Mission, Church and Tradition in Context

Transcription

1 Mission, Church and Tradition in Context Emic Perspectives on the Encounter and Tension between Traditional Bena Religion and Lutheran Christianity in Ulanga, Tanzania PHD-dissertation Faculty of Theology University of Aarhus Flemming Hansen

2 Mission, Church and Tradition in Context Emic Perspectives on the Encounter and Tension between Traditional Bena Religion and Lutheran Christianity in Ulanga, Tanzania Supervisors: Professor Viggo Mortensen, Århus PhD Mogens S. Mogensen, Christiansfeld Flemming Hansen 2005

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4 Table of Contents List of Swahili words Abbreviations Nomenclature / Orthography Tribes in Ulanga List of Figures and Excursuses iii vi vii viii viii ix i

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6 Table of Contents PART I INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter 1 Introduction, Method and Analytic Frame Introduction Personal Background Geographical Setting Review of the Literature on Mission, Church and Tradition in Ulanga Themes and Thesis Research Material and Methodology Research Sources and Material Research Methodology Participant Observation and Qualitative Interviews Informants, Language and Interviewer Reliability and Validity Analytic Frame Contextualization in Context Communication in Context Encounter in Context Review of Study 41 PART II MISSION, CHURCH AND TRADITION 45 Chapter 2 Lutheran Mission and Church History The Initial Phase Introduction Establishment of the Lutheran Church in Ubena and Ulanga The Renewal iii

7 2.2.1 Ulanga under the SEM/LCST Church and with the DLM Mission Ulanga as a Deanery of the Southern Synod of ELCT Establishment of an Independent Lutheran Synod in Ulanga The Independence The Leadership Crisis Ulanga-Kilombero Synod/Diocese Chapter 3 Traditional Bena History, Culture and Religion (Bena Perspective) History and Social Organisation of Wabena in Ulanga History and Self-perception of Wabena Manga Leadership and Royal Shrine Kinship Traditional Religion (Relations with God) God and Ancestors God Ancestors Ethic Ritual, Tambiko Communication with Ancestors Veneration or Worship Evil Spirits Sorcery, Divination, Healing, Curing and Reconciliation (Human Specialists) Sorcerer and Sorcery Sorcerer Sorcery Diviner and Traditional Doctor Diviner and Divination Traditional Doctor Traditional Medicine Kalembwana and Eradication of Sorcery Relationship between Traditional Doctors and Traditional Religion Worldview 136 iv

8 PART III ENCOUNTER AND TENSION 141 Chapter 4 Encounter and Tension between Lutheran Christianity and Traditional Religion (Bena Perspective) Missionaries Relation to the Socio-Cultural Context Relation to Ancestors and Sorcery Missionary Preaching Missionary Behaviour Christianity as a European Religion Contemporary Lutheran Christianity Constitutive Elements of Christian Lutheran Status Preaching and Ethic Church Discipline Eternal Life Christians and Traditional Religion Tambiko Reasons for Participation and Actual Involvement Christian Tambiko? Christians and Sorcery Christians and Health Seeking the Cause Seeking Treatment Christians and Sorcery etc Fear, Protection and Active Use Kalembwana and Sorcery Eradication Possession and Exorcism Church Leadership and Tradition Lutheran Opposition to and Protection against Sorcery Lutheran Identity between Christianity and Traditional Religion Kinship and Traditional Religious Context Relations between Traditional Religion and Christianity 227 v

9 4.5.3 Present Traditional Religion and Eschatological Christianity Lutheran Identity between Christianity and Traditional Religion 235 PART IV SHORT CONCLUSION AND TWO MISSIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES 243 Chapter 5 The Open End The Thesis and an Open Conclusion Missiological Perspectives The Contextual Lutheran Christian Worldview The Contextual Process New Research 260 Appendices and References 263 Appendix 1: Tanzanians Informants 265 Appendix 2: Danish Summary 273 References 277 List of Swahili words The word after the stroke indicates the plural Swahili form Bibi Old, hence respected, woman, literally grandmother Bwana Lord, Master Dawa Medicine, both traditional and in hospital Mbena/Wabena Bena person Mchawi/Wachawi Sorcerer Mganga/Waganga Doctor, traditional and in hospital Mganga wa Kienyeji Traditional curing/healing doctor and diviner Mila na desturi Traditional religious and socio-familiar common practice Mungu God Mwiko/Miiko Taboo Mzee/Wazee Respectful form of addressing, especially older, man Nguruvi Traditional Bena High God vi

