The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa: A Study of the Chagga Educational System (Garland Reference Library of Social Science)

THE HEARTBEAT OF INDIGENOUS AFRICA INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND SCHOOLING VOLUME 3 GARLAND REFERENCE LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCI...

Author: R. Sambul Mosha

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THE HEARTBEAT OF INDIGENOUS AFRICA

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND SCHOOLING VOLUME 3 GARLAND REFERENCE LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE VOLUME 1442

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND SCHOOLING JOE L.KINCHELOE AND LADISLAUS SEMALI, Series Editors

EDUCATION, MODERN DEVELOPMENT, AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE An Analysis of Academic Knowledge of Production by Seana McGovern WHAT IS INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE? Voices from the Academy Edited by Ladislaus M.Semali and Joe L.Kincheloe

THE HEARTBEAT OF INDIGENOUS AFRICA A Study of the Chagga Educational System by R.Sambuli Mosha

THE HEARTBEAT OF INDIGENOUS AFRICA A STUDY OF THE CHAGGA EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

R.SAMBULI MOSHA

GARLAND PUBLISHING, INC. A MEMBER OF THE TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP NEW YORK & LONDON 2000

Published in 2000 by Garland Publishing, Inc. A member of the Taylor & Francis Group 19 Union Square West New York, NY 10003 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Copyright © 2000 by R. Sambuli Mosha All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. 10

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mosha, R.Sambuli. The heartbeat of indigenous Africa: a study of the Chagga educational system/R.Sambuli Mosha. p. cm.—(Garland reference library of social science: v. 1442. Indigenous knowledge and schooling: v. 3) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8153-3464-8 (alk. paper).—ISBN 0-8153-3618-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Educational sociology—Tanzania. 2. Chaga (African people)— Education. 3. Educational sociology—Africa. I. Title. II. Series: Garland reference library of social science: v. 1442. III. Series: Garland reference library of social science. Indigenous knowledge and schooling: v. 3. LC191.8.T29M67 1999 306.43'096–dc21 99–35514 CIP ISBN 0-203-80012-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-80016-8 (Adobe eReader Format)

To: Lyakashingo, my Father Malyimo, my Mother and All Our Ancestors

Contents

Series Editors’ Foreword Foreword Acknowledgments List of Maps

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Introduction

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CHAPTER 1. Indigenous African Worldview on Life and World

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CHAPTER 2. Formators and Pedagogical Tools in Indigenous Education

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CHAPTER 3. Reverence, Self-Control, and Silence

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CHAPTER 4. Courage, Diligence in Work, and Communality

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CHAPTER 5. A Reflection on Indigenous Education and on African Europocentric Education

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CHAPTER 6. Reclaiming the Foundations of a Humanizing and Civilizing Educational System

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Epilogue

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Glossary

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Bibliography

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Index

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Series Editors’ Foreword

The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa is a welcome addition to our bookseries: Indigenous Knowledge and Schooling. This book series introduces readers to the emerging field of indigenous knowledge systems. Indigenous knowledge is local knowledge—knowledge generated and transmitted, over time, by those who reside in a particular locality, to cope with their agroecological and socio-cultural environments. It is knowledge that develops from the experience of people, passed down from generation to generation. The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa adds to the arsenal of questions directed at “normal science.” Our intention in this book-series is to challenge the academy and its “normal science” with the questions indigenous knowledges raise about the nature of our existence, our consciousness, our knowledge production, and the “globalized” future. Some indigenous educators and philosophers put it succinctly: we want to use indigenous knowledge to counter Western science’s destruction of the earth. Indigenous knowledge can facilitate this ambitious twenty-first century project because of its tendency to focus on relationships of human beings to both one another and to their ecosystem. Such an emphasis on relationships has been notoriously absent in the knowledge produced in Western science over the last four centuries.1 At its intellectual foundation, the book-series attempt to integrate post-colonial studies, cultural studies, and recent innovations in social theory into a discipline firmly grounded on indigenous knowledge systems. Current school curriculum reveals a marked contrast from indigenous forms of education. African education in particular has fallen upon hard ix

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times. From Cairo to Cape Town, from Kisimayu to Monrovia, educators are faced with unresolved dilemmas of indiginizing the curriculum from values bequeathed by the colonial powers. African educators and policymakers face the challenges of competing and conflicting educational models aimed at africanizing the curriculum, expanding access to schooling to all children, integrating indigenous, Islamic, and “Western” (European/American) educational systems and the involvement of parents, elders, sages, and local communities in the education of students. Unfortunately, the attempt to bring indigenous knowledge to formal school has not readily occurred because traditional educators in the community continue to be discounted as having any valuable expertise in the formal school area. This deficit-driven outlook, most apparent in the reconstruction of current African education, assumes that teachers conversant with indigenous ways of knowing and with the attendant skills for solving endemic problems at the local community level have little or nothing to contribute to improving the knowledge base of the nation and that what they know is so localized that it is of no apparent value outside the immediate community. But in fact, this kind of thinking is based more on the unchallenged tendency to ignore and subjugate indigenous knowledges and on political fear of the powerless or disenfranchised to reclaiming power than substance. There is greater reluctance, almost resistance, to acknolwedge that there are different cultures within the nation state that both warrant greater understanding and inclusion. There seems to be the notion that to acknowledge the occurrence of diverse cultures with differing opinions at home will somehow create some sort of great divide. It is this fear that results in different cultures being marginalized, minimizing the dialogues, knowledges, and exchanges between all groups. School advocates are absolved from the blame of any responsibility for the failure of children from indigenous communities or adult literacy program participants to attain the expected or intended educational achievement and to not assume responsibility for complicity in imposition of cultural hegemony on others as constructed in the interplay of language and difference.2 Proponents of integration make the assumptions that indigenous communities in rural and remote areas share a common culture, common goals, access to resources (including information) and worldviews, and that local knowledge is unitary, systematized and available for assimilation and incorporation with Western scientific knowledge. These assumptions aim to dispel common beliefs that place all responsibilities for program failure (especially literacy programs) on the inaction or indifference of people in the target local or remote area


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communities. If literacy or other school programs fail it is always reasoned that the target community lacked requisite knowledge and keen motivation to initiate expected participation, adoption, and eventually change, that would lead to positive outcomes and improved quality of life. Indigenous and dominant curricula seem to operate in bi-polar instead of complementary contexts. Consider, for example, the modes of communication engaged in the transmission of knowledge, and the congruence between traditional mode of learning and the dominant (western) mode of learning demanded by literacy. Although literacy is usually a by-product of Western formal education, having the skill and information to make informed decisions on problem-solving or the ability to process complex judgments is not always the outcome of literacy. In fact, some of the adult literacy programs extensively supported by literacy campaigns of the 1970s and early 1980s, in many parts of Africa and elsewhere, were designed to prepare unsuspecting consumers to understand and purchase certain advertised products, from contraceptives and other health remedies to fertilizers and other agricultural inputs, and the benefit to the individual was marginal.3 The stakes are high, as scholars the world over attempt to bring indigenous knowledge to the academy. Linking it to an educational reform that is part of a larger socio-political struggle, advocates for indigenous knowledge delineate the inseparability of academic reform, the reconceptualization of science, and struggles for justice and environmental protection. The work that has taken place in the field of American Indian Studies over the past couple of decades grants other advocates of indigenous knowledge a lesson in how such academic operations can be directly linked to political action. American Indian Studies scholars use their indigenous analyses to inform a variety of Native American legal and political organizations including the Indian Law Resource Center, The National Indian Youth Council, the World Council of Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, to mention only a few. In indigenous studies, such as the Native American academic programs, emerging new political awarenesses have been expressed in terms of the existence of a global Fourth World indigeneity. Proponents of such a view claim that Fourth World peoples share the commonality of domination and are constituted by indigenous groups as diverse as the Indians of the Americas, the Innuits and Samis of the Arctic north, the Maori of New Zealand, the Koori of Australia, the Karins and Katchins of Burma, the Kurds of Persia, the Bedouins of the African/Middle Eastern desert, many

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African tribal communities, and even the Basques and Gaels of contemporary Europe. In this context it is important to avoid the essentialistic tendency to lump together all indigenous cultures as one, yet at the same time maintaining an understanding of the nearly worldwide oppression of indigenous peoples and the destruction of indigenous knowledges. In this volume, Mosha reflects on the urgent necessity to radically improve the educational programs in Tanzania and in Africa as a whole. He introduces the two concepts of Imanya and Ipvunda which illustrate the heartbeat of a healthy society and the interconnectedness between life in the community and the knowledge within and outside its borders. In this analysis, the rapture between local and global, community and nation is made manifest. The dilemmas that face African communities as they struggle to make sense of recent political and economic changes are unavoidable. It becomes necessary therefore that modern African school systems should encourage and allow parents, families and communities to participate more fully in education, in particular in the areas of values education, formation of curricula, hiring of administrators and teachers of virtue and who deeply appreciate the virtuous life, ongoing discussion between educators, families, representatives of the local community, religious leaders and the concerned students. How might such a divided educational system left behind by the English, French and Portuguese colonial legacies be made whole again? How can communities recover their indigenous knowledge and make it part of the educational system without the deficiencies of current education described in The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa? Different ways of seeing can illuminate problems in unique ways and should be understood in this manner. The questions of the nature of indigenous knowledge and its academic uses are obviously complex but central to the future of education. In this context it is important to note the complex dynamic at work in the study of indigenous knowledge. As made explicit in Mosha’s essay in The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa indigenous knowledge is not a monolithic entity. The Chagga in particular and other different societies in general, have developed differing systems of education, agriculture, health care, nutrition, culinary practices, spirituality, ecological concerns, etc. Scholars have found that different indigenous knowledges produced in different times and places may significantly overlap, but sometimes they do not. Generalizations about the nature of indigenous knowledge, therefore, must be carefully considered and offered with caution. How are different cultural perspectives incorporated into other ways of seeing and systems of knowledge production? Can the


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indigenous confrontation with the Western paradigm help bring about a deep modification of Western perspectives? Our essentialism detector tells us that no cultures exist in a pristine, uncontaminated state and that some form of cultural interaction is always taking place. Yet, how does such interaction relate to the concept of cultural continuity and regeneration in light of the reality of the perseverance of long-lasting distinctive cultural traditions? Western students of indigenous knowledge and advocates of incorporating such knowledge into the Western curriculum must address these issues in their scholarship and pedagogy to protect themselves from simplistic applications of indigeneity to the Western context. Again, the purpose here is not to produce “the end of epistemological history,” a final articulation of the best way to produce knowledge. It is these complexities and intellectual challenges that have moved us to establish the book-series espousing the following objectives: 1) To produce and document indigenous knowledge so that it can be made available to various peoples around the world. Unfortunately, indigenous knowledges are disappearing as a direct result of colonization’s devaluing of localized ways of knowing. Indigenous institutions based on such knowledges are also disappearing because of the same colonizing processes characterized in particular by industrialization and western notions of progress. This series explicitly attempts to address these alarming realities. 2) To encourage curriculum studies/curriculum development in the domain of indigenous knowledge. As employed in this series, curriculum studies/development is concerned with the production of knowledge. Such a viewpoint moves beyond traditional notions of curriculum as simply the course of study, a compilation of data to be learned. As defined here, curriculum studies of indigenous knowledge involves epistemological questions relating to both the production and consumption of knowledge, the relationship between culture and what is defined as successful learning, the contestation of all forms of knowledge production and the purposes of education itself. The curriculum studies/ curriculum development we propose attends carefully to the process of the generation and validation of curricular content and the ways that some groups of people benefit from the “certification” of some forms of knowledge while other groups do not.

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3) To validate indigenous knowledge. Since knowledge production is contested, values, cultural assumptions, and belief structures are always implicit in the process. Traditionally, indigenous knowledge has not been validated vis-à-vis Western scientific practices. Understanding that power relations cannot be separated from knowledge production, this series seeks to legitimate, to take seriously, indigenous forms of knowledge. Given these dynamics, indigenous knowledge has been relegated to the status of a subjugated knowledge. Such knowledge often involves the histories of the outsiders, those who have been conquered or in some way oppressed. Subjugated knowledges also involve ways of understanding the world that have been disqualified or only informally elaborated. Through the validation of these low-ranking knowledges, alternative visions of disciplines of inquiry and education are possible. The insertion of the concept of subjugated knowledges into the study of indigenous knowledge opens the possibility of new conversations between indigenous people and the voices of the poor, ethnic minorities, and disenfranchised women in societies throughout the world. The possibilities presented by the synergistic impact of this conversation are exciting to scholars from a plethora of academic disciplines. 4) To produce new research methods for studying indigenous knowledge. Elusive and as hard to identify as indigenous knowledge can be to Western scientific researchers, inquiry methodologies need to be developed that are capable of capturing the cultural embeddedness of indigenous ways of seeing. By cultural embeddedness we are referring to the tendency of such knowledge to meld with the experiences, customs, theologies, self-concepts, community—individual relationships of indigenous people. Embedded in these psycho-cultural dynamics, indigenous knowledges are rendered invisible to non-indigenous eyes. New forms of ethnographic research informed by cross-cultural understandings, postcolonial insights, semiotics, textual analysis, reconceptualized hermeneutics, and multicultural psychoanalysis can open new windows of empathy across cultural divides. 5) To initiate global conversation between north/south, “developed”/ “underdeveloped” societies. This book series attempts to deepen and extend the conversation that, many contend, is a prerequisite for global consciousness and inter-cultural solidarity. European-


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centered educators, for example, have much to learn from a giveand-take dialogue with indigenous educators. One format that some of the series volumes might take could involve dialogical encounters among scholars, indigenous knowledge producers, students of curriculum, and other contributors. 6) To motivate scholarly work concerning the contribution of indigenous knowledge to the goal of sustainable development. Initiatives have been taken to integrate indigenous knowledge into new approaches to health, nutrition, agriculture, and the conservation of the environment. The generally accepted philosophy behind these initiatives is that new approaches should not replace indigenous knowledge, but rather should make use of this knowledge which has been produced by generations of practice by families, healers, traditional nutritionists and farmers. This means that close cooperation and partnerships with the owners and producers of such knowledge are necessary if new approaches are to become effective in promoting sustainable development. Such a framework is intended as an input for discussion, debate, and dialogue in changing global relations rather than a final recommendation or archived knowledge. It is our profound hope that each volume will generate discussion and new questions about indigenous knowledge and the issues of justice, difference, ethics, and cognition that surround it. Ladi Semali Joe Kincheloe NOTES 1

George Dei (1994). Creating reality and understanding: The relevance of indigenous African world views. Paper presented to the Comparative and International Education Society, San Diego, California; N.Keith & N.Keith (1993). Education development and the rebuilding of urban community. Paper presented to the Annual Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Research, Policy, and Development in the Third World, Cairo, Egypt; R.Simonelli (1994). Traditional knowledge leads to a Ph.D. Winds of Change, 9 (4), 43–48. 2 Henry Giroux (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education. New York: Routledge, p. 15; Collins Airhihenbuwa,

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“Health Promotion and the Discourse on Culture: Implications for Empowerment,” Health Education Quarterly 21 (Fall 1994): 345–353. 3 Ladislaus Semali, Postliteracy in the Age of Democracy (Bethseda, MD: Austin & Winfield, 1995); Collins Airhihenbuwa & Ira Harrison, “Traditional Medicine in Africa: Past, Present, and Future,” in Health and Health Care in Developing Countries, ed. Peter Conrad and Eugene Gallagher, (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1993).

