Alice Lenshina: the African Messiah Cynthia T. Cook, PhD

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1 Alice Lenshina: the African Messiah Cynthia T. Cook, PhD Patriarchy has always been a universal phenomenon; males dominate women and children. Matriarchy may never have existed. However, women have always been able to exert some degree of power or control over women, children, and sometimes men. This domination may take the form of parental or traditional authority or rites of passage. Rites of passage being the socialization process that every young girl or woman must go through before she will be allowed to get married or considered an adult, e.g. female circumcision/genital mutilation/cutting or some other ritual. It is women who perform these rituals or procedures sometimes via secret societies; and women who have the most to lose when these rituals are stopped, e.g. power over young women and girls via female genital mutilation or the use of skilled health attendants to replace traditional birth attendants for childbirth. Max Weber s definition of power is the ability to force someone to do something even against their will. Power can be legitimate, coercive, or persuasive. The type of power that women wield is usually persuasive. Very few women have legitimately attained power via tradition or rational legal; they must rely on their charismatic or persuasive ability. Charismatic authority usually manifests itself in the form of a spiritual vision or prophecy. A spiritual vision is something that cannot be confirmed or verified. You must take it on faith that the person has had the experience; that they have communicated with God, gods, or the ancestors and that the message they received is legitimate. The person who has received the message feels obligated to share it with his or her community. The sharing and the perceived legitimating of the message results in the receiver being perceived as a saint or prophet; s/he has been bestowed with charisma, the gift of grace. Unfortunately these visions or prophecies have had dire consequences for some women. For example, the 15 th century St. Joan of Arc at the age of 12 claimed to have had a vision or heard voices from God. The voices told her to assemble an army and rescue Charles VII from the English. She was successful in rescuing her king but was later captured by the English and burnt as a witch. Nongqawuse, a 15 year old girl in 19 th century South Africa, also claimed to have had a vision. She was visited by the ancestors who told her to tell the Xhosa to kill their cattle, burn the crop, and not plant any new seed. The ancestors would then come to help the Xhosa reclaim their land from the Europeans. She also claimed the ancestors would make them invincible to bullets and provide them with food. Unfortunately, the prophecy was not fulfilled and many Xhosa died of starvation. The British offered no support, just took the opportunity to confiscate their land. Alice Lenshina of Zambia also had a vision, one that resulted in her founding the first African church. The Lumpa church of Zambia was founded by Africans, operated by Africans, for Africans. Lenshina, the African messiah, had over 100,000 followers, many of whom died for this new religion. My current research is on Alice Lenshina, a Bemba woman who died four times before God bestowed the gift of grace, charisma, upon her. Like Joan of Arc, she mobilized an army,

2 not for a king but for Christ. However, like Nongqawuse, her prophecy had dire consequences. Over 350 Lumpa church members were killed in clashes with the new independent government of Kenneth Kaunda. Lenshina had charisma; what Max Weber called the Gift of God. At the age of 33 she contracted cerebral malaria that resulted in her being unconscious for several days. The people of her village thought she was dying when she made a miraculous recovery. She told them that during her "death" she had met Jesus Christ who had sent her back to earth with a message (Hinfelaar 1991). Alice Mulenga Lubusha was born in 1924 at Chimba Village in Chinsali district but grew up in the village of Kasomo. She was married to Petros Chitankwa Mulenga, her second husband; the first one died from unknown causes (Mwala Kalauka 2008). Her father was the grandson of a Bemba chief who served as District Messenger and a soldier in the British colonial government; Alice Lenshina was royalty, of noble birth. However, both she and her husband were uneducated (Hudson 1999), and neither were part of the Christian church before her vision (Binsberen 1981). However, the information regarding her religious education, background, and vision are contradictory. According to Hudson (1999), Alice Lenshina claimed that she and died four times, each time rising again. The fourth time she recovered she went to the river where she met Jesus Christ who gave her a message for they of the whiteness. Lenshina interpreted this as that she should consult with the ministers at the Lubwa Mission. However, the Catholic priests were known as the White fathers, but she did not consult them. She chose to share her vision with the Reverend Fergus Macpherson, a member of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland at Lubwa mission. Reverend Macpherson did not question the veracity of her story; he acknowledged her gift and asked her to join the Church. She was baptized and given the Christian name Alice (Mwala Kalaluka 2008). Hudson (1999) tells us that additional sources claim that she was picking mushrooms in the bush and did not return to her village for two days. When she did, she told the people that she had seen the Lord who had taught her about the book of life; hymns or poems that she should share with her people. She showed Reverend Macpherson the yellow stain on her hand where the book had been laid. After the vision, Alice Mulenga Lubusha became known as Alice Lenshina; lenshina meaning queen in Bemba. While a member of the Church of Scotland, Lenshina continued to share her vision and her message with anyone who would listen. She also began baptizing people to rid them of witchcraft. This practice caused tension in the church since the church did not acknowledge the existence of witchcraft. In 1955 Lenshina broke away from Lubwa Mission and formed the Lumpa Church, lumpa meaning to excel in Bemba. It was rumored that the break up was over money; that Lenshina or some of her followers received money from baptizing or preaching that she or her ministers refused to share with the mission. They were accused of stealing from the church. The Lubwa Mission joined with the White Fathers, the Catholic Church, in declaring Lenshina a