10 Pombe Traditional beer made of ferment rice, maize or bamboo Tambiko/Matambiko Traditional ritual for communicating with ancestors Uchawi Sorcery Ushirikina To believe in and consult sorcery and bad spirits Abbreviations ATR CCM CCT DiKip DiMa DLM DLMa DMS EFS ELCT ELCT/SS FLCT IUCO JBC JCT KKKT LCS LCST LMC LSST LWF MUCO MV NLC RC SD African Traditional Religion Charma cha Mapinduzi, the Party of the Revolution Christian Council of Tanganyika Diary for the Mission Station of Kipingo Diary for the Mission Station of Mahenge Danish Lutheran Mission Archives of the Danish Lutheran Mission Danish Mission Society Swedish abbreviation for SEM, Swedish Evangelical Mission Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania Southern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania Federation of Lutheran Churches Tanganyika Iringa University College (ELCT) Joint Board Committee for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, Southern Synod Joint Committee on Assistance in the Mission of the Lutheran Church in Tanganyika Kanisa la Kiinjili la Kilutheri Tanzania (Swahili for ELCT) Lutheran Coordination Service Lutheran Church of Southern Tanganyika Lutheran Mission Co-operation Lutheran Synod of Southern Tanganyika Lutheran World Federation Makumira University College (ELCT) Missionsvennen, official magazine of DLM New Life Crusade (often called the fellowship people) Roman Catholic Church Southern Diocese, Njombe vii

11 SDa SEM SUK TANU TLS UKD UKDa UMCA Archives in Kidugala of the Southern Diocese Swedish Evangelical Mission Sinodi ya Ulanga-Kilombero (Swahili for UKD) Tanganyika African National Union Tumaini Lutheran Seminary, Kipingo Ulanga-Kilombero Diocese Archives in Ifakara of the Ulanga-Kilombero Diocese Universities Mission to Central Africa Other used terms: General Assembly Executive Committee Mkutano Mkuu (Swahili), Delegeretmøde (Danish) Kamati ya Utendaji (Swahili), Forretningsudvalg/Landsstyrelse (Danish) Nomenclature / Orthography Tribal names are normally spelled in the Swahili orthography. When English orthography is used, the Swahili prefix is omitted. Example: Wabena live in Ulanga / The Bena live in Ulanga. The prefix for language in Swahili is ki- as in Kiswahili (English: Swahili) and the prefix for location is u- as in Ubena. If Swahili names or expressions are used, they are printed in italics (except for a few often used) and the English translation can be found in the list of Swahili words here above or it is added in brackets. Sometimes the English word is written first followed by a comma and the concise Swahili word in italics, for example: respect, heshima. Tribes in Ulanga 1 Swahili English Language Religious affiliation Mbena, Wa- 2 Bena Kibena Lutheran/Muslim Mbunga, Wa- 3 Bunga Kibunga Muslim Mdamba, Wan- Damba Kindamba Muslim/Catholic Mdweve, Wan- 4 Dwewe Kindweve Traditional/Catholic note 29 gives, with the exception of Wandweve, an account of the numbers of people in the different tribes in the 50s. 2 Many Lutherans are Wabena, but the royal clan has always been Muslim (Ndundu 2002:47). Closely related to Wabena are Wahehe. They live in Iringa region with a few dwellers in Ulanga. 3 The Bunga and Gindo tribes were, according to Larson, in the 1920s the two ethnic groups in Ulanga mostly influenced by Islam. They are still Muslim (Larson 1976:259, Kiporoza 2003:2). 4 Traditionally Wandweve are counted as Wabena Manga (Hansen 2004:33). Wandweve is the tribe in Ulanga, which is most affiliated to traditional religion and least to Christianity. Most Wandweve Christians are Roman Catholics (Kiporoza 2003:2, Nyakachewa 2002:2). viii

12 Mgoni, Wan- Goni Kingoni Muslim Mngindo, Wa- Gindo Kingindo Muslim Mpogoro, Wa- Pogoro Kipogoro Catholic/Muslim List of Figures and Excursuses Figure Map of Ulanga and the Eastern Part of Ubena Area Figure Comprehensive Model of Communication Process Excursus Danish Lutheran Mission, History and Policy of Mission Figure 2.2.1/1 Statistics for Lugala Lutheran Hospital Figure 2.2.1/2 School Statistics in Ulanga Excursus School Mission and Baptism of Children of Traditionalists Figure 2.2.1/3 Numbers of Lutheran Christians in Ulanga Figure 2.2.2/1 Statistics for Lugala Hospital Figure 2.2.2/2 DLM Missionaries in Ulanga Figure Copy of the letter from four Ulanga Pastors/Deacons Excursus Tribalism and Church Leadership Figure Leaders of the Lutheran Church in Ulanga Figure 2.3.2/1 Statistics of the Lutheran Christians in Ulanga Figure 2.3.2/2 DLM Missionaries in Ulanga Figure 2.3.2/3 Years of Work of DLM Missionaries in Ulanga Figure Kings of Wabena Manga Figure Illustration from Culwick s Ubena of the Rivers, p Figure Differences between Ancestral Curse and Sorcery Bewitching Figure Signboard of a Traditional Doctor near Ng alimila Figure Schematic Outline of Traditional Doctors Figure 3.4 Bena Worldview Figure 4.3 Traditional contra Christian Solution to Curse, Bewitching and Possession Figure Contemporary Bena Lutheran Worldview in a Bena Context Figure Contextual Lutheran Christian Worldview in a Bena Context Figure The Contextual Process ix