Foreword

In my full-length study of Traditional Formation in Volume 5 of my Formative Spirituality Series, I focus attention on the ability to translate with wisdom and accuracy the insights of ancient and contemporary faith and formation traditions. Such work widens and deepens our understanding not only of another people but also of our own formation journey. The author of this book demonstrates such an ability. His work is not only exceptionally informative; it also becomes for properly disposed readers highly formative of their own spirituality and sensitivity to the power of symbol, ritual, religion, and fundamental human virtues. Wisely balancing accurate social analysis with an ability to recount everyday experiences in Chagga society, this book offers holistic educators a way to understand how the time-tested wisdom of all indigenous cultures and religions form the whole person, body, mind and spirit. Having devoted Volume 3 of my formative spirituality series to the theme of Formation of the Human Heart, I was especially impressed by Mosha’s ability to link dispositional formation in reverence, self-control, silence, courage, diligence, and communality to the educational system guiding the teachers and students of Northern Tanzania. We, in the West, have much to learn from the humanizing and civilizing features of an educational system that insists on the integration of head knowledge and heart knowledge. As an expert in the field of spiritual formation, it personally warmed my heart to learn from Mosha’s study that the indigenous Chagga people form the minds and hearts of their young people simultaneously with a special emphasis on spiritual formation. In his words, “Indigenous people know that the ongoing development of the spirit is crucial in a person’s

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Foreword

humanization process, and therefore do everything they can to awaken and nurture this dimension in every child and youth.” By choosing to focus at one and the same time on the interplay between ancestral faith tradition and the everyday living of the Chagga formation tradition, Mosha has succeeded in painting an accurate picture of the distinctive, overall pattern by which a whole people receive, express, and give form, to their life and world. As I have discovered in my own research, such a pattern is coformed by structures and elements that have attained a sufficient degree of consistency and mutual cohesiveness. Such patterns can be seen as a distinct and meaningful whole of basic dispositions, attitudes, and directives. Though these structures may be exposed to and assimilative of elements of other traditions, there is still a consistency and a coherence of original form-traditional influences. These reflect, to use Mosha’s metaphor, the “heartbeat” of a given society. In accordance with his original dissertation work, Mosha takes what I call a “full field approach” to his reflections on the Chagga people. By this I mean that he enters into the faith filled mystery of their lives, their inner dispositional formation, their keen and committed interrelationships in community, their here and now situation in any particular village setting, and their openness to cosmic and wider world influences. Such a sensitivity to all spheres of the formation field produces a work that deepens our awe for the intertwining unity that exists between the transcendent and the functional, the vital and the sociohistorical dimensions of any given society. Mosha shows, with an innate gift for narration, that all the chapters that comprise the story of our life are interlaced with traditions or systems of customs that have influenced us along the way. African people are profoundly open to the passing on of wisdom from generation to generation and the way in which this lived knowledge effects entire villages. The question is, will his people be able to stay faithful to their basic convictions in the midst of the ever-changing demands and challenges of contemporary society? Will their vertical information with past generations, as communicated through ritual, symbol, and narration, be able to hold firm in the face of impinging horizontal interformation with its potential dissentions, discriminations, and persecutions? The heartbeat of indigenous Africa as Mosha describes it is strong and steady: The question that haunts the reader is, what happens when and if this heart is broken by influences beyond anyone’s control? Monotraditional cultures have built in protections that pluratraditional cultures often lack. The point is, as I have shown in my volume on this topic, traditions are like unique

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streams and rivers that discharge some of their contents into the homogenous sea of the culture. Some social scientists, Mosha excluded, may be reluctant to acknowledge this all-pervasive primary power of traditions. They may be inhibited by their assumptions about the “unscientific” status of religious and ideological traditions. They may have felt uneasy in addressing the transcendent dimension of reality. Fortunately for readers of this book, Mosha has had the courage and foresight to study the forming power of tradition side by side with the intricate effect of the same on family and community life. He urges readers, as I do, to see transcendent traditions and the religion and spirituality in which they are grounded not as extraneous to intellectual development but as absolutely essential for it. He comes to terms with the feelings, needs, desires, hopes, fears, gratifications, and aspirations that people living within a traditionally structured field of formation find, in his words, that it is “time to live by the wisdoms of our traditions, the wisdom that prioritizes spirituality above everything else.” Adrian van Kaam, C.S.Sp., Ph.D.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of countless people who made the writing of this book possible. Since I cannot list all by name, I shall mention only a few and then give a list of several categories of people who have been inspiring formators and companions in my life in ways that have prepared me to produce this work. First, I record profound appreciation to my family for loving me and creating for me the conditions necessary for rigorous research and writing. To these: Khanyunya, Aika, Siya, and Amani, I am forever grateful. I acknowledge in a very special way the international fellowship and financial grant from the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The Center’s grant has been critical for this work. For this and their subsequent support and encouragement during the writing, I cannot possibly give enough thanks. John Haughey, S.J., professor of ethics at Loyola University Chicago, deserves a hearty thank you for continued friendship and support. He has been instrumental in making my journey to the Woodstock Center a reality. Margaret Howells provided a home for my family and me during the last four months of the writing. I truly appreciate her inspiration, hospitality, and graceful presence. I am deeply grateful to Michael Spurlock, Education Editor at Falmer Press, for continued support and encouragement. The Series Editors, Ladi Semali and Joe Kincheloe, have also been remarkably helpful. I thank them heartly. I am also very grateful to Laura Lawrie, the copyeditor, for excellent editorial work on the manuscript. During the intensive remembering involved in this writing, I came spirit to spirit with a very special group of people: my grandparents, xxi

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Acknowledgments

parents, my sisters and brothers, relatives, my father’s kishari (clan members), my mother’s kishari, friends, village elders, indigenous teachers, sages, indigenous doctors and healers, and members of my childhood playgroups and age group. I met many of them in person, but the rest only deep in memory and in the memories of others, because they are no longer in this visible world, although, according to the African worldview, these departed ancestors are always with me, and have been especially “close” during the writing. Remembering them and their words of wisdom not only gave me invaluable material for this book but also gave me meaning, a reason to be, and the enthusiasm to keep on living and writing. They are my revered “professors” in indigenous education and in fundamental human spirituality. As a sign of my profound indebtedness, to these I dedicate this work. A profound word of thanks also goes to the many teachers who taught me in the modern schooling systems both in Tanzania and in the United States. Since space will not allow me to mention all by name, I shall include here only two of these great teachers: first, Mr. B.Timira Lyimo, my kindergarten teacher, who always taught me to revere and worship the Divine Mystery that makes all existence possible, and always to respect and love my family, relatives and everyone. He still inspires me today, forty-five years later. The second is Father Adrain van Kaam, my professor, mentor, and friend at Duquesne University. I owe to him, perhaps more than to anyone else that I know, the major theory that underlies this work, which is the hypothesis that humans experience a great degree of harmony and at-homeness when they let their spiritual or transcendent dimension inspire and guide all of life and world. His voluminous writings in Formative Spirituality, his wit, and his wisdom greatly inspired this work. The Foreword to this book is one of his generous gifts. To these two teachers, and to all my teachers, I am infinitely grateful. I also want to acknowledge the invaluable companionship, inspiration, and friendship of three other categories of people: my classmates and schoolmates; the students I have been privileged to teach in Tanzania, Kenya, and the United States; and fellow faculty members and staff with whom I have been involved in education for twenty years. My stories in this book are, in a way, also their stories. All of them have, each in a unique way, taught me the importance of a virtuous life and especially the power of communality. To each of them I am very grateful. A word of appreciation also goes to the Jesuit Communities at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and at Loyola University Chicago for financial support in preparation for the manuscript. They

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also were inspiring companions when I was a Visiting Professor at both universities. I also record here many thanks to Thomas Reese, editor-in-chief of America magazine, for reading part of the work and for giving me useful comments and suggestions, and to Jelita McLeod for her assistance in putting the manuscript together. Her efficiency and excellent computer skills gave the manuscript a tangible form. Finally, an expression of deep gratitude to the following individuals: Bishop Amedeus Msarikie; Rev. Thomas Hayden; Mama Matemu Kesi; Evelyn Stormer; Rev. Francis X.Lackner; Gene Parnham; Professor Susan A.Muto; Frank and Una May Hess; Rev. A.Ndeukoya; Elam and Leah Simiyu; Rev. James E.Hoff, S.J.; Professor William Madges; Dr. John McCarthy; Sister Mary Jerome; Janet and James Hirst; Fred and Alice Ann Boehm; Sister Denise Lynch; and so many others who cannot possibly be mentioned here.

List of Maps

Map 1. The Kilimanjaro area where most of the study took place, showing the fifteen original districts of Chaggaland and the five central districts in which the Vunjo dialect of Kichagga is spoken. Map 2. Tanzania, with the area of study shaded on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. Map 3. A political map of Africa, showing all the countries on the continent.

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THE HEARTBEAT OF INDIGENOUS AFRICA

Introduction

Ongoing reflection on our human experience reveals that human beings consistently search for the basic necessities of life, ultimate meaning, and wholeness. They thirst for a life that is congenial to their unique human identity and compatible to the world around them. Human beings hunger for an authentic human life, one that is fully alive, fully human. Three main questions, concerning this fundamental human search, have grabbed my attention in the last twenty years as I have been studying, researching, and teaching in the area of spirituality. First: How do my own indigenous people, the Chagga of Northern Tanzania, understand this basic human search, and what is their view of humanity and the universe? Second: How do they go about searching for a congenial and compatible human life; that is, what is the description of the indigenous Chagga system of education? How do these people attempt to humanize themselves and their society? In trying to answer this second question I hope to find out how I, and other “educated” Africans, have been prepared to face life and the world by both the indigenous culture and the contemporary Euro-American style educational systems. The third question is this: Which findings and insights from the indigenous model can, in part, assist and inspire contemporary Tanzanian and African educators, teachers, and parents to bring about positive fundamental changes in the present educational system inherited from Europe and still very much based on a Euro-American educational model? In what fundamental ways can we improve today’s schooling system? This book will attempt to answer these basic questions from a human spiritual

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The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa

formation perspective that views an authentic spirituality or a persistent life of virtue as indispensable for human and cosmic well-being. Five main reasons motivate me to try to answer the three questions above. The most important one is what I view as a serious human and cosmic crisis in Tanzania and in most of the world. We are part of a world rich in natural resources, knowledge, information, science, and technology, yet about fifty percent of the world population goes hungry every day. Most Tanzanian and world leaders and politicians are “well educated,” but justice and peace continue to escape us and billions of people are not anywhere close to a life fully alive, fully human. There is, in my opinion, a deepening world spiritual crisis that can, in my opinion, be lessened in part by learning a lesson from the wisdom of our ancestors. Their holistic approach to life and world, and their emphasis on a life of virtue, which will be studied here, is a model that we cannot afford not to take seriously. The second reason that prompts me to write this book is that there is not much written, as far as I know, on the indigenous humanization process, that is, a comprehensive description of the everyday dynamics and dimensions in the raising of indigenous children and youth from a spiritual formation perspective. Few authors have written about the African indigenous holistic educational or formational system from a spirituality perspective, which, for the indigenous African, is the most fundamental approach to life and world. In the existing literature on Africa, we lack a systematic identification and a comprehensive articulation of those virtues considered by indigenous Africans to be the heartbeat of a healthy society. And although a lot is being written on indigenous African knowledge and wisdom, and I would like to contribute to this worthy academic interest, not much attention is being paid to the fact that knowledge and spirituality are not separable in indigenous thinking. I would like therefore first to describe in detail the everyday humanization or spiritualization process of indigenous Africa, using the Chagga indigenous model as paradigmatic, and secondly to emphasize throughout the descriptions that from the point of view of these indigenous people, to know and to live morally cannot and should not be separated. Third, basing myself on personal experience of both the indigenous and European systems of education, I have observed that the former system tends to connect my mind with my heart, whereas the European one seems to insert a distance between them. My indigenous education invites me to use my intellectual powers as much as possible; at the same time it lets me listen to my heart and the voice that emerges from my deepest identity. The European system, however, loads my mind with lots of information,

