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As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

I was very glad when the Program Committee offered me this paper. In my undergraduate days, my major was Anthropology, specifically the Anthropology of Religion. Anthropology captured my imagination as a young adult. I could imagine myself as Bronislaw Malinowski traveling to Melanesia to study the exotic practices of far off cultures. But I received my call to ministry at about that time. While some of the principles of Anthropology have been useful in ministry, it wasn’t until this paper that all of that reading seemed to have a meaningful purpose. This felt like my different intellectual interests had the opportunity to come together at long last.

Culture is all around us. It penetrates us deep into our minds. Culture is how we make sense of the world around us. It gives us an ordering principle to the “stuff” of the world. It creates, quite literally a worldview, or a “sacred canopy,” in the words of sociologist Peter Berger.1 Often we are not aware of our culture until it is questioned. Only by coming into contact with another culture do we realize the contours of our own worldview. This was why Malinowski’s participant observation method was so powerful and insightful.2 Indeed, anthropologists like Roy Rappaport assert that religion in general, and ritual specifically, is the “crucible” in which culture emerges.3 The myths and ritual practices within a culture are often the easiest to communicate and therefore study. Culture, in addition to being a worldview inside our minds, is also a conversation. Culture is not something that one person has by themselves – it is inherently social. Hence Anthropology’s classification as a social science.

1 Sacred Canopy; Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion by Berger, Peter. p. 82 The Sexual Life of Savages in Northwestern Melanesia by Malinowski, Bronislaw. Introduction3 The Obvious Aspects of Ritual In Ecology, Meaning and Religion by Rappaport, Roy. p. 174

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In the case of the present paper and its methodology, that presents a bit of a problem. On the one hand I am charged with commenting on African ritual and social structure. This is almost exclusively the purview of Anthropology as a discipline. However, the source of those ritual descriptions reside in two works of fiction. Needless to say, anthropologists are accustomed to analyzing the rituals of actual people, not fictitious ones. The rituals described in The River Between and Things Fall Apart are vague at best. There is no “thick description” of the ritual practice as Clifford Geertz would hope to see.4 Thus there has to be more than a little bit of an imaginative leap between social science and fiction. To the extent that it is possible, I will be treating these two novels as narrative interpretations of their respective cultures. I call this “Imaginative Anthropology.”

Hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies

One theme that both novels share is the clash of cultures. Although they take place on opposite ends of the African continent, both novels center on the encounter of native African cultures with Western European culture. Sadly the novels are frustratingly vague on the specifics. As best as I can tell, The River Between takes place in rural Kenya. The culture in Things Fall Apart is completely unknown until the last line of the novel, which indicates that it was in West Africa. I detected no indication of which Western cultures these tribes encountered other than they were Christian. The River Between made references to the Virgin Mary, which would lead us to believe that Livingstone was a Catholic missionary. Beyond these general observations, we must rely upon the novel’s descriptions to draw further conclusions.

Since both novels are really about cultures meeting each other, and the central conflicts of both novels stem from the conflict of those 4 Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. By Geertz, Clifford. pp. 3-30

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encounters, a word should be said about cultural interaction, both from an anthropological perspective and historical one. Far too often the assumption is made that culture is in some way monolithic or static. Perhaps this view comes from early education in geography where various religions and cultures seem to reside in specific countries or regions. It is easy to draw conclusions from these overly simplistic models that cultures have a specific boundary where they begin and end.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this can be found in the early 20th century when Anthropology as a discipline was still in its adolescence. During that time, one of the goals of Anthropology was to discern and articulate the “essence” of a particular culture. During World War Two, the United States government asked one of the foremost anthropologists of the time, Ruth Benedict, to produce a study of Japanese culture. This was an attempt to understand Japan, their outlook on the war and the symbolic nature of the Emperor. Her book The Chrysanthemum   and the Sword named various characteristics of Japanese culture. For example that it is “shame” based rather than “guilt” based.5 While this study was praised at the time, our theory of what culture is, has evolved a great deal.