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14 PART I INTRODUCTION 1

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16 Chapter 1 Introduction, Method and Analytic Frame 1.1 Introduction The biggest mistake the first Lutheran missionaries made was that they did not take into account that Wabena were very religious people, who were deeply dependent on their old religion. And today we as the African Church make precisely the same mistake (Mgeyekwa 1998). Sometimes one meets challenging statements. They may not represent extraordinary new insights, but the very time and context they fall in make them stimulating. In June 1998, when I had decided to undertake this research, I had a discussion with the Lutheran bishop Zephania Mgeyekwa of Njombe in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania about my plans. The above quotation is from this discussion. The challenge in his words was not the statement about missionaries not sufficiently taking into account Wabena s deep dependence on their traditional religion. Neither was it the words about Wabena being very religious people, who were deeply dependent on their old religion. Historically this was evident, although during my research the dependence seemed to be deeper than I thought from the beginning. The real challenge was the words declaring that in practice the mistake was not limited to foreign missionaries. The indigenous Lutheran church today makes precisely the same mistake in not considering enough the dependence on the old traditional religion, the bishop argued. These words lifted the theme out of a historical view and context into the present and contemporary Lutheran life and practice in current Tanzania and called for more research. It must indeed be so that, if the African church still makes this mistake, what is still done wrong certainly must be deeply founded in the worldview and identity of the Lutheran Christians. Why is it so, and what is the worldview and identity of Lutheran Christians after all? Personal Background My personal background for sitting in the bishop s dining room one afternoon in June 1998 goes back many years. Since I was a child, it has been in my mind that I could end up as a missionary in Africa brought up, as I was, in a family, where interest in mission was an integrated part of life. My grandmother wanted to be a missionary in India, but for some reason she never went. Nevertheless, her history inspired me and during my theological study, I aimed at the life and work of a missionary. Hence, in my wife and I and gradually three children lived and worked as such in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (ELCT). First, we served 10 years in the Ulanga-Kilombero Synod/Diocese in the small diocesan Tumaini Bible-school and the last two years we stayed in Iringa, where I lectured at the 3

17 Theological Faculty of the Iringa University College, a zonal institution under the Makumira University College of the ELCT. In my 12 years of service in Tanzania, I went through the different stages of struggling with language and culture, going from lecturing from notes without always being able to remember the meaning of the words I had put together when preparing the lesson in my office, to the stage of leading theological discussions in class. During these years, I had a growing awareness of being a stranger to the context I worked in. Much happened around me, but I often felt that I did not really understand what or why. Especially in Ulanga, I had so much work to do with leadership, teaching, counselling etc. that I never got the time really to be involved in the local context and society. I seldom sat down for hours and hours just talking with people, following the concept that if only you converse with people about everyday matters, about nothing, you will gain the respect and confidence from them that give them the interest to discuss with you the deeper matters and issues in their life and worldview. I furthermore had the feeling that many missionaries before me had worked in the same way. Therefore, during the two years at the theological college in Iringa and, not least, during discussions with students, the wish to try to investigate the background of all the work and understand something about what really happened in the context grew firm and resulted in a PhD-project on mission, church and tradition in context. This actual dissertation is the outcome Geographical Setting The geographical setting of the dissertation is the southern, Ulanga part of the ELCT Ulanga-Kilombero Diocese (UKD). Geographically, the present diocese is part of the larger Ubena area, an area originally inhabited by Wabena, members of the Bena tribe. The Ubena area covers the present Njombe administrative district in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, a part of the present Iringa Region. Eastern Ubena includes the Ulanga escarpment, which is the Ulanga-Kilombero Valley, part of the present Morogoro Region. The Ulanga-Kilombero Diocese is situated in and is geographically identical with the Ulanga-Kilombero Valley. The valley, situated on the edge of and parallel with the Great Rift Valley System, lies approximately between 8.5 and 9.5 degrees latitude south, and 35.5 and 37 degrees longitude east. It actually consists of two valleys, the Ulanga Valley (23,681 km 2 ) to the south and the Kilombero Valley (13,577 km 2 ) to the north, divided by the Udzungwa Mountains northwest of Ifakara. From Mikumi in the north the valley stretches more than 300 km to Luhombero in the south and Tanganyika Masagati in the southwest. To the north runs the Dar es Salaam-Mbeya 4