Introduction

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most of it useful, but often seems unconnected from my innermost intuitions and inspirations. Indigenous education gives me roots to be grounded in the circle of life; the other system tends to give me wings to fly off forever from one piece of information to another, ad infinitum. I have also noticed that indigenous education puts spirituality and a life of virtue at its very center, but I cannot state the same thing as regards the colonial education system. These and similar observations have convinced me that, although the indigenous educational system is imperfect, the new one forced on Africa and that we have adopted seems to have several fundamental flaws that I intend to identify and describe in this book in order to highlight insights that may help educators in the process of improving the present schooling system. Finally, for the last ten years or so, I have noticed with intense interest and hope that a small but growing number of educators in Europe and America is strongly advocating a return to holistic education in which science and spirituality are not separate. These educators emphasize wholeness, meaning, interdependence, and spirituality in order to revive and inspire a culture that seems to idolize scientism, technologism, materialism, and consumerism. It has been my intention and interest, therefore, to study and document the holistic educational system of my own people, so that through the emerging findings and insights, we in Africa can expand the scope of the emerging Euro-American discussion on the absolute necessity to return to holistic education. As I will try to demonstrate in this book, we have much to learn from our indigenous ancestors as regards holistic education and related areas of human experience. Many sources have provided material for this book: my own lived experience of the indigenous educational system and intimate relationship with my parents, grandparents, family members, and age group in the first fifteen years of my life; living and teaching in Tanzania and Kenya; a fairly large amount of related literature; formal and informal interviews, conversations, and interactions with African elders, among them my parents and grandparents, clan and community elders and sages; careful analysis of Chagga and other African proverbs, stories, sayings, riddles, art, music, celebrations, and rituals; active participation in numerous indigenous rituals and celebrations; the experience of teaching indigenous African religion and spirituality to undergraduates and graduates in Tanzania, Kenya, and the United States; the findings and insights of my colleagues and students; and ongoing study and reflection on all the above. In a way, therefore, this book is the story of my journey in life. I tell it for

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two reasons: first, in order to give the reader a glimpse of the wisdom and knowledge of indigenous people as regards the dance and circle of life, and second so that it may remind the reader of her or his own story, in particular in the area of virtuous living. Viewed holistically, my story is fundamentally a human story, and so is the reader’s. This is why I have taken the liberty to refer to stories and insights from all related sources I know, regardless of their religious, cultural, racial, and educational backgrounds. Although this work is to a great extent a paradigmatic study of the Chagga people of the Kilimanjaro Region of Northern Tanzania, it also merits the descriptive word African, not only because the Chagga are an African people, but also because numerous references are made to the experiences of many other African peoples. As will be indicated in Chapter 1, the worldviews of the many African peoples are so similar in essence that we can speak of an indigenous African worldview. Being aware that the vast African continent has over two thousand peoples whose cultures manifest innumerable various expressions and nuances, I continually make a conscious effort throughout the work to avoid blanket statements by clearly indicating which specific people do or say this or that. The book has six chapters. Chapter 1 examines the basic indigenous African worldview because it is the foundation upon which daily African living is built. It also studies the indigenous educational or formational system, using that of the Chagga people as a paradigmatic example. One interesting and fundamental finding in this chapter is that the Chagga have this word, ipvunda, which means both to give knowledge and to give moral education to a person. Knowledge and spirituality are inseparable in the Chagga and African worldview. The second chapter gives thick descriptions of five categories of Chagga indigenous educators or formators. This chapter also describes the tools used in indigenous education, such as narration and stories, proverbs, riddles, song and dance, initiation rites, ritual word and action, and roleplaying. The chapter is particularly insightful for modern teachers who desire to impart a holistic education. Chapters 3 and 4 take up the subject of fundamental indigenous virtues and describe them in detail. We also find in these two chapters an articulation of how indigenous people help their young to acquire and practice the fundamental virtues. Chapter 3 covers reverence, self-control, and silence, and Chapter 4 deals with courage, diligence in work, and communality. The Chagga people strongly believe that the acquiring and practicing of these virtues is inevitable if the heartbeat of society is to

Introduction

5

remain healthy. Virtuous living is, in their view, the soul of human and cosmic harmony. The fifth chapter has two sections. The first is a summary of the main findings and insights emerging from the previous chapters, including in particular my personal reflection on these findings and insights as regards the possibility of using them for the improvement of today’s schooling system. The second section is a critique of the European educational system forced on Africans and how that kind of education, as well as the contemporary one modeled on it, deforms and miseducates Africans and all who worship at its altars. My own experience of the strengths and flaws of the Europocentric educational systems also will be cited. The final chapter consists of proposals and suggestions that may be useful in today’s attempts to improve the schooling system. It is my contention that we in Tanzania and elsewhere need to change this system radically and replace it by a holistic one. For this to happen, the changes need to be fundamental, first in our societies, then in our schools. This may sound an impossible and impractical course of action, but honestly I cannot see any other reasonable alternative, if we are to contribute positively to efforts of creating sustainable development and a new world order. I feel deep in my heart, with sound reasons, that these proposals and suggestions, emerging from my reflection, and from the writings of other equally concerned authors and thinkers, are some of the important voices that need to be heard and heeded as Africa and the world try to shape, and wait for, a new day.

Map 1: Chaggaland, on the windward slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. Shown here are the original fifteen subdistricts and the three districts: Hai to the west, Vunjo at the center, and Rombo to the east. The Vunjo dialect of the Kichagga language is spoken in the five shaded subdistricts.

CHAPTER 1

Indigenous African Worldview on Life and World

Many years of personal experience, study, research and teaching on indigenous African culture in general and on indigenous Chagga culture in particular, have disclosed that, like all peoples everywhere, indigenous Africans have a fundamental worldview, a unified trend of thought on life and world, which inspires their thoughts, words, and actions. It is their window to the world within and without. Their worldview is a powerful compass that guides their everyday interactions in life and world. For analytical purposes, four aspects of this worldview will be identified, although there is essentially one and therefore uncompartmentalized in real life. The following is a brief description of each of the four aspects that, when seen together as one worldview, are crucial in order to understand the major thrust of this book: fundamental African virtues and the educational system that makes them possible. A FIRM BELIEF AND PROFOUND REVERENCE IN THE ETERNAL DIVINE MYSTERY Indigenous Africans always believe that the universe, humans, and everything that is are the handwork of an Infinite and Eternal Divine Mystery. This Mystery gives birth to the universe and continues to create, recreate, and sustain it. The most common descriptive names given to the Supreme Being are Great Parent, Great Ancestor, Creator, Great Spirit, Sustainer, and Benefactor. African peoples have always strongly believed in the existence of such a Supreme Mystery. They have absolute trust and

7

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confidence that their Great Parent makes human life, and all life and being, profoundly valuable and meaningful. The Great Ancestor is, in the mind and heart of indigenous Africa, incomprehensible, indescribable, indeed a Mystery of Mysteries. My grandfather told me several times that the Chagga people have no images of the Divine simply because the Divine is so indescribable that any image would fall far short. Nevertheless, Africans have always felt free to give God anthropomorphic attributes such as: Father, Mother, Elder, Ancestor, Friend, Chief of Chiefs, Wise One, and Mother Chicken.1 None of these and numerous other attributes, however, is a proper name for God. The Bambuti people of the Congo say that God’s real name is unknown because God’s real being or personality is unknown or unknowable. Mbiti describes God as “the Mystery of mysteries, the Marvel of Marvels, the very Mysterium Tremendum par excellence.”2 Indigenous Africans, therefore, have profound reverence and adoration for this incomprehensible, yet real, Mystery. They are awed by the greatness of the Great Ancestor. Their very being is gripped by the almighty power of the Supreme Creator. Their hearts and minds experience the highest form of admiration and adoration of this Divinity. In awe-evoking life situations, Chagga elders burst out saying: Naacho cha Ruwa; that is, “Who is like God!”3 When someone is gravely ill, they sacrifice a bull at noon on a market day and recite this prayer, facing Mount Kilimanjaro: We know you, Ruwa, Chief, Preserver. One who united the bush and the plain. You, Ruwa, Chief, the elephant indeed. You who burst forth people that they lived. We praise you, and pray to you, and fall before you… Chief, receive this bull of your name. Heal him to whom you gave it and his children. Sow the seed of offspring with us that we may beget like bees. May our clan hold together that it be not cleft in the land. Now, Chief, Preserver, bless all that is ours.4 This reverence-filled prayer reminds us of Rudolf Otto’s statement that religious dread or awe may be so overwhelmingly great that it seems to penetrate to the very marrow, making one’s hair bristle and limbs quake. It


9

makes one speechless in a feeling of personal nothingness and submergence before the awe-inspiring Sacred.5 According to Otto, the Sacred Mystery (or Mysterium Tremendum) is here experienced as absolute overpoweringness, as Tremenda Majestas, that is, aweful majesty, and as Mysterium Fascinans, fascinating mystery.6 This is, indeed, how indigenous Africans experience the Great Ancestor. Otto has excellently articulated this experience that gradually creates in indigenous peoples core dispositions of reverence, awe, wonder, appreciation, gratitude, and humility. Believing in God is like standing at the foot of a towering mountain, or at the shore of an expansive ocean. One is moved to reverence and awe, and feels humble before such majesty and greatness. Reverence and humility thus experienced do not belittle a person. On the contrary, one becomes more aware, more grateful, more appreciative, and therefore a better person, more fully present, more fully human. (Chapter 3 will describe in detail the connection between reverence for the Supreme Mystery and reverence for life and world.) A number of formative dispositions that are intimately connected with the indigenous values discussed in this book emerge from the peoples’ belief and trust in the Eternal Mystery: an ongoing trust and confidence in self and world; a sense that life is meaningful; a feeling of at-homeness not only with the Great Ancestor, but also in the world; an experience of inner peace and quietude; a keen sense of awe and appreciation; a growing readiness for positive abandonment and letting go. These spiritual dispositions are offsprings of the Indigenous African’s worldview that there is an Eternal Divine Mystery that is the Ground of All That Is. ONGOING HUMAN FORMATION, REFORMATION, AND TRANSFORMATION The second aspect of the indigenous African worldview is an awareness that from birth to death a person must go through a rigorous process of spiritual and moral formation, reformation, and transformation. Indigenous Africans realize through time-tested wisdom handed on from previous generations, and through their own experience, that the forming and reforming of a person’s moral core is fundamental in the emergence of genuine humanity and essential for harmonious living with all that is. My maternal grandfather, Nderumaki, used to tell me, “The well-being of the visible cosmic world and that of the invisible transcosmic one depends to a great extent on the level of individual and communal moral living.” Often he would direct me in the acquisition of sound moral dispositions

10


by saying, “My grandson, grow up and become human.” The translation in Kichagga is: mchuku, ng’ana uwe mndu. In this trend of thought one does not become automatically ‘human’ by virtue of birth, rather one becomes human and reclaims one’s humanity by gradually becoming a moral and spiritual person.7 Thus, the number one priority of African indigenous culture is to hand on to the younger generation knowledge and wisdom that continually forms, reforms, and transforms the individual and the community. Indigenous Africans, like all indigenous people, know that a person’s interiority or spirit is the home of inspiration, intuition, motivation, dreams, and all spiritual inclinations. A lot of transforming work has to be done in this home, in this innermost core of a person. Zahan states that in Africa the inner person is esteemed more highly than the outer person, thought has a greater value than act; intention prevails over action.8 This is the same as saying that interiority, thought, and intention are the foundations of exteriority and action. Zahan further articulates this worldview: It is through the valorization of the interior [man] that the human being raises [himself] beyond [his] natural limits and accedes to the dimensions of the gods. [He] becomes something other than [himself] by refusing to valorize appearances, by instead deeply mining [his] secret being. This does not happen without the acquisition of a veritable “sense of what is within,” of a science of the soul. Neither does it happen without a total transformation of the personality…by the death of the “old [man]” and the resurrection of a new being.9

In the indigenous African milieu where moral formation is understood as so essential, the importance of initiation rites and other formational methods cannot be overemphasized. The next sections and chapters will discuss in detail the indigenous educational systems and the moral values that are at the heart of these formational endeavors. Suffice it to say at this point that the entire educational or formational system of indigenous Africa is inspired by this single paradigm: human and cosmic harmony hinges upon human moral living because all facets of the universe are interconnected and interdependent.


