coming of the New Age, or of the arrival of the Kingdom of God, so an emphasis on medicine would not be expected. The work of a physician, however, is recognized, “It is not the

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healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Mark 2:17). The use of medicine is mentioned, “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine” (Luke 10:34), and also recommended, “Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses” (1 Tim. 5:23). The anointing with oil in connection with prayer (Jas. 5:1416) could be interpreted either ritually or medically. J. Wilkinson believes that the use of the verb aleipho implies a medical interpretation, since chrio would be a more appropriate verb to express ritual usage. Actually in practice, the demarcation between the domains is not necessarily clear-cut as this survey of the biblical world and its environment indicates. However, different principles are operative regarding well-being and healing. In magic, it is an impersonal system (even though it may involve the manipulation of spirits against a person’s will) that responds to a specialist skilled in using coercive power. In miracle, it is divine will operative in human experience concerned about human well-being and the divine cosmic purpose. In medicine, the natural order is the focus as a means of furthering health or regaining it. This survey of magic, miracle and medicine has the following implications for New Testament interpretation and this study. First of all, the healing miracles in the Gospels and in the rest of the New Testament are a major factor in primal Christianity and were so from its inception. They are not a later addition to make the Christian faith more attractive to Hellenism, but are part of the original Jesus tradition. The phenomenon of miracles in first century Judaism is wellattested, with Jesus himself acknowledging it (Mat. 12:27). But the significance attached to miracle differs sharply between him and mainline Judaism.

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For Jesus, the miracles signified the emergence of the New Age, a distinctive, apocalyptic development of Judaism as seen in Daniel, whereas for rabbinic Judaism, miracles were seen to confirm their authority in interpreting the Law. This difference in the interpretation of miracles, adds importance to the events themselves rather than moving them to the periphery, since it helps explain the different directions the two movements took. The witness of the Gospels affirms, and the presence of Hellenistic healing cults suggest, that Jesus’s healings and exorcisms were a major factor in the rapid expansion of the Christian faith throughout the Mediterranean basin. Secondly, Jesus’s role as healer was in line with the Old Testament prophetic insight of what God would do in the New Age to bless his people and heal the nations. The Gospels present him as the One sent by Yahweh the Healer, a tradition going back to the Exodus and figuring prominently throughout the prophetic tradition. Inter-testamental literatures confirm this interest in healing and Paul repeatedly appeals to the performance of healing and other miracles as proof of his apostleship. So this is anything but an accommodation of an itinerant prophet to Hellenism. Thirdly, miracle is not only interpreted eschatologically but symbolically as well, particularly in the Fourth Gospel. The author of this Gospel accepts the historicity of the miracles, but also gives them a further symbolic significance: spiritual renewal, fellowship, sustenance and enlightenment. Fourthly, New Testament healing stands in sharp contrast to the approach of magic to healing. The purpose of the healing in the New Testament is not forcing God to conform to human will, but to share in fulfilling his purpose for his creation in general and his people in particular. In the New Testament there is a strong conviction that God controls human destiny, though the evil powers have temporarily tried

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to thwart his plan. The continuance of the Exodus theme in the New Testament is evident. Yahweh the Healer (Ex. 15:26; 10:1-2) called his people to obedience and liberation at that time and did so again through his Servant Jesus in the New Covenant, and through the power Jesus bestows on his followers, the work continues. A big difference in the perspective of the New Covenant is this, it is not reserved for the ritually clean, but open to all who come to God through trust in his Son (Kee 1986:1- 127; 1990:417-18; R.H. Fuller 1961:8-10; Wilkinson 1988:287289). On the basis of our study so far, the dominant traditional Lunda-Chokwe approach is that of using magic or esoteric power, with minor aspects of miracle and medicine. However, Lunda-Chokwe Christians accept the Bible as their authority for faith and life, so the more they mature in the knowledge of God and his Word, the more they overcome the magical approach to well-being and healing. This survey of magic, miracle and medicine could be a factor in that maturing process. Since New Testament times, Christians have started hospitals all over the world, thus demonstrating their confidence in medicine. However, they have maintained that the spiritual, psychological and sociological dimensions are important to health and well-being as well as the biological factors. They also believe that God hears and answers prayers and performs miracles. Though immature Christians still try to manipulate God, as believers in magic try to manipulate spirit beings and forces of nature, many mature Christians have learned to pray as Jesus did, “Not my will but thine be done.” I believe that the more Christians mature in their faith, the more they will realize that the manipulative, magic-like approach to the supernatural in facing life’s crises is incompatible with the

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God of the Bible and the more they will find themselves liberated from the temptations related to sorcery. Mature Lunda-Chokwe Christians have told me that often God does protect them from a sorcerer’s attack, but such protection is not guaranteed. Christians can die a martyr’s death, also from sorcerer’s attacks, but they do not need to fear their enemies. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18 NRSV). They refer to Jesus’s advice recorded in Matthew 10:28, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” The final illness of Pastor Emmanuel Shambuyuyu was widely attributed to someone shooting him with a sorcery gun. While he could still speak, Pastor Shambuyuyu counseled his son Justin Mbuyuyu, “Do not be afraid. Do not take this as an act of sorcery, nor go here and there to determine who did it. We trust in Christ!” In recounting this experience, Justin, now also a pastor, affirms, “Searching for sorcery has no importance. I resisted the intense pressure to do so after my father died. He did not accept those ways and neither do I.” Understanding and addressing the root of sorcery and magic in light of God’s Word, is proving effective in transforming the worldview of Lunda-Chokwe Christians through succeeding generations. Pastor Athanase Musende of Muloshi stood firm against pressure from Chief Muyinda to accuse people in Kamayala of being sorcerers. They were to be brought to a particular place, Mbesenge, for a ritual of exorcism. Pastor Musende, head of the Kamayala church district, refused. “That is not our practice. We have the power of God in Jesus Christ that helps us chase away and triumph over sorcery. Our God is greater than those things. We have no fear of sorcery.” Although a quiet, humble man, Pastor Musende stands as one with a bold testimony, right to his death on Easter Saturday, 2012. Raised

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by his uncle, Pastor Emmanuel Wayindama, he modeled the same steadfast faith during intense persecution. This is according to Pastor Kakhenda Damien who married Wayindama’s daughter. We have reflected on: the key concerns of the LundaChokwe traditional view and that of the LundaChokwe Christian view; the factors that tend to undermine the key concerns of both world views; and the phenomena of magic, miracle and medicine in regard to well-being and healing in the Old Testament, in the inter-testamental period, and in the New Testament. Let us now turn to the person and work of Jesus Christ who is central to the Christian experience of atonement.

CHAPTER SIX THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST (THE ATONEMENT)

A vision to become like Jesus People who have left their mark in history have often followed a vision. A vision is the desired future, the ideal we anticipate. When we formulate a vision we spell out how we want our deepest values to influence our attitudes and activities daily. To be helpful, a vision should be both lofty and down to earth. It must be lofty to inspire us, and down to earth so that it will affect our character and activities. The loftiest and yet most practical vision I see is becoming like Jesus; to daily, even minute by minute, let the image of Jesus be formed in me. It is lofty in that it is actually God’s stated purpose for us. “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29 NRSV). It is practical because the Scriptures affirm that “All of us with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit ” (2 Cor. 3:18 NRSV). Becoming like Jesus is a present process and is therefore practical. Yet it will not be completed until Jesus comes for us. “We will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2 NRSV).

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Our response should be self purification. “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3 NRSV). As disciples of Jesus we are committed to learning from him. He is our example and teacher. We are followers, trying to imitate him. That is our faith journey, not in our own strength, but “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36 NRSV). Adam and Eve were the only beings created in the image of God. This was a great honor but also a tremendous responsibility. Together they were to reflect the image of God. However, after their fall the image was marred, though not destroyed completely. Jesus is the only human being who perfectly mirrors the image of God. Of him it is written, “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15 NRSV). Let me suggest three ways in which we should become like Jesus: in character, in communication and in creating community.

Becoming like Jesus in character Concerning character, Jesus said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest, and first commandment. And a second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Mat. 22:37-38 NRSV). Jesus says that both commandments have to be a reality in our lives. We have to love God and we have to love our neighbor if we want to be like Jesus. In the parallel passage in Luke 10:25ff. the lawyer asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” When Jesus returned the question to him asking what is stated in the law,

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the man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” The teacher of the law, trying to look for an excuse, replies, “And who is my neighbor?” The teacher of the law felt that he could hate the Samaritans. Yet what the priests and Levites should have done was to help the Samaritan. If he did not help him, it showed that he did not love his neighbor. He wanted to continue to hate his neighbor. Jesus pointed out that everyone in need is my neighbor. If I really love him, I will help him and thus empower him. Jesus makes it clear that to be saved you have to love. We often lose this simplicity. The sinner could say, “Jesus, help me to love you and my neighbors,” and then expect him to do it. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rom. 5:5 NRSV) If we open up to him, he fills our hearts with his love for God and our neighbor and then we are saved. I don’t have to love with my love. God gives us the love with which to love him and our neighbors. As we decide to love, the Holy Spirit fills us with that love, for God and for neighbors. This is just as simple as any verse of how to become a Christian. This clarifies what Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you are going to be with me in paradise” (Lk.23:43 NRSV). Salvation is that simple. This turning to God in faith and love may be expressed in various ways, as seen in the following references: John 1:12; 3:16; Acts 16:31. Sorcerers and diviners directly undermine these two commandments because invariably they accuse a family member of murder when another family member dies. The accused person will generally be driven from his or her village if strong family members accept the verdict. See 1 John 3:15 NRSV: “All who hate a brother or sister are

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murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life.” If a spouse dies it is believed that the dead partner will try to kill the one who remains. To prevent this from happening, the one who remains must cover himself or herself with bad odors to ward off the vengeful departed, lest he or she be killed. They are not told the words of Jesus to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk.23:43 NRSV). If the diviner and sorcerer have their way, the future hope of reunion that will take place after death, of which the Bible speaks, is not there. The Bible does not speak of any intention of the deceased to do harm to the living. Rather than the glorious hope of reunion after death, the diviners and sorcerers say, “Your spouse hates you.” Mature followers of Christ have the courage to stand up to these customs that undermine harmonious relationships. Wenyi Nzey's wife, Beatrice (Bea) Shikula, passed away in July 2012 following surgery for colon cancer in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital city. My daughter Charity observed that when her body was repatriated to Kamayala for burial, Wenyi stayed by the coffin during the wake. Some relatives criticized him, “Why are you not carrying myrtle branches and odorous herbs to chase away her spirit?” Wenyi, an elder in the church, agronomist and leader in community development replied, “For over 50 years Bea has been by my side in a loving marriage and serving the Lord together. For the past two months that she has been in Kinshasa, all I wanted was to be by her side. Now that her body has returned, why would I want to chase her away? With the love we shared for each other all these years, why do you want me to believe that she hates me now? No! She is not a menace to me. I know she is with the Savior she loved.”

