The Development of Indegenous Religion as Basis for Community Orientation in Africa
Andrew Nfamewih Aseh
Head of Department for Civics and Social Legislation
Government Technical High School
Molyko, Buea- Cameroon
asehandrew@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
This paper examines how a religious system can orientate Community focus towards achieving practical goals of daily existence. Since African Traditional Religion is also a political system, its main features will be examined in the light of economic and political organisation, social stability, the exploration of nature, and technology, factors all of which if coupled with ideology can bring about the type of change that can induce the spirit of self-sustainability. I will, therefore, verify and propose how the development of this religion, which has never produced any religious controversy (Mbiti1975:15) into what Alan Evans (1991) calls "Social Gospel" and how this can promote sentiments of collective unity and the psychology of economic enterprise.
Its applicability as a knowledge system within the post-modernist African social structure will also be versified. This is particularly relevant in an era where new loyalties, foreign beliefs and practices have divided families and communities, fragmented the moral base of the African social system, weakened the people and have rendered the society porous and susceptible to extraneous influences. The basic question I am thriving to answer is that of how African Traditional Religion can contribute in the development of African especially South of the Sahara.
INTRODUCTION
The reminiscence of pre-colonial Africa conjures a remote image of a continent in which its societies were stable in terms of social organisation even long before the European societies; the birth place of mankind, the cradle of civilisation, which according to Fanso (1989:62,65), were brazing up for a major scientific and technological break through that was to culminate in a unique civilisation. Today, the new image of the post-modernist Africa evokes pity, and smacks of a people at the crossroads, embattled by tragic historical paradoxes, described in new but shifting terminology such as primitive, the Dark Continent, backward, undeveloped, developing, underdeveloped, less developed, emerging, etc. This constant and unjustified shift in appellation reinforces the validity of the claim that African people are in dire need of a lost identity. One cannot, therefore, stop wondering whether the economic confusion and political instability that has taken hold of the continent is the promised "paradise" that was expected to be ushered in by modernism.
The aim of this paper is to investigate how the centrality of the traditional religious beliefs and practices of the pre-colonial African peoples predisposed them to an advanced, development-oriented worldview. It will also show how the introduction of a romantic Judaeo-Christian thought adopted with modernisation did not only redefine the concept of development from an exogenous, disorientating perspective but also blurred the vision of the African peoples and inbued in them surrealistic notions about life and living. The conclusion that will be drawn from the functional and realistic significance of African Religion, which is simply dormant beneath modernism (….), will be intended as an indigenous ideological base for the reorientation of the modern African thought pattern towards achieving self-determination.
It is hoped that by the end of this exercise we shall have come to the realisation that African Religion is not geared solely towards ancestor worship, superstition, animism, fetishism, paganism or magic (Mbiti 1975:17). From the onset of the existence of the African peoples they had conceived of culture as a response to the exigencies of the demands of the environment. They conceived of religion as a guide for their destiny intended to ensure the sanctity of man living in harmony with his fellow man and the Supreme Being in relation to nature. To establish mores and norms that were long lasting, pervasive and powerful, African peoples formulated them on the more resilient religions system of symbolism which deals with destiny. African Religions eventually became the principled ideological base for their entire social order.
While not treating ideology or consciousness merely as the causal effect of the material reality, which reduces human action to that of mere passive adaptation to the environment, the central argument here is that human action can be analysed from the context of its ideological disposition. That is, given the right social conditions a peremptory fertile ground can be created for the development of rational ideas, beliefs and consciousness.
When we talk of developing the indigenous religion for community orientation in African we are trying to look at how the understanding and the remaking of the esoteric knowledge embedded in the African anthology can form the ideological basis for a start or reawakening for the African peoples. "Experience shows that Africa has a corpus of theoretical science, with its share of limitations, but that it is esoteric, becoming clear only to those who seek to understand it "(Goudjinou 1997:45).
A considerable amount of attention has been paid to African Religion by outstanding scholars like J.S Mbiti, Parrinder, Wole Soyinka, Dika Akwa, and a host of others. However, their major concern with African Religion has been to recuperate and document its main features and also to indicate its essence. Unlike the previous works, the aims of this paper is to show how the living African religions traditions as Hountondji (1997) prefers to call it, can contribute to the development of Africa. It intends to achieve this by making use of the theoretical framework of the sociology of religion to situate the African traditional beliefs and practices within the context of a knowledge system so as to indicate the rational character of their symbolic representations.
It is rooted in the hypothesis that there is an untapped reservoir of rationalism embedded in the African cosmology and that this knowledge is congenital to the material circumstances from where it derives, and is capable of inducing the emergence of a social system with its modes of production and technology. It will draw mainly from the cosmology of the Kedjoin people of the Grassfields of Cameroon complimented, where necessary, by available literature on the religion of other people elsewhere in the continent. This will be done with the hope that the African peoples will be empowered by an ideological basis with which to counter
…the liturgy of dehumanisation that insults the beasts
of the jungle …indeed promote the denial of human value
or the sanctity of human life…
(Wole Soyinka 1991:11)
Where religion transcends the mere definition of human relationships with God to become a powerful source of knowledge that can encourage the search for identity and self-determination, it becomes a catalyst in promoting certain ideologies that can encourage the emergence of a certain social order through community orientation. There is, therefore, a need to reflect on the African Religion as a knowledge system, which has shaped the past and could still mould the people’s character to better face the future as they struggle with the material conditions of the present. The argument I am making is that African Religion, being practical and integrative in outlook and which was the engine of African socio-economic reality, is still capable of providing African peoples with the basis for a way forward. This can be achieved only when we start by "first destroying the white man within us" (Alaji G.V. Kroma II 1972).