11

THE INTRINSIC UNITY BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES According to the third aspect of the indigenous African worldview, there is an intrinsic unity between the individual and the community. In their everyday lives, indigenous Africans try to strike a balance between one’s collective identity as a member of a society and one’s personal identity as a unique individual. This consciousness helps indigenous people to continually struggle against rugged individualism on the one hand and communism (loss of individual identity and rights) on the other. To avoid these two dangers African societies strive to understand and define a person in the context of community that in turn is understood and definable through its unique members. Mbiti aptly puts it: “I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.”10 Indigenous thought recognizes that each person is unique, endowed with a personal identity and special talents and gifts, and motivated by particular ambitions, needs, inspirations, and aspirations. This recognition is in part shown by elaborate naming ceremonies for each newborn, and for each initiate in subsequent initiation rites such as marriage and funeral rites. My people have a saying: “The children of the same mother are not similar” (wana wa mka wekehiana pvo). The implication is that each child, each person, is unique, one who fills a special niche in a given community. In his book of Kiswahili prose and poetry (published 1949), the Tanzanian author Shaaban Robert writes one hundred verses of admonishment to his daughter and one hundred verses to his son. He does not write the same verses to both. He recognizes their unique individualities, and yet never ceases to remind them throughout the two hundred verses that they keep community life alive and well.11 It is evident, therefore, that indigenous African peoples, are, on the one hand, profoundly conscious of the importance and indispensability of community interconnectedness and interdependence; and on the other, deeply respectful of the sacred uniqueness of each one. According to this aspect of the African worldview, one’s deepest human identity emerges in and through communion with other people in particular, one’s family, clan, neighbors, friends, peers, and so on. In and through significant others, the African, like all humans, finds herself or himself. The Chagga people have a saying: “Not to have brethren is to die” (lura monowomoo nyiipva). Mbiti states: “Whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual.”12 One finds here a keen consciousness

12


of interconnectedness and interdependence among people, a consciousness slowly being lost in contemporary African cities, towns, and in many industrialized nations. With whom is the indigenous African in constant communion? Vertically she or he communicates with the Supreme Parent (God), spirits, ancestors, the departed, and those still to be born. Horizontally one continually relates with one’s family, neighbors, clan, villagers, one’s ethnic group, peers, workmates (for example travelers, farmers, hunters), and with the entire cosmos. In this context one can define a community as any group of people, whether few or many, related by blood or marriage, by geographical proximity (neighbors for instance), by age (peer groups), by interest or occupations, or by any short-term or long-term events such as celebrations, journeys, and so on. In such small or large communities, people quickly form strong and intimate bonds in which each one feels at home, receives and gives support, and journeys through life shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand. This, in short, is the indigenous African’s view of human life. As will be discussed, this aspect of their general worldview, like every other aspect, influences the entire life experience, including, in particular, the fundamental virtues articulated in Chapters 3 and 4. A LIVING, INTERCONNECTED, AND INTERDEPENDENT UNIVERSE According to the final aspect of the African worldview, the universe is a living web of interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent whole. Each component of the universe is intimately connected with all others. They all need one another in a harmonious and seemingly eternal rising and falling of innumerable forms. It is a living universe in which each of its elements is actively interacting with all others so as to continually give birth to a profound equilibrium and spontaneous ebb and flow of all forms. Furthermore, indigenous Africans see the universe as alive in the sense that each part of it is continually speaking, that is, giving messages and signs that must continually be deciphered and decoded by humans for their own benefit and for the enhancement of cosmic harmony. The Chagga people of Kilimanjaro, for instance, find themselves interacting with a universe that is dynamic, alive, beckoning, and giving all sorts of messages. Stones and mountains, rivers and lakes, clouds and rain, the visible and invisible phenomena, are all alive in their intrinsic meanings and raison d’être, and in their active partnership to people and


13

all that is. Zahan notes that in the mind of indigenous Africans, the cosmos is not fixed, cold, and mute; on the contrary, it is full of meanings, laden with messages, and always speaking.13 At the very center of this interconnected and speaking universe, the African finds himself or herself responsible to engage in an intimate interaction with everything, to read and decipher its messages in a holistic way. From this central position, Africans find themselves in active relationship with the Divine Mystery, the spirits, the departed, the community, and with all aspects of the universe. It is a relationship and cooperation with all that is visible and all that is invisible. Zahan articulates this close partnership between the African and the universe this way: These two entities are like two mirrors placed face to face, reflecting reciprocal images: man is a microcosm which reflects the larger world, the world the macrocosm which in turn reflects man.14

This view of the universe empowers indigenous Africans to develop profound reverence for, and fascination with, the universe, always in a holistic manner. The universe is their friend, partner, their home. All natural resources must therefore be developed, protected, and preserved. These indigenous Africans try to avoid a mere utilitarian relationship with the universe, and strive to develop a caring and spiritual relationship with it. They realize, out of time-tested experience and intuition, that humans cannot live humanly and harmoniously in a sick universe. Thus every aspect of the universe is continually blessed, sanctified, and rejuvenated by proper use, by prayers, offerings, and sacrifices. The Maasai people of Tanzania and Kenya, for instance, reverence Earth as the Mother God. The Hottentots of the Kalahari Desert beseech an animal for forgiveness before sacrificing it for ritual celebration and food.15 One of the fundamental effects of this fourth aspect of the indigenous worldview is that all facets of life and world are viewed and lived holistically. Physical, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of life are seen as essentially related. So also the visible and invisible, the immanent and transcendent, the human and the divine. Kings and queens, for instance, lead and counsel their people in all spheres of life: political, spiritual, social, economic, and so on. 16 The common consciousness shared by all is that each aspect of life and universe is so much part of the whole that one cannot, for instance, speak of religious or spiritual values distinct from political social and economic aspects of life. It is no wonder, therefore, that in the more than 2,000 African

14


languages there is no indigenous word for religion as we understand it today. What would be classified today as religious values, teachings, doctrines, and rituals are for indigenous people fundamental spiritual or human values and rituals that are lived and practiced spontaneously in everyday life in the same way people do everything else. Life is lived holistically. As indigenous people breathe, so also they work, worship, reverence the Divine, venerate ancestors, hold community meetings, celebrate weddings, bury and mourn the dead, and bear children, in a holistic undepartmentalized way. One of the recurring challenges I have as I write this book is the almost unavoidable use of words and phrases that tend to divide human experience into parts. For instance, the use of the words religion, spirituality, and politics, seems to imply that each of these is a separate entity that can be viewed, studied, and even lived independently of the others. In the Chagga worldview, and indeed in the basic African worldview, such distinctions do not exist. In my own ethnic language, Kichagga, there is no vocabulary for religion, spirituality, politics, and so on. There are no such compartmentalizing terms. One word includes them all: life, lived as one integrated whole. Once this integrated experience of life is divided into several parts (and each part subdivided almost ad infinitum) as we tend to do today, the essence of the whole is lost because the parts do not have a life of their own independent of the whole. For this reason it is extremely difficult to describe indigenous religion, spirituality, education, and fundamental virtues as separate entities. But I am doing so in this book because the average moderneducated reader seems to have the view that the dynamics of the whole can be understood from the properties of the parts. Indigenous peoples, however, know that the properties of the parts can be understood only from the dynamics of the whole. For them, all aspects of life and universe are interconnected and interdependent. They form one basic unity. Capra calls this: …the sense of connectedness to the cosmos as a whole. That’s also in the smile of the baby. The smile of that baby is my smile, because I am the father, but the smile of any baby is also my smile. And the smile of a dolphin—if you can call it a smile—is also my smile. That’s what Gregory Bateson meant when he called it “the pattern which connects the orchid to the primrose and the dolphin to the whale and all four of them to me.”17

Such a holistic perspective of life is nourishing for human and cosmic life. It is a life-giving and life-sustaining worldview. As the distinction


15

of these two perspectives (the holistic and the analytical) becomes clearer, the reader will be able to appreciate my struggle to articulate a holistic indigenous life to a modern analytical culture through a language that tends to be equally analytical. But I am energized by the realization that many people today are thirsty for life-giving knowledge and wisdom and will go anywhere to get it, even if part of it comes from indigenous peoples. The Chagga are one such indigenous people who view all aspects of the universe as engaged in a spontaneous and interrelated cycle of life. In a nutshell, these aspects are: (1) belief in and reverence of the eternal divine mystery; (2) acknowledgment of the intrinsic unity between individuals and communities; (3) viewing the universe as an interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent whole; and (4) embracing life as a process of spiritual and moral formation, reformation, and transformation. It is an ongoing dance that is kept alive by the creative and sustaining power of the Divine Mystery, the caring and protective presence of human beings, and by the inherent active participation of everything that is. The fundamental virtues to be articulated later in this book are rooted in this worldview, and can therefore be best understood through its lenses. The four aspects of the worldview discussed above are intimately related in everyday life. They are codependent and coformative. The emerging single worldview inspires all indigenous life in its many manifestations and endeavors. In the next section, the indigenous educational or formational system is discussed, in a mode that embodies in particular the second aspect of the worldview, ongoing human formation; that is, a gradual acquisition of fundamental virtues or positive human dispositions. THE INDIGENOUS CHAGGA EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM: AN EXPLANATORY STUDY OF THE IPVUNDA CONCEPT Indigenous peoples experience life holistically and integratively. Everything that is thought, said, and done is done in relationship to the whole of life and world. Everything that is known is learned in the context of the entirety of life, for the purpose of furthering physical, intellectual, and spiritual growth. If an authentic elucidation of indigenous Chagga spiritual growth is to be achieved, a researcher has to conduct the study from a similar holistic and integrative perspective. This is a major challenge for a modern analysis-oriented mind to shift gears to a new paradigm in

16


which the properties of the parts should be understood only from the dynamics of the whole. For instance, the reader may distinguish between knowledge and wisdom, mind and heart, intellect and spirit. In the mind of the Chagga people, and other indigenous peoples, there are no such distinctions, but rather an inseparable web of relationships. For indigenous peoples life is one. Living, knowing, and acting morally are experienced integratively. A holistic approach is essential, so that when one speaks of the Chagga educational system, all aspects of knowledge, wisdom, ethics, spirituality are ipso facto included. Although at times this study may distinguish between indigenous knowledge and indigenous wisdom, one must keep in mind that for the indigenous Chagga both knowledge and wisdom are essential elements of an authentic education. Their word for this holistic education is ipvunda. The meaning of ipvunda is much wider than the English word education as used today in common parlance. The following section will be devoted to an elucidation of the Chagga ipvunda concept. THE IPVUNDA CONCEPT In Kichagga, the language of the Chagga people who inhabit the windward slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Northern Tanzania, the infinitive ipvunda means to mold, to form, to raise up a person in all aspects: physical, intellectual, and moral, with special emphasis on the moral aspect.18 It is forming a person so comprehensively that he or she will be prepared to face life and world successfully throughout life. A person who molds another is called a mpvundi (plural wapvundi) and the molded one is known as a mpvunde (plural wapvunde). The ipvunda process goes on throughout life, with more emphasis and concentration at specific moments and intervals in the course of one’s life. The ipvunda process has two main interrelated aims: to provide an education for life and to impart an education for a living. To educate a person for life is to mold a person’s innermost core in such a way that one gradually acquires positive human dispositions such as reverence, respect, generosity, hard work, and self-control.19 Molding the interiority of a person is the major concern here because, according to the Chagga worldview, the interior part of a person takes precedence over the outer part. According to Zahan, the rest of indigenous Africa shares this view.20 In the African worldview, spiritual and moral formation is the foundation for physical and intellectual formation. One often hears Chagga elders advising their children: “my son, my daughter: grow up and become a


17

person” (monoko, ng’ana uwe mndu). The implication here is that if one has not become a good, wise, and reliable person, one has not really become a “person” yet. To become a good person is prized over anything else. The Kikuyu people of Kenya have a proverb: “Virtue is better than riches” (Guthinga kurugite gutonga).21 Much of the ipvunda process therefore is devoted to the moral and character formation of a person. The second aim of the ipvunda process is to give a person an education for a living. This consists in teaching children and youth to acquire all necessary information, skills, and techniques needed in a Chagga agroecological and sociocultural situation. These skills include, among others, skills in farming,22 house construction, cooking, first aid (basic knowledge of indigenous medicine), self defense, sports and recreation, and various professional skills23 (for artists, metal workers, indigenous doctors, politicians, herdsmen, bee-keepers, etc.). Such an education prepares persons to earn their livelihood, but these skills and techniques are taught in the context of the worldview discussed previously and in intimate association with education for life. Chagga elders know that the acquisition of certain information and skills alone would not make a mpvunde. For this reason, there is a continuous integration of education for life and education for a living in the one fundamental ipvunda process. In Chaggaland, as in most African societies, the two aspects of indigenous formation, an education for life and an education for a living, are inseparable in the process of ipvunda, and indeed in the ups and downs of life. These two facets of ipvunda are linked so essentially that the indigenous Chagga cannot imagine one without the other. Indeed their worldview radically excludes any type of formation that overemphasizes one or the other of the two facets. It is enlightening to note here that the indigenous Chagga word imanya, which means to know, also includes the experience of awakening to insight and enlightenment. Thus imanya means to know and to get insight; that is, to know mentally and to be touched in one’s heart in a way that gives wisdom. These two aspects, knowledge and wisdom, are distinguishable to a modern analytic mind, but not by the indigenous Chagga. In their worldview, if one has “knowledge” but no wisdom, then that one does not know. If, for instance, a person is “well” educated in the modern sense, and has no wisdom of life, the Wanyarwanda people of Rwanda would say, “He has the intelligence of books, but he does not have intelligence.” 24 In the indigenous African view, therefore, one is well educated if one has gained a significant amount of knowledge (information, skills, techniques) and a significant amount of wisdom and understanding. This one is a mpvunde.

