First, we would like to say Happy Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day to all of our readers! Today we are posting the second half of Thabang Nkadimeng’s piece, Migrations of the Holy. Read the first part here. Nkadimeng follows up his discussion of the nature and efficacy of sacramentals in religious circles with a response to how sacramentals and relics are understood in Catholic teaching in South Africa today. These two posts make an interesting contribution to our ongoing discussions of how religion and faith intersect with politics, culture, and society in Africa in the section of the blog called “Exploring Religion, Faith, and Tradition.” As always, we welcome your feedback in the comments section below.
Part II:
MIGRATIONS OF THE HOLY: SACRAMENTALS OR CHARMS? A SOUTH AFRICAN CATHOLIC DICHOTOMY
By Thabang Nkadimeng[1]
- The Historical and Current Understanding of Charms[2]
There is no one word in the English language that properly defines ikhubalo or ingoma, so for lack of a better word we shall hereby use the word ‘charm’. In regard to diviners, Alex-Ivar Berglund in his Zulu Thought-Patterns and Symbolism states that “[A]s soon as a diviner occupies a hut, a charm (ikhubalo), which of necessity must be white, is hidden in the thatching above the doorway. ‘It is put there for the shades so that they know their house and their person who works in the hut.’ The charm may be a single white bead or a cluster of varying size of these beads. Sometimes it is the vertebrae of an animal slaughtered at a ritual celebration. This was may be a common ikhubalo in one area, while in another the white beads dominated. In some cases there would be a white pebble hidden in the thatching.” (Berglund, 174-175).
It is interesting to note here that rosaries[3] are beads knitted together. Therefore, the connection of beads used in a diviner’s hut and in rosaries are this similar kind of charm, if not sacramental.
Charms and the effects of evil forces are exogenous by nature. One may enter a home of bereavement and the feeling of sadness befalls you. At the same time one may enter a house of celebration and be lifted up ‘in spirit’, as we say. This is also part of the ‘spiritual realm’ – it is the enchanted world that cannot be explained to the human mind. Michael Jennings of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, in his article “Healing of Bodies, Salvation of Souls: Missionary Medicine in Colonial Tanganyika, 1870s-1939” (2008), recalls a story by Dr. Paul White (author of Jungle Doctor) which touches on the title of this paper.[4]
“…Paul White, tells a story of a young boy who is brought to his hut, unconscious and severely ill with cerebral malaria, the local witchdoctor having failed to cure the disease. Dr. White tells the family that only God’s assistance will cure the child. The boy is saved: the malarial parasite, that potent symbol of Africa’s curse, is conquered. The family turn to Dr. White and declare: ‘Bwana, we see in his recovery the hand of God. We know now that these new ways are much better than our Gogo customs. We want to learn more about Jesus’.”[5]
- Why a South African Catholic Dichotomy? Towards a Hermeneutic of Unity
The focus of this paper has been on the South African reality of this ‘enchanted world’ and migrations of the holy. However, this enchanted world is global. Taylor, in his A Secular Age, being a North American mentions the same dichotomy we face in South Africa. “Blessed objects, e.g., relics of saints, the Host, candles, are full of God-power, and can do some of the good things which God’s power does, like heal diseases, and fight off disasters. Sources of evil power correspondingly wreak malevolent ends, make us sick, weaken our cattle, blight our crops, and the like.”[6]
A woman I interviewed said to me: “Even though we live in the upper-class part of Sandton, these ‘gogo customs’ are innate in us, we can never escape our grandparents influence on us in regard to witchcraft.”[7]
There is a novelty in post-apartheid South Africa: during both terms of office of President Nelson Mandela and President Thabo Mbeki, indigenous leaders were given official state recognition. André Czeglédy of the University of the Witwatersrand states that: “[T]he post-1994 state’s formal recognition of indigenous political leaders such as hereditary chiefs, ‘royal’ families, etc., and its attempts to incorporate sangomas (traditional healers) and inyangas (spirit mediums) within the broader frame of the healthcare and community systems, entails a level of ideological acceptance that is problematic for many conservative Pentecostal churches.”[8] This incorporation proves problematic, it is a truism. However, it is not only a problem case for Pentecostal churches but also for the Catholic Church. Hence, we can conclude that it is ‘migrations of the Holy’, not only from the state but to a whole new area in need of research.