THE CENTRALITY OF AFRICAN RELIGION: THE KEDJOM MODEL
Religion defies a unique and precise definition because different religions lay emphasis on different precepts of beliefs. However, religion should not be conceived as solely with man’s relationship with God and the preparation of its communicants for a better life after death. But, it should be concerned with the rational organisation of human creativity for the attainment of communal well being and human perfection. To be able to understand what African religions is, it would be instructive to situate it within the context of the general definition of religion. MacGonigle and Quiglely (1988) maintains that "religion must be a lived experience that expresses itself within a given culture, and touches the whole person in the totality of that person’s relationship not only with God but also with other persons and the whole cosmic order as well". This definition comes close to giving a picture of African religion.
According to Wole Soyinka (1976), the essence of African Religion is that it draws man’s consciousness to the divide that exists between the world of transience and that of eternity. It then arouses the "creative flint" in humanity as a prerequisite for the strife to bridge this divide by "man who is aggrieved by a consciousness of the loss of the eternal essence of his being and must indulge in symbolic transactions to recover his totality of being" (Soyinka 1976:144, 145), from the "abyss of transition" to seek reunion with the gods. Communal in nature, African Religion " is found in all aspects of life" (Mbiti 1975:27) and is also "a social system in which the political and the religious are intertwined" (Bloom and Ottong 1987:135). In short, it is the product of man’s despair and aggrieved desire to attain perfection by harmonising the usefulness of his physical environment while promoting a harmonious wellbeing among community members.
Though Africa is a culturally complex and ethnically diverse entity there is quite a lot they share in common, specifically in the domain of their indigenous religion where there are many features that cut across most societies in the continent, depicting the African peoples as belonging to one cultural matrix. "Many parts of the continent share a common belief that cut across racial origins, be they the Sudanese of West Africa or the Hamites in East Africa, the Bantu of Central and South Africa and Koisans in South-West Africa. All these areas have a similarity in a religious belief because of the common origins of the peoples of Africa"(Odetola and Ademola 1985:29).
Most of these features include a belief in a Supreme Being called God, who is known by indigenous names such as Nyambe, Nyingong, Nyikob, Obase, etc. All African peoples share a belief in intercessory powers such as divinities, human and nature spirits and mysterious powers, all of which have been and integral part of their culture from the beginning of their existence (Odetola and Ademolah 1985). The regular performance of rituals and ceremonies as a means of drawing man closer to the comic powers is also an integral part of African Religion practiced by African peoples.
According to Mbiti (1969:33), African Religion predisposed Africans to an understanding of the structured order of the universe and inspired them to explore nature physically, spiritually and otherwise, for the wellbeing of the community. It is a unique system of belief which expedites multi-focal intercessory points since the whole of nature is perceived as the immanent revelation of a transcendental God. African Religion has been variously considered as a Pyramidal Monotheism - the supreme God being at the pinnacle of the pantheon of subordinate god-spirits who are intermediaries of the Unique All Creating God (Fongot Kinni. n.d.) or as Diffused Monotheism (Idowu 1962:204).
It constitutes the African social thought or cosmology, influencing all departments of social life in which its adherents though acting at different spheres, with different individual talents and initiatives are guided by common beliefs, values, intentions, aspiration, etc, ensured communal wellbeing. Guided by a religious worldview, African peoples also achieved much in terms of social organisation, modes of economic production, arts, craft and technology. "Revelation is an act of God and to the understanding of African peoples, divine messages can be obtained through the situation of things in the environment" (Kayode 1984:2).
The generalisation that will be made will depend on the specific case study of the interpretation of the symbolic meaning of the religious beliefs and practices of the Kedjom people which share similar characteristics with that of the Sawa people of Cameroon (Dika Akwa). They are also similar to those of the Nso people (Banadzem 1996), the Bamum (Tardits, 1996), the Yorubas of Nigeria (Idowu 1962), and those of the Gikuyus of Kenya (Kenyatta 1961). This brings to the understanding that traditional religious practices are basically the same across most societies in Africa.
The Kedjom occupy two territorial chiefdoms of Kedjom Keku and Kedjom Ketingu, and are found in an area commonly referred to in ethnographic literature as the Western Grassfields of Cameroon. Diduk (1989) estimates the population of the Kedjom at about 30.000. Before the advent of colonisation to Africa, Kedjom was organised into a state-like structure and enjoyed a relative amount of autonomy. Hawkeswoth (1926:47), noted that the religion of this people is characterised by a belief in a Supreme Being called Nyingong, and that this religion affected all departments of life and the fact that even convert into new sects (Christianity and Islam) continue to practice its rites, is a measure of the intensity of its influence (Hawkesworth 1926:48). According to him, although natural phenomena exist in the area which are believed to be under Divine influence, no trace of polytheism could be found.
The religion of the Kedjom people is therefore, characterised by four basic elements, namely; they belief in a supreme God called Nyingong, 2) that they can relate with this God through their ancestors, 3) that they can also relate with Him through nature and, 4) that by engaging in the performance of rituals and elaborate festivals and ceremonies, they can appease the spirits to permit Nyingon to let His will to be done in their lives. According to Kedjom informants, besides these basic tenets, Kedjom people belief that man is a lost being but who is aware of his lost status. The greatest human desire amongst them is how to attain perfection and attaining the goal of perfection is like going on a journey though a road which is not only rugged and windy but full of intervening circumstances, such as plaques, catastrophes, pests, diseases, deaths, famines, etc.