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If one of these aspects is lacking, one is not a mpvunde, one is not yet educated. I do agree wholeheartedly with this way of thinking. Education for a living must go hand in hand with education for life, and vice versa. This is wisdom that modern Africans and people everywhere cannot afford to ignore. SPECIFIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE IPVUNDA PROCESS The ipvunda process, by its nature, goes on throughout life in various forms and with various emphases. A Chagga individual simultaneously receives formation and information throughout his or her life, from birth to death. It is a lifelong schooling process. To speak of the Chagga ipvunda process in terms of formal and informal education is imprecise, even in modern English parlance. If “formal” means well organized, having a syllabus, a curriculum of learning, such organization also can be found in an educational program practiced outside classrooms and schools, in family activities, community development and educational projects, peer group activities, religious programs, travel, camping, and so on. If all these are potential learning situations, then why call them informal learning situations? Similarly it is inappropriate to divide the Chagga ipvunda process into formal and informal learning situations. The main purpose of the process is to impart knowledge and wisdom, and therefore it does not really matter whether an aspect of these is given at home around the fire place or during an initiation rite, or in a modern school classroom. Rather, it is appropriate to speak of the ipvunda process in terms of an education in its own right. Societies, whether ancient or modern, prepare their youth to find their niche in their world though a specific system of education. It would be unreasonable and unfair therefore to think of indigenous peoples as uneducated just because they have not gone through a modern or Euro-American system of education. Many modern “educated” persons tend to think this way, and thus not only treat their brothers and sisters unfairly and unjustly, but also miss a golden opportunity to learn from them. It is more helpful to examine specific aspects of the ipvunda process, without engaging in the unnecessary and misleading categorizing of indigenous education into formal and informal aspects. Indigenous education is education, wherever and whenever it takes place. As will be seen below, the Chagga ipvunda process takes place in everyday interaction


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in life, at many teachable moments in a person’s life, and through specific moral transformation rites. EVERYDAY INTERACTION IN LIFE: A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY The first learning opportunity available to every Chagga child, adolescent, and adult is the everyday interaction in life. Every day, every occasion, every interaction with others, life, and world is a learning experience. My paternal grandfather, Naisa, used to tell me that the best kind of education is free, and it is available every day, wherever we are. He also added: “daily interaction in life and world is the most basic means of experiencing, teaching, and learning.” “Most learning happens here in everydayness,” he would emphasize. The average Chagga elder and parent is aware of this fact and so they consciously take every opportunity to ipvunda the young ones in the ordinary events of life. Elders are keenly conscious that every moment is a learning moment, and they are ready and willing to actually use every opportunity to mold the young, often without alerting the learner that learning is taking place. Practical experience with my own children has convinced me that this is a fundamental way of teaching and learning. TEACHABLE MOMENTS Indigenous parents, elders, and formators realize that there are unique moments in life when a person is more likely to learn and be enlightened. Such a moment can be described as a time when, due to a certain circumstance or event, a person’s attention is heightened and his or her mind is ready to be informed and his or her heart is ready to be touched. Four common circumstances are: First, when a person has done something positive or negative in another’s presence. For instance, a child reports to a parent that he has completed a previously assigned task, and the parent may use this opportunity to appreciate the child’s effort and also may tell a short story to show that good, honest effort often produces good results. If, on the other hand, a child does something wrong, a parent may use a proverb or story to teach this child that wrongdoing does not pay and that there are always consequences that one must face. In Tanzania, for example, a grandparent may say this proverb to an uncooperative grandchild: “One hand washes the other.”

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The Ashanti people of Ghana have a proverb for one who is lying: “One falsehood spoils a thousand truths.” Second, when an inquisitive child asks a question, he or she is ready to be informed and formed. Elders use this opportunity right away, but cautiously. Often they avoid “yes” or “no” answers unless this is the most reasonable answer. My maternal grandfather, Nderumaki, would answer my questions in various ways: Sometimes he would ask me a question that stimulated my thinking, thus teaching me to use my intellectual powers. At other times he would ask me to wait until tomorrow for the answer. This was somehow frustrating to me, but it taught me to be patient, to think in the meantime, and often to find my own answers. There are also times when he answered my questions with a story or a proverb. In each case, I learned something, even though not always at the same time. Looking back now, I am amazed at how almost always he consciously took my questions seriously and equally consciously used the opportunity to “strike the iron when it is hot,” that is, he saw a teachable moment at hand and used it fully. Third, a moment may be described as teachable when a certain event takes place. A wise elder knows how to turn the experience of an awesome event into an awakening moment. Such events and the wonder that they evoke in people lift their mind and hearts from the realm of the ordinary to that of transcendence. For instance, when someone dies, a Zulu elder (South Africa) will say to the young: “Enjoy life like food: leave some for your children.” This proverb teaches moderation at a time when a person is awed by the death of another. Normally this person will never forget this proverb and its lesson because it is quoted at the most appropriate time, when one sees the vulnerability and finitude of the human condition. This is a teachable moment, a spiritual formation opportunity par excellence. A fourth learning opportunity occurs when certain culturally accepted conditions are in place, such as storytelling, sitting around the fire before or after dinner, the presence of elders, and so on. People are all ears during storytelling, ready not only to be entertained but also to get a “lesson” for life. Similarly when the family is seated around the fire in the normally chilly evenings of northern Tanzania, they are ready to hear a word of wisdom from parents and grandparents. The presence of elders also is a teachable moment. The presence of elders evokes reverence, confidence, and a hunger for “a word from the wise.” All these are teachable moments, and indigenous parents and elders are aware of their formative potential.


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SPECIFIC TRANSFORMATION RITES Rituals provide a unique opportunity and readiness for interior transformation and learning of useful information.25 Persons participating in a specific ritual come to it with high anticipation for a life-transcending experience, a hunger for a new personhood, and courage to go through hardships during the process. Often the waiting for a specific rite takes several years, thus heightening the eagerness to learn and the readiness for personal (moral) growth. Indigenous people, therefore, make full use of this readiness by imparting to participants profound lessons in knowledge and wisdom, through word, ritual action, and specific apprenticeships. The Chagga people, and African peoples in general, take every precaution to make sure that the anticipation of participants is fulfilled. Here is the ipvunda process at its best. Zahan describes an African initiation process as “a slow transformation of the individual, as a progressive passage from exteriority to interiority.”26 A ritual moment or ritual period is therefore a formative moment and a person goes through many of these in a lifetime. Transformation rites are part of the more structured educational and formational programs of indigenous Africa. In summary, the Chagga ipvunda process takes place throughout life in three learning opportunities described above: everyday interaction in life; teachable moments; and specific transformation rites. In the entire process of being informed and formed, the gradual molding of a strong moral core is the central concern. How this plays out in the life of a Chagga child will be explained below. THE IPVUNDA PROCESS FOR A CHAGGA INFANT The ipvunda process begins as soon as a baby is born, with the family’s concern to establish strong bonds between infant and mother and between infant and other family members. This initial bonding is particularly essential for two reasons: first, it is the basis and beginning of community bonding and community interactions; and second, the family is the basic pedagogical agency in the ipvunda process.27 Early bonding brings to life in the infant the human potential for human warmth, care-giving, and the enjoyment of other people’s company. The Chagga people establish this bonding through several ways. For the first three months, the mother is the main caregiver and nurse for the infant. In fact, the mother remains the central formative person for the baby, even though she gets precious help from other family members such as

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the paternal grandmother, a baby-sitter, other siblings, and the father.28 Second, the bonding is initiated and strengthened through breastfeeding, frequent holding of the baby in one’s lap when she or he is awake, gentle touching and fondling, and friendly conversation with the baby. Third, mother and baby sleep on the same bed. The baby never sleeps alone. Experience with my own children has taught me that sharing a bed strengthens the baby-parent relationship. Fourth, family members amuse the baby by singing and playing with him or her. Song and play evoke feelings of playfulness and amusement in the baby. In summary, the baby is prepared for the practice of two fundamental human virtues: bonding with others or a strong sense of belonging, and playfulness or joyfulness. This part of the ipvunda process is given alongside the more obvious aspects of baby care: feeding, cleanliness, plenty of rest, and general baby health. THE IPVUNDA PROCESS FOR A CHAGGA CHILD The Chagga consider one to be a child from age four to about ten or eleven. At this age a girl is known as a monowaka and a boy as a manake. After infancy the ipvunda process takes on a new level, where the aim is to stimulate the physical, mental, and spiritual potential of the child. Other members of the family join the mother in her central place as formator. The mother keeps her role as main formator and model to her daughter and the father does likewise for his son. The paternal grandparents become paramount in teaching their grandchildren issues such as the proper behavior of a married man or woman; family and ethnic traditions; fundamental virtues like respect, self control, hard work, courage, and so on.29 A grandmother teaches her granddaughter and the grandfather his grandson. Maternal grandparents also participate in the ipvunda process although to a lesser extent, unless the paternal grandparents are absent. The formative role of parents and grandparents is emphasized by the Chagga because it gives a girl, for instance, a role model in the person of her mother. She is molded by her mother’s word and example. Similarly a young boy learns how to be an adult, a responsible father, a good husband, and a hard-working citizen by observing his father and working alongside him. The Kikuyu people of Kenya have a similar tradition, as Kenyatta shows here: The father has to teach his boy various things. As an agriculturist, he has to take him in the garden for practical training. He makes a digging-stick, moro, for his boy to


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play with while he is doing the actual work…. Through watching his father in these activities, the boy gradually learns how to handle his digging-stick, and thus becomes a practical agriculturist.30

The active presence of a parent figure in a child’s life is so crucial that an orphan is inherited by the deceased man’s brother and his wife, who treat the young child as their own. In this way all children are guaranteed a father and a mother. In the Kichagga language such a parent is simply called a mfee, not a stepfather or stepmother. Another significant formator in childhood is one’s age group or rika, where boys and girls, in separate groups, meet not only for recreation and amusement but also to engage in activities that prepare them for adult life.31 They learn to cooperate even in competition. Raum states: “a certain ‘ethos’ is created in the group, manifesting itself in a number of comradely qualities, such as commensality, solidarity, and mutual devotion.”32 When I was about ten years old, my parents made sure that I belonged to the right age group because they realized the formative potential of such groups. Today, forty-two years later, I still feel the influence of that age group as each of its members continues to be a close friend and a voice in my heart. THE IPVUNDA PROCESS FOR A YOUNG GIRL The ipvunda process aims at a holistic or integral formation of a young female child; that is, a practical education for a living, and profound education for life. A young girl must be helped to acquire all information and skills she needs to be a good formator, a great cook, and a successful contributor to the family’s economy on one hand; and, on the other, she also must acquire the basic human dispositions that will make her a good wife, mother, parent, and a responsible citizen. Up to about four or five years of age, Chagga girls and boys are not rigidly separated in work, play, and education. Generally boys and girls will be seen playing and working together. Around five years of age they are separated and a mother will begin a more intensified ipvunda process for her daughter. In summary, her education for a living is as follows: At age four, the mother teaches her daughter, always through her own example and through practical assignments, to clean in and around the house, fetch water, and help in small chores.33 When the girl is five, she is taught to cut grass and feed the cattle. Here is Raum’s observation:

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The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa Girls learn soon to cut grass for the cattle. One can see them at the age of four or five following their mothers to grassy slopes and carrying their little knives. They learn to handle these tools on some patch near the house until they attain mother’s permission to accompany her farther afield. Each worker cuts, collects, ties up, and carries her grass home for herself.34

The young girl also learns how to clean the cattle’s shed, move the manure to the plantation, and spread it around plants and vegetables. At age six, the mother begins to give her daughter intensive cooking lessons. Good cooking and a tasty meal is appreciated by everyone, so a girl who has a reputation of being a good cook will have many young men asking for her hand in marriage. In fact the Chagga people have a saying, “If you want to know what kind of cook your future wife will be, eat her mother’s cooking.” My own experience has proved the truth of this saying, time and time again. After many lessons, a mother will give her daughter a cooking test when she is not feeling well enough to cook or when she has to go to the market. Normally, she does not announce that this is a test. She just asks her daughter for help. When she comes back home, her daughter eagerly offers her mother some of her cooking, saying, “I am afraid you will not eat it, it is so bad.” Her mother heartily eats it, reassures her, and gently points out how this cooking could have been improved. When a young girl is about eight years old, her mother gives her intensive training in farming, the major occupation of the Chagga people. She learns to till the soil, raise fruits and vegetables, remove weeds, and harvest bananas, fruits, and vegetables. She acquires in this process enough practice and farming skills to become a self-sufficient farmer. Chagga widows always have been able to support their children and themselves due to this preparation. At ten years of age a Chagga girl is good at farming, taking care of cattle and milking them, making homemade butter, cooking, and other skills learned from her mother, grandmother, and other specialists. When she is fifteen she is ready to go to the marketplace without her mother. There she can put into practice the tricks and rules of bartering that she has been observing in her mother on numerous occasions before she can go on her own. This Chagga girl is now economically ready to be a wife and a mother. She has acquired a significant amount of education for a living, in theory and in practice.