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Through atonement, we have been transferred from darkness to light. The cross has created a bridge to the kingdom of light and we are seated in heavenly places with Christ. Conditions of our restoration are our continuing repentance, faith and bearing our cross daily. His suffering is an example for us to follow, as we fix our eyes on “the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross” (Heb. 12:2-3 NRSV). Because of Christ’s suffering, we should not grow weary or lose heart but rely on the comforter, the Holy Spirit, to fill us with light. Let us take our candles and light the world. Jesus’s character was portrayed in the Gospel of Mark, which became the outline for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. They also used another common document, the Discourses of Jesus. Mark’s key verse is, “The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45 NRSV). For other references to the character of Jesus, see the following: Mat. 57; I Cor. 13; Phil. 2:1-11; 1 John 4:7-8.

Becoming like Jesus in communication Jesus had a unique way of communicating in parables. He always wanted to make people think. We know that the disciples and others who really wanted to know the truth, who were eager to learn, would ask for further explanation. With this in mind, I asked the local pastors to teach me the proverbs of the Lunda-Chokwe people so that I could use their parables to capture their interest and explain salvation. Because we valued their culture by using the proverbs of their ancestors, they felt good about their culture. It was hard to argue against their own proverbs, which showed the wisdom of the ancestors.

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Fig. 6.1. Pastors Khege Andre Mwata-Swana and Mutunda Funda helped me translate the Bible into modern Chokwe. (Ben Eidse photo ca. 1971)

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Fig. 6-2. Pastor Paul Mwatshikele and Kamayala villagers greeted me when I returned alone to Congo for half a year in 1961. Tribal conflict made it risky to bring my young family during that time. (Ben Eidse photo, ca. 1961)

We found that people who are largely from an oral culture are good at memorizing, even if they could not read. We would assemble all the grown-ups and write down their names. We would teach them twelve verses of Scripture along with the explanations. If they could recite them, and their meanings, they would receive a pamphlet of Bible stories with pictures. For those who needed extra help, we assigned someone who knew how to read, so that all the villagers could recite the material from memory. The topics included how to become a Christian and how to live the Christian life. Our mission had the policy of using the mother tongue, rather than the trade language. In this way we established 80 churches in 20 different centers among our tribal groups. A pastor would train the leaders of the churches while they were

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serving, instructing them on how to lead the churches. When we came to teach the Word of God, our pastors arranged for the whole village to meet us a couple of kilometers out and escort us with singing and dancing into the villages. Two pastors, both expert communicators, joined our team when we translated the Bible into modern Chokwe, starting in 1969. One was also a local storyteller and one was from another Chokwe language area. Their knowledge of stories, parables and local expressions produced a dynamic translation that has entered the prayers and conversations of believers. This has increased their understanding and relation to the message of Jesus. My wife, Helen, a nurse, also looked after the people who needed medical attention. She helped care for 65 orphans at the mission orphanage and depended on Pastor Paul’s wife, Naomi, the village midwife, to help her deliver babies. On the mission, we also established an18-bed hospital, maternity, dispensary, tuberculosis sanatorium and leprosarium. In the 1970s, Helen had the privilege of delivering the cure for leprosy. After six months, her patients danced out of quarantine, praising God for the medicine and the people who brought it. We worked with the Mennonite Central Committee to help the people improve their diets by organizing cattle cooperatives, raising rabbits and chickens and building fish ponds. We also trained carpenters, masons, chauffeurs, mechanics, accountants and nurses to give them sustainable careers. We also become like Jesus in creating a kingdom community (the church or koinonia). Jesus chose the twelve apostles to form the core of the kingdom community, the church (Luke 6:12-16). This was a parallel to the twelve tribes of God’s chosen people, Israel, an alternative structure to that

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Fig. 6-3. Helen Eidse caring for orphan Vicki Majiko in 1967. (Ben Eidse photo)

of the world through which the evil powers enslave humanity. We read in Col. 2:15 how Christ disarmed the evil powers by dying on the cross, and in Eph. 1:15-23, how he was exalted above all spiritual powers and is seated triumphantly at the Father's right hand. The books of Colossians and Ephesians are closely related. Colossians emphasizes the all-sufficiency of Christ and Ephesians presents the church as the body of which Christ is the head. He is presented as God's instrument of reconciliation and the church is presented as Christ's instrument of reconciliation. It is the church that must take Christ to the world and it is within the church that barriers that divide people from one another are to be broken down. This is accomplished through submission to its head Christ the Victor (see Barclay 1966:76-79). Through the church God intends to make known to all the spiritual powers this purpose of reconciliation:

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Fig. 6-4. A nurse in training, learning to identify leprosy bacilli at the leprosarium clinic. (Ben Eidse photo c. 1970) His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence (Eph. 3:10-11).

How can the church accomplish such a noble goal? By actually being what God intended it to be. Let’s examine what the church is like when it conforms to God’s purpose for it.

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The New Testament describes the church in more than 100 related expressions. These can be grouped into five categories that reflect the nature of the church: (1) a community in which God acts; (2) a community that is responding to God; (3) a community that accepts certain basic obligations; (4) a dynamic (close and responsive) organism; (5) a community whose members have repented and been baptized. 1. The Church: a Community in which God acts. Note the following terms: “the chosen,” “the called,” “the justified,” “the sanctified,” “the holy ones,” “the glorified ones.” In these designations, the church is viewed from the standpoint of the triune God acting in regard to, or upon, a people (Paul Minear 1962:609). As others watch believers, it should be evident that God has done these things in their lives and continues to do so individually and corporately. 2. The church: a community responding to God. The church is also characterized as: “those who call on the name of the Lord, the company of believers” (occurring more than 75 times), “disciples” (learners), “those who follow.” Whereas the previous expressions regard the church from the perspective of God’s action on behalf of and within people, the stance of these is a “personal, communal response to God’s action through Christ, a response which is empowered by the Holy Spirit” (Ibid., 609). When the people of God sense him at work in themselves, they respond individually and corporately by calling on him regularly, trusting him, being learners and following in Jesus’s footsteps. 3. The church: a community accepting basic obligations. A third category of descriptives present Christians as those who have assumed certain basic obligations, which their positive response to God entails. For example, accepting to be: “friends, stewards, witnesses, ministers, priests, soldiers,

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ambassadors, servants, slaves,” etc. Of these, the more menial terms, “servants” and “slaves” appear most frequently. They also best express the apparently contradictory interdependence of slavery and freedom, humiliation and glory. Jesus is described as both master and servant, lord and slave. He became a slave (Phil. 2:7) and on that basis, we who are his, become his slaves, slaves of one another, and of those we seek to introduce to Christ. The word, servant, is used similarly (Minear 1962:610). 4. The church: a koinonia (a dynamic kingdom community). Another basic word used to describe the early church is the Greek word koinonia, which occurs around fifty times in the New Testament. The lexicon definitions that most frequently apply to the church are: “association, communion, fellowship, close [dynamic] relationship,” and “participation, sharing” (Bauer et al., 1957:439-440). Acts 2:41-47 describes the koinonia which was formed as a result of Pentecost. 5. Condition of membership: repenting and being baptized. The first distinctive is mentioned in v.41, “Those who accepted his message were baptized.” Peter had just concluded his sermon with the words, “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” What was the response? “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers what shall we do?’” Peter answered, “Repent and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v.38).

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This is the message they accepted and thus joined the koinonia. This was not just a loose group, but an organism, a communion committed to a Master who had forgiven them, given them life, and set them free.

Four priority activities of the church These characteristics of the church produce in Christ followers four priority activities: (1) bearing witness to Jesus Christ the risen Lord, (2) spiritual sharing, (3) encouraging sharing and (4) peacemaking. 1. Activity: Bearing witness to Jesus Christ the risen Lord In addition to speaking of Jesus Christ and his resurrection, a second characteristic of the koinonia was “that they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (v.42). This meant a commitment to specific content and to a recognized authority. The content was the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension and enthronement of Jesus Christ the messianic King and Lord. F. F. Bruce remarks, “In due course this apostolic teaching took shape in the NT scriptures” (Bruce 1956:79) John Driver comments: In its attempt to renew its life, the church must continually return to the incarnation, to Jesus and the apostolic witness to Him. Jesus gives meaning and authority to what the church does, thereby bringing it under the judgment of God.... It is a way of moving ahead in history with Jesus Christ as the determinative norm for the life of the church. It is an attempt to empower the faithfulness and the deformations of the recent past to the incarnation in order to reorient and reform the direction of the church (Driver 1976:18-19).

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2. Activity: Spiritual sharing This trait of the koinonia described in Acts 2 is that “they devoted themselves to...fellowship” (koinonia), which we already defined as a “close (dynamic) communion.” These relationships may be viewed as sharing experiences of the life they had in common as members of the body of Christ. It was a spiritual sharing with social dimensions. This entailed participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, experiencing both his suffering and his power, individually and corporately (Phil. 3:10; 2 Cor. 1:5-7). Such sharing required genuine surrender to God and avoidance of sin (Rom. 6:12-24). This spiritual sharing found concrete expression in the fellowship meals and communion services in private homes. They were permeated by a spirit of gladness and humility accompanied by praises sung to God. 3. Activity: Economic sharing Twice in Acts, Luke records the community of goods (2:44-45; 4:32-35), but before commenting on these verses specifically, some background information should be helpful. Jesus’s example must certainly have been a strong influence on their lifestyle. They continued to practice the common meal—and isn’t it significant that he appeared to them several times after his resurrection while they were eating together. 4. Activity: Peacemaking. The koinonia was also characterized by shalom, or peace. Shalom in the Old Testament means, The state of wholeness possessed by persons or groups, which may be health, prosperity, security, or the spiritual completeness of the covenant. In the OT no particular distinction is made among these categories; military or

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economic peace is similar to the bodily and spiritual health of the individual (E. M. Good 1962:704-705).