They belief that life is in two stages and the journey begins from this abysmal world of imperfection where one is born, lives and dies, and continues to the metaphysical world of spirits, perceived largely as perfect, and then back again. The community is the caravan and individuals only play their different roles to assuage situations that can breed instability and derail the caravan. From this frame, of reference their religious and cultural life was developed in response to nature, which to them constituted the bridge to attain a reunion with the world of harmony and perfection. Their will and determination to overcome was symbolised by resilient plants such as nkeng, a plant of the dracaena specie, and kebvem, a milky perennial tree with ever green leaves, used at shrines. The galore of ever freshness at the shrines due to the choice of these plants symbolises fertility, posterity and continuity. Rituals and prayers are performed at these shrines.
The Kedjom people, like their counterparts elsewhere in Africa, had understanding that man was part of the biotic community, that there is a symbiotic relationship that exist between man and nature, and that their own very survival was a function of this relationship. They approached nature with caution, and to maintain that cautious relationship, nature had to be separated into two categories: that which is useful and that which is ordinary. That which is useful is set aside, made sacred and forbidden. The forbidden sites become the abode of the gods. In Kedjom society, "[a]ll God’s resided at conspicuously awesome sites within the chiefdom, like water falls and pools, or at the base of strikingly large unusual trees. Intermittently, people joined together to feed a God at the tchu nyingon (literally mouth of God) (Diduk 1998: 556).
Examples of such sites that still linger in the social memory today is the ku Nyingong (God’s forest) or ku Kwifon ( Kwifon’s forest). Kwifon being the highest regulatory society of the country and the head of the executive arm of government (Aseh and Yenshu n.d.). The existence of an implicit law that the ‘fear of the gods was the beginning of conservation’; those sites that were set aside, made sacred and forbidden, became either game reserves or forest reserves. Nature was thus protected.
The Kedjom metaphysical construction of the celestial abode of nyingong, depicts it as largely a sacred and ordered place. In equal measure, the human world ought to be just a symmetrical pantomime of the sacred supernatural world, but also a continuum of the supernatural world. As such the human world should be structurally ordered into a sacred polity to accommodate the presence of nyingong amongst them. He lives with them in varying and inexplicable forms and His messages are revealed to his people through vertical as well as diffused channels and sometimes through dreams and visions. This cosmological disposition is clearly reflected in the Kedjom socio-political organisation, which was equally a religious organisation, a sacred society.
The socio-political organisation of Kedjom was a binary, asymmetrical system of government with the Fon (king) as head of the legislative council and the kwifon at the head of executive arm of government. Alternatively, the Fon belonged to the royal class and the kwifon headed the commoner society. The power and authority of those two main organs of government was complimented by a complex status system,2 described by Diduk (1992) as prestigious. There were as many statuses as there were people vying to occupy them. This gave rise to a broad-based participatory democracy since power distribution was diffused. A dynamic age grade system which was either often organised as work groups ku akweng or as war clubs (ghong), played a vital role in the life of the polity.
While the status of the Fon was the most prestigious and ranked highest as head of state and spiritual leader, the Kwifon was a regulatory society and played a role in checking the Fon’s excesses. The impersonal, spiritual, sacred and secret personality of the Kwifon symbolised supernatural power. Kwifon was a symbol of sovereignty and its membership, which was top secret, was conscripted from a wide spectrum of the country. With its spiritual ‘eyes’, it kept spiritual watch over the country, called malfeasant individuals to order, such as vih kehwein (socerers), and vizhieh(witches or widzards), and meted out injunctions (kelang) and exacted punishment
The Fon, for his part, in whom all chiefdom mystical powers were vested during enthronement, symbolised chiefdom link with the cosmic world; he was the symbol of spiritual power, prosperity and continuity. He was a mystic, sacred being and earned political respect as well as spiritual reverence. It was believed that he had the capacity to transform (buté) into a leopard and often went to the other world where he received instructions. He was an institution and does not die. To overtly say that the Fon has died was synonymous to saying that all what he incarnates have died. He just disappears and reappears in his successors.
Kwifon instilled moral order in the country, while the Fon, who was a complex embodiment of political and spiritual authority, had total control over his subjects and enforced political and moral sanctity without equivocation. The awesome, majestic presence of the Fon alone was enough to stop feuding parties. His word was final, understandably so because his legislative and advisory council was selected from amongst the cream of the wisest men of the country who must have attained the level of communicating with the ancestral world.
This politico-religious system did not mean that conflict was evitable. Rather, conflict constituted an integral part of its internal dynamics, which propelled the system in its perpetual search for perfection.
However, a pervasive religious cosmology provided the principled support for the social order, set standards, defined mores and norms, assigned roles and provided a general orientation for the community through conceptions that were clothed with an aura of factuality (Geertz in Bloom et.al 1987). Honesty and community service, not for material reward but as part of ones role to ensure the wellbeing of society, were cardinal values expected of all. Since the tradition was oral, much was expected from elders, status holders, family heads, and spiritual leaders who were expected to incarnate these cardinal values acquired through cultural associations and religious institutions which promoted certain bodies of knowledge and served as the nexus of society. This was reinforced by a complex system of cultural artifacts (songs, sculptures, music, proverbs, myths, folklore technology, invention, festivals or ceremonies, etc) which dominated social life and carried unequivocal messages aimed at drawing common consciousness to what was conventionally right or wrong. The entire social entity was held together by taboos which played a central role as a system of retributive justice in the maintenance of social order. They equally drew attention to what was socially conventional and what was not.