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This girl will really be ready for adult responsibilities, however, if she has been a keen learner of the indigenous education for life which goes hand in hand with the above education for a living. Beginning at age four, the mother takes special care to gently but firmly mold the behavior of her daughter. She teaches her to have a high standard of personal cleanliness and to be presentable. The girl is often reminded not to sit with her legs apart or expose herself in any manner. When her breasts begin to be noticeable, the mother begins some lessons in sexuality that prepare her daughter for marriage. The most fundamental lesson in this initial sex education is that sex is for the procreation of children in marriage. The daughter is taught to abstain from any sexual activity until she is married. Her mother continually watches her and warns her to cover her breasts and to not allow boys to touch them. Nevertheless she does not encourage her daughter to avoid the company of other youths. She is rather advised to laugh, be merry, and be pleasant in appearance and behavior. “Don’t be shy in the company of boys,” she says, “If you withdraw into yourself, you will hardly get a suitor.” In the course of the next several years the mother emphasizes to her daughter the merits of being a good wife and a responsible mother. She teaches her to work hard and to be diligent. The young girl, through the medium of stories, proverbs, sayings, formal and informal conversation, is warned about the hazards of laziness and irresponsible living. Whenever the young girl shows signs of laziness and indolence (a teachable moment), mother or grandmother will use this proverb: “To enjoy the warmth of life, you must stir the embers.”35 In short, the mother constantly modifies her daughter’s behavior in view of her future status as a wife and a mother. Since a well-behaved daughter is the pride of her mother, a mother continually monitors her daughter’s behavior, sometimes judging her actions by the standards of an imaginary husband personified by her. Usually her daughter finds her mother’s role-playing as a husband familiar because she has experienced such role-playing in her own age group. Mother and daughter enjoy this immensely as the mother role-plays different kinds of husbands. This relaxed and amusing interaction between mother and daughter is quite formative because the young girl learns stresslessly in a teachable moment consciously created by the mother. When I was about fourteen or fifteen I often noticed my mother role-playing as husband to my sisters, who role-played as wives, with equal enthusiasm. I could tell that they enjoyed this exercise

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immensely even though below the cover of amusement there was seriousness and a strong determination in both parties to excel in good behavior. Looking back now, it seems correct to state that my sisters had at least ten years of preparation for adulthood and marriage. My mother, like all indigenous Chagga and African mothers, worked very hard so that my sisters would become wellbehaved, socially competent, and economically productive. After such intensive molding, the young girl is now, at about fifteen, a mpvunde to a great extent, because she has received a good dose of education for a living and education for life. THE IPVUNDA PROCESS FOR A YOUNG BOY When a young boy is about five years old, his father becomes central in his ipvunda process. At age seven, he gets intensive training in animal husbandry. Through theory and practice, his father teaches him how to graze cattle, goats, and sheep. The young boy goes to the farm and to the forest to cut and bring home special branches and leaves to feed goats. He is given the opportunity to name the animals and to learn all distinguishing features of each animal. A Chagga boy can, for example, point out his family’s four cows from a herd of fifty or more cows belonging to his neighbors. Writing about this custom among the Kikuyu people of Kenya, Kenyatta comments as follows: Care is taken to teach each boy how to be a good observer and to reckon things by observation…. For example, a man with a hundred head of cattle, sheep, and goats trains his son to know them by their colour only or by their size and type of horn, while every one of them has a special name.36

Soon the young man learns that cattle, goats, and sheep are a valuable property because they are used for marriage preparation expenses; rituals; they produce milk, meat, and oil; they are exchanged in buying of land; and they are a good source of manure. Their skins also are used in numerous ways. Raum reports that the Chagga people have four main possessions: land, cattle, water, and proverbs.37 At age eight his father introduces the young boy to serious work in the cultivation of bananas, the staple food of indigenous Chagga people. He learns, through practice, several important things on banana farming: preparation of holes in the farm; selection of proper shoots; the appropriate season for planting; actual planting of shoots; weeding; manuring;


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detecting and treating banana tree diseases. By the time the young man is twelve years old, he is a good banana farmer. He has learned the great variety of bananas and their uses, and which kind of soil and climate is good for this or that kind of banana.38 This young man also learns by age twelve the cultivation of coffee (introduced to Kilimanjaro in 1933), vegetables, maize (corn), fruit trees and other trees and plants useful for construction of houses, animal food (fodder), wooden tools, and utensils. Raum writes as follows: More than thirty shrubs are known to supply useful fodder. About twenty names were given to me of plants considered poisonous in the case of goats. A father shows these to his sons, explaining that some cause diarrhoea, and others death.”39

At twelve he also has a good amount of knowledge in herbal medicine: leaves, barks, and roots good for several aches and pains, for wounds, for stopping bleeding, for body parasites in humans as well as in animals. When I was twelve, I knew about twenty types of herbal treatments and the side effects of each one. All this knowledge is given spontaneously in everyday interactions so that one does not need to memorize anything stressfully. At the age of fourteen, a young boy is given a small piece of land for apprenticeship. He cultivates this independently, occasionally getting some guidance from his parents or older siblings. He also works with the family in the bigger family farm. In some cases he is given a cow and a goat to care for. He uses the proceeds to get gifts for his parents, grandparents, other relatives, and to buy some of his own needs. In this practice he solidifies his knowledge on different types of soil (for instance: ipuke, kiseru, usena, sanga-sanga), irrigation systems, prevention of soil erosion, and the selection and preservation of good seed. When he is fifteen he joins his father in community house building and in the construction of irrigation channels around hills and even through valleys. Thus by this age he has a good grasp of farming, animal husbandry, herbal medicine, a great variety of birds, animals, insects, trees, grasses, fruits, and flowers, and, in some cases, a specific profession (taught by his father or a designated professional) such as wood-carving, ironmongering, hunting, bee-keeping, treatment of disease, and so on. The young man, therefore, has had a good education for a living and is therefore ready, economically, to be an adult and a father. Alongside the information, skills, and practice gained as shown above, a boy gradually acquires a certain wisdom of life, proportionate to his

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age. He learns to be a good listener to parents and grandparents. Often he learns that diligence and working hard are virtues. He learns this the hard way when his father bestows choice gifts to a harder working brother or sister or when the rains come before he has sowed his maize seed because he was too lazy to finish hoeing in time. Next time around he works harder. Farming is quite a tedious job, so the young boy learns selfdiscipline and endurance in the process. Farmers have to wait for the proper season, for rains to come, for crops to mature, for the next planting season. They learn to be patient. They also learn to appreciate the animals on their farm. The father passes on this disposition to his son by advising him not to abuse his animals. Many farmers, including myself, feel so close to their animals that if they have to slaughter one of them, they ask someone else to do it in their absence. When I was a young boy I could not watch an animal being slaughtered, nor could I do so now. My father taught me to treat our animals kindly. He told me the following story several times: Once upon a time there were two brothers. The elder, called Mafole, was a clever boy. The younger, Ndeonio, was less clever and covered with itch. One day they were told that cattle were to be had in the forest. Mafole got there first. He found them and whistled to them to follow him. Those close to him began to lick him. He was angry and he hit them so hard that they fled. He returned empty-handed. Ndeonio set out, whistled to the cows and was licked by them. But he did not mind, for his itch was soothed and he brought the herd home singing: “My cattle, ehee, my cattle have arrived, ehee. Come into the house! My cattle, come into the house.” His parents went out rejoicing. He then became so rich that even his elder brother came to work for him.

Another virtue that the young boy learns through practice at this time is cooperation. To facilitate the grazing of cattle, three or four households bring together all their cattle (about twenty or so) so that they can be grazed together by their herd-boys. The three or four fathers concerned take turns to supervise their sons. Here the boys have the opportunity not only to learn to cooperate but also to use their imagination and initiative when left on their own. Numerous other African peoples, including the Maasai of Tanzania and Kenya, the Zanaki of Tanzania, the Acholi of Uganda, and others, have a similar custom. The Chagga boy also learns cooperation in farming, in community house building, and in his age group. He learns and believes that cooperation and good relationships with


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relatives and neighbors bring soil fertility and a good harvest because, in accordance with the fourth aspect of their worldview, everything is interconnected. My grandparents reminded me time and time again: “Good family and kinship relations give birth to a good harvest.” According to Raum: “A child is made to feel the importance of good relations in the kindred group when it realizes that the fertility of the fields depends on them.”40 Thus by the age of fifteen to eighteen a young boy has learned everything he needs to know in order to be a productive member of the society and of his own future family. He has also learned from his father and grandfather that he must be a good husband and a caring father. Verses 62 and 63 of Shabaan Robert’s one hundred verses written to his son, illustrate this point: Mkeo mpe heshima, Mheshimu kama mama, Mzaa watoto wema, Ulivyozaliwa wewe.

Reverence to your wife do give, Like you would your mother. She brings forth precious children Just like you were born.

Watoto wako wapende, Katika moyo wagande, Na uwezalo litende, Liwafae baadaye.41

Your children you are to love, Hold them deep in your heart, Do everything that you can, So to make their future secure.

Robert echoes the teaching of indigenous fathers to their teenage sons. Such teachings may not always sound useful when they are given, but, as my experience shows, they sure make a lot of sense as the young man gets older. So it is common to hear adults say: “the older I get, the wiser my parents become.” The young teenage boy is now, like his sisters, a mpvunde to a great extent, because he has received an integrated education that informs his mind and inspires his heart. Throughout this process his father is the most prominent formator, the central person in the making of a gentleman. His son is now ready for one of the most important transformation rites: circumcision, a gateway to adulthood and marriage. For about ten years, the father has been doing everything he can to prepare his son for adulthood and marriage. It is time for graduation. In summary, the indigenous Chagga young girl and boy have a good grasp of the following at about fifteen years of age: an intimate knowledge of the family tree and clan (including names of each relative, relationships

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between them, clan history, and traditions); farming skills: knowledge of various seasons, hoeing, manuring, planting, weeding, protection of crops from insects, birds, animals, and bad weather, seed selection and preservation, food storage, irrigation and prevention of soil erosion; names of fruits and flowers; animal husbandry: feeding, cleaning the shed, milking, selection of good breeders, making oil, and treating animal and human diseases. He or she also has learned special skills from parents or a designated professional such as: wood-carving, hunting, iron-mongering, leadership, basket weaving, pottery; singing and dancing; relationship skills such as how to relate to parents, elders, peers, older and younger siblings, spouse, the king or chief, and children; sex education; health education; a good collection of stories, sayings, riddles, songs, and proverbs; and, last but not least, a theoretical and practical knowledge of fundamental human dispositions or virtues—the subject of Chapters 3 and 4. The mpvunde knows the above, not as two entities—education for a living and education for life—but as one integrated whole. The mpvunde experiences an existential holistic paradigm in which knowledge and wisdom are inseparable. One cannot, therefore, speak of an indigenous knowledge that is distinct from spirituality or morality. In accordance to the Chagga and African worldview, knowledge is not knowledge if the moral or spiritual aspects are missing. As noted earlier in reference to the Wanyarwada people of Rwanda, an African elder may say of a modern African university graduate: “She has knowledge of books but has no knowledge.”42 To know in the Chagga worldview means both to have the intellectual information about what is known and to be spiritually inspired by the inherent transcendent aspects of the same known subject. For example, a person not only knows that a certain herb has a specific medicinal value, but also feels connected to it in the circle of life, and is awed by its essential role in the universal dance of life. In this paradigm all knowledge therefore has holistic intellectual, relational, and spiritual facets. Chagga parents and elders work hard, through the ipvunda process, to bring their children to higher and higher levels of this integrated maturity. The ipvunda process will be further elucidated in Chapter 2, in which I shall describe some basic categories of indigenous formators and thereafter articulate the means used to mold the young.


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NOTES 1

Charles Nyamiti, African Tradition and the Christian God (Eldoret, Kenya: Gaba Publications, N.D.), 2–3. See also: John S.Mbiti, The Concepts of God in Africa (London: S.P.C.K., 1970), 91–95. 2 Mbiti, 1970, 27. 3 The Judeo-Christian name Michael (Mikha’el) also means “Who is like God?” See Num. 13:13, I Chron. 5:13, Ezra 8:8, Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. II (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1971), 1487. 4 Charles Dundas, Kilimanjaro and its People (London: Frank Cass and Co., 1968), 146. Emphasis mine. 5 Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 16–17. 6 Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 20. 7 This trend of thought does not deny the personhood of unborn babies or infants. According to Chagga culture, and much of African culture, these are persons, revered and respected as such. 8 Dominique Zahan, The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 53–54. 9 Ibid., 54. 10 John S.Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Nairobi: Heineman Educational Books, 1969), 108–109. 11 Shaaban Robert, Maisha Yangu na Baada ya Miaka Hamsini, (Nairobi: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1966), 7–36. 12 Mbiti, 1969, 108. 13 Zahan, 81. 14 Ibid., 66. 15 One of the scenes in the movie The Gods Must be Crazy shows this example of reverence to animals. 16 In fact, the political, spiritual, social, and economic spheres are only distinguishable in the modern mind. For indigenous Africans, and indigenous peoples across the world, such a neat distinction does not exist. Deeper reflection reveals that the moment one of these aspects is separated and treated as a distinct part from the rest, the whole is destroyed. Here it is true to state: The sum of the parts is not equal to the whole. In Belonging to the Universe, Capra says: “The properties of the parts can be understood only from the dynamics of the whole. Ultimately, there are no parts at all. What we call a part is merely a pattern in an inseparable web of relationships.” (Fritjof Capra and David Steindl-Rast, San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992), xii. 17 Capra, 14. Italics in original.

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18 The population of the Chagga people of Northern Tanzania is about one million. Their indigenous language, Kichagga, has three main variations according to the three original districts of Hai, Vunjo, and Rombo. The word ipvunda is used in the Vunjo area, home of the author. 19 Some positive human dispositions will be discussed in chapters 3 and 4. 20 Zahan, 53–65. 21 G.Barra, 1000 Kikuyu Proverbs (Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1991), 13. 22 Most indigenous Chagga people are farmers. 23 See Raum, 366–373, for a description of some basic indigenous professions among the Chagga. 24 Alexis Kagame, La Philosophic Bantu-Rwandaise de l’Etre (Brussels, 1956), 221, quoted by Janheinz Jahn, Muntu, An Outline of the New African Culture (Grove Press, New York, 1961), 122. 25 See Chapter 2, “Ritual” section, for details. 26 Zahan, 54. 27 Raum, 384. 28 In Facing Mount Kenya (Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya, Ltd, 1987), 60, Jomo Kenyatta (in reference to the Kikuyu People of Kenya) writes: “The education of very small children is entirely in the hands of the mother and the nurse. It is carried on through the medium of lullabies.” 29 See chapters 3 and 4 for details on these virtues. 30 Kenyatta, 62. Italics in original. 31 See chapter 2 for details on categories of formators. 32 Raum, 274. 33 In the districts of the Kilimanjaro Region, there are numerous small rivers, creeks, springs, and manmade irrigation canals, so fetching water is normally not a tough job. 34 Raum, 199. 35 The Kikuyu people of Kenya have a similar proverb. And an English equivalent is, “No gain without pain.” 36 Kenyatta, 62–63. 37 Raum, 217. (Land, cattle, and water feed the body, proverbs [wisdom] feed the mind and spirit—My commentary) 38 There are over twenty types of bananas in the Kilimanjaro area of Tanzania. A few of them are mchare, a favorite one for special dishes (cooked green); ndishi, for roasting and making beer; mîîwo, for beer; mng’eng’ele, for food; kitaâsa, for food during scarcity; mr-ar-ao, for beer; iôngo, for roasting; mkonosi, for food; kisukari, for ripe bananas.