18 Highway and to the south, the valley stretches up into the mountainous region of Songea. The western border includes the beginning of the Southern Highlands and to the east the Mahenge Mountains rise up. Countless rivers traverse the area. The big rivers are the Mnyera and Ruhuji Rivers from the south, the Furua River from the eastern Mahenge Mountains and the Kihanzi River from the western mountains. They all unite in the River Kilombero, which passes Ifakara and later unites with the Great Ruaha River that comes from the west, and flows out into the Indian Ocean. Much of the Ulanga-Kilombero Valley is very low lying, about 250 metres in altitude. This gives slowly flowing rivers that often have changes of course, when the sand settles. In the rainy season, flooding causes many problems for the infrastructure. For many years, mission and church history was directed west as the first Lutheran missionaries came from Lupembe and Njombe in the southwestern Highlands. However, the only access to the valley by car has always been the road from Kilosa/Mikumi to Ifakara and further on to Mahenge and Malinyi. Due to floods, the road from Ifakara was closed for traffic maybe for more than half the year until somewhere in the 60s, leaving the rivers as the only way of transport (Culwick 1935:272). Transport up in the Western Highlands to the missions in Lupembe and Njombe has always been by foot. The climate in the valley is extremely humid and tropical diseases like malaria are widespread. In the 1940s, the British District Commissioner Culwick moved more than 20,000 people because of, among other things, sleeping sickness. Great areas in southeast Ulanga were closed and the Selous Game Reserve established instead, and an old and popular trade road to the coast was closed. The concentration of people led to extensive hunger in the area (Larson 1976:302ff). In 1948, the population in Ulanga was estimated to be 121,252 of whom 19,3% were Wabena (Larson 1976:315). In this period, which was the time of the English Colonial Administration, the term Ulanga or The Ulanga Valley included the area from the Ruaha River in the north to the southwestern villages of Tanganyika Masagati in the south (Towegale 2003), where it today also includes the area up to some few kilometres south of the village of Mikumi. In 1974, the total population was about 200,000 (MV 1975/12:12) and according to the last census in 2002, the present population of the old Ulanga area numbers about 500,000 people with 516,988 being the total population of the present Ulanga- Kilombero District (Tanzanian Census 2003:2) 1. The administrative centre since the time of the British has been Mahenge, because of the town s position in the cool mountains. Original- 1 Kilombero, which is the area north of the Kilombero River at Ifakara, numbers 322,779 and Ulanga south of the Kilombero River 194,209, a total of 516,988. It is estimated that 50% of the population in Kidatu District (the district around and north of the Ruaha River with 35,295 people) lives north of the Ruaha River leaving roughly 500,000 in the old Ulanga Area. 5

19 ly, it was placed in Mkaso south of Malinyi, then in Kiberege from where it was moved, probably in the thirties, to Mahenge (Nyalyoto 2002:6). Nevertheless, since the Tanzania- Zambian Railway, Tazara, was built in the 1970s, Ifakara has become the economic and partly the political centre of the area and is now the largest town. The valley includes Ulanga (Mahenge) and Kilombero (Ifakara) Districts, Wilaya, situated on the southern and northern side of the Kilombero River respectively. Figure Map of Ulanga and the Eastern Part of Ubena Area (MV 1979/24:4) The central areas for the present research are all situated in the southwestern part of Ulanga: Malinyi (incl. Kipingo, Lugala, Tanga and Ngombo), Mlimba, N galimila, Uchindile and Tanganyika-Masagati. Although the head office of the diocese was moved in 1981 to Ifakara, the research has been concentrated on the old southwestern areas with the original Bena population and has practically not included material from the newer congregations north of Ifakara on the road to Mikumi. In the last century, the population in Ulanga was comprised of at least seven tribes namely Wapogoro, Wandamba, Wabena, Wandweve, Wangindo, Wangoni and Wambunga. This research deals with the Bena tribe. A sub-tribe of the Bena people, Wabena Manga made their entry in Ulanga in the 1870s, as will be described in 6