In the Kedjom society, complacency was not a common currency since there existed internal mechanisms to enforce its rigorous rules, making sanctions more physical and immediate. The system was aimed at moulding the totality of the human person into living human scripture. Mukong (n.d.) intimates that one such institution which played this role of spiritual formation was the Kwebele society. According to Mukong, the codes of the Kwebele association required strict adherence and going against one of them in some circumstances could even lead to the death of the culprits. Laws closely similar to the Mosaic ten commandment were strictly adhered to by members of the spiritual club among whom it was believed that breaking one of them is most likely to meet with rebound resulting in some physical sanctions. Fanso (1989:6) has observed that these spiritual clubs compelled members of a particular community to live an upright and generous life in order to promote a situation that may lead to prosperity in community.
All these factors that were tinged with a religious worldview made the political organisation of the pre-colonial Kedjom society efficient and powerful with very little external influence. It should be noted that in Kedjom society people who played an important role in the destiny of the country (such as Fons, etc) were also ‘ set apart’, ‘made sacred’ and ‘forbidden’. They did not belong anymore to the ‘commoner’ domain. Their respect (or reverence in the case of the Fon) was automatic and came spontaneously from members of the public.
The family was a sacred institution on which the society was structured. The continuity of the polity was determined by the family. The sanctity and wellbeing of the community, and by extension the human person, was a function of the sanctity and wellbeing of the family. Thus the family head was an important personality whose statue was enhanced by how much he contributed towards he wellbeing, sanctity and continuity of the community.
Sex taboo played a central role in maintaining the sanctity of the family. It was an important thing so it was set aside, made sacred and forbidden. It could not be referred to directly, let alone talked about in public. In the public mind, it was non-existent and if mention must be made of it, it was refereed to as ‘sleeping’ and this moment of ‘sleeping’ was obliquely referred to especially in ndzowain (song for child) as when nyingong se bwome wain (when God was in his workshop creating a new life). Marriage was known to be the only thing that legitimated sex and since in the public psychology sex was "non existent’, many people discovered it only after marriage. It was also discovered that as a result of this, in pre-colonial Kedjom, newly married couples needed the assistance of an elderly woman to practically get them started.
In Kedjom society that which was sacred was highly respected. Elders were closer to the ancestors so they were respected since they transmitted wisdom from the ancestral world. The Fon was an embodiment of spiritual wisdom. Very old persons and the newly born fell in this sacred category and could not be called by their names, especially at night in the case of the new-born babies. They, like the very old, were referred to as wu ke tum (literary means person from another land). The case of twins was a special one. They were directly referred to as ve nyingong (Gods). And since their names were to be avoided, they had to b renamed at a special ceremony. The earth belong to the gods and babies, twins and a certain class of elders and dogs could pick up food crumbs that had fallen to the ground.
The sacredness of the earth, the womb of all energy sources, did not permit the practice of land alienation; it was not to be commodified. Available literature indicates that the commodification of land was unknown in sub-Saharan Africa before the colonial period (Diduk 1992). The religious cosmology of the Kedjom people, who were also very prosperous traders (vih mbankum), was also the ideology base for their economic organisation and thus defined the categories of entities that were outside the market economy. Land fell in the categories of unmarketable entities. All libations or rituals for the appeasement of the spiritual world were performed on the earth (nsé) and so any piece of food item that fell to the ground was considered as a gift to the spirits and so should not be picked up again by ‘ordinary’ people. When seeds were planted or anything else that was expected to germinate and grow, it was forbidden to uproot or dig up again. The earth was considered not only a point of interaction between the living and the spirit, but where the supreme deity revealed his generosity and will for the continual sustenance of the human specie. Thus selling land was like alienating man from his ‘natural‘ rights. An informant in Kedjom Keku reported that "just as the Judaeo- Christian belief would not permit the sell of the ‘heaven’, where its God resides, the Kejom did not find it prudent selling the ‘ground’ that held their ancestors".
In Kedjom land was communally owned while the Fon played the role of titular ownership and was responsible for the redistribution of the land which did not as yet belong to a particular lineage. As a redistributive economic system, it was just appropriate for the Fon, who was not only a political figure but the link between the human and the spiritual world, to be at the centre of the redistributive process. The basic criteria for land distribution was dependent on how much one contributed in realising God’s will: the continuity of the human specie, which was reflected in ones number of dependants. Thus the number of dependents one had determined the chunk of land he was to be given. This was intended as support for the subsistence and sustenance of God’s people, whom man was but only a transmission belt. Unfortunately landholding disadvantaged those with smaller or those who had non at all as "the production and reproduction of wealth became highly differentiated" (Diduk 1992:199). However, within the land redistribution system, it was the inalienable right for anyone whose identity was defined within a kingroup to be entitled to land.
Since Kedjom was a political, economic as well as a religious organisation, the family which was the basic organ of the social structure, it was automatically a political, economic and a religious organ. The family head was its spiritual leader who performed intercessory rituals and prayers and also presided over the family religious ceremonies. He was therefore part of the link in the chain of those who connect the human world to the spiritual world. As a religious unit, ontological wisdom demanded that the family should offer support not only for the spiritual needs of its members but for their political as well as economic needs. Consequently, the family had to be organised as an economic support system and effectively ensured the mobilisation of labour for production and acted as a risk pool where members stood by each other in sharing the uncertainties of life. It was the responsibility of the family to ensure that children should grow into responsible adults.
The family support system did not suffer from the inhibitive burdens of taxation or any form of fiscal costs and its major orientation was sustainability and not growth as it is the case with formalised capitalist economies. This, however, did not mean that individuals were sentenced by the family in their economic exploits. A great many Kedjom people were engaged in trading ventures and traveled widely to distant lands, as far as Northern Nigeria (Hawkeswoth 1926), and learned the languages of other people. They generated personal wealth and could marry many wives. They could also afford the "fees into important associations where they could gain political powers"(Aseh and Yenshu.n.d). Some of these traditional associations such as Kwebele, Lum, etc; were religious institutions whose major aim was to raise the level of spirituality in its members as a pre- condition for a harmonious life style in society.