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39 Raum, 198. Raum includes the following footnote: “A Zulu boy of fifteen once astonished Mrs. E.C.Krige by identifying almost 200 botanical specimens. The value of such knowledge, common to herd-boys, lies in the fact that it is directed to practical ends. They know the uses to which each plant is put,” Natal Mercury, March 8, 1939. 40 Raum, 209. 41 Robert, 31. 42 See footnote 24 above.

Map 2: Tanzania, showing the capital city, Dar es Salaam, and other major cities and towns. The shaded area on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro is the cultural and geographical area of this study.

CHAPTER 2

Formators and Pedagogical Tools in Indigenous Education

There are two important aspects of the indigenous Chagga method of education: the formators or educators, wapvundi, and the tools which they use. I use the term formator because it is closer in meaning to the Chagga word ipvunda (already explained in the previous chapter). A formator forms and molds a person intellectually, spiritually, and morally. Pedagogical tools are the means used in the ipvunda process, such as stories, proverbs, and song. Both aspects of education, that is, formators and the formation tools, are rooted in the indigenous worldview discussed in Chapter 1. First, five basic categories of formators will be studied: the extended family unit; parents; grandparents; elders; and age groups. These work together and harmoniously in educating the young and all members of the community. Let us examine each category separately. FIVE BASIC CATEGORIES OF FORMATORS THE EXTENDED FAMILY UNIT The large family unit, hereafter referred to as “family,” is the most important agent of indigenous education. Through the family, infants, children, and adolescents come to know the collective wisdom of their people. Here they learn, and are helped to practice, how to be human. The family is a child’s window and gateway to the world. No one person can single-handedly raise a child as successfully as a family can. Naisa, my paternal grandfather, used to tell me: “Raising up a child is an immense responsibility that one person simply cannot discharge. You need 35

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a family, a community, a village, to mold a well-behaved, hard-working, and civilized person out of a child.” Indigenous parents teach all their children how to baby-sit, so that every member of the community has some basic knowledge in baby-sitting, including gently holding and caressing a baby, cleaning, feeding, entertaining, pacifying, and singing a baby to sleep. The larger community is also important. Everyone in a village or neighborhood is in some way a formator of each child in the area. If an adult sees a child misbehaving, he or she has the responsibility to admonish such a child, and to let the concerned parents know what their child is doing in the neighborhood. Every parent is everyone’s parent, and each child is every parent’s child. No wonder a Chagga child greets any adult this way: Greeting: Kwamtza, Mbe. (Good morning, Father). Response: Naiyo monoko. (The same to you, my child).

This child uses the respectful Mbe for his father as he greets all fathers. The adult, in turn, refers to the greeter as his own child, even if these two have never met before. As I reflect upon these customs now, I am awed by the ability of indigenous people to be so human-centered, so concerned with humanity, so life-giving in simple greetings and ordinary life transactions. The title of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book, It Takes A Village, echoes well the worldview of the indigenous Chagga on the raising of children: each one must actively participate, to some extent, in the formation of our children, all our children.1 African proverbs accentuate the important place of a family in a person’s formation and its essential role in the development of civilized societies. The Ashanti people of Ghana have this proverb: “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.” The Yoruba of Nigeria have a saying: “A man’s legs are his brother and sister. On what else can he rely?” In South Africa, they warn you, “Do not sell your sister for an ox.” And in Egypt, they have this saying: “Poor is the man who lost his clan.”2 Being the most fundamental of human institutions, the family is therefore a very effective formator of children, and indigenous people are well aware of this. The Ashanti people are quite right: Destroy families and you destroy the nation; build strong families and you build a strong nation. PARENTS In a society where children are so precious, everything is done to ensure that children get the best care by parents well prepared for this awesome


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responsibility. Parents not only teach and guide their children, they also give themselves totally to them. As my parents would say: “No sacrifice is too big for your child.” Five years after World War II, when I was about five years old, there was scarcity of food in our home. Whenever my mother cooked whatever she could get, she and my father ate only after my sister and I had eaten, often only a few morsels of food. My parents also went barefoot so that we (the children) would have our shoes. They spent everything they could, including their very selves, to give us the children abundant life. Now that I am an adult, their example has inspired me to do the same for my children. My experience, and that of so many other Chagga people, shows that parents, father and mother, are most essential and most effective in raising children. As indicated above, a Chagga mother takes center stage in the formation of her daughter between ages five and fifteen. The father does the same for his son. This mode of formation serves two main purposes: first, it creates a strong bond between mother and daughter, father and son. In this bonding, the child feels loved and accepted as unique. The child also feels free to ask many questions, including those pertaining to sex education. A friendship develops here in a way that creates many teachable moments between parent and child. Mother and daughter, father and son, share experiences that remain locked in their heart forever. My father told me stories of his life, also his joys and frustrations, that I shall never tell anyone. A sacred ground, that only the Eternal Mystery can tread on, developed between my father and I. A lot of “raising up” takes place on this sacred ground upon which a parent and child walk along in life. From this perspective, parents are crucial in the ipvunda process of their children. Secondly, this mother-daughter, father-son relationship gives a powerful role model to children. For me, my father is an incarnation of hard work, respect for everyone, faithfulness to one’s spouse, impartial love for all his children, generosity, patience, self-control, and-in the last years of his life-joyfulness, letting go, and profound endurance in hard times. Any of my three sisters says equally beautiful things about our mother, and my brother likewise. The father-son and motherdaughter relationship is fundamentally a spiritual one. It is a formative, nurturing, and life-giving relationship, as some African proverbs show. In Namibia, they say: “Learn with the left hand while you still have the right one.” This means, learn while your parents are still alive. A Senegalese proverb goes this way: “If your son laughs when you scold him, you ought to cry, for you have lost him; if he cries, you may

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laugh, for you have a worthy heir.” The Luhyia people of Western Kenya treasure the following maxim: “Opili begets Opili,” that is, a child takes after its parents. The English would say, “Like breeds like,” or, “Like father, like son.” Since the indigenous Chagga society takes motherhood and fatherhood so seriously, one of the main aims of the Chagga ipvunda process is to form future responsible mothers and fathers. GRANDPARENTS The four grandparents are quite significant in the ipvunda process. In a patriarchal society like the Chagga one, the grandparents have significantly more formational authority over their sons’ children than over their daughters’ children. Nevertheless, all four grandparents are important in the ipvunda process, complementing in various ways the responsibility of their sons and daughters in raising up their children. In my own case, my maternal grandparents became more instrumental in my formation because my paternal grandfather died when I was a child and my paternal grandmother died when I was about twelve. But before they died, my paternal grandparents had had quite a formidable impact in my ipvunda process. In Chaggaland, as in other African societies, a grandparent has a special relationship with her or his grandchild. In some ways it is almost a mystical relationship. The blessings of grandparents are considered effective, so also their curses, which no one would like to incur. Grandparents love their grandchildren in a different way, perhaps because, first, grandchildren are the fruits of a “job well done” on their own children; secondly, the presence of grandchildren assures them that their lineage will go on; and thirdly, because the birth of grandchildren promotes grandparents to a higher social and spiritual status, that is, becoming elders of their clans and ethnic groups. Kenyatta describes this relationship among the Kikuyu thus: The affection between grandparents and their grandchildren is very great. Symbolically the children belong to the same age-group as their grandparents, the name given to the first male child being that of his paternal grandfather, and at the time of the birth it is announced that it is “he” who has come. Similarly, the second male child will represent maternal grandfather. The same thing applies to a female child. In religious ceremonies the children are treated in the same manner as their grandparents. Owing to the supreme authority which grandparents


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have in the family group, the children, while with them, are given the feeling that they are with their equals.3

And a popular proverb in Egypt is: “Dearer than our children are the children of our children.” Among some African peoples, the Chagga, for example, some children take the names of their grandparents, or are given names by them. In my case, my name Sambuli, meaning the expected one or model, was given to me by my paternal grandfather, Naisa. He gave me this name because everyone in the family was expecting a boy, because my elder brother Ndevumilia (the patient one) had died in infancy. Upon conferring this name upon me, he also blessed me and wished me the best in life. This personal story exemplifies the special relationship that exists between a grandparent and a grandchild, a relationship on which the formative power of grandparents is rooted. The closeness, the almost mystical relationship, and the respectable age of the grandparents, create an intimate relationship between them and their grandchildren. A grandmother and her granddaughter forge an intimate bond much like the one between mother and daughter. Grandmother has numerous tales, often told in the evenings. Through these stories and proverbs she admonishes her granddaughter to obey her parents, to venerate the ancestors and to respect her brothers and sisters. She discusses the problems that may arise in marriage and advises her granddaughter on how careful selection of a husband may minimize such problems. Granddaughter learns from grandmother how to relate to her future husband, how disagreements and squabbles originate, and how to behave with moral restraint at such times. In fact, grandmother enjoys the freedom to talk to her granddaughter about any subject, in some cases about issues that her mother views as unimportant or embarrassing to discuss with her daughter. This being the case, the formative role of a grandmother in the ipvunda process of her granddaughter is unique and irreplaceable. The grandfather, on the other hand, has much to teach his grandson. He covers more or less the same issues discussed between grandmother and granddaughter such as good conduct, hard work, wise selection of a future spouse, respect for parents, the raising up of children, resolving conflicts in marriage, and the like. The grandson also learns the ethnic and clan history and traditions, sex education, and how to relate respectfully and diplomatically with in-laws. Like grandmother and granddaughter, grandfather and grandson become good friends, a factor which facilitates the ipvunda process in grandchildren.

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Why is the grandparents’ role in the ipvunda process so effective? First, grandparents have more experience in raising children than the average young parents. They recall their strengths and limitations when they were parents, and therefore can now be more realistic in the raising of their grandchildren. For instance, my grandparents were better listeners, in many cases, than my parents, in particular when I made mistakes. Grandparents tend to be more patient, more understanding and forgiving, because of lessons learned in the course of many years. For this reason, grandparents, generally speaking, are less abusive with children. Perhaps this is why many indigenous parents have a feeling that grandparents are lenient and permissive with children. My experience is that my grandparents would not let me get away with anything. They admonished me whenever necessary, but their methods were often positive, enlightening, and even entertaining. Nderumaki, my maternal grandfather, used to tell me this proverb: “Kind words finally drive an elephant out of your farm,” much like the English would say: “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Second, grandparental teaching is more straightforward and has less mysterious language such as that used by designated experts in the context of transformation rites. Grandparents make skillful use of teachable moments to inspire their grandchildren, especially through the use of stories, proverbs, riddles, song, and the wealth of their experience. Each of my four grandparents gave me at least one story a week, sometimes more. Since grandparents have less work-related pressures, they have more time for their children and grandchildren, and more time to reflect on life and world for the benefit of their listeners, grandchildren in this case. Third, grandparents help make the ipvunda process less stressful by giving a listening ear to their sometimes frustrated grandchildren. At grandfather’s or grandmother’s house, a grandchild can speak his or her heart out, confident that she or he will be listened to, understood, and given wise counsel. Sometimes a grandson “confesses” his wrongdoing to his grandfather, who then advises him on how to proceed in terms of reparation and reconciliation where necessary. Parents, too, find consolation and advice in grandparents (their parents), especially when they are stressed out by their children. Thus, grandparents have “fulltime jobs,” not so much in farming, but in counseling, spiritual direction, consoling, reconciling, and peacemaking. Humanity being what it is, these grandparents have no dull moment. They are right in the center of the ipvunda process, and I am mighty glad my grandparents were.