Fig. 6-5. Several churches united to deliver food and blankets to Angolan refugees during tribal conflict in 1961. (Ben Eidse photo, 1961)

In Classical Greek, eirene (peace) implies “cessation or absence of hostilities between rival groups” (C. L. Mitton 1962:706), but New Testament usage is much wider in scope, partly because it stands within the Hebrew tradition, partly because of its significance in the context of New Testament faith and experience. It occurs around 100 times in the New Testament, being used frequently to describe the restored relationship between God and human beings. It is in Christ that this relationship is restored and “peace with God” is procured (Rom. 5:1). However, in the New Testament peace also refers to the reconciliation effected between hostile peoples, notably the Jews and Gentiles who become one in

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Christ (Eph. 2:14-17). Marlin Miller summarizes, “The messianic peace encompasses both the reconciliation of enemies on the social level as well as the common access to the presence of God” (Miller 1977:3). Ideally, in the New Testament koinonia, differences that separate people are overcome, such as: economic status, nationalism, racism, ethnic prejudices, cultural and social differences and the accompanying attitudes of superiority, inferiority and fear. Peacemakers (Mat. 5:9) are those who create peace where there is strife, whatever its expression; who unite wherever there is separation, whatever its form. They do this by drawing upon the peace that God has given them and by encouraging the wayward to be reconciled to God (Driver 1976:41-53). In 1964, Simba Revolution leader, Mulele Pierre, conducted training camps in the forests of Bandundu Province. These resulted in armed attacks on several of the Congo Inland Mission stations. At Kandala, armed youth set Pastor Wyindama’s house on fire. He was teaching at the Bible school, which had been moved from an area of tribal conflict. Wyindama found a stick and began beating out the blazes but was grabbed and threatened with arrow, machete and spear. His wife clutched their children but Wayindama responded calmly, “If I am engaged in politics, you may kill me but if I preach the Word of God, the Lord himself will protect me.” At that moment a fourth youth appeared, a chief of the rebels and former student of Wyindama’s. “Don’t kill him,” he commanded and told the pastor not to be afraid. The rebel chief left and the three youths continued to harass him, demanding that he and his family throw their clothes, shoes and glasses into the flames. Again, the three youths beat Wyindama and he said, “If I die, I die for the Word of God.” His wife told him not to mention God; that it would only

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aggravate them. But he said, “If I forget God, he will forget me.” One youth said, “Stretch out your arm; I’m chopping it off.” “I cannot give you my arm. It has done nothing for which it should be cut off.” He was commanded to kneel and stay while they consulted comrades. Meanwhile the missionaries were herded together, kerosene poured in a circle around them and set ablaze. While they huddled barefoot inside the fire ring, their houses and cars were torched. Through it all, missionary Jim Bertsche said, they experienced the quiet reality of God’s presence. When the rebels returned to Wyindama, he said he was not afraid. The missionaries were gathered in the last remaining house and villagers, who had expected a peaceful takeover, came saying, “This is not the way it should have happened.” Theology teachers, students and missionaries were then ordered to the clinic by another wave of rebels. There the students gave from their meager belongings, a sweater, a pair of shoes, comfort and fellowship. Wyindama had confidence God would protect him and God honored that confidence. At Mukedi, our daughter Faith was attending school with another missionary child when the rebels marched on the station saying, “We have killed the priests, where are the missionaries?” They had slaughtered several priests at a neighboring station the night before, and Mukedi missionaries had that morning buried the priests and rescued the terrorized nuns. When the rebels arrived at the airstrip, they found Mukedi’s Chief Nzamba and his sons, guarding it while mission leader, Samuel Kakesa, urged the traumatized nuns to fly out first. The Mother Superior told him, “If we had had a leader like you, our priests would not have been killed.” While the evacuation continued, an army transport plane tried to land, but the MAF pilot ordered missionary Harvey

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Barkman to drive a truck onto the airstrip to prevent it and all out war. Missionary women and children escaped next but the fathers waited until nearly nightfall before the pilot found his way back, blown off course across a burning countryside. Some of our students fled Mukedi on foot, including Albert the son of Jacob, a nurse my wife had trained. Jacob was practicing in Tshikapa, which had not fallen to the rebels, so the students headed that direction. They were attacked several times by rebel groups so kept to the forest. About that time a priest came to Kamayala asking me to radio for rescue helicopters for one of their stations. I sent the message not knowing whether anyone received it. Our students finally reached the Loange River where freedom waited on the other side. But it was full of crocodiles and seemed uncrossable. That’s when they heard helicopters, took off their shirts and waved for help. This was in fact, the United Nations rescue crew I had radioed for to deliver the priests and nuns. One of the helicopters descended and took the students across the river to Tshikapa. There Albert’s father was waiting, certain that he would be on the rescue flight. Albert said, “Some people say there is no God, but I have seen him.” Meanwhile in Mukedi, Kakesa was captured and taken to Mulele Pierre’s hideout headquarters. There he was accused of hardening people to the rebellion, stealing teachers’ salaries and helping foreigners escape. He heard brutal tribunals and killings and realized he could be next. However, Kakesa was needed to operate a radio transmitter the rebels had stolen. One day, the mission head heard Kakesa broadcasting and radioed that he had the government-delayed teachers’ salaries ready for Kakesa to distribute. Mulele Pierre realized Kakesa was innocent. Kakesa was able to broadcast that he was captured and to give the money to someone else. After this, Kakesa was able to intervene for the life of a local

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storeowner. However, as he daily read the Bible his father had smuggled to him, he realized he was being used to broadcast propaganda that contradicted the Word. At Mukedi, believers were praying specifically that Kakesa would fall ill and come to the hospital. This was happening; a possible diabetic reaction to starchy food was swelling Kakesa’s legs and he was released under guard. He arrived home ahead of his wife who was returning from their village, and had given birth to twins along the way; though one had died. It was a longed for and much needed reunion. Later Kakesa made a dangerous crossing of the Kwilu River to signal the local government that Mukedi was ready to cooperate against the rebels, and Mukedi was freed. By summer 1964 rebels had taken two-thirds of Congo and were 25 miles to the east and 40 miles to the north of Kamayala. I had sent my wife and girls to the capital and one morning found soldiers on my porch, guarding me against imminent attack. The villagers were ready, too, and wanted to give me a gun. But they laughed, knowing I wouldn’t use it. Instead I took our VW van to rescue theology students from the Kasai. We were under threat of capture, beating and death the whole way. Soldiers had put a noose around my friend Abele’s neck and threatened him for the gas we buried in our garden. He told them to remove the rope and he would get the gas. He dug up a barrel and rolled it far around so they wouldn’t know where the barrels were hidden. Our effort to return via Angola was thwarted and we circled back home where we found just enough gas to get to the next fuel stop. When we drove into Kinshasa, the motor was smoking. The van had made it just far enough on impassable roads. We repaired the van and returned upcountry where I went to Feshi province looking for Pastor Shakatanga at Shamwana. He wasn’t there but later told us that when the rebels removed the tin roof from the state hospital and nurse’s

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residence, he hid the roofing. We put that back on and the state sent a nurse to serve them. Government soldiers repelled a rebel attack 15 miles from Kamayala and after that we could travel to Kikwit, load our truck with supplies and search for mission leaders in hiding or captivity. I helped repair the airstrip at Mukedi, which had been trenched by rebels, and also repaired the airstrips at Kandala and Shamwana. There I also placed a radio transmitter. Our confidence in the Lord throughout those harrowing months was rewarded. Although tribal conflict continues in Congo, there is an example of peace and reconciliation in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Congo. Following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the spillover of refugees into that region, the Church of Christ of Congo invited Mennonites to plant churches along the border. The Mennonites held peace seminars among warring tribes to teach an alternative to violence. Today a thriving church of 500 members and a vibrant Council for Peace and Reconciliation in Bukavu includes Catholic bishops and Congolese pastors (Kyenza 2010). To sum up, the New Testament church is: (1) a community in which God acts; (2) a community that is responding to God; (3) a community that accepts certain basic obligations; (4) a dynamic organism whose members have repented and been baptized; are united with God through Christ, are united with one another, are committed to economic sharing and peacemaking. If the church we plant has these qualities, it should conform to two appropriate metaphors which Jesus uses in describing it: salt and light.

CHAPTER SEVEN MISUNDERSTANDING THE ATONEMENT

John Driver, in his book, Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church, recognizes four problems or misunderstandings of the atonement in the history of the church: Constantinianism, the demand for rationality, the misconception of the law and preoccupation with guilt.

Constantinianism During the fourth and fifth centuries it became notable that a fundamental shift had taken place within the Christian church concerning the atonement of Jesus Christ. This new situation came to be known as Constantinianism for Constantine, the Roman emperor when the Christian movement was granted official toleration. However, the process had begun before the emperor’s time and continued long after his reign. This period reflects the change from a scarcely tolerated and often persecuted missionary movement into a well-established social institution with the power to determine (sometimes by persecution) life within its own ranks as well as in society. The ethics and doctrines of the church were gradually adapted to the new situation. The emperor himself professed to be a Christian and began to exert his power over the church; all society was christened. This differed from the New Testament vision. In Mark, which is considered the first gospel, written under the influence of Peter, we read, “For the Son of Man came not to

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be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mar.10:45 NRSV). This is what Christ came to do, not necessarily to do miracles but to give his life. He had come to die and be killed on an executioner’s stake, one of the most horrific ways to die. Under Constantinianism, social ethics, especially underwent drastic changes. For example, during this time the church moved from being a persecuted minority to a persecuting majority. At the beginning of the fourth century, Christians systematically opposed military service, but by the beginning of the fifth century, those who participated in the Roman legion had to be Christians. The meaning of being a Christian gradually changed. Instead of being a movement of Christlike people, the Christian church was composed of all those who confessed the Apostles Creed, who accepted the apostles canon and obeyed the apostolic successor, the bishop of Rome. A similar change occurred in the way salvation and the saving work of Christ was understood. It was in the sacraments that the benefits of the saving work of Christ were objectified. Baptism and the breaking of bread became the sacraments of initiation and of the altar. The immediacy of the spiritual and moral work of Jesus Christ grew dim as the benefits of the death and resurrection of Jesus were applied sacramentally, logically removing it one step farther from personal experience. It could be done mechanically without inward commitment. In relation to the atonement, a process began that gradually led to explaining the death of Jesus in the sacrament of penance. Here’s an illustration. Francisco Franco, the 20th century military dictator, ruled Spain with an iron fist for almost forty years. Shortly before his death, he availed himself of the saving benefits of his church. Shortly after his death, this