It should be noted that Kedjom medicine was categorise into two groups: the popular medicine where anybody could prescribed the leaves or mixed some concoctions for people suffering from some minor ailments; and highly specialised medicine which was sacred and esoteric, known only to a select few who could handle specific or more complicated illness such as madness, infertility, epilepsy, etc. The fact that the study of medicine was placed as the responsibility of religious institutions indicates the consciousness ab initio of the Kedjom people about the duality in the nature of man: that man is both spiritual or essence and biological or matter. As a result, their religious world view was holistic in approach and addressed the totality of man in his combine nature: political, economic, cultural, social, technological, etc.
The discovery of medicine in this society must have been motivated by the dogged determination to overcome bodily dysfunctioning which they believed could equally affect the very essence of man. Their belief in man being essence as well as biology, coupled with the belief that in the biotic community, which man was a part, there existed beneficent spirits as well as malfeasant ones that can harm the essence of man, can better explain this holistic approach in Kedjom "traditional" medicine. It combines the biological approach, the spiritual approach as well as the psychological (psycho-therapy) and the sociological (socio-therapy). An approach which was aimed at reviving the totality of man in their quest at exonerating man from imperfections or by reducing their incidence of intervening circumstances which may be obstacles. In short, the biologically determined approach can be understood from the fact that biologically determined dysfunctions could be corrected equally by the use of biological substances, while the spiritual approach took care of the spiritual maladjustment inflicted through witchcraft, fetishism, magic, etc.
This healing model, like any other bio-medical model, might have had its limitations but data collected in Kedjom indicated that at the time, it was the only available health-seeking model and served the community satisfactorily. And today even with the advent of modern medicine, it still offers a very potent alternative to the modern scientific medical practice, which could also be an indication of the limitations of the latter. What is important to note is that this ‘ traditional’ model followed the normal method of rationalism, which has to do with identification and classification of phenomena whose combination can achieve a desired effect. This means that it can be understood by anyone trained in that area.
As people who were pastorialists, farmers, craftsmen and smiths, their religion worldview played a great role in determining their material productions. A close examination of their minds boggling sculptural work and artistic creations, some of which are stacked in metropolitan museums, Fon’s palaces and very important compounds in the chiefdoms, reveals that creativity or invention transcended the mere desire for creative arts and the urge to meet basic needs. Those objects reveal a deep, complex religious thought; an expression of the awareness in the emptiness of life; the product of despair and anguish; an attempt at recreating the abysmal past as a pointer to the future. They reveal the mindset of a people who through share determination and will, were genuinely "creating" and "inventing" in response to the puzzling question of what the real essence of life is all about.
An interpretation of Kedjom names such as Zhufanyi (we hear from God), Tinse (Father of the earth) Nshom (sigh of despair), Yondo (with whom?) Ninying (man alone), etc, demonstrates this feeling of despair and anguish in a people who were desperately committed to the search for perfection and liberation from a blind past to a delightful re-union with the "future". Songs were a vehicle of transmission through which vivid and unequivocal messages of protest and rallying calls to common enthusiasm to the course of creating and inventing the future. The sound of drums conveyed their own messages which were well interpreted by the people and the spontaneous response to the songs and drum beats produced body rhythms which were much more than were dancing. Ndzo nyingong (dance for the gods), which require heavy stamping of the floor was intended to chase away malevolent spirits that maybe lurking around and disturbing the twin children (vu venyingong). Keben Kendong or ndong dance, an annual dance, more majestic in style, performed after the yearly ceremony of purification in which the richness of the culture was exhibited, symbolised human dignity, love, peace and harmony.
There were a great many other dances with each according to its purpose and having its own significance. The mask dance (mekum) depicted the practical illustration of the belief in the duality of the human nature: man as essence and matter. Whereby the essence, which is unknown but symbolising both the past and the future, is represented by the human force behind the mask. The invisible part of the Kekum (sing. for mekum), the mask, represents the caricature of the lost, helpless man, symbolises the present. A Kekum, therefore, highlights the concept of the past, present and future as all coexisting in biology (man and nature).
"In Kedjom society there are two types of mekum (mask association), namely, the state or semi-state mekum and the privately owned" (Aseh and Yenshu n.d). The privately owned mekum are usually hired to perform religious functions at commemoration ceremonies, which is seemingly their main function. The semi-state mekum attend burial rites of its important members, while the state own mekum such as kwifon or aghie, honour the citizens of the country during their commemoration ceremonies. Kwifon, a secret association with a sacred character was the head of the judicial and executive arm of government. Though the status of the Fon was the most important, most prestigious and ranked highest, kwifon ranked higher than the Fon in terms of executive powers. Its sacred and secret character symbolised the unknown, the essence, and the supreme authority of the Supreme Being. Juxtaposing the Fon and kwifon as two dichotomous arms of authority over one chiefdom was not only intended to ensure balance of power, but brings out the extension in the belief in the duality of human nature to include the duality of society: society also as spirit and material and with the spiritual intended to check human power. This gave the Kedjom society its sacred character and its leadership was powerful and effective and had total control over its subjects.
In a nutshell, an excavation of Kedjom social memory reveals that they had perceived their existence essentially as an outcome of the diligent instructions of an All Creating All Present Being, Nyingong, who created all earth’s life forms and gave man the ability to behave rationally or irrationally depending on the forces that controls his actions at a given moment. This worldview predisposed them to some rational behaviour that led them to lead a life of self-sustainability and self-sufficiency. They were also able to respond to the questions posed to them by their physical environment as well as their own very selves.