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Finally, grandparents help their grandchildren deal with issues of discipline that parents find rather difficult to deal with or have tried and failed. Because grandparents are emotionally involved with their grandchildren on a level different from that of the parents, they have the opportunity to create an atmosphere in which some discipline or behavior problems can be solved or addressed more positively. One of my peers, aged thirteen, could not see eye-to-eye with his father because he enjoyed sports and games more than working in their banana farm. So his father finally requested grandfather’s help. The young man was asked to spend a few weeks at his grandfather’s house. He immediately accepted the invitation because this maternal grandfather was well known for his entertaining stories and great skills in making banana wine (mbeke). He recounted to the young man story after story of how some people, once upon a time, starved their families due to laziness and overindulgence in sports. He offered him some mbeke on the condition that he would help in the old man’s banana farm. To the grandfather’s great surprise, the young man worked zealously in the farm. One day, while they shared some really good mbeke, the grandfather said: “You are doing really well in my farm. How come you are not helping your father in his farm?” The young man replied, “Grandpa, I like to help my father, but he criticizes my work so severely that I am ashamed to work with him. So, I go out and play with my friends.” Later, the grandfather gently advised his “son” (son-in-law in English) to be more patient and understanding. Father and son were reconciled and the “problem” solved for good. How true the Kiswahili proverb: Palipo na wazee hapaharibiki neno; that is, wherever there are elders, affairs go on well. Grandparents are therefore essential in the raising up of Chagga children and African children in general. Their place cannot be taken by anyone else. Their contribution and experience are needed, and this responsibility keeps them young and alert, and also makes them enjoy a productive life. ELDERS In the strict sense, an African or Chagga elder (msongoru, plural: wasongoru) is defined as a person of age and experience, with the assumption that one who has lived long has also acquired a certain amount of experience and wisdom. The emphasis here is on experience. In the former Zaire, there is this proverb: “You do not teach the paths of the

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forest to an old gorilla.” In Ethiopia, the proverb goes this way: “A silly daughter teaches her mother how to bear children.” And an Egyptian proverb: “A day older is a year wiser.” Elders have an important role to play in the ipvunda process. By virtue of their experience and time-tested wisdom, they have the responsibility to form and mold the rest of society, and society therefore must listen to them. The aged and experienced are all wapvundi in one way or another. The wider sense of the term elder has three levels of meaning. First, any person who is significantly older than you is considered your elder. If your neighbor or colleague at work is twenty and you are fifteen, then this person is your elder. Older siblings are also elders to their younger siblings. Like all elders, this older sibling or older colleague has the duty to lead the younger ones by word and good example. Second, a person is counted in the ranks of elders as soon as she or he gets married. One also becomes an elder of a higher rank when one goes through certain rituals. For example, a son becomes an elder to his brother or peer when he gets married, he is an elder to his peers when he becomes a grandfather, and goes to a higher level if he becomes a greatgrandfather. The emphasis here is respect for age, which presupposes some experience and wisdom. Third, any person holding a social rank higher than another becomes the latter’s elder, even if younger in age. Any socially recognized and installed leader is an elder to his or her subjects, regardless of age. Indigenous Chagga chiefs, royal counselors, village leaders, indigenous doctors, and so on, are all elders, ex officio. The first president of Kenya was always referred to as Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. Mzee here (literal Kiswahili meaning is old person) means elder, the respected one. Indigenous philosophy demands high moral and ethical standards from its leaders, who, by virtue of their office, are considered formators and molders of society. In Chaggaland, rulers belong to the class of wapvundi, so the tradition takes extra care in the preparation of the ruler to be. A Chagga ruler, mangi, by virtue of his or her office, is automatically an elder, the most revered elder. So, the vocational training of a future ruler is more elaborate than any other professional training. From childhood, a ruler’s son is trained to behave in a manner consonant with his special position and future role as ruler, mangi. He or she learns to respect everyone, especially old women and men. In his age group, the mangi to be must treat his playmates fairly. His father, the reigning mangi, assisted by a designated mlosha, teaches him to acquire these dispositions: generosity to all, especially the poor, widows, orphans, and expectant mothers; courage;


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thoughtfulness; and compassion to first offenders, etc. He is advised to listen to songs carefully, because in Chaggaland, opposition to the ruler is often expressed through song. In some areas of Chaggaland, the mangi to be is accompanied everywhere by two teachers (walosha), who base their teachings on everyday happenings and experiences. The mangi receives an intensified dose of ipvunda because he is to become a mpvundi of the wapvundi, the formator of formators. There are three categories of elders, in accordance with their formative role in society. First, there are elders by virtue of age, experience, and social status, whom I have already described: older siblings, parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, and any person in the same generation as these. The second category is that of professional teachers, walosha. In indigenous Chaggaland, a mlosha or mloshi is an expert teacher, one who teaches especially during and after the periods of transformation (initiation) rites. When Chagga teenage boys are separated from their families for several weeks or months in preparation for circumcision, they have a special teacher, mlosha, who instructs them on a variety of subjects including good character, civility, courage, hard work, and responsibility in married life.4 Oftentimes, the mlosha is accompanied by an interpreterassistant who translates for the initiates some of the complicated and metaphorical instructions. The mlosha and his assistant may engage in a conversation punctuated by numerous riddles and proverbs that the initiates are invited to express in everyday language. Some walosha are known for their expertise in proverbs, riddles and stories, others are cherished for their great ability to sing and use song as a medium for the ipvunda process. My paternal grandfather, Naisa, was a mlosha in terms of his skill in the use of proverbs, riddles, and stories to entertain and to inspire his listeners. Like all walosha, he was mostly concerned with the moral formation of society. The third category of elders consists of those who have manifested a profound amount of wisdom, wit, and knowledge: indigenous African sages. These are aged and experienced men and women recognized by the community as wise, good counselors who have insight and intuition in tough times, crisis situations, or complicated family or community problems. People seek their advice. When there is a tough case, they must be present. My godfather, Mzee Temu, is one such sage. Whenever there is a complicated case in our village, he is consulted. He is indeed a philosopher through and through. He is a clear thinker, intelligent and highly articulate in speech. When he speaks, everybody listens. Oruka, defines a sage as a person who “is wise and is capable of understanding

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and explaining the basic truths, values, and logic that guide the beliefs and practices of the people in that community.”5 In Chaggaland, sages like Mzee Temu are respected and appreciated for their untiring search for justice, peace, and harmony in their communities. They awaken others to moral living and high standards of character. They are wapvundi, par excellence, unequalled formative elders through theory and practice. These wasongoru, that is, leaders through experience, wisdom, and sagacity, are the living “sacred scriptures” in indigenous Chaggaland. They treasure, guard, interpret, and teach indigenous knowledge and indigenous wisdom in the context of formation of children and society. They not only teach the indigenous moral code, they are, in some way, the moral code itself. A Chagga elder, like all African elders, represents transcendence, high morality, good human living, and a link with all that which is good. Two Kiswahili proverbs underscore the important formational and educational role of elders: Palipo na wazee hapaharibiki neno (nothing goes wrong where elders are present), and Asiyesikia la mkuu huvunjika guu (a person who does not heed the counsel of an elder ends up with a broken leg). These wasongoru are therefore the spiritual masters or gurus of the Chagga and African formation tradition. Their role in the ipvunda process cannot be overemphasized. Age Group: Rika The final significant category of indigenous formators is the age group, rika. Rika in Kichagga means “same age.” The age group, normally members of the same sex, originates early when children come together to play in a given neighborhood. In childhood, age groups are in essence play groups. As children grow into adolescents, the play groups move beyond mere playing relationships to shared experiences such as participation in initiation rites, learning of various skills, role-playing, and the like. In Chaggaland a play group officially is known as an age group when it prepares for, and goes through, the rituals and teachings of circumcision together or about the same time. In my own age group, which began as a playgroup when I was about five years old, the oldest is now fifty-five and the youngest is fifty-one. We were circumcised in the same season, and many were married about the same time. Two of our members, who have died, are always part of our age group and always will be so. Two main reasons prompt me to see age groups as crucial formators in the Chagga ipvunda process. First, an age group is an excellent place where members learn warm human bonding, regardless of family and clan ties. Members of an age group come from various families and clans.


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They are bonded, not by blood and marriage, but by common experience and age.6 Regarding the Kikuyu people of Kenya, whose traditions are similar in many ways to the Chagga, Kenyatta writes: The system of age-grading unites and strengthens the whole tribe in all its activities. Almost every year, thousands of Gikuyu boys and girls go through the initiation or circumcision ceremony, and automatically become members of one agegrade…irrespective of [family group or clan group], or district to which individuals belong. They act as one body in all tribal matters and have a very strong bond of brotherhood and sisterhood among themselves.7

Bonding and solidarity are at the very heart of an age group. In my own age group, I have learned in practice the importance of group cohesiveness, hospitality, care and nurture, and commitment to persons not my relatives. This is why parents make sure that their children belong to reputable, well-behaved age groups. Although indigenous young age groups are independent and free from close supervision by parents and other elders, they always are an elbow away from sound advice and adult support. Age groups are, therefore, almost as important as families in forming humancentered, community-oriented young people. Second, age groups are important formators in several ways: in their competitive games, members are tested in intellectual and social qualities of cooperation, patience, and altruism; they enact in play what adults experience in daily work, marriage, even death; and through play, games, and extensive role-playing, young people in age groups prepare themselves for married life and adult responsibilities. The importance of age group in the Chagga ipvunda process, therefore, cannot be overemphasized. Age groups introduce their members to the real world beyond their own families and neighborhoods. According to Raum, the virtues learned through play groups and age groups include: equality (everyone enters an age group with equal chances), democracy, interdependence, solidarity, mutual devotion, courage, respect, and graceful conduct.8 Many of my childhood and adolescent memories are from my age group experiences. These memories continue to shape my thoughts, even some of my behavior—positively. One special memory stands out. We were about twelve years old then. One day we got lost somewhere in the thick mount Kilimanjaro equatorial forest. We sat down and quickly but carefully let each one of us guess the right way home through intuition, reasoning, and all accumulated experience. One by one, each of the six of us indicated what would be the best direction to go. We then discussed

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the prevailing opinion, acted on it, and, yes, we found our way home. Although this event took place forty years ago, I remember it vividly, and every time I do so, I enter into a teachable moment, a moment of inspiration and insight. My age group continues to exert formative influence on me, long after we parted. Ironically, even the not-so-positive memories are formative. No wonder, my grandmother used to say: “Those who are not taught by their mother, will be taught by their age group.” Age groups are formidable agents in the Chagga ipvunda process. Indigenous parents and elders are keenly aware of this fact, so they continuously assist their young ones to become a positive force in their age group. They know, through reflection and experience, that each group has tremendous formative influence on each of its members. Each member reveals, to some extent, the behavior characteristic of the entire group. In Senegal there is this saying, “When you know who his friend is, you know who he is.” The five categories of wapvundi work so cooperatively and coformatively that the mpvunde does not notice discontinuity or sharp differences of teaching styles. Rather, the mpvunde feels that he or she is journeying through life with indispensable wapvundi who are more of friends, parents, or life companions than mere givers of information. For the indigenous Chagga people, these wapvundi are indispensable in maintaining a healthy heartbeat of society. Without them, there is no civility. Now we turn to the tools or means used by the wapvundi and others in the Chagga educational or ipvunda system. Pedagogical Tools in the Chagga Ipvunda Process There are three main educational tools in the ipvunda process: linguistic tools—stories, proverbs, riddles, song, and dance; ritual word and action; and role-playing. It is essential to understand how these “tools” are used in the everyday formation of indigenous persons and communities. How do stories, proverbs, rituals, and role-playing form the moral basis and moral formation process of indigenous persons and communities? How do they, for instance, help to awaken in people their potential for hard work and hospitality and then continue to nurture this human potential to do good, to become the best they can be? The following sections will attempt to answer these and similar questions.


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The Formative Role of Narration Narration has always been part and parcel of the indigenous Chagga tradition and plays an indispensable role in the indigenous education for life, as well as in the education for a living. Narration, in all of its various forms, is a fundamental facet of the Chagga ipvunda process, as it is in all African people. My paternal grandmother, Mbombo, told me many times: “A story is a gentle, even entertaining, critique of human behavior and of each other without raising a fight.” My studies and reflection on our human experience reveal two things: first, that my grandmother is right, and second, that storytelling is as universal as being human. Chagga parents and elders know that their society cannot survive as a civil one without narration in its manifold forms. Narration is a wide term that includes myths, legends, and fictions. Myths are stories that reveal the origins of humankind, of events like death, and of other phenomena. Legends are tales about actual historical events and memorable people, like war heroes, awesome rulers and doctors, seasons, harvests, and so forth. Fiction consists of imaginary stories, which can be subdivided into allegory, fables, parables, and fantasy. In the Kichagga language, however, there is no word for “fiction,” because there is no sharp distinction between imagination and reality. Thought and reality are closely related because imagination has the potential of bringing the imagined phenomenon into being. That is why these myths, legends, and “fictions,” are told as if true and authoritative. On these three Raum states: “Contrary to popular belief, the majority of stories told by natives are not myths and legends, but comments on social events.”9 Thus narratives, also called tales, stories, and folktales, are indeed about human beings yesterday, today, tomorrow, and about how they should act and how they should not. Simply expressed, every human event and experience is, for the indigenous Chagga, a story with the potential to teach oneself and others. When I was about fifteen, the mlosha for my age group told us many a time: “Each one of you is a great story with numerous stories within it, and together we are an awesome story, pregnant with thousands of unique stories waiting to be born and reborn every time story time comes around.” The main function of narration in Chaggaland is to contribute, in a very special way, to the ipvunda or holistic formation process. This is also true for the rest of Africa, and indeed for all humans. Ogutu and Roscoe put it aptly:

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The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa The continent has its own fictive traditions; it has the tradition of story, narrated orally…the medium through which Africa down the centuries has bared its soul, taught its [people] and entertained itself.10

Storytelling is one of the most powerful and effective means for a holistic education in indigenous Chaggaland. Indigenous thinkers see it as an awesome way of character formation, and therefore use it comprehensively. All professional formators such as walosha, wamangi, indigenous doctors, and others, tell stories extensively in order to give inspiration and insight, to evoke profound thinking, and to ultimately mold the listener’s moral fiber. Storytelling is therefore at the very heart of the indigenous human formation process. In July 1995, I sat down with two elders in Tanzania, to reflect on the fascinating and formative power of Storytelling. “Why is Storytelling so central in the Chagga ipvunda process and why is it seemingly so captivating, even mysterious?” was my question to them. Their answer and my further research have identified four reasons that make Storytelling so formationally effective. First, good Storytelling fully exploits the power of the word. Words are powerful. They castigate, cut, and curse. They also inspire, energize, and humanize. So every storyteller has, at that very moment, an unparalleled opportunity to use words in a way that will move his or her listeners in profound ways. The spoken word is vivified by the facial expression of the speaker