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slogan appeared on a wall in Gerona, a city in northeastern Spain: “God can’t be trusted; Franco is in heaven.” The words of this dissenter, addressed to both the regime and the established church in Spain, express in a stark way a concern of believers who take seriously the New Testament work of Christ and the salvation it bestows. They intuitively perceive the full-orbed New Testament meaning that the death and resurrection of Christ have life-changing consequences for the salvation of God’s people and the restoration of creation. Instead, these sacraments had become an “abstract” saving transaction that allowed sinful and violent people and fallen structures to remain substantially unchanged. If this is what the saving life, death and resurrection of Christ means, the logical conclusion is that the utterly faithful God of the Bible is no longer trustworthy. This event happened in Spain with its Roman Catholic version of established Christianity. But the situation that prevailed in Protestant lands of Constantinianism is not different in substance. Here, too, the work of Christ has been interpreted as an “abstract” transaction that allows sinful and violent people (especially the powerful) and corrupted structures to remain substantially unchanged. The literal, ethical components of Christ’s saving work have gradually atrophied, and transcendent aspects, especially of sacrifice and expiation, which lent themselves more easily to sacrificial expression, became almost exclusively the lens through which the saving work of Christ was viewed. The practical results of this Constantinian shift, in the way it viewed the saving work of Jesus, enabled un-Christian people to be assured of the benefits of Christ’s saving death without experiencing the power of character transformation.

Demand for rationality In G. E. Parrinder’s work on Witchcraft, he wrote:

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This temptation to choose from among the metaphors in the interests of clarity or rationality has served to impoverish the church’s understanding of the atonement. What to modern Western minds may appear to be a defect in the New Testament is in fact a strength. The images which appear in the New Testament were certainly used because they were needed to elucidate the work of Christ in some particular place and in some special situation. No image by itself is capable of carrying all of the meaning of the reality of Christ’s saving work (1958).

We will therefore do well to use all the images, standing in juxtaposition to one another, each making its particular contribution to our understanding, rather than trying to force all images (or at least as many as can fit) into a rational theory of atonement. While the interest of logic has certainly influenced the history of western thought, this does seem to have been a primary concern of both the Old and New Testament. While it is not enough to use all the biblical metaphors, we should also try to understand them in their biblical sense.

The misconception of the law The juridical motif of justification is an important image in the biblical understanding of the atonement. However, in the history of the western church this key image has generally been interpreted from the perspective of the Roman concept of law coupled with the typical western perspective with the problem of guilt. In the Bible, law was understood as covenant law, the expression of God’s intention for relationships within his redeemed community. Law in ancient Israel did not require a static or meticulous perfection, but supposed a covenant relationship in which were provisions for forgiveness and repentance and where God is gracious.

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In Judaism we see a deformation of covenant law in the direction of legalism. This deformation of law was what Jesus, Paul and John denounced so strongly. In Luke 11:3754, Jesus denounces the Pharisees, saying they “clean the outside of the cup..., but inside you are full of greed and wickedness” and “woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God” (NRSV). Paul wrote, “I died to the law, so that I might live to God” (Gal. 2:19b NRSV). John wrote, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8 KJV). Yet, the covenant law is adamant in both testaments, “I will remember their sins no more” (Isa. 43:25, Jer. 31:34, 50:20, Mic. 7:18,19, Heb. 8:12, 10:17, Rom. 11:27). A similar misunderstanding occurred in the Christian church from around the third century onward. Instead of holding on to the concept of biblical covenant law, the paradigm for understanding juridical metaphors became the Roman concept of law, which was not only distributive but predominantly retributive. Sin must be punished, it can’t be forgiven. Therefore, transgression of the law required just punishment rather than the kind of forgiveness and repentance that had characterized covenant law at its best. This makes a place for the sense of guilt that from Augustine onward has become so prominent in western Christianity. This problem of guilt became the central focus of the juridical image for understanding the atonement. Luther’s struggle with his sense of guilt in his desperate search for a gracious God was part of this Augustinian legacy. Paul’s juridical images were read from this perspective of the struggles of conscience, which we find in men such as Augustine and Luther.

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Preoccupation with guilt However, when one approaches the biblical text without this western bias, one finds that Paul had a remarkably robust conscience. He writes in Philippians 3:6, translated variously: “touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (KJV); “as to the righteousness under the law, blameless” (RSV); or “as for legalistic righteousness, faultless” (NIV). Paul’s conversion involved a realization that Jesus was the Messiah, but was not a conversion in the sense of resting a plagued conscience. When he wrote about forgetting what was behind (Phil. 3:13), he was not referring to his shortcomings in trying to obey the law, but his achievements as a righteous Jew. A faithful response to the Messiah characterized the rest of Paul’s life. Rather than being concerned merely about juridical guilt, he wanted people to become part of God’s community and obey God in that context. Romans 8:3b-4, “He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (RSV). (See also: Eph. 2:10; Gal. 1:4; Tit. 2:11-14.) A believer’s life had to change; salvation was not on the declaration of someone’s forgiveness. This concern accounts for the extensive ethical sections generally found in Paul’s epistles. To understand law as basically a system of just retribution, and sin primarily as guilt, which deserves punishment, is to read the New Testament from a post-biblical perspective of Roman law and a western sense of guilt. This concept of law is an understandable consequence of the Constantinian vision of church and society. With the christening of the entire society, law was dislodged from the concept of grace, which had always characterized biblical covenant law.

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Therefore it became relatively natural to transfer the legal concepts of punishment and guilt from secular society to the church’s self-understanding. In the biblical perspective of God’s gracious covenant, which provided the context of his saving relationship with his people, God’s wrath was in reality his response to covenant violation in the interests of protecting his merciful and loving relationship. However, with the fading of the biblical vision of the covenant, God increasingly came to be viewed in terms of the ancient Greek and Roman deities whose wrath called for appeasement and whose anger must be placated by religious means. The Constantinian situation also made it necessary to place salvation within the reach of all society, more or less as it was, since by political and ecclesiastical definition it was Christian. Therefore the means of salvation came to be basically sacramental. In Roman Catholicism, the process was understood ex opere operato, achieved in the operation of the sacrament itself. The sacraments, in and of themselves, were viewed as objects of God’s grace. In Constantinian Protestantism, salvation came to be understood in solafideistic terms. Justification by “faith alone” came to mean “being declared to be righteous even though one is not.” In both cases, the means of grace were more easily placed within the reach of all, for all practical purposes. In Catholicism, guilt was understood as indebtedness and dealt with by means of the penitential process of attrition (sorrow for sins), confession, satisfaction and absolution. In Protestantism, the guilt was removed through forensic justification–a legal declaration of righteousness, as if one were already righteous, even though it is not yet the case. In reality, it was a legal fiction. Old Testament sacrifice was understood as a means to placate the anger of God. This function was transferred to Jesus as lamb of God. This explains the disproportionate

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emphasis of the sacrament of the Lord’s body in Catholicism as well as the long-standing belief in Protestantism that the only thing essential to our salvation is the death of the innocent Christ for our sins.

CHAPTER EIGHT MAGISTERIAL REFORMERS AND RADICAL REFORMERS INTERACT

Martin Luther, a studious monk and scholar, sparked worldwide religious reformation in 1517 when, at age 34, he nailed his “95 Theses” to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church, Germany. The document attacked corruption in the church by opposing the sale of indulgences to absolve sin. It also proposed two central beliefs, that the Bible is our religious authority and that people achieve salvation only by faith, not by deeds. These were not new ideas but were presented at a moment in history that was ripe for the Protestant Reformation (History.com). Luther became one of the early reformers of the movement, along with John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli. Because they faced persecution, they tried to work closely with the established magistrates to purify a corrupt church and became known as the magisterial reformers. However, they stopped short of recommending adult baptism on the confession of faith and separation of church and state. Radical reformers, known as Anabaptists, arose and rejected secular authority over the church. The magisterial reformers sought purification of the church through scriptures being the sole authority for faith and life. God saves people by grace through faith alone, not works or sacraments, and people give glory to God alone, not to themselves. Society and the church were still one, membership was still at birth by non-voluntary baptism, and political authorities had a decisive

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voice in church matters, compromising and undermining God’s Word. The church of the radical reformers opposed such compromise. It said the state could not dictate matters of faith and that only the scriptures and the Holy Spirit should determine the activities of the church. I visited a historic site of the Protestant Reformation, in the summer of 1961. Berta Mangold, a nurse who’d served in Congo, took me to a bridge overlooking Lake Zurich on the Limmat River where Felix Manz was drowned by followers of Huldrych Zwingli in the Reformation. Manz, a popular Anabaptist preacher, had urged truer, purer New Testament reform—adult baptism on the confession of faith and separation of church and state. Manz was 30, well-educated, the illegitimate son of a church canon. He knew firsthand the corruption of a national church that served the whims of leaders, kings and princes. He was a 1519 follower of Zwingli until Conrad Grebel joined the reformers in 1521. Manz and Grebel felt Zwingli’s plans for reform had been compromised by the Zurich city council. Several times they tried to debate Zwingli but were denounced by the council, ordered to submit to Zwingli and baptize their children within eight days. Instead, Conrad and Manz gathered at the home of Felix’s mother in January 1525 and baptized George Blaurock who, in turn, baptized them and other adults. They thus founded the Swiss Brethren Anabaptist congregation, the first church of the Radical Reformation. The movement spread rapidly and Manz used his knowledge of Hebrew, Greek and Latin to translate the Scriptures into the language of the people. Manz, who was called “Apollos” for his popular preaching, won hundreds, even thousands to Christ. He was warned that he would be executed if he continued preaching. But he replied that Jesus commanded his disciples to go into all the world and preach and to baptize converts as the seal of faith.