From the brief interpretation of symbolism in Kedjom Religion, the following conclusions can be drawn. It was basically a religion for "survival" or of "evolution" conceived by people who were conscious of their lost nature but who were determined to forge a resilient will to attain the ultimate goal of a harmonious reunion of the abstract essence with the imperfect physical body through the principle of dualism in nature. Hence their interaction with nature, which invariable encouraged the protection and preservation of the environment. The religion was not intended for proselytising purposes, and this had nothing to do with the fact theirs was a pre-illiterate society. It was a knowledge system with an in-built value of rationalism, which demanded that human action could be organized and coordinated to achieve self-sustainability and self-sufficiency for the betterment of mankind instead of the illusion of a better life after death.
Unlike the Hebrew people who were confronted by environmental hazards, such as the over bearing wilderness and the mercantile socio-political hazards such as Asyrian invasions Babylonian conquest and thus conceived of Yahweh as a God of vengeance and eventually invented a theology of messianic salvation, Nyingong is largely beneficent to the Kedjom people. Though transcendental, his presence among them was palpable and rendered the conception of a liturgy that predicts a messianic salvation inconceivable. The social organisation and functioning of Kedjom society reflected their belief in God’s immanent intercessory powers in both human form and in nature.
This may explain why Abangkembong3, a cultural hero of Kedjom mythology, who appeared mysteriously amongst the Kedjom people, lived mysteriously and finally disappeared mysteriously into the sky, was not regarded as a messiah. Today, they only faintly recalls Abangkembong as one who is said to have handed the orchestra of the ndong dance to them, and taught them how to play it before his mysterious disappearance. The ndong dance eventually became the main dance for the annual purification ceremony of kebenkendong.
All African societies might not have been structured and functioning in exactly the same model as the Kedjom, but from our knowledge on the similarity in beliefs across most African societies, Kedjom, situated in the savannah region of the West and Central Africa, we have no doubt that this society shared common hopes and aspirations like its counterparts across the continent. Kedjom is a sample of a typical African society facing the throes of transition from its "traditional" beliefs and daily living into a fantasised "promised land of modernism."
Though Kedjom people were aware that life was transient they no doubt saw it as a continuous struggle for the edification of the essence of being and their society, and creativity and invention was the means of reuniting the abstract and the physical. The introduction of the market economy rather killed the spirit of fraternity since individuals become more concerned with the search for money to meet the exigencies of a cash market oriented society. And by so doing they had no time for creativity, and invention was dumped on the refuse heap of their antiquarian craft practices.
The new power elite then hubristically in motion a Eurocentric ideology under the banner of the "transfer of technology," which unfortunately, like any other attempt at transferring concepts from outside Africa and implanting in its people, did not take root. And the cry for industrialisation has remained a far fetch hollow-sounding gongs where the so call lifting of trade barriers only helps to open African markets to western industrial products, some of which are of doubtful quality4.
DESACRELISATION AND POST-MODERN IN AFRICA
It is already evident that the introduction of "modernism" in Africa was largely distabilising. Tinged with the Judaeo-Christian religion, variously described as a neo-archaism (Mourin 1994), and as a religion of slaves (Engels 1979:30), was not only a ruck-sack to contain the central indigenous religions ideology that motivated social action in pre-colonial African people, but, in the process, unleashed a plethora of social problems of a complex and diverse nature which have bedecked the past-modernist African social structure. It is a parody of the "good news of extraterrestrial deliverance" becoming a sad tale of enslavement and confounding scrimmage.
The introduction of a subversive social thought propagated by the church through targeted sermons have disheveled the gimbals of the "traditional" social organisation. The result has been the "secularisation of the ancestors and the stripping away from the lineage head of his role as mediator with the supernatural resulting in a loss of respect for both elders and ancestors and a denigration of the validity of their sanctions" (Adetola and Ademola 1985:119). This throws up the problem of divided loyalty. The call to develop new loyalties and focus for the new secular nation state under a secular administration have rather led to a situation where Africans do not really know in which authority to lend their loyalty. On the other hand, the desacrilised traditional authority has lost control over its subjects who now act "anonymously" within a vast secular political terrain.
If today there is emphasis on sex education to children in Africa it is because external secular agencies, especially the western media, which the African media consider as the model, have shattered the reedy sacred secrets on which communal morality was stoked. The myth of sex taboo which played a central role in maintaining social stability has been pummeled by the propagation of secular attitudes towards sex bringing it to the domain of public entertainment. Furthermore, armed with the availability of printing and publishing facilities, capitalist societies are massively producing low popular culture which is spread all over Africa aimed at presenting the Judaeo-Christian social thought as the most authentic. This neo-colonial Christianity of total imperialism of thought and values, reproduced through African priests and evangelists, reinforces the spread of secularism in Africa since paradoxically it presents life on earth as "meaningless" or without "essence."
The sacred nature of land and the injunction on the sale of land coupled with the regard to nature as sacred have been bashed and nature has been taken to the market place and commercialized and "today… man has broken almost all the frontiers of the universe and put nature to task in its preeminence over phenomenological ordering"(Soyinka 1991:14). It becomes evident that the desacrilisation of African societies was a pre-condition for the benefit of capitalism. All what was held in the sacred womb of the African soil is being sacrilegiously ripped out at the selfish demands of capitalist economies. The philosophy of secularism is oblivious of the fact that nature is not inexhaustible and attempts to resist this rape has only led to blood baths, civil strife and political instability in Africa.
The demystification of the traditional authority such as Fons, Chiefs, Obas, Kings, etc; can also be seen in this light. By disconnecting the traditional authority from the link with the supernatural and rather placing them at the lower rung in the beginning process of a secular authority and crediting them only with the role of custodian of culture, makes it possible for capitalism to penetrate the very "essence" of the African communities. What desacrilisation has done to Africa is that it has taken off the incubator under which African civilization was brooding.