To say that shame is in some sense the essence, or one of the essences, of Japanese culture is to conceal as much as it reveals. Later critics point out that the comparison between Japanese and American cultures was inherently bias. The essence of American culture seemed to be consistently superior to the essence of Japanese culture. Such essences were usually more a function of the interpretation of the anthropologist rather than the narrative of the native informants. To some degree this is inevitable, but the monolithic approach exacerbates this phenomenon.

In contrast to this theory is a more postmodern approach to culture. Culture is not a monolithic thing whose essence can be dissected and removed for study. Culture is a conversation, and as such is messy. It is a 5 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Benedict, Ruth. pp. 43ff

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hard thing to grasp. Yet it is the messiness of culture that makes it adaptable and allows it to spread. By this way of thinking, there is no static “American” culture per se. There is a worldview that is commonly shared perhaps, but it is constantly evolving as it comes into contact with new people and other cultures.6

Indeed there may be no better example of this than my new home town of San Antonio Texas. Being born and raised in southeast Michigan, I sometimes feel like an anthropologist studying this new culture in which I find myself! The argument could be made that San Antonio is quintessentially Texas. In the heart of the city is Texas’ most prized symbol: the Alamo. I have lived there a year and half, and I am still not sure I get it. But to Texans the Alamo is like Bunker Hill, Thermopylae and the Wailing Wall all rolled into one. If one were to visit the Alamo you are as likely to meet someone from a foreign country as you are a Texan.7

For all of its pride as a symbol of Texas independence, the population of San Antonio is over fifty percent Hispanic. Only two hours from Laredo and the Mexican border; Mexican culture, language, religion, and food dominates San Antonio. Politically, culturally, even in the arena of entertainment, what is important to Mexico seeps into San Antonio. Add to that the presence of two large military bases, and one finds a military culture in the city that is both unique and somewhat ironic. For all of the bravado of Texas possibly leaving the union, and the glorification of the Alamo as a symbol of Texas independence, practically speaking it would be rather difficult in San Antonio given the dominance of the US Army and Air Force in the community.

These three cultural strands: Texas independence in the form of the Alamo, the dominance of Mexican language and culture, and the military

6 Postmodernist Anthropology, Subjectivity, and Science; a Modernist Critique by Spiro, Melford E. pp. 768-775.7 This is based on my anecdotal sample of how many tourists who have asked me to take their picture in front of the Alamo chapel as I walk by.

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are just three things that make the city unique. More examples could be listed. I am sure given time, all of us could produce similar lists of the different conversations that happen in the communities we serve that form the unique culture of each place. A single essence is not to be found because the conversation never ends. It continues and adapts to new encounters. German and Czech immigrants to south Texas left their mark too. They met a new era, a new group of people perhaps with a new worldview, and the culture changed. Michele Foucault called this the “Archeology of Ideas” that make each place unique.8

One can see this in Waiyaki, the protagonist in The River Between. His goal, indeed perhaps it was his calling, was to bring Western education, basic reading, writing and arithmetic, to the native sons and daughters of the valley. When European culture first comes into contact with the valley residents, education was tied inextricably to the Christian religion. This was not uncommon of course. Many missionaries started schools all over the world both for the purpose of education and conversion. In the mind of missionaries such as Livingstone, the two go together, and if the parents of the valley want their children to have a Western education, then they have to at least expose their children to the Christian religion if not outright convert to it.

Waiyaki is different because he is able to absorb Western education while resisting Western religion. His vision is that education can help his people become unified.9 However, he wants to preserve the religious and cultural traditions of his ancestors. One might say that Waiyaki’s vision is innovative. He understands that when two cultures come together they interact and intermingle in such a way that they create a third thing that is more than the sum of its parts. His hope was that this new culture could act as a bridge between those who revered the traditions of the village and those who had adopted Christianity and its way of life. Although he was 8 The Order of Things; An Archeology of the Human Sciences by Foucault, Michel. p. 3739 The River Between by Thiong’o, Ngugi. Chapter Twenty-Three

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unsuccessful in his project, and presumably it cost him his life, his vision entailed a rather sophisticated understanding of how culture works or could work.