20 In spite of being strangers, they have ruled major parts of the valley for decades. They still predominantly live in the southern and western part of the valley around Malinyi and Tanganyika Masagati, although general urbanisation and recent removal have made some of them move and they now live among the other tribes Review of the Literature on Mission, Church and Tradition in Ubena-Ulanga Geographically, the dissertation thus works within a limited area. It is not the history of the national Lutheran Church as such in Tanzania, but limited to the Ulanga-Kilombero Diocese and even narrower as it concentrates on the southern Ulanga part of the diocese around rather a few villages that still house most of those Wabena Manga who form the centre of the research. It is thus an in-depth study of a limited small-scale society which during the last century has experienced an opening up from a micro-cosmos to a macro-cosmos and thus has experienced a kind of enlarging up to a large-scale society, a movement theoretically described by Dr Finn Aa. Rønne of Copenhagen (Rønne 2002:26ff). Two factors have especially influenced this. First, the German colonization, later replaced by the English administration, which brought the valley into a connection with the so-called modern cultural and political European world and thus started what today is labelled globalisation. Secondly, and with special regard to the Lutheran Christians in Ulanga, missionwork has had much influence. This first meant influence from German and Swedish missions, but later and, to a much greater extent, from the Danish Lutheran Mission (DLM) starting in Ulanga in Though since 1949 DLM has practically been the main foreign Lutheran mission working in Ulanga, the synod/diocese has been fairly influenced from other sides through evangelists being trained in bible schools in western and northern Tanganyika/Tanzania and later through pastors educated at the common theological college in Makumira (and from 1996 Iringa), first with different European and American teachers and gradually mostly local African teachers. So, although most Ulanga Lutheran Christians have lived in a typical small scale society in a fairly isolated valley, some influence from the outer world has started early, through sending people on training outside the valley and thus bringing both social and Christian elements from the macro-cosmos into the valley and not least to the Lutheran Christians. Until now, academic research in Ulanga within the framework of the church has been scarce 2. Only a few academic works are therefore mentioned here together with other minor 2 As this study is limited to the Ulanga-Kilombero Diocese, not much material has been drawn from general monographs on African church history. A few titles on the general history of mission and church in Africa however have been consulted such as Sundkler and Steed s A History of the Church in Africa (2000), Andrew F. Walls The Missionary Movement in Christian History (1996), Elisabeth Isichei s A History of Christianity in Africa (1995) and Adrian Hastings The Church in Africa (1994). Verstraelen in his article History of 7

21 writings of different types. Regarding academic literature, the British anthropologist A T Culwick, who was British District Commissioner in Ulanga in , together with his wife published the voluminous 444 pages study Ubena of the Rivers in It is a semiacademic work on the history, economic, social and partly religious life of Wabena Manga, called Wabena of the Rivers written with men of the royal Bena Manga clan as principal informants. Except for chapter two on The Kingdom of the Wakinamanga written by king Towegale Kiwanga II, the book offers hardly any references, but it is the only broad description of the Bena Manga clan ever written. The Culwicks describe the traditional ancestral religion as Wabena Manga s basic religion. Sorcery and human specialists are not described jointly, but in connection with other matters and hence do not have the same embracing and basic meaning for the Bena worldview as in the present dissertation. Culwick does not deal with the work of the church and only mentions in a short sentence that the principal men of the royal family adopted a superficial Mohammedanism (p. 206). More recent informants are critical about some of Culwick s findings, saying that he, especially regarding a visit to the place of the sacred Bena Manga drum, simply has been cheated by his principal informant ( 3.1.2). In his PhD thesis A History of the Mahenge (Ulanga) District, c (1976), Erling Lorne Larson deals with the political history of the Ulanga Valley from the beginning of the time of German rule, and the period of indirect rule under the British protectorate up to the rising of an indigenous political system with TANU, the Tanganyika African National Union, in the lead. In a chapter on Christianity and Islam, he does not mention the small Lutheran Church, but only the Catholic Church in its struggle with Islam. In 1999, Professor Seth I. Nyagava of Iringa published A History of the Bena to 1914 dealing with the migration and political history of the Bena people up to the First World War including the period of the Bena Manga s migration down into the Ulanga valley in the 1870s. Neither does he deal very much with the role of church; however, he critically discusses the Germans effort to control the area through involving the Berlin missionaries, as the German colonial administration only had few material resources and manpower. As there were no German missionaries posted in Ulanga, this hardly affected the mission situation there, which was also only in its infancy around the outbreak of the war. In 2003, the British anthropologist Maia Green published Christianity in Africa in the Context of African History Four recent Contributions compared (Verstraelen 2002) discusses the latest works of Hastings, Sundkler, Baur and Isichei. Although these scholars all have European background, they are not far from succeeding in writing from an African perspective he says p However he adds that African scholars especially underline the uniqueness of African Christian experience, not seeing African Christian history as an appendix at the periphery, but as a contributing partner within universal Christian history, as one of the many centres forming global Christianity. He therefore concludes that the future of historiography in Africa, in my view, belongs to an open and critical exchange of African African perspectives with non-african African perspectives (p. 199). 8