3 heretic. Nevertheless, when she left the mission all of the new members, and some of the old, went with her, including Kenneth Kaunda s eldest brother and mother. Lubwa Mission had three thousand members before her separation, after her separation they had only 400 (Roberts 1970). Lenshina was a sangoma. She had been ill, recovered via a vision, had a prophecy, was eradicating witchcraft, and had the ability to identify anyone who became too powerful as a witch or sorcerer. Although, she did not use her power in this capacity; her religious movement and large following was still considered a threat to the United National Independence Party (UNIP), the political party of Kenneth Kaunda. Lenshina had the numbers to challenge Kaunda s party, to form her own party, or to endorse the opposition; she chose none of the above. She could have challenged Kaunda s right to head the UNIP; he was not a Bemba but had been brought up among them (Bemba ND). In 1964 when Kaunda became prime minister and president, citizenship or ethnicity was not the criteria to hold office. Lenshina s new church was not only a threat to the colonial government and the UNIP but to other churches. She competed with the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland for members. In fact she had more members than both churches combined. Her advantage for recruitment was that she acknowledged that witchcraft existed and offered redemption to those who would give up the practice, i.e. baptistism. In addition, the Lumpa Church was an African church, founded by Africans, supported by Africans, and operated by Africans; Europeans were not in charge (Colson 1995). By 1958 the Lumpa church had disassociated itself from the Northern Rhodesia government and the local chiefs. Some Lumpa members had confiscated land or squatted without getting permission from the chiefs, they also refused to pay taxes or send their children to school. Lumpas claimed that they were being harassed by member of the UNIP because they would not become card paying members. With or without the support of the Lenshina, the UNIP won the election and Kenneth Kaunda became the prime minister of Northern Rhodesia in January 1964, and the first president of Zambia in October. Kenneth Kaunda s eldest brother, Robert Kaunda, and mother, Helen, were members of Lenshina s church. Kenneth Kaunda was from the same village as Alice; his father David Kaunda, was sent by the Livington Mission of the United Church of Scotland to open the Lubwa Mission in 1904 (Colson 1995). The purpose of the mission was to educate the Bemba males, and a few females, many of whom became the leaders in the independence movement, including Kaunda. However, Lenshina was not part of this group. Although Alice had started school with Kenneth Kaunda, she did not finish or go to university. The Lubwa Mission attempted to educate her after her vision. However, Lenshina perceived her role as much more than being a pupil. She had a message for her people; it was different message from the white churches. In a sense she was rejecting modernization and the new government of the UNIP while simultaneously rejecting traditionalism by denouncing witchcraft, polygamy, and alcoholism. In its place she substituted a new religion that was a syncretism of the old and new.