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you

Heretofore I have been speaking of culture and social structure in broad terms. This has been in service to providing background and context to the argument presented in this paper. However the two novels The River Between and Things Fall Apart provide specific examples of rituals performing the larger functions I have been discussing. In this section I will focus on the ritual of circumcision described in The River Between. In the next section I will examine Things Fall Apart.

In The River Between the ritual of central concern throughout the novel is circumcision for both males and females. Circumcision is presented as a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood.10 The novel devotes a good deal of time presenting the significance of female circumcision, particularly within the native religion of the valley people. Sadly the novel is vague on the details of the ritual itself, but there are some hints we can use for our Imaginative Anthropology.

Most common of course, is male circumcision. Waiyaki gives a brief first person account of what it is like to undergo the ritual.11 It was unclear whether the foreskin was fully removed or whether a small incision was made. In either case, he describes in vivid detail the pain of the ritual, and that being able to withstand the pain was part of the process of becoming a man. He also mentions going among the elders of the tribe and talking about what it means to be a mature adult. Both the ritual, and the communal element of male circumcision, are fairly consistent with most

10 Ibid. Chapter Nine11 Ibid. Chapter Ten

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anthropological accounts of this rite of passage within native African cultures.

What is certainly more difficult is female circumcision. While the novel does an excellent job of raising the significance of circumcision, even among females, it is again a bit unclear as to what was precisely involved. Reading between the lines it appears that Muthoni succumbed to infection following the ritual.12 This leads us to believe that it was probably what anthropologists call phase two genital mutilation in which the clitoris is removed with a sharp object without the benefit of either anesthesia or antibiotics. In addition to being an extraordinarily painful procedure, it runs the risk of death by infection in much the same way as the novel describes it.

Genital mutilation is a highly controversial practice.13 It is, thankfully, an uncommon practice and one that probably becomes rarer with each passing year. Unlike what the novel presents, it is usually associated with the practice of Islam. It has been known to occur in Islamic countries in Arabia in addition to Muslim cultures in Africa. The internal symbolic rationale, or the “native explanation” for female circumcision, is that by removing the clitoris women are less likely to be unfaithful to their husbands. This makes them more desirable for marriage, according to the cultures which practice this. Female circumcision is by no means required or advocated within the Quran or other authoritative Muslim scriptures and teachings. It is more likely a cultural practice that received a kind of Islamic veneer when Islam was adopted as the predominant religion. This is yet another example of cultures meeting each other and something new arising out of the two.

Another practice that is often mentioned in the same breath as female genital mutilation is bride fattening. Indeed, the two practices are often

12 Ibid. Chapter Eleven13 African Rituals by Grillo, Laura S. pp. 125-126

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performed in tandem. Bride fattening is not particularly common either, and now it is mostly voluntary. However, in West African countries such as Uganda and Mauritania the beauty standards for women are very different than most Western countries. Obesity is not only seen as the ultimate beauty goal, but it is encouraged among young girls. Part of the rite of passage is to have adolescent girls confined to a hut for anywhere from three to twelve months. During that time an older woman, typically paid by the girl’s family, instructs her mentee on how to run a domestic house, and teaches her native songs and cultural stories. The girl also eats a diet that would make the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers push away from the table! The girl is isolated from others, and does nothing other than eat and sleep. She emerges from the hut at times having doubled her original weight. Depending on how fat she gets or where on her body the fat has accumulated, determines the price ultimately paid to the woman who has fed her.14

I share this practice for two reasons. One it is often associated with female circumcision. More importantly I think it is a practice that makes the point The River Between was trying to make better than female circumcision does. Fattened brides, and obese women in general, are viewed as a pro-Africa symbol of pride. Girls who wish to be thin because of sports, health, or beauty are looked down upon. It is as if they have “sold out” so to speak to Western standards of beauty. To put it in broad terms: a fattened bride is the pride of West Africa, whereas a skinny girl has traded in her heritage so that she can conform to the ever encroaching West.