22 the monograph Priests, Witches and Power, exploring contemporary Catholic practice in Ulanga with special reference to the major Ulanga Pogoro tribe and working especially with religion and kinship. The book discusses among other subjects the work of the traditional doctor Kalembwana, a theme she has also discussed in other articles such as Shaving Witchcraft in Ulanga. Kunyolewa and the Catholic Church (in Abrahams 1994). Some of her points will be challenged in the present writing. Apart from academic literature, a number of different books deal with the mission and church history of Ubena and Ulanga. In 1991, in connection with the 100 years anniversary of the Lutheran Church in Southern Tanzania, Dar es Salaam University Press published Karne ya Kwanza ya Injili (First Century of the Gospel ) edited by Mdegella, Kilimhana and Kasumba, giving a short historic view of the work of mission and church in the first century. The same year, the Ulanga-Kilombero Diocese published a short pamphlet edited by pastor J. J. Matimbwi Ulanga na DLM Miaka 50 ya Injili KKKT (Ulanga and DLM years of the Gospel ELCT). This pamphlet gives a short, but fragmentary view partly on traditional religion and partly on the Lutheran mission and church history of Ulanga. The history of the Southern Diocese, Jubilii ya Miaka 100 ya Injili: Kumbukumbu (100 Years Jubilee of the Gospel: A Tribute, Köbler 1998), mentions a few things from the early history of Ulanga-Kilombero. Two more titles deserve to be mentioned, namely the Catholic publications Historia ya Jimbo la Mahenge (The History of the Mahenge Diocese, Kilumanga 1990) and Mwamuyinga, Mtawala wa Wahehe (Mwamuyinga, the Leader of Wahehe, Malangalila 1987). The former is a Catholic description of the history of the Catholic Church in Ulanga from its scanty beginning in 1898 up until around The latter explains common practice and history of Wahehe, the tribe that is said to have the same origin as Wabena Manga, who also have their own sub-paragraph in the book. Mission societies have in various publications given shorter accounts of their considerations on or work in Ulanga such as Joh. Hagner in Sett från Livingstonebergen (Hagner 1948:86-92), Thore Tafvelin in Ut i All Världen (Tafvelin and Lundmark 1974:186f), Frits Larsen in Mødet med Tanganyika (Larsen 1955: and Frode Thorngrenn in På Ordets grund (Thorngreen 1968:138-47). Finally, more missionaries have published minor books on Ulanga. In 1954, the first Danish missionary Niels Thygesen published a little book of 78 pages, Ulanga, based on the previous mentioned book of Culwick supplied with his own ob- 9

23 servations and with 20 pages about the new work initiated by DLM in The book served as an introduction to the friends of the Mission in Denmark. He later published his memories called I skove, bjerge dale. Oplevelser i Afrika (Thygesen 1980). In recent years, two other former Danish missionaries have published similar small popular publications, namely Med Gud i Afrika (Sørensen 2002) and Efter ordre fra en tropelæges dagbog (Olsen 2004) which, like Thygesen, give personal accounts of work and experiences in Ulanga. 1.2 Themes and Thesis To this end - the spreading of the Kingdom of God - missionaries have left everything, to work in remote areas and harsh climates, with enthusiasm and self sacrifice, but with perhaps insufficient perception of the spiritual and psychological depth of the people they sought to convert (Malishi 1987:X). With this quotation from the Tanzanian historian Lukas Malishi, combined with the introductory words on page 3 of the Bena bishop Zephania Mgeyekwa, I have introduced important aspects of the problems dealt with in this dissertation. People who had the best intention with their work, but not necessarily the best understanding of the context in which it was received have undertaken much mission service in Africa. A great deal of work has therefore been communication into a strange and more unknown context of traditional African culture and religion than many missionaries thought and had imagined. An Ulanga pastor came to a conclusion about missionary knowledge of a certain problem, where sorcery obviously was in play in the church, saying, I would say that they do not know anything about these things. Nothing? Yes, I think that they perhaps do not know anything at all (Maskini 2002b:8) 4. The historical outcome of this has been churches, which in their present identity are deeply influenced by the foreign mission, but also - and in many ways even more - are marked by the traditional religious and cultural context to which missionaries and local Christian leaders did and still do not give enough attention. In both popular and academic literature, African mission and church history has too often been portrayed from a western point of view. Sources have not been local and emic and the complexity of the problems has been described from a Western angle. This dissertation takes up the challenge from Professor Elisabeth Isichei of Otago, New Zealand who writes that there have been curiously few in-depth studies of the actual practice of village Christianity and its relationship with the host culture (1995:261). When describing missionaries view 3 A part of the book was published in 2001 by the missionary Ester Madsen in Swahili under the title Ulanga (Thygesen 2001). 4 Ningesema hawana ufahamu kabisa katika mambo hayo. Hawana? Ee naona kwamba labda hawana ufahamu kabisa 10