4 Her Sione Cathedral was one of the largest churches built in Zambia. It was paid for by the donations and offerings from the congregation and rumored that at the opening ceremony Christ would appear; needless to say many people were disappointed. Lenshina is recruiting her church members from the same community that Kaunda is seeking political support. This is the community where she and Kenneth Kaunda grew up, where he is seeking for his party, Zambia independence, and his presidential candidacy. Perhaps, the UNIP members thought it only natural for them to have the support of Lenshina s 100,000 members since the party leader s mother and brother were part of her congregation. The tension between the Lumpa Church and the UNIP intensified once Kaunda became prime minister in Probably the most difficult decision that he had to make at the dawn of Zambia independence in August of 1964 was to order an attack on the Lumpa church to put an end to the conflict. Clashes between the Lumpa members, the Northern Rhodesia authorities, and UNIP had been occurring periodically since When the UNIP get control of the government in 1962, Lumpa church members perceive the new government as the enemy. Lenshina began preaching isolationism and separatism. Lumpa church members started new villages and refused to send their children to school, to pay taxes, and to vaccinate children against smallpox. When asked to return to their original villages by the now President Kaunda, they refuse. They became squatters; they did not have permission from the chiefs to set up new villages. Moreover, they refused to cooperate with Kenneth Kaunda s new government. In 1964 while Kaunda is still prime minister, the Lumpa began disseminating millennial prophecies: people were being told not to plant crops, to slaughter and eat their cattle; that food would be coming from the heavens, from the ancestors. To discourage them from joining Kaunda s party, Lumpa members were told if they had a UNIP card, they would not get into heaven. People began leaving the villages to separate themselves from the infidels, the nonbelievers. Because they had not farmed, they had no food; so they began to steal from the UNIP which escalated the tension between the two groups. Right before Kaunda assumed the prime minister position in January of 1964 he met with Lenshina to ease the tension between the Lumpa followers and the UNIP. He asked Lumpa members to return to their villages. However, on June 25, 1964 a Lumpa boy was reprimanded by his UNIP uncle for not attending school (Bemba are a matrilineal culture, mother's brother has the right to discipline his nephew). The boy complained to his Lumpa friends who ransacked the uncle s village. Lenshina had forbidden the children to go to school, yet the Kaunda government was building schools and requiring all children to attend. The police went to the Lumpa village on June 26th to arrest the culprits who attacked the uncle s village. On their way back to the station...they met a vehicle which took eight of the prisoners, the Sergeant, and two constables to Chinsali, leaving the remaining five prisoners with a single Constable. A large group of Lumpas rescued the prisoners. The Constable had to surrender them, as he was hopelessly outnumbered. He reported to Chinsali. The Officer in charge of police, Senior Inspector Ellis, immediately went to the area, accompanied by Assistant

5 Inspector Lester and Shimulopwe, Detective Inspector Hopwood, and ten armed men. When they arrived in the village, they saw four Lumpas sitting on the ground, each with a bundle of spears. One cried Jericho, and another aimed a spear at the policemen. Senior Inspector Ellis ordered his men to fire, and the spearman was shot dead. (Hudson 1999 p. 38) This is the beginning of the Lumpa Revolt, the Zambian civil war. It starts over the disciplining of a young boy by his uncle, a legitimate act. On July 24, 1964 when government officials attempted to remove Lumpa members from an unauthorized village, two officers are killed, a European police inspector and an African constable. On July 25, 1964 when the district commissioner tried to retrieve their bodies, they are met with spears, arrows, and bullets. After a couple of hours of fighting, between 22 and 27 Lumpas are dead and 15 wounded (Roberts 1970, Hudson 1999). On July 27 th a police patrol, while inspecting damaged bridges and roads, is attacked by approximately one hundred armed Lumpas. These skirmishes go on until August 11, 1964 when Alice Lenshina surrenders. However, on October 10th, approximately 14 days before Kaunda assumes the presidency there is one more battle. Sixty lumpas were killed and eight wounded. The official final count for the Lumpa Revolt or the Zambian civil war was: 710 people dead, 401 wounded. These numbers included Lumpas, police, soldiers, and non-lumpa villagers. However, more than half of the people killed in this war were Lumpa, they were no match for government and police weaponry or skill. Alice Lenshina was put under house arrest for 11 years; many of her followers fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The new government under Kenneth Kaunda, the UNIP, had won. They had established themselves as the legal authority for all of Zambia. The Lumpa movement had been squashed. Bemba children could go to school, chiefs could regain control over their land, and the first truly Christian African religion no longer had their Black messiah. Alice Lenshina was held in detention with her husband until 1975 when she was released by President Kaunda. Lenshina never had a trial. Her husband died in 1972 while in detention. All of her churches were shut down and in 1970 Kaunda order the destruction of the Sione Cathedral. After being released in 1975 she was caught preaching in a church and put under house arrest until her death in References Bemba. Encyclopedia.com/topic/Bemba.aspx retrieved on 12/22/2010. Colson, Elizabeth. Book Review 1995 At Ipenburg All Good Men: The Development of Lubwa Mission, Chinsali, Zambia, (Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 1992) Hinfelaar, Hugo Women s Revolt: the Lumpa Church of Lenshina Mulenga in the 1950s Journal of Religion in Africa 21:2: Hudson, John A Time to Mourn: A Personal Account of the 1964 Lumpa Church Revolt in Zambia. Lusaka, Book World Publishers. Kalaluka, Mwala Retracing the Lumpa Church. Htttp://maravi.blogspot.com/2008/05/retracing-lumpa-church.html. Retrieved on 11/18/2010.

6 Robersts, Andrew D The Lumpa Church of Alice Lenshina in Protest and Power in Black Africa edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Ali A. Mazru. New York, Oxford University Press Van Binsberen, Wim M.J Religious Innovation and Political Conflict in Zambia: A Contribution to the Interpretation of the Lumpa Rising. African Perspectives 2: Cynthia T. Cook is writing a book on Alice Lenshina please direct all comments and corrections to ccook58110@aol.com.