The River Between makes a similar argument about female circumcision. The native rationale for it is that you are not a “woman” unless you have been circumcised. Nakayama felt that Waiyaki would never marry her because she was uncircumcised.15 In the eyes of the tribe,

14 Eat, Eat, Eat if You Want to be Loved in Africa by Lamb, Christina. The Sunday Telegraph. March 25, 200115 Thiong’o. Chapter Twenty-Four

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though not of the Christians, she would still be considered a girl. For both men and women, circumcision is literally a rite of passage.

Roy Rappaport makes some keen observations on circumcision as an example of the function of symbols within a ritual and within a ritual cycle. Building on the work of Arnold van Gennep’s Rites de Passage, Rappaport notes that adolescence is a confusing time in which one is no longer a child and not-yet-an-adult.16 There are numerous examples of teenagers no longer being children. Physically they are very close to full adulthood. Yet mentally, emotionally, and spiritually they lack maturity. Adolescents know far too little about the world they will face as adults; particularly in cultures where information is spread orally from elders. Hunting, gathering, raising children; these are all skills that are necessary for survival. Rituals and myths are also passed down from one generation to the next. All this is very complex and messy. How does one know when one has made the transition?

Circumcision, dealing as it does with reproductive organs, is meant to have symbolic association with reproduction and sexual intercourse. Using Charles Pierce’s typology of symbols, Rappaport would say that circumcision is in one respect an icon. Icons are symbols that in some way resemble the things they symbolize. However a true rite of passage is also sign; a symbol that participates in the thing it symbolizes. Meaning that undergoing a ritual such as circumcision changes the world for that person. The “state of affairs” as Rappaport puts it, is altered.17 From the moment the ritual is implemented, the person no longer views themselves as a child but rather as an adult. More importantly, the tribe now views that person as either a mature man or a woman as the case may be. Circumcision is a sign, a symbol that changes the state of affairs. You view yourself as an adult and the world views you the same way.18 The River Between captures

16 Rappaport. pp. 186-18717 Ibid pp. 198-19918 Grillo pp. 123-124

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this very elegantly in its Romeo and Juliet tale of two lovers divided by the two cultures they represent.

And yet, circumcision, especially for females, is a difficult thing to come to terms with when Western culture meets native African culture. The River Between is quite eloquent in making the argument for the practice: it is a point of African pride and tradition. Female circumcision is something that belongs to Africa and is in some sense “pure” of Western influence. This is significant in a continent that was dominated by Western powers during the Imperial age of the 19th century. That said, concerns about a woman’s health and well-being are appropriate. Medical arguments could, and often are, made against the practice of fattening brides as well.19

This is to say nothing of the feminist argument against female circumcision and bride fattening. All concerns about health aside for the moment, in both cases these are examples of women’s bodies being manipulated and mutilated, for the comfort, benefit, and sexual arousal of men. These are not subtle, or not-so-subtle, microagressions of well-meaning but ignorant men. This is the intentional destruction of the female body, regardless of the rationale one makes for it.

Female circumcision has symbolic meaning for both native African and Western cultures. This is clearly so in the novel The River Between. It is true in real life as well. From the perspective of Africa, female circumcision could be seen as a way in which girls are able to define themselves as women, and the tribe is able to identify them as such. From the perspective of the West, it is an unhealthy, dangerous practice that at best diminishes the girl’s quality of life and at worst threatens her life.20 It is also another example of patriarchy determining the course and nature of the female body regardless of the woman’s opinion. It is interesting to observe and theorize about the large macro processes of how cultures 19 Girls Being Force Fed for Marriage as Fattening Farms Revived by Smith, Alex Duval. The Guardian. February 28, 200920 Grillo pp. 123-124

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merge and come together, or reject each other. However, specific examples such as female circumcision, urge us to think in a deeper and more nuanced way about the process of how cultures meet and interact.