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“This I have taught,” he said, “and when some came to me weeping and asking for baptism, I could not refuse them.” Scholars and priests who had insisted on these principles in debates with Zwingli broke with him in January 1525 and began the Anabaptist movement. Grebel, Manz and Blaurock were among them. “My innermost being is as new wine skins without a vent,” said Grebel. “The wine bursts the wine skins.” He went house to house, and out to the fields, baptizing and serving the Lord’s Supper. At Sitter River on April 9, 1525, he baptized a throng and in St. Gaul, he baptized 500. He was persecuted and imprisoned, but later died of plague. In 1526, the city council passed an edict that made adult rebaptism punishable by drowning. Manz was arrested and imprisoned. On January 5, 1527, he was led to a boat, praising God and preaching to the people. A Reformed minister went along, trying to silence him and convince him to recant. Manz’s brother and mother stood onshore, urging him to stand firm and suffer for Christ’s sake. Manz was rowed to deep water where his hands were bound over his knees and a pole inserted between his arms and knees. Manz was immersed, then raised and urged to recant. He refused and was immersed and raised again. His last words echoed those of Christ and the Apostle Stephen, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit” (C. Neff, H.S.Bender 1957). Dirk Willems is another martyr who showed us how to love our enemies. In 1569, the mayor of Asperen, Holland, sent a thief catcher to arrest him for having been re-baptized and permitting others to be re-baptized. Willems ran over a river on thin ice, and the thief catcher broke through. Realizing his pursuer was drowning, Willems turned back and rescued him. The thief catcher wanted to release Willems but the mayor ordered the thief catcher to seize Willems who was imprisoned and tried.

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Fig. 8-1. Showing no fear in love, Dirk Willems turned back to rescue his pursuer and was burned at the stake. (Jan Luykin etching for the 1685 Martyrs Mirror, Wikimedia Commons)

On May 16, 1569, Willems was tied to a stake and set ablaze. A strong wind blew the flames from his upper body, causing a slow painful death. In the neighboring town people heard him cry over seventy times, “Oh my Lord, My God!” Finally the mayor ordered him killed quickly (J. Leichty). It has been observed that “the Anabaptist revival of the 16th century was likely the greatest revival that happened since New Testament times. It ran into the hundreds and thousands of conversions in continental Europe alone. “Both Protestant and Catholic authorities persecuted the Anabaptists. Between 20,000 and 50,000 men, women and children are estimated to have been martyred during this time in Europe” (G. Thiessen et. al.1995:20). The 16th century Anabaptists wanted to re-establish the

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New Testament church. They were a persecuted minority, a unique people separated from the world, seeking to do God’s will, based on his Word. They applied the teachings of Christ to their lives, carried out the missionary mandate, were empowered and directed by the Holy Spirit and strived to remain a pure church through discipline. Conditions of membership were voluntary, and baptism was based on repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Anabaptists were inspired by the New Testament to maintain the church as salt and light against threats from within, such as hypocrisy (Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:111), favoritism (Grecian versus Hebrew Jews, Acts 6:1-7), selfish ambition (Simon, Acts 8:18-24) and cross-cultural issues (Acts 11:1-18, 15:1-34). The early church also raised up leaders like Priscilla and Aquila who mentored the popular speaker, Apollos (Acts 18:24-26). Like Paul, the Anabaptists wrote letters addressing church problems. They also tried to protect against threats from the outside (comparable to criticism of Pentecost, Acts 2:14-47) and intensifying persecution. More than any other church reform party, the Anabaptists tried to renew an untainted, pure Christianity, wrote Johann Loserth in Harold S. Bender’s, The Anabaptist Vision (1944). Zwingli, in his last book against the Swiss Brethren, wrote that their life and conduct were “irreproachable, pious, unassuming, attractive, yes, above this world” (S.F. Dintaman). Bender wrote that, they were a peaceful, evangelical, creative, powerful movement, conceived as “completing the arrested reformation begun by Luther and Zwingli.” They wanted “a life of conviction, discipleship and holy living, patterned after the teaching and example of Christ and expressed in holy community.” Another Anabaptist opponent noted that the movement had spread so rapidly that their teaching “covered the land” and “gained a large following.”

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Anabaptists also understood the redemptive work of God in Christ and the necessary indwelling Holy Spirit to make discipleship, community and Christ-likeness possible, according to Dintaman of Eastern Mennonite University (Dintaman, n.d.). Hans Hut was another who gathered hundreds of people from the city, inviting them to join him under bridges or in secluded forests, where he preached the good news. The church of believers shared their faith with neighbors, friends and coworkers. They traveled widely, in pairs, as far as the language let them. Heinrich Bullinger criticized the Anabaptists for taking the great commission literally when the apostles had already fulfilled the command. Christians should remain in their calling and not wander around, he said. Yet, every spring and fall after communion services, missionaries were ordained and sent to Bavaria, Holland, Prussia, Denmark, even Italy. Eighty percent never returned. Their families were cared for by the community, which was one of the benefits offered by the communal life of the Hutterites (Bender 1944 n.p.). Reformed priest and author Menno Simons, for whom the Mennonites were named, brought together the various groups of Anabaptists. “I have sometimes, with Jeremiah, resolved… not to teach…because so many seek my life,” he wrote. “Yet I could not remain silent for…my heart trembles within me and my joints quake when I consider the whole world, lords, princes, learned and unlearned people are so far from Christ Jesus and eternal life” (Simons, M., Wenger, J.C., Bender, H.S. 1966). Many Anabaptist have lost this faith, said historian Franklin A. Littell, because they emphasized things they had in common with other denominations and minimized what set them apart. Also, they fled persecution, separating themselves

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from society. Pilgram Marpeck said, “Who can prevent the living stream of the heart from expressing itself through the mouth? Does not faith move? Does not the Holy Spirit compel? Does not love urge” (Marpeck, P., Klassen W., Klaassen, W. 1978)? Let love urge and let us respond.

CHAPTER NINE EMPOWERING THE POWERLESS

In response to what the Lord has done for us and our knowledge of the freedom that comes from Christ and all the benefits he gives us, we realize that we should empower the powerless. We have been freed to enjoy the abundant life and have become new creatures in Christ so our responsibility is to share these benefits. Jesus pointed the way with the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. A lawyer tested him asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered with a question, testing him in return, “What is written in the law?” The lawyer answered correctly, quoting the greatest commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Then, wanting to justify himself for not loving his neighbor, the lawyer asked, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus tells the parable of a man, perhaps Jewish, going down the steep, mountainous road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He is attacked by robbers, stripped, beaten and left half dead. First a priest, then a Levite, going down the same treacherous road, pass him by. But a Samaritan, despised by the Jews for their mixed lineage, feels pity. He goes out of his way to clean and salve the man’s wounds with wine and oil, bandages them and lifts the man to his own animal to bring him to an inn. He pays the innkeeper to care for him until he returns and even

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offers to repay whatever the innkeeper spends. “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The lawyer answers without saying the race of the people he despises, “The one who showed him mercy.” “Go and do likewise,” Jesus said. It is this parable that directs us to care for and empower the powerless with effective remedies. At the University of Edinburgh, I enrolled in the Missions Department and was taking courses in anthropology. I studied with international students mainly from Asia and Africa. One student was trying to explain his view of power and how we should use it. The professor couldn’t understand what he was saying. I said, “I think I know what he means. We who have power should try to use our power for the powerless.” The professor asked the student, “Is that what you mean?” The student replied, “Yes.” “Well,” the professor responded, “That’s Mennonite.” Later I asked the student, “What’s your background? ” “I come from a military family. My dad was in the U.S. army, and so were my brother and I; we were all training to go to Vietnam. They deliberated whether all three of us should be deployed but the U.S. doesn’t send three people from the same family to the same conflict. What if they all get killed? So I, the youngest, was asked to stay. Later, I met a young Mennonite, who believed that followers of Jesus should not resort to violence, but should instead live to empower the powerless. I thought, wasn’t that what Jesus meant when he taught the parable of the Good Samaritan? This student and former soldier is now in India, translating the Bible into a local language, assisted by local Christians and Muslims. In developing countries, like the Congo, I noticed that

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many of the poor, powerless people are abused by those in power. For instance, a man came to see me in Kamayala from a nearby village. He had gone to Kahemba with 30 zaires (about $10) to buy food and clothes. Soldiers with rifles, in camouflage and jack boots, had set up a road block. They demanded to check him for diamonds smuggled from Angola. The man had no diamonds but the soldiers discovered his money. They confiscated his few zaires and let him pass, though he no longer had any reason to go to the stores. When I heard this I went to see the administrator at Kahemba. I realized he was probably taking a cut from the soldiers so I had to use tact. “Do you think the president is happy when your soldiers stop people and take their money that they’re going to spend at the stores in Kahemba?” I asked. “No,” he said. “Can you give me the name of the person and how much they took? I’ll take down the road block.” In another incident, our high school principal, Mbuyuyu Pierre, was arrested by soldiers and charged with being a rebel. They were beating him with their rifle butts and had already smashed his wristwatch when I arrived. I ordered the official in charge to stop them. He replied, “He’s a rebel.” I knew he was innocent and said, “No, he’s been framed. Stop them.” The official gave the order and the soldiers stopped beating him, though the principal remained in prison until he was exonerated. I was convinced that my biggest contribution to Congolese living with poverty was to empower the powerless wherever possible. To do so, I knew I had to befriend the powerful and respect them and not be afraid to confront whenever they took advantage of the weak, whether they were government

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officials, judges or the military. Whenever I did so God took away my fear and they didn’t turn against me. Wherever we went, my wife Helen and I were committed to that principle. In 1 John 4:18 we read, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (NRSV). After a trip to China, President Mobutu followed the Chinese suggestion to nationalize all mission schools so that religion would no longer be taught in Congolese schools. A hostile principle was sent to our Kamayala high school and began fighting with our students. Our church council offered to help settle the dispute, but he decided to take it to a government judge. I knew that judge would also be the prosecuting attorney, so the students would have no one to defend them. So I asked another judge if I could present the students’ side of the dispute. He replied, “Yes, you could say something.” I had witnessed the confrontation, so when the judge, had listed the trumped up charges, I asked if I could tell what I had witnessed. When I finished, the judge said, “You are no lawyer.” I replied, “The other judge said I could give my viewpoint.” Nevertheless, he fined and sentenced them. After the trial, I went to him and said, “You know what the principal is trying to do? He’s trying to make the students take that grade over again. He wants them to be in jail at exam time so their poor parents will have to pay the tuition for that year all over again. Why don’t you let me take them to the mission? They can write the exam and then come back to jail.” “Okay,” he said, “take them away.” The principal was angry and insisted that those students come back to jail before the exams. So back they went. I went to the judge again and said the same thing. He said, “Okay, take them away.” They were never put in jail again and paid