- Relevance in Popular Faith and Canonical Faith of the Church in Southern African Christianity
How are ‘Migrations of the Holy’ related to the relevance in popular faith and canonical faith of the Church in Southern African Christianity? Clearly we are faced here with the God question. We are faced with belief and with disbelief. We are faced with The Good and The Bad. It is an enchanted world where the good strives to triumph and yet evil also tries to triumph. It a situation of popular piety either bringing good to the Christian faith or evil. The symbols, as sacramentals or charms that we use, can be used for a good cause as God acts in them or can be void of both meaning and spirit. The same symbols can be used abusively by ministers or diviners in order to create a cult that brainwashes people.
Conclusion
St. Augustine had great veneration for relics. Indeed, we can say for sacramentals because they are agents, we find Christ working miracles in us. He concludes his book 22 thus:
“What am I to do? I am so pressed by the promise of finishing this work, that I cannot record all the miracles I know; and doubtless several of our adherents, when they read what I have narrated, will regret that I have omitted so many which they, as well as I, certainly know. Even now I beg these persons to excuse me, and to consider how long it would take me to relate all those miracles, which the necessity of finishing the work I have undertaken forces me to omit. For were I to be silent of all others, and to record exclusively the miracles of healing which were wrought in the district of Calama and of Hippo by means of this martyr— I mean the most glorious Stephen— they would fill many volumes; and yet all even of these could not be collected, but only those of which narratives have been written for public recital. For when I saw, in our own times, frequent signs of the presence of divine powers similar to those which had been given of old, I desired that narratives might be written, judging that the multitude should not remain ignorant of these things. It is not yet two years since these relics were first brought to Hippo-regius, and though many of the miracles which have been wrought by it have not, as I have the most certain means of knowing, been recorded, those which have been published amount to almost seventy at the hour at which I write. But at Calama, where these relics have been for a longer time, and where more of the miracles were narrated for public information, there are incomparably more.”
Catholic veneration of relics in ancient times has today been termed ‘idolatry’ by Protestants, or something close to that. Hence a need to define in a theologically sound way the meaning of the terms used such as adoration, veneration, worship etc. This is not only useful for the faith community of one’s religion but can also be a key to the ecumenical goal we all share – Ut unum sint (that all might be one).
The state of the question of this paper revolves around the understanding of sacramentals (within the ecclesial community, particularly the Catholic community) and the understanding of charms (within popular culture, particularly black urban South Africa).
It is a search for the supernatural by people of faith – this search is directed either towards an ecclesial community or a certain cultural practice. It becomes apparent that the early Church had a practice of the veneration of relics, as it has been evidenced in St. Augustine’s City of God Chapter 8, Book 22.
There is a need for both a theological and pastoral approach to the understanding of the use of sacramentals as sacramentals and not as charms. At the same time there is a need to discourage any clashing of symbols or the use of natural elements such as lightning (Tladi/Umbano) for witchcraft. While I was in the village of Tshitanani in Thohoyando, I was told that one could buy lighting in a brown paper bag at the cost of only R5. This lighting could be sent to one’s enemy. This is not just an ancient village practice but in the year 2016 is still practiced. Whether it is true that a human being can direct this supernatural force or not needs more research. I, however, advocate for the use of sacramentals as supernatural and as opus Dei (the work of God) and not man’s work. The use of charms for evil migrates the holy to a whole new area far from the good.
[1] The author of this paper is an associate lecturer in the History of Christianity program at the University of KwaZulu-Natal; Adjunct lecturer at the Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary and Teacher of Italian at the Dante Alighieri Institute. Currently also President of the Catholic Theological Society of Southern Africa.
[2] I hereby keep the English term ‘charm’ mainly because the word understood in Johannesburg where the interviews were conducted is ingoma, which is hardly/never used in the Zulu spoken in KwaZulu-Natal.
[3] Rosary beads are used in meditative prayer – scripturally centred – reflecting on the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. The mysteries of the rosary include: The joyful mysteries which invite one to meditate on the Annunciation of the Lord to the Finding of the child Jesus in the temple. The Sorrowful mysteries invite one to meditate from the Agony of Jesus in the Garden to the Death of Jesus. The Glorious mysteries are reflections from the Resurrection to the Coronation of Mary the Mother of Jesus as Queen of Heaven and of Earth. The Luminous mysteries are reflections from the Baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan to the Institution of the Eucharist.
[4] Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 38, Nos. 1-4., Michael Jennings, ‘Healing of Bodies, Salvation of Souls’: Missionary Medicine in Colonial Tanganyika, 1870s-1939, 27.
[5] Ibid, 27.
[6] Taylor, A Secular Age, 35.
[7] Interview conducted in Sandton, January 2016.
[8] Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 38, Nos. 1-4., André Czeglédy, A New Christianity for a New South Africa: Charismatic Christians and the Post-Apartheid Order, 304