I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become

If The River Between was Africa’s answer to Romeo and Juliet, then Things Fall Apart is Africa’s answer to Pat Conroy’s The Great Santini! Of the two novels, Things Fall Apart portrays a much fuller picture of the ritual practices of a West African agricultural society. Although it is given no formal name, the religion is clearly animistic and probably related to the Yoruba ritual cycle that is prevalent in West Africa. However, since it is not specifically named as Yoruba, I will go with the more general classification of West African animism.21

A comprehensive description of animism, both in real life and throughout the novel, would exhaust the space allotted to me. Generally speaking, animism is a religion that deals with the activity of spirits, both local and cosmic. Often these spirits are associated with various natural phenomenon, and occasionally there are myths told of significant spirits and deities within the native pantheon.22

There are two major features of animism that figure prominently in Things Fall Apart. They are spirit possession and witchcraft. I will limit myself to these two anthropological phenomena in my interpretation of the novel.

21 Ibid p. 11722 The founder of Cultural Anthropology as a discipline was Edward Burnett Tyler. Tyler looked down on animism as a primitive, in every sense of the word, form of religion. According to him, later “evolutionary” developments in religion subsumed or superseded animism as human beings supposedly became more rational. However this evolutionary model is clearly biased, and is no longer followed by anthropologists today.

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Perhaps the clearest example of spirit possession occurs when the elders of the village don masks and dance as the egwugwu.23 These elders commune with the spirits in order to gain wisdom in order to discern the wisest course of action for the tribe. Although native African tribes don’t have the level of social stratification of industrial societies, there is some. Typically elders are listened to and consulted for guidance. In some cultures, men wield slightly greater influence than women because of their physical prowess in hunting, which is an honored and privileged activity. In the case of Things Fall Apart growing yams, agriculture, is the most honored activity because it leads directly to the survival of oneself and one’s family. Certainly the characters within the novel define male superiority or inferiority in terms of agricultural effectiveness.24

Thus it is the male farmers who don the masks, to commune with the spirits, and provide guidance to the village. However this is more than mere communication; the spirits inhabit the dancers such that those who observe the dance understand that they are watching the work of the spirits themselves. Much is made of African dancing and ritual performance.25 Rather than preaching sermons and singing hymns as one might in Christian rituals, African rituals involve dancing, drumming, and elaborate masks with symbols painted or carved into them. The complex interaction between the visual presentation of the masks and the dance, the auditory experience of the music, and the beat of the drums that mimic the heartbeat of the womb come together to create a kind of oceanic religious experience for the participants. Taken together they present a “forest of symbols” as Victor Turner put it.26

While there are perhaps some analogies to the “forest of symbols” that could be found in Western religion, it occurs to me that our closest

23 Things Fall Apart by Achebe, Chinua. Chapter Ten24 Ibid. Chapter Seven25 Grillo pp. 114-12126 The Forest of Symbols; Aspects of Ndembu Ritual by Turner, Victor. pp. 280-298.

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experience to this is perhaps in the form of entertainment. African dance involves symbols that have meaning only to those who have been initiated. A snake, for example, may just be a snake to the casual observer, but to one who has been initiated into the myths and legends of the snake goddess, the image of a snake mask carries additional weight and meaning.27

This is not unlike what Marvel does in its movies and TV programs. In the show Luke Cage, one can watch it as a crime drama set in Harlem. However, there is a moment, shortly after obtaining his powers and escaping prison, when Luke Cage is on the run. He still has the arm bands and head gear from the machine on which they experimented on him. Looking for clothes he finds a blue pair of pants and yellow shirt. For a moment, the actor Michael Colter who plays Luke Cage is dressed exactly as the character first appeared in 1972. This is a ridiculous look of course, and he quickly takes the costume off; but it is worn just long enough to thrill the comic book fans who are in the know. For them, that minute of seeing Luke Cage as he originally appeared in the comics long ago was a moment of recognition. It was scintillating – they “got it” because they were initiated into the myths, art, and legends of Marvel in the 1970s.