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no fine. They wrote their exams and they didn’t have to take the year over. Later I realized some people were trying to put me in jail or expel me from the Congo. I had to depend on the same judge to defend me and he did because he didn’t hold it against me that I stood up for the students who had no defense. Generally, I found the Congolese were understanding of someone who stood up for the powerless. During the time Mobutu was appointing outside school directors, I learned that senior girls were required to sleep with the director to graduate. I wrote a friend from that area, “Why don’t you agree to become our director next year because this is something we can’t accept.” That letter was intercepted. The person I had named was a Chokwe though I had not mentioned his tribe. The interceptor mistranslated my letter and filed two charges against me, tribalism and regionalism. He said, “Mr. Eidse is against the people that come from elsewhere. He wants to put a Chokwe person in the director’s place.” Under Mobutu it had become illegal to pit one tribe against another, or one region against another. People had been expelled from the country on such charges. The charges of being against another region and being pro-Chokwe were serious. I was scheduled to fly to Kamayala from Tshikapa where I had been stationed as advisor to the church conference president. Before I came, Wenyi A N’zey, a Kamayala agriculturalist and village leader said I was in trouble over there. “They are waiting to take you to court. There’s a warrant for your arrest.” When I next flew into the Kahemba/Kamayala airstrip, I was presented with the warrant. The security officer asked me to appear and they had the letter written in Chokwe just the way I had written it, but they also had a French translation

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that said, ““I want youu, a Chokwee, to be our pprincipal.” The Luundas saw the letter and said, “He didn’t write ‘Chokwe.’” I read the Frencch translation and aggreed, “Thaat’s not we charge w was invalidaated but translated right.” Thee pro-Chokw the anti-reegional charrge remained.

Fiig. 9-1. Zang gio Kampew

h aboutt it, they saiid, “We’re going g to When oour people heard pray that the securityy officer will be sent elsewhere because b we know that Mr. Eidse respects us and waas trying to o protect our girls.”” Zangio Kampew, my merchaant friend aand member of the central goovernment in i Kinshasaa, heard thaat I was in trouble and went to the headd of the seccurity depaartment. “Seend that security officer elsew where who is i getting M Missionary Eidse E in trouble,” hhe said. I askedd the head addministrator who was a Christian, “When

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will you hold my trial?” “I’ve done my own research,” the head administrator said. “I knew you were not going to get a fair trial. You are cleared. There’s no charge against you.” The next day the security officer got a telegram saying that he was transferred elsewhere and that his mother had died. The people felt their prayers were answered. The person who succeeded the transferred security officer was a Christian who sang in our church choir. He had no intention of proceeding with false accusations. Eventually, President Mobutu himself realized that student morals were deteriorating because of his temporary ban on religious education, and permitted missions to take over as many government schools as they wanted. Years later, one of our students, Kalema Nzey, went on to graduate school to earn a justice degree. He said he was one of the only students who got his degree honestly, without bribing the examiner. We had numerous opportunities like these to defend the powerless. In the 1970s, my wife Helen was able to introduce DDS (diaminodiphenylsulfone), the medicine that arrested the leprosy bacillus. After a six-month treatment her patients were no longer infectious and she was able to give them a bill of health and send them to their villages. They left the leprosarium singing praises to God for the medicine and the people who brought it. She also intervened for Tembo Adele, the wife of our hospital treasurer, Tshiwape Serafin. Adele was suffering hemorrhaging labor, unable to deliver her baby. The villagers wanted to take her to a diviner to find out who was responsible. Helen said, “If you do that, both of them will die.” She enquired on the radio and discovered a flight was coming to pick up a doctor from Kajiji, 80 kilometers away. She informed the doctor of the life-and-death situation and asked

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Fig. 9-2. Adele and children; the youngest two, born in crisis, were assisted by Helen. (Osee Tshiwape photo, ca. 1978, Kalonda)

whether the flight could come via Kamayala. The doctor canceled his plans and waited for the arrival of the mother and baby in crisis. In flight, the mother lost consciousness, but the doctor was able to save both mother and baby. A few years later, Adele suffered another crisis birth and Helen was again able to help her and the baby. That boy, Osee, is now delivering dynamic sermons (see YouTube), has

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attended Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and serves at Greencroft Communities, Goshen, Indiana. The family is grateful for those interventions to this day. We had many opportunities to show more scientific ways of dealing with sickness and death and not accusing people of murder.

Fig. 9.3. Tshiwape Seraphin (right) traveled from Kikwit to meet us when we returned to Kamayala in 2010 to memorialize my wife. She had helped launch his accounting career and saved his wife and two sons, and he was faithful.

We also had the opportunity to encourage honest accountability by teaching auditing principles, an issue worldwide. Seraphin became a model treasurer. In 1975, our family moved from Kamayala to Tshikapa/Kalonda so that I could serve as missionary counselor and advisor to the church conference president. Our

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old stone house in Kalonda, across from the diamond mining city of Tshikapa, overlooked the confluence of the Kasai and Tshikapa rivers where ancient carbon deposits had turned to diamonds. Here, too, was the juncture of three tribes, the Baphende to the west, the Lulua/Baluba to the east and the Babindi/Chokwe to the south. The government had put our mission in charge of the hospital-clinics in western Kasai province, and Helen took charge, soliciting donations from large pharmaceutical companies to try to keep her shelves stocked. The people of Tshikapa realized they didn’t have a nurse, administrator or treasurer they could trust in the region. So they asked us to find someone. I consulted the leaders at Kamayala and we all agreed that Tshiwape was trustworthy and reliable. Helen had trained him carefully to be the dispensary treasurer at Kamayala. She had noticed each omission, Tshiwape himself said. After that he had became treasurer of the cattle cooperative at Kamayala and no money was ever missing. He won the confidence of everyone. Tshiwape had learned to trust God financially when he was a teacher at Kamayala. Often the government would take a teacher off the salary list and steal the money. For a long time he didn’t get paid. He reported it repeatedly but still didn’t receive his salary. “Tshiwape means blessing,” I said, “Your name is Tshiwape and God wants to bless you. Let’s pray that your salary will come through.” After we prayed, his salary was restored. As soon as Tshiwape got to Tshikapa, he received a visit from the Chokwe person in charge of buying supplies for the British Diamond Company. The Chokwe diamond buyer said, “I want to talk to Tshiwape in your office.” He lectured him for an hour-and-a-half about being honest. The British diamond merchants had promoted the Chokwe

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man because they found him trustworthy. They tested him repeatedly by hiding diamonds that he could have taken. But he found each one and turned it in. The diamond buyer told Tshiwape, “If you’re ever short of money, you can borrow from me. Never borrow from the clinic treasury or give medicine away free.” The local tribes didn’t like that a Chokwe was promoted over them but they admitted that he was honest. We recognized there was tribal pressure. But one term for the church was “the tribe of Christ.” We said that money has to be used in the name of the church to honor Christ not to give to our relatives and friends. After Tshiwape took over the hospital and clinic accounting, the church put him in charge of the offerings and the pilot asked him to sell airline tickets. He was given one responsibility after another and proved himself time and again.

CHAPTER TEN RECONCILING LEADERS

One of the most significant results of Christ bringing reconciliation between God and humans is the possibility that people, too, can be reconciled to one another and live at peace with each other. Our mission leaders were pastor Kabangy Moise from Kandala and legal representative Kakesa Samuel from Mukedi. I knew both Kabangy and Kakesa, who had survived the 1964 Simba rebellion. They were Muphendes from different clans. There was conflict between the two clans and God laid it on my heart that, as advisor, I should try to help reconcile these two clans so we would have peace in the mission. I knew Kabangy had written a letter listing Kakesa’s weaknesses. He photocopied it and sent a copy to Kakesa. He thought better than to send it to the five mission provinces. But when Kakesa saw the letter had been duplicated, he thought Kabangy had sent it to all the provinces. So Kakesa wrote a letter exposing Kabangy’s weaknesses and did send it to all five provinces. The fight was on. People tried repeatedly to resolve the conflict but reconciliation had not happened. Years before we moved to Kalonda, I had discovered that the Congolese were open to God’s leading through dreams and had asked God to guide me in dreams as well. We prepared to move and I distinctly dreamt the phrase, “Whatsoever you do will prosper.” That morning I told Helen, “God just gave me assurance that Kakesa and Kabangy are going to be reconciled.” So

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when I got to Kalonda, I approached Kabangy, “Is there anything I can do to help you and Samuel get together again?”

Fig. 10-1. Kakesa Samuel and family. (Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission photo)

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“No,” he said, “It’s been tried before. Unless God does it there’s no way it will work. I’m prepared but I’m sure Kakesa isn’t.” It took quite awhile before I had a chance to go to Kikwit, which was quite a distance away. When I arrived, I asked Kakesa, “Is there anything I can do to get you and Kabangy together?” He said the same words Kabangy had said. I said, “Do you realize that Kabangy said the same thing?” I had already decided what I was going to do if they consented. I’d compose a letter where they’d point out that “we’ve had our disagreements but now we are putting them aside and we’ll work together as brothers in Christ to show that there’s no hostility between us. This way there’s peace and the clans can be reconciled.” “Sure,” Kakesa said, “I can sign that.” I went back to Kabangy and he said, “Yes, sure I can sign that.” We planned to fly Air Congo to Kikwit but the flight was cancelled because President Mobutu commandeered the plane. We then decided to take the mission plane, MAF. But the day of the flight was cloudy and we had to go a long way around and didn’t know if we’d get to Kikwit. I wondered, “Is it God who’s delaying this, or Satan? Maybe Satan is delaying it because he doesn’t want it, and God may be delaying it because he knows that one man isn’t ready for it.” We finally got there, and Kakesa was waiting to meet us and take us to the leaders who were waiting at the church. We greeted each other and I said, “Are we ready to negotiate?” They said, “Sure!” I said, “Well who’s going to chair it?” “Obviously, you’re going to chair it.” “But I’m a stranger; I’m not one of you.”

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“You’ve been here long enough; you know our languages well enough. You’re okay.”