24 of the work of mission, I use their own European descriptions. In the account of the Lutheran mission and church history in Ulanga, both European and local Bena sources are used. However, in describing the Bena Manga history and traditional religion, and in describing the Bena understanding of Lutheran Christianity and its encounter and tension with traditional religion, I aim at giving the emic Bena perspective only. The field-research has been undertaken in the Ulanga-Kilombero Diocese where the Lutheran Church with its 17 congregations and approximately 19,000 Christians makes up 3-4% of the entire present population in valley. I will show that within the Ulanga context the traditional religion was of obviously no importance to the first European missionaries and local evangelists. Missionaries worked without any intensive effort to understand the local context. They communicated the gospel within the frame of their own worldview, when at the same time the traditional religion was basically constituting the worldview of the local Christians, and therefore very much influenced their reception of the non-contextualized European communication of the gospel and the incorporation of it into the traditional Bena worldview. The European and local Bena missionaries work has had a knock-on effect on how the present indigenous Lutheran church deals practically with traditional religion. Christianity and traditional religion were never brought into dialogue or an open face-to-face confrontation. Instead, traditional religion was officially rejected or at least neglected by the Lutheran Church. Missionaries neglecting the traditional religious context are very common in the African context, Professor Lamin Sanneh of Yale Divinity School told me in a discussion I had with him at a conference in Aarhus, May The fact that many missions have worked according to the tabula rasa concept asks for research on the consequences of this in history and especially in present Lutheran Christianity in Africa. Much debate has taken place among theologians on Christianity in Africa, not least on Christology and much effort has been used in placing Jesus Christ in the African context through contextualizing Christological titles and using African expressions such as Christ as brother-ancestor, proto-ancestor or initiator. This has been analysed by Assoc. Professor Jørn Henrik Olsen, Copenhagen in his dissertation Kristus i tropisk Afrika (Christ in Tropical Africa, Olsen 2001) where he deals with African academic works on Christ. It is, however, with the words of Professor Tormod Engelsviken of the Lutheran School of Theology in Oslo important to stress that these different pictures and terms which are used for Jesus, primarily concern functions and roles that he has in relation to society and individuals. They do not represent an ontological Christology, which can replace the classic Christology. It is, primarily, the way theologians try to actualise and vitalize for African Christians who Jesus is and what he does. Among the 11

25 masses of lay African Christians, these terms after all have not become generally accepted. Here the biblical terms are used with complete naturalness just as it happens in the church all over the world [my translation and italics] (Engelsviken 2000:22). There is thus a big difference between Western and African theologians work on Christology and common African Christians living with Christianity in the day to day struggle with the traditional context. The present dissertation describes how the laity relates to Jesus Christ, not in terms of his titles and the relation of these titles to the traditional religion, but in asking how local Christians in an emic perspective live Christianity out in an African context. Local contextual Christianity is not primarily the incorporation of material from traditional religion used in African Christological titles, but it is the actual encounter and tension between the traditional, but still vivid, religion of ancestors, sorcery etc. and Lutheran Christianity, as this Christianity is understood living and being lived in the contemporary context. Compared to academic theologians wrestling with African Christology on the academic level, local Lutherans represent a Christianity, which is lived out and wrestles with the complexity of life in the traditional African context. In this local context, there are no strict borderlines between pastors and laity in respect of how they practically deal with this encounter and tension. Partly because they all live on the front line, partly because many ordained pastors in the UKD are poorly educated in comparison with western trained African (and European) academicians who discuss Christological titles. Theology in academia and on grassroots-level varies a lot, but ought to be mutually inspiring and stimulating. Besides, most of the missionaries who worked in Ulanga had never been taught academic theology. Many were craftsmen and medical staff with only 5 months bible school training. They had come to preach the gospel through their practical work and through their lay preaching of the gospel. In fact, only 6 of more than 60 DLM-missionaries in Ulanga from 1949 to 2000 were theologians 5. The study is historic and systematic. The historical perspective is a description partly of the history of the Ulanga Wabena Manga and partly of the mission and church history of the Ulanga Lutheran Church. This perspective is expressed in the title Mission, Church, and Tradition in Context and it forms the introduction to the systematic perspective. This latter perspective focuses on, as the subtitle says, the emic perspectives on the encounter and tension between traditional Bena religion and Lutheran Christianity in Ulanga, where therefore both 5 An additional five missionaries had had a 2 years non-academic training in DLM s own mission school. 12