Even the general philosophy of modern Africa such as Nkrumaism, Black Consciousness, African Renaissance or Negritude have been unable to reorientate community focus in Africa because they do not offer the affinity between the ideological base of the society and its material productions. Hence could not motivate people to action. Wole Soyinka has described Negritude as the "property of the bourgeois-intellectual class…which stayed within a pre-set system of Euro centric intellectual analysis both of man and society and tried to re- defined the African and his society in those external terms"(Soyinka 1976:135,136).
CONCLUSION
I have argued that Africa has structural factors as well as the economic and human resources which can be favourable to its progress but lack the means through which their ideas can be transformed into goals, values and intentions that can motivate or animate its people to action. In other words, an indigenous ideological axis on which a unique cultural and political system can evolve with its modes of economic production and distribution that African peoples can lay their claim of identity and distinctiveness to is absent. More often, the focus has been on the economic aspects of development to the neglect of psycho-social aspects, which have to do with creating and sustaining an aggressive collective consciousness that can enable Africans to rediscover their interest as well as the necessary action and changes they require to transform their society.
Most importantly, the desacrilisation of African societies stripped them off their indigenous sacred ideological base and placed them at the mercy of an external secular worldview which has only given room for outsiders to exploit and expropriate the god-given resources while confusing them in the process.
Globalisation (desacrilisation) has invariably rendered the African world porous and the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic can be interpreted as one example of the dangers that are threatening the vulnerability of a porous society. Globalosation must not mean one main stream flowing in one direction capsising states and cultures along its way. It should rather be the development of a multi-pillar system that can give mankind a chance of making alternative choices. Capitalism, which is engulfing the world, is anchored on a fragile foundation with exploitation as its chief corner stone. Its inevitable collapse depends on how much and how soon the large majority of the exploited class attains the level of self-awareness and self-actualisation. An indigenous ideological capital that encourages sentiments of solidarity, assures optimism for the future through self-assertion, self-identity and self-determination, encourages a rigorous application of skills in the rational application of nature physically, mystically, spiritual in the domain of technology and production is most likely to prefer a way forward for Africa. The choice is with African peoples themselves to either expand their indigenous worldview in competition with the western overbearing models within the global context or be crushed by the capsizing forces of globalisation.
Between 1300 and 1600, Italy was to set in motion what was to transform the European society forever. Renaissance, which steamed off merely like a call to a radically remake the culture, which had been saddled by the romantic Judaeo-Christian beliefs, ignited the Reformation which went beyond theological debates to address issues of ecclesiastical and political organisation. This process was to culminate in the Scientific Revolution, which finally transformed Europe by liberating its people from the Judaeo-Christian dogma of messianic salvation, which lacks any scientific premise, by converting them to experimentalists. Focus then reverted to the desire to seek scientific explanations to the Greco-Roman thought, which was rooted in the ancient Greek tradition and beliefs. The desire to explore and explain the ancient beliefs about nature’s secrets and an orderly universe in a new way became the steam-power for the development of the sciences.
Galileo’s break through in astronomy, for example, which earned him punishment from the church on the grounds that he was authenticating a "superstitious" belief, was motivated by an ancient Greek belief that celestial bodies rotated around the earth, which was at the center of the universe. Isaac Newton’s famous laws of motion sprang out from the desire to explain the mysterious force that was believed to be responsible for the movement of the heavenly bodies as was held by ancient Greek mythology. By the end of the 17th century, the desire to seek explanations to ancient religious beliefs had grown into a complex system and embraced all facets of life and served as a spring board for the new world order that was to emerge from Europe.
Greek drama and poetry led to theatre arts, while Greek philosophy laid the ground work for the study of philosophy. The early Greek writings, which were in the form of pictographs, became the basis for the development of abstract systems and phonetic syllabes of modern letters. The Greek concepts of democratia and republica, provided the buds for the growth and development of the modern versions of democracy and the republic. The Platonian and Aristotelian thought formed the basis for neo-classical thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, and the Hellenistic technology became the basis for scientific curiosity.
The African continent is still awash with traditional creeds of beliefs and practices which can be explored and explained from a new, scientific approach. The sacred stones and rocks which are employed in rainmaking ceremonies amongst the Bamyar, Wanda, Bari, Baranda, Igassana, Madi and Sonjo (Mbiti 1969; 55), are examples of what can be investigated and standardized as a full branch of expert knowledge. So too can be the manipulation of lightening by some societies of the Grassfields of Cameroon to strike the enemy (Fanso 1989), be developed into a separate branch of knowledge. Ethno-medical practice in Africa which is still waxing strong and has proved to be very efficacious in handling a good number of illnesses which modern medicine cannot handle, can be taken out of the mystico-religious domain into an explainable domain.
In some societies in the Ndop Plain of Cameroon, there are ethno-medical practitioners who ably treat compound fracture in an indirect mysterious way. What they do is get a chicken and split its leg and place it under the bed where the patient sleeps. They concentrate on treating the chicken’s leg instead. Each time they are applying medicine on the chicken’s leg, the patient shrieks in agony and pain. This exercise continues until the healing process is done. When the chicken’s leg is healed and the chicken can walk without any slight sign of limping, the patient is expected to get up and walk. What is clear in this case is that there is a cause and an effect but what needs to be explained scientifically is the relationship between the cause and the effect. The benefits that the continent can derive from such a healing process are enormous if someone can seek to give a scientific explanation to its functioning. Unfortunately, Christianity and other sects which preach the theology of rejectionism have infringed on our world view and given us the impression that this superstition.