And they are not the only ones. Every episode of Luke Cage gets its title from a different Gang Starr song. The main villain has a painting of Notorious B.I.G. in his office wearing a crown. The rap artist Method Man has a cameo, as does Sway, a real life radio personality. Comic book fans aren’t the only ones who were able to discern and identify layers and levels of meaning. Hip hop enthusiasts who are knowledgeable about the art, the music, and even the fashion of hip hop and rap can find deeper messages and meaning in the story. Most notably, Luke Cage frequently wears a hoodie, which the creator of the show confirmed, was a direct reference to Treyvon Martin. One of Luke Cage’s powers is that he has unbreakable skin, and is therefore impervious to knives and bullets. It is a powerful

27 Such as in West African Vodun. Grillo p. 118

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image to have a black man wear a hoodie, riddled with bullet holes, yet emerge unharmed. Cheo Hodari Coker, the creator of the Luke Cage show, is explicit in making a statement about police violence and Black Lives Matter – in the context of a superhero show!28 These layers of symbolic meaning that reveal themselves to comic book and hip hop enthusiasts respectively, are examples of Turner’s “forest of symbols” that are layered into African rituals.29

Through the use of a “forest of symbols,” a dance is no longer merely a dance. It is an entire commentary on the nature of the tribe, the world in which the tribe finds itself, the tradition and stories of the tribe, and how it is to relate to the spirit world and heed its guidance.30 Unpacking all of those symbols in discursive language doesn’t do it justice. It is to be danced. It is experienced, in part at the noetic level, but mainly as a connection to the numinous.

The other way in which humans come into contact with the spirits in West African animism is through witchcraft. Examples of this abound in Things Fall Apart. In chapter two we are told about the village Umuofia, where most of the action takes place:

“Umuofia was feared by all its neighbors. It was powerful in war and in magic, and its priests and medicine men were feared in all the surrounding country. Its most potent war-machine was as old as the clan itself. Nobody knew how old. But on one point there was general agreement – the active principle in that medicine had been an old woman with one leg. In fact, the medicine itself was called agadinwayi, or old woman. It had its shrine in the center of Umuofia, in a cleared spot. And if anybody was so foolhardy as to pass by the shrine after dusk he was sure to see the old woman hopping about.”31

28 ‘Luke Cage’ Creator on Black Lives Matter and Bringing the N-Word to the MCU by Leon, Melissa. The Daily Beast. September 30, 201629 Those who are initiated into the forest of symbols known as “80s Pop Songs” will recognize all of the section titles of this paper as lyrics from the song “Africa” by Toto.30 Myth in Primitive Psychology In Magic, Science and Religion by Malinowski, Bronislaw. pp. 120-12631 Achebe. Chapter Two

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Magic is the manipulation of the spirit world to bring about desired ends in the material world.32 This power is not open to all individuals equally. Typically there is some designated person or group of people who are believed to be more in touch with the spirit world than others. When people have problems they consult with these “witches” or “medicine men.” E.E. Evans-Pritchard wrote perhaps the magnum opus on African animism in his book Nuer Religion. The Nuer of East Africa call totemic spirits “tiet.” He writes:

“I was told that some of the tiet dala [a specific category of spirits] functions are to aid a man to recover cattle by performing a rite to make the herdsmen inattentive, to aid a man to recover a runaway wife, to win female favors, to exact vengeance in blood-feud, and to avoid enemy spears in fighting. Another sort of spirit is the tiet me ngwet. She – all I heard of were women – is a leech who removes objects from the bodies of sick persons which have been put there by a ‘witch’ or possessor of the evil eye. Other sorts of tiet [spirits] treat barren women, constipated children, impotent men, and sick calves; and there may yet be others with minor skills.”33

The usefulness of these spirits goes well beyond the utilitarian. Spirits are a part of the “sacred canopy” to return to Peter Berger. They give shape and meaning to the world. They are actors in the lives of the living; not merely the disembodied ghosts of the dead. While spirits may or may not be effective in their intended purpose, use of them and the people who control them, contributes to a worldview that makes sense out of the unexplainable chaos of existence.