Fig. 10.2. Kabangy Moise and Kimbadi Bertine, before he died in 1979. After Kakesa and Kabangy reconciled, Kakesa stood up to Kimbadi’s in-laws to let her keep her house. (AIMM photo)

Kabangy was dying of cancer and it was a very crucial time. I wanted them to get reconciled before he died. I asked Kabangy, “Would you like to start?” He said, “Why do you ask me?” He wasn’t ready. Then I asked Kakesa, “Would you mind starting?” He said, “Oh I’d be glad to start.” He added, “When I saw the clouds today, I was dismayed and wondered will it be

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delayed again? My friends were urging me not give up the fight; our clan was not going to back down. But I was thinking of David and Jonathan’s friendship. After Jonathan was killed in battle, David wondered, ‘What can I do to show my appreciation for my good friend Jonathan?’ And they found Jonathan’s crippled son Maphebosheth. Though a cripple wasn’t supposed to sit at a king’s table, David said, ‘Maphebosheth is going to sit at my table the rest of my life in honor of my good relationship with Jonathan.’” Kakesa added, “I thought, what if Kabangy and I don’t reconcile, how will our descendants ever get along? It’s up to us to stop this crazy business between these two clans so that we can do it the way David did. David determined that he would demonstrate the end of the animosity between King Saul and King David. He could have killed King Saul but he did not want to do that. That was God’s anointed. He had to honor him.” Kabangy said, “My clan said the same thing–keep fighting. But I also said, ‘No, let’s settle it.’” So both Kakesa and Kabangy signed the letter and everyone cheered. Kakesa said he would send that to the five provinces. “What about the celebration of reconciliation?” I asked, “I already arranged for that,” Kakesa said. “There’s a meal at my house waiting for you and Kabangy, and the delegates can stay at my house for night.” He had the confidence and had gone ahead to prepare the meal and lodging. We missionaries left after dinner and the others went on visiting. Later they told us, “The rest of us all went to bed, but Kakesa and Kabangy continued talking way into the night as if there had never been any trouble between them.” Later, Kabangy was fading and he was about to die. So Kakesa decided he would go on a motorcycle to visit him. The roads were terrible, he hit a tree stump and hurt his legs,

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which had swollen during his captivity by the rebels in 1964. Because he had diabetes, his leg swelled again and he couldn’t go to the funeral. But he made a coffin for Kabangy and sent a letter along saying, “Good-bye Kabangy, you and I have had our differences but these have all been straightened out. Kabangy, if there’s anything I can do for your widow, I will. Good-bye Kabangy, we will meet again.” The letter was read at the funeral, and many mourners cried, rejoicing at the reconciliation. Kabangy’s wife Kimbadi told me, “My husband’s family tried to take the house my husband had built for me.” According to Giphende customs, the father’s family got the valuables that were left, not the wife. But Kakesa prevailed, saying, “Kabangy knew he was going to die. He built that house for his wife, not for his family.” Kakesa was a forceful person and had a lot of experience and won the case for Kabangy’s wife. He demonstrated how the powerful can empower the powerless. The work of reconciliation was completed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE TWO TESTAMENTS: CONFLICT OR AGREEMENT

As we teach biblical discipleship, we want people to accept and understand that God is moving from an incomplete, old covenant in the Old Testament, to a new covenant in the New Testament. The new covenant was completed in Jesus’s life and work and acted on by his disciples. If we see the Old Testament through the eyes of Jesus, the writings of Paul, and the writer of Hebrews, we will be able to accept both testaments as valid for life and practice. The differences in the two testaments are fulfilled in Christ. Many principles in the Old Testament are expressed much more clearly in the New Testament. That is, because God gives free will to men and free will to Satan, he permits sin by his concessive will. We see his concessive will at work until history is fulfilled, though God never disobeys his own characteristics. In this way, the New Testament fulfills the Old. Archie Penner’s research in The Divine Covenants: Conflict or Harmony (2003, 2nd ed.) is instructive both in its methodology and content. He states his motives for investigation, defines his terms, presents his assumptions and keeps re-examining them critically. He faces uncomfortable Old Testament passages (which are frequently evaded), reasons logically taking no steps for granted and uses his sources responsibly. An atmosphere of urgency and determination permeates this interpretation.

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In the Introduction, Penner identifies the problem of the research as seeking “to understand how the Old Testament must be viewed and handled by the New Testament believer, and the role it plays for the Christian in faith and ethics” (2003:13). He then summarizes four views of the relationship between the two Testaments. First, both are seen on the same plain–the flat view. Second, the Old Testament is dominant over the New Testament, at least when convenient. Third, the Testaments are separated to preserve the integrity of the New Testament. The Old Testament is not seen as relevant for Christian theology and ethics. Fourth, is the author’s view, which he describes as follows: (a) Both Testaments are equally the Word of God; (b) both share the same authority, if correctly understood; (c) variances, though they are present in theology and ethics, seem to be numerous, contrasting and contradicting ethical precepts and doctrines between them; and (d) since the New Testament claims to be the final and unsurpassed divine revelation, climaxed in the God-man Jesus Christ, the Old Testament can only be correctly understood, theologically and ethically, as it is interpreted by the New Testament revelation. Chapter Two discusses assumptions and research. Penner reminds us that all human thinking is assumptive; that we should bring our assumptions to consciousness, make them thoroughly transparent and should keep on evaluating them. He identifies the assumptions that undergird his study as: (1) a “non-Calvinistic, evangelical, orthodox, Anabaptistically conditioned theological position”; (2) accepting the Old Testament as an integral unit with the entire Judeo-Christian Scriptures; and (3) that the God of the whole scriptures is in no way and under no circumstances seen as willing or doing that which is evil or immoral from the viewpoint of the New Testament (2003:19). Penner focuses on such subjects as

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disobeyed injunctions, God commanding what He forbids, ethical incongruities ascribed to God, evils in nature ascribed to God, etc. Chapters Four and Five examine wars, viewed as the major ethical problem of the Old Testament. Chapters Six and Seven deal with sin, evil and concession. Chapter Eight focuses on the search for a solution in terms of the method, the proposed solution and the validation of three principles. Chapter Nine evaluates the view of Yahweh as Warrior. Here are the main points of his conclusion: 1. There are Old Testament texts that ascribe all causes to God. 2. Other Old Testament texts present God as completely holy, unable to sin, or to look on sin or impurity, and cannot cause them. That is the Old Testament revelation. How can these two strands be harmonized? What is Penner’s solution? 3. Apply the right interpretation, which distinguishes the causes directly effected or induced by God, and the causes not effected or induced by God. The New Testament is the primary supplier of the criteria that help make the judgment necessary to make the distinction (Penner 2003:380). 4. The affirmation: every action attributed to God in the Scriptures that is inconsistent with the immutable, holy, righteous, always loving, always redeeming and forever forgiving God–a God who cannot tolerate sin under the Old Covenant or the New–is the expression of His concessive will, and not His causal or determinative will (Penner 2001:381-383). 5. Further clarification: by the concessive will of God we mean the decisive will of God that neither wills nor does any evil, absolutely. Yet because He is unable to stop man

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from sinning, due to His covenant with his creature, man, God is obliged to give in “to man and the demonic forces to do evil; including even their desire and effort to destroy Him and His kingdom, if possible” (Penner 2003:385). The reason God is obliged to give in to sin, which He hates, is that He created man in His own image, giving him power and authority to partner with Him. Therefore, “God is not able to stop sin...until history has run its course, and God has heard every final confession” (Penner 2003:385). Philippians 2:9-11 says, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.” God can block and prevent specific sins and evils and he doesn’t lose his sovereignty by conceding to the general phenomenon of sin. His concessions are couched in statements of fact rather than something wished or desired. In other words, what God doesn’t will, and what he stands against and yet concedes to, are written descriptively and imperatively, that is, as commands (Penner 2003:386). This requires that actions and revelations of God agree with his nature and character, as described in both Old and New Testaments as understood in the Biblical context and meaning (Penner 2003:386). In conclusion, (a) “All evil...including war, [is] related to God's will only as concession” and “lies under the judgment of God." (b) Because ethical right and wrong are often not differentiated in the Old Testament, especially in relation to divine action, we must use the New Testament to differentiate righteousness in scripture and apply it consistently; (c) according to this principle, wars, including those of the Old Testament, are not the will of God but occur by divine concession. “The commands to do evil,

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and to sin, including to war...come into the category of the concessive imperative” (Penner 2003: 387). 10. Unless these principles of differentiating right and wrong and conceding to sin are accepted, how can God be ethically vindicated and the Old Testament remain the divine word of a holy, righteous, unchanging and loving God (Penner 2003:387)?

The Old Testament in the New How is the Old Testament fulfilled in the New? The heart of our faith is the person and work of Christ reconciling us to the Father, his choosing and enabling our saving, living faith. This was foretold in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New. We recall what Jesus said to Peter, predicting how he would deny him: “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31,32 NRSV). This reveals that God, who gave humans and Satan free will, and concedes to our choices, also provided an intercessor to limit our failings and help us in our weakness. The intercessor is not only Christ who “ever lives to make intercession for us” (Heb. 7:25) but the Holy Spirit or Comforter who would only come after Jesus returned to glory. Paul writes in Romans 6:26, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Furthermore, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “As in Adam, all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (KJV). Anabaptists believe this supports their view that all infants are under the blood until they reach the age of accountability, and are capable of accepting or rejecting Jesus. This definition of

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universalism was recognized and accepted as a revealed truth by the Apostle Paul. For this reason, it was not necessary to baptize children since all infants are universally safe. John 1:12 makes it clear how people are saved if they have rejected him. “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” On the basis of receiving Christ, they were baptized. Anabaptists, who believe in baptism on the confession of faith, also reject the theology that God chooses to consign some people to hell and some to heaven. His creatures are given free will and God knows how they will choose, but he does not send some to hell and some to heaven. People determine their own choices and ends. This is acknowledged in Archie Penner’s The Gospel Revisited: The Good News and Radical Salvation (Brandon: Servant Publishers, 2007:7-9). The Anabaptist view he supports is more widely accepted today than it was during the Reformation. There are those who doubt Paul’s interpretation of the truth revealed in Christ, but many scholars accept his authority, from Augustine to Luther, Calvin, Wesley and Barth. These consider Paul a master, better than any of the other apostles in grasping the truth of Jesus. Penner writes in The Gospel Revisited, “There can be no question, Paul is the most influential and substantial interpreter of Christ and His gospel. He is also a special conveyor of additional revelations from God” (2007:47). Eduard Thurneysen also endorses studying Scripture through Paul’s interpretation, saying, “Please do not mention the stupid view tolerated...too long within theological research, that Paul has misunderstood Jesus and imported...his own theology.” Paul’s “is...the only legitimate and authentic apostolic interpretation of the New Testament” (quoted in Penner 2007:47-48). Penner writes that what God’s Word reveals about universalism, profoundly “affects our understanding about

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divine atonement and the Gospel” (2007:52). He illustrates with two passages, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 and 19-22: “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them” (NRSV). In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.... For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (NEB).