26 traditional religion and contemporary Lutheran Christianity is described 6. The research is concentrated on three areas. 1. Lutheran mission and church history with a focus on the period from 1949 when missionaries from abroad settled permanently in Ulanga till 1981 when the crisis about the election of the leadership of the new indigenous synod/diocese in Ulanga had found an interim solution. These years are fundamental in founding the shape, theology and Christianity of the present Lutheran Christians in Ulanga. From 1981 onwards, the history is only briefly surveyed (chapter 2). 2. Traditional Bena history, culture and religion emically described using Lutheran informants as sources to get their specific edition of the traditional religion, which they in their emic view are living with and fighting. In the present Ulanga Lutheran church, many tribes are represented, but in order to limit the material and because of the historical importance, Wabena Manga have had in the Ulanga Lutheran church history, the research is restricted to them. Another reason is that missionaries often did not distinguish between the different tribes of Ulanga. They knew Wabena as one of the most influential tribes, not least when it came to leadership of the Lutheran Church, but they never thought of a special Bena religion. For them, traditional religion was one great mass of heathenism 7 (chapter 3). 3. However, the central focus of the dissertation is the contemporary emic perspective on Bena Lutheran Christianity and the encounter and tension between this Christianity and the traditional Bena religion, where the following questions will be discussed: What is the shape of this Christianity? How does it deal with the different elements of the present traditional religion? And finally, what is the outcome of the encounter and tension, i.e. what is the character of present Lutheran identity between Christianity and traditional religion? (chapter 4). These three research areas lead to a concluding analytic and perspective-giving chapter 5, where the thesis, which has been the crux and the initiator of the research, will also be discussed. The thesis states: 6 One could ask why traditional Bena religion has not been thoroughly described by Ulanga Lutheran missionaries a long time ago, since Ulanga Christians for many years have stood in the encounter and tension between the new and the old religion. One explanation is the negligence of missionaries towards the traditional. Another is that sheer research in, not least, sorcery aspects of religion has been impeded by the general Ulanga opinion that the only recognized reason for researching it has been a wish to utilize it. Local Christians therefore never dared to do it; in fact, they had no intention of doing it. Only recently has doing such research been regarded as legal, and therefore Christians really urged me to do it (Dononda 2002:7, Mgeyekwa 2002:11, Mwasisima 2002:14, Hansen 2004:12). 7 Although the word heathenism (or heathens) today is replaced by the word traditionalists reflecting and respecting that the people concerned de facto have an indigenous religion, I sometimes keep the word, as in the 40s, 50s and 60s it was the actual word used by missionaries and Africans, when they talked about the non- Christian people. Even today, many African Lutheran Christians among my informants talk about heathens, wapagani (Maskini 2002a:20, Lyabonga 2002:4) when they mean people affiliated to the traditional religion. 13

27 Due to the historical course and problems in communicating the Gospel contextually, a parallel structure has gradually developed among the Lutheran Christians between traditional Bena religion and Christianity in belief, thinking and cultic mode of expression. For many Lutheran Wabena the present outcome is that both religions still, largely without interfering with one another or being mixed, contribute in forming their identity and worldview. Professor Robert J. Schreiter, Chicago talks about dual religious systems, where people simultaneously follow the religious practice of two distinct systems where, however, in practice one of the systems seems to have the lead. Regarding Africa, people primarily follow the Christian system, he writes, while at the same time they retain certain elements of the traditional (Schreiter 1985:145). In the African, at least Ulanga, empirical context, the opposite however seems to be the case. The Kenyan Catholic Professor Laurenti Magesa of Musoma, Tanzania talks about the persistence and continuity of African religion, which is very strong although some, by using David Barrett s statistics, try to give the impression that it is moving towards extinction. By quoting the Anglican professor John Mbiti from Kenya, Magesa says that when people become Christians, they come as people whose worldview is shaped by African religion (Magesa 1998:17). Changes may take place during this process, but mostly only on the surface level, as the traditional worldview still forms the basic concept and essential background, and still exerts deep influence on the Africans; much more than many Christian leaders and Western or Westernized academics care or dare to admit (Magesa 1998:18) giving a duality of African Christian life. African Christians operate with two thought-systems at one time, an official and a more popular one. Magesa calls it a form of syncretism between official Christianity and African Religion. In this dissertation, I will argue that this should better be labelled parallelism as the word syncretism is very negative towards both religions and it is, furthermore, not in accordance with what Ulanga Christians actually think and do. That is to say they use, I will argue, Christianity for gaining eternal life while at the same time using traditional means and religion to manage the present world (cf. Hiebert and Meneses 1995:167) more and less without mixing the two enterprises. 14