Animism, therefore, is the content and substance of the native African faith. It is a cultural conversation that comes into contact, and conflict, with Western religion and culture. This is true both in the novels and in real life. The potential for something new to emerge as a part of that intercultural exchange is ripe with possibility.

32 Depending upon how your Board has written its policies, this may be an acceptable means of achieving the Ends in Carver-style policy governance.33 Nuer Religion by Evans-Pritchard, E.E. p. 96

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I bless the rains down in Africa

Animism is extremely syncretic. It can absorb any number of myths, spirits, and ritual practices that it encounters.34 This makes it almost the ideal tradition for cultural and religious innovation and encounter. Christianity, by comparison, is more ridged in its acceptance of innovation and new ideas; although it is by no means unheard of. However it may change around the edges, at the core of the Christian religion lie the beliefs expressed in the creeds and the ritual performance of sacraments.

Both novels talk about how these two traditions, native Africa and Christianity, come together or come into conflict. Both novels seem to point to their irreconcilable differences. “Oh, East is East, and West is West and never the two shall meet” as Kipling wrote.35 Okonkwo commits suicide at the end of Things Fall Apart.36 Waiyaki is discredited and captured at the end of The River Between.37 Although both of them had radically different approaches to the problem of how to reconcile African and Christian cultures and religions, both met their end having found the project futile.

And yet…Waiyaki held out hope that unity was possible between the Christians and those who practiced the old ways of the tribe. His vision is one of intercultural engagement and creative innovation that yields something new and adaptable. Perhaps he is on to something. Not African Theology necessarily; that is taking the Christian tradition and applying it in some way to the African context. I believe that Waiyaki has a vision of a Theology of Africa in contrast to an African Theology.

This is more than mere semantics. The types of African Theology laid out by Bongmba are theologies that are Christian in content and

34 Grillo pp. 124-12535 The Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling36 Achebe. Chapter Twenty-Five37 Thiong’o. Chapter Twenty-Five

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substance.38 Some of them are more or less receptive to the insights of African religion, but in the end they are still Christian. A Theology of Africa has a different starting point. It has as its substance and content the beliefs, practices, rituals, stories, symbols and experiences of African native religion such as Yoruba or other forms of animism. Yet it would be framed by the structure of theology. Theology is the encounter of rationality and reason to faith. Theology is a mode of reflection that brings logic and philosophy to bear on matters of faith in new and creative ways. Theology asks questions: how did the universe come to be? What will the end be like? Why is there evil? How does one live a moral life? Is liberation possible and how? These questions provide the structure and nuance for theological systems. Reflecting upon itself in this structured manner would perhaps be novel for African animism, but that is how something new could be birthed.

The response to these questions, the content within theological system itself, could emerge out of African religion. While African religion is not usually discursive and reflective in the way theology is accustomed, I share Waiyaki’s optimism that it could be. I believe that given some creativity, some imagination, and perhaps even some anthropological insight, such questions could receive answers that are consistent with the native African religious tradition. It would almost certainly be an oral tradition. Draper and Mtata correctly point out that orality is a fundamental feature of African religion.39 This is not at odds with theology per se. They point out that African Christians, with open Bibles in their laps, practice and spread their religion through traditional oral means. Sermons, hymns, and religious education have already been adapted to accommodate African oral practices.

Thus the encounter between Western theology and African religion could yield a new thing – a cultural innovation. From an anthropological

38 African Theology by Bongmba, Elias M. pp. 245-25039 Orality, Literature, and African Religion by Draper, Jonathan A. and Mtata, Kenneth. pp. 106-108

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perspective, both are cultural conversations. What happens when they discover each other? How do they respond? What new thing emerges out of their interaction? I think a Theology of Africa could be such an innovation. It falls beyond the scope of this paper to do the constructive theology necessary to demonstrate my speculation. At best, my hope is that this paper can point to the direction in which we might take steps toward articulating a Theology of Africa. However, the possibility for such a future theology is bright, and I for one look forward to seeing it.

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