The Chinese bio-medial model is succeeding. In fact, the South East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and China etc, which are maintaining their traditional personalities are more progressive in character than their African counterparts who are pursuing development by mimicking western societies or transvestism. If African peoples can stress on ritual purity and go back to those values, beliefs and aspects of their religious life that provided the ideological base for their individual communities in the past, that can be a good base for a way forward. The remaking of the classical African belief system can enable African peoples to formulate new theories on how to rationally relate with their environment and also how to protect it. It can also serve as a base for the African peoples to develop a system of government which is powerful, effective, promotes fraternity among its peoples and strong enough to protect itself from external sacrilegious influences. The African traditional religious thought and modes of production can also be a good base for scientific curiosity. Since these belief are stored in myths, their understanding can only be predicated on the development and teaching of African languages which will also encourage the indigenous expression of thought and feelings. Above everything else, for African peoples to have a good base for a start towards the development of a unique civilsation, they need to go back and rediscover the scientific base of their indigenous religious beliefs and practices, which as the knowledge base of their societies, must have been rooted on a scientific premise.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alhaji, G.V. Kromah II, "The Dirty Black Soul," The Revelation 1, 3 (1972), p. 28.
Angelopoulos, A and Fagen, M, 1993, The Third World and the Rich Countries: Proposals to Combat the Global Economic Crisis. University Press of America. Lanham. New York. London.
Aseh, A.N and Yenshu, E.V, (Unpublished), "The Evolution of the Status System in Kedjom Society, Northwest Province, Cameroon".
Barbara Hattemer and H. Robert Showers, 1993, Don’t Touch That Diaal: The Impact of the Media on Children and the Family. Huntington House.
Bayart, J.F., (1993); The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly. Harlow: Longman.
Berger, B. and Berger, P. 1984; The War Over the Family: Capturing the Middle Ground.Town Penguin Books.
Bloom, L and Ottong, J.G; 1987, Changing Africa: An Introduction to Sociology, Macmillan Publishers, London.
Charles Darwin, 1859; On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 6th Edition Vol.2 (1872); reprint, New York: Appleton 1923).
Chinua Achebe, 1958, Things Fall Apart. Heinemann Education Books. London.
Diduks, S, 1989, "Women’s Agricultural Production and Political Action in the Cameroon Grassfields".
Diduks, S. 1992, The Paradoxes of Changing Land Tenue in Kedjom Chiefdoms, Northwest Province. Cameroon.
Diduks, S., .., Twins, Ancestors, And Socio-Economic Change in Kedjom Society".
Durkheiin, Emile, 1965, The Elementary Forms of the Religion life. New York.
Durkheim, Emile, 1984; The Division of Labour in Society. Macmillan Press Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG 21 6 x 5 and London (p.122).
Ebune, J. B, 1992, The Growth of Political parties in Southern Cameroon 1916--1960
Engals, Federick, 1979, (Translated)’ The History of primitive Christianity"Moscow, progress Publishers.
Evans, D. A; 1991, The Cultural and political Environment of International Business, McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers.
Fanon, F. 1968; The Wretched of the Earth, Penguin Books, New York.
Fanso, V.G., 1989.
Fongot Kinni (n.d.), Mbum Ideology and Philosophy: An Ethico-Historical Anthropology of the Pharaonic Dynasty of Nganha, 2001.
Hawkesworth, C.G., 1926, An Assessment Report on the Bafut Area of the Bamenda Division, Cameroon Province, Nigeria..
Herdsmen: An Interpretation of Kedjom Historical Traditions, Limbe, Design House.
Idowu, E.B, 1962, Olodumare- God in Yoruba Belief. Longman, London.
Kayode, J.O; 1984, Understanding African Tradition Religion,University of Ife Press, Nigeria.
Kenyatta D., 1961, Facing Mount Kenya. Mercuri Books.
Mbiti, J. S; 1969, African Religion and Philosophy, Heinemann, London and Praeger.
Mbiti, J.S, 1975, Introduction to African Religion, Heinemann, London.
McGonigle, T.D. and Quigley, J.F. 1988; A History of the Christian Tradition: From its Jewish Origins to the Reformation. Paulist Press. New York.
Noble, T.F. X; Strauss, B.S.: Osheim, D.J.; Neuschel, K.B; Cohen, W.B; Roberts, D.D; 1994, Western Civilisation: The Continuing Experiment. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
Olatunde Odetola and Ade Ademola, 1985, Sociology: An Introductory African Text, Macmillan Publishers; London.
Opoku, A.K. "Religion in Africa During the Colonial Era."
Parrinder, E.G, 1974, African Traditional Religion. Third Edition, Sheldon Press, London.
Pauline Hountondji (ed), 1979, Endogenous Knowledge: Research Trails. CODESRIA Books Series.
Rodney, W., 1975. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
Soyinka, Wole, 1976, Myth, literature and the African World, Cambridge University Press.
Soyinka, Wole, 1991, The Credo of Being and Nothingness, Spectrum books Limited. Ibadan.
Tambi Eyongetah Mbuagbaw, Robert Brain and Robin Palmer, 1987, A History of Cameroon (New Edition), Longman Group UK limited.
The World Bank Research Report, 1994.
W.W. Rostow (Ed), 1965; The Economics of Take-Off into Sustained Growth, Macmillan, London. St. Martins Press, New York.
Yenshu, Vubo E, 2001, Itinerant Craftmen, Highland Farmers and Royal
Fowler, I, Zeitylin, D, (eds.), 1996, Africa Crossroads: Intersection
Between History and Anthropology in Cameroon. Oxford,
Berghahn.