It is not that there was a difference between God the father and the son. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,” Paul wrote. We do not have a vindictive father God and he was not punishing Christ on the cross. He didn’t require an appeasement through Christ’s death. Rather it was the triune God who suffered for us all. God wanted to forgive us. Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way and God has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” In other words, we have free will to go astray but God was united with Christ in suffering for our sin and bringing us back to himself. Penner says, “divine wrath is the result of God being constrained by man’s unbelief to concede to man’s decision to exist without God. Sin, destruction, evil, and death are... chosen by man, which inherently constitutes wrath” (2007:88). He illustrates with three passages, John 3:16-21, Romans 1:24-32 and Galatians 6:8. In Galatians, “the ultimate consequence of sin and evil” is “eternal condemnation and death” but it comes “from below, from man himself.” God’s involvement is by concession as explained in John, “as all sin

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is by divine concession, so is all punishment for sin and evil” (Penner 2007:88ff). I agree with Penner that the illogical alternative to God’s wrath being concessive, including the Reformed view of predestination and divine wrath, would be that God is the author of sin and all evil, pain, disease and death—in time and eternity. This deterministic God doesn’t belong in our scriptures or our faith. Yet how can this divine, concessive wrath be God’s wrath? The universe is God’s. In addition to its four dimensions of length, breadth, depth and time, Penner proposes a fifth dimension of righteousness and mortality. “Since the law of righteousness includes the law of absolute love, God cannot destroy or kill” because that “would destroy God’s fondest desires, intentions, and His program.” Hebrews 2:14 says that through death he destroyed “the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,” and 1 Corinthians 15:25-26 says that “he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet,” the last one being death. So it isn’t God, but Satan who kills. Penner writes, “This Satanic, external, evil force of great power has invaded an area of the divine kingdom” (Penner 2007:90).

Review and summary This means that those who die believing in Christ cannot be charged with guilt. As Titus 3:5-7 states, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (KJV). Both Christ and Paul, at times, use literal language describing people’s choice against God as eternal destruction. Yet the choice is by a person by free will and results in

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separation from God. It will not be an easy end but one in which people will call the mountains to fall on them (Luke 23:30; Rev. 6:16.). They have chosen not to see God. Those who die in sin, if in the state of moral responsibility, are condemned. Jesus himself said those who do not believe are condemned already. The scriptures teach that without faith, people are lost and are separated from God. They earn God’s eternal disapproval and “shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thes. 1:9). The Bible teaches that there is no escape. But these two views—that sin will be punished and all mankind is factually reconciled—can be harmonized. Paul completes this thought with 2 Corinthians 5:18-20: “...God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.... We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”

Conclusion We are encouraged by God’s reconciling work in Congo where we continued the outreach begun by the Unevangelized Tribes Mission in 1930. We were welcomed by the people who taught us their language and culture. In the process, we observed the Lunda-Chokwe views of sorcery and how they affected the lives of Christians. We felt that sorcerers were enriching themselves at the expense of family relationships. Though we tried to teach sound scientific medical reasons for illness and death, we found this hard for people to accept. We developed several principles for addressing this problem. Our first was to learn the mother tongue of the Lunda-Chokwe people we served. Though our predecessors had used the trade language, we made a conscious decision to

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learn both. Anthropologists acknowledge that language carries culture and by learning their heart language, we were able to respect and value their culture. We were also able to use their proverbs to explain salvation, which helped them understand the wisdom of their ancestors and how Christ related to their worldview. Gradually, Christianity began to transform their view of sorcery. They saw it as evil and inadequate to meet their needs. After we had made a thorough cultural study, we were able to teach biblical discipleship as it related to their lives. We established eighty churches, with each village receiving training by a pastor who went to twenty different posts to teach lay leaders how to be good shepherds of the flock. Every Sunday morning in all four directions, we had lay leaders teaching the word of God. Our Catholic colleagues noticed this and also appointed pastors who taught the scriptures. They were permitted to get married like our pastors and we enjoyed working alongside them. We noticed that wherever our pastors went, the people received them with singing and dancing. Additionally, we used their traditional way of learning, memorization, to teach scripture and meditation. After the 1964 revolution, when gas was too scarce for us to drive far, our team of pastors went to surrounding villages and held sixday courses with morning and evening instructions. Verses covered salvation, faithfulness in marriage, family worship, overcoming enslaving habits, making restitution and dealing with suffering. Each verse also included a simple explanation, or life application. The character of entire villages changed. The government at first took over schools and tried to curtail religious education but then gave missions an opportunity to teach grades one to university level. We encouraged leaders to teach whenever possible and increase

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knowledge and understanding among the people. Nurses and doctors sometimes spoke constantly, teaching interns all they knew about science and medicine. This helped people accept scientific explanations for disease and death. What was once considered the realm of magic (sorcery) could often be explained by science and medicine. This helped address family breakdown caused by divination, which usually accused the closest family member and even created distrust of deceased family members who were believed to return and torment the living. Fear and distrust destroyed family unity and village relationships. This we countered by teaching the first and greatest commandment, to love God with heart, soul and mind, and our neighbors as ourselves. Researchers agree that all cultures believe in medicine, magic and miracle to differing degrees. People who haven’t been exposed to a scientific approach might stress magic over medicine or miracle (God’s intervention). I believe that we should be careful to understand each of them and work together to find a solution for healthful living. As mentioned in the introduction, at the request of the Congo church, a team of pastors met in 1975 and prepared a course addressing sorcery and its implications for Christian discipleship. Our lessons emphasized how to overcome the fear of sorcery and the temptation to use it to harm others. We also intend to make this thesis available in several languages and present it at the universities and theological schools in Congo. Individuals there are still influenced by traditional culture and struggle with beliefs about sorcery. In 1968, I was approached by the American Bible Society to translate the Bible into Chokwe because of our language knowledge. Our translation team included a gifted Chokwe storyteller and a pastor from Shaba province, a language area with a purer Chokwe. The result was a modern translation that used vivid, authentic language in place of zero-meaning

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foreign words. We tested our new translation, starting with the Gospel of Mark in 1969 and completing the entire Bible in 1982. The new language entered the conversation and prayers of the Chokwe people, enriching their understanding and increasing their faith.

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Primary Sources Audio Texts 1977-1983 Eidse, B. 1975-1978, 1983. Audio Tapes. Yoder, P. S. 1982. Audio Tapes. Fretz, R. I. 1987. Storytelling Among the Chokwe of Zaire: Narrating Skill and Listener Responses. Ph.D. diss., Los Angeles: University of California. De Boeck, F. 1993, 17-20 April. “Bodies of Remembrance: Knowledge, Experience and the Growing of Memory in Lunda Ritual Performance.” Unpublished paper presented at the Ninth Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Ritual and Religion. Kantzer, K. S. 1959. “Revelation and Inspiration.” Unpublished Class Notes, Wheaton: Wheaton Graduate School. —. 1960. “God and Creation,” Unpublished Class Notes, Wheaton: Wheaton Graduate School. Newbigin, L. 1993. Lecture. Edinburgh: Rutherford House Dogmatic Theology Series. Penner, A. F. 1989. “The Gospel Revisited,” Unpublished Class Notes, Steinbach: Steinbach Bible College. Perelini, O. S. 1992. A Comparison of Jesus' Healing with Healing in Traditional and Christian Samoa. Ph. D. diss. Edinburgh: New College, Edinburgh University. Vanhoozer, K. J. 1993a. “Christology,” Unpublished Class Notes. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. —. 1993b. “Views of Scripture,” Unpublished Theology Class Notes. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. —. . 1993c. “Sin and Grace.” Unpublished Class Notes. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. —. 1993d. “Philosophy of Religion.” Unpublished Class Notes. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.

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Sharing Jesus in the Two-Thirds World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. —. 1992. Jesus in African Culture–a Ghanaian Perspective. Accra: Asempa Publishers,1990; reprinted. —. 1989. “The Roots of African Theology.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 13, (2). —. 1992. Theology and Identity: the Impact of Culture Upon Christian Thought in the Second Century and Modern Africa. Oxford: Regnum Books. Bender, H. S. 1944, "The Anabaptist Vision," Scottdale: Herald Press. Berkhof, H.1962. Christ and the Powers. Scottdale: Herald Press. Bloomhill, G. 1962. Witchcraft in Africa. Cape Town: South Africa. Bodemer, W. 1987. “Satanism, Witchcraft and the Occult: A Psychiatrist's View.” Like a Roaring Lion. Edited by P. De Villiers. Boone, O. 1973. “Carte ethnique de la République du Zaïre.” Quart sud-ouest, Terveuren, M.R.A.C. Bosh, D. J. 1987. “The Problem of Evil in Africa: A Survey of African Views on Witchcraft and of the Response of the Christian Church.” Like a Roaring Lion, edited by P. de Villiers. Brown, C.1984. "Immanuel Kant," EDT, 599-600. Bruce, F. F. 1956. Commentary on the Book of Acts: the English Text with Introduction. Exposition and Notes. Edinburgh: Marshall, Morgan and Scott. Bustin, E. 1975. Lunda Under Belgian Rule. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Caird, G. B. 1976. “Paul's Letters from Prison,” The New Clarendon Bible. Edited by H. F. D. Sparks. London: Oxford University Press. —. 1956. Principalities and Powers: a Study in Pauline Theology. (The Chancellor's Lectures for1954 at Queen's University, Kingston Ontario). London: Oxford University Press. Chadwick, H. 1990. “Augustine.” A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, edited by R. J. Coggins and J. L. Houlden. London: SCM Press, 1990, 65-69. Chavasse, R. 1990. “Erasmus.” A Dictionary of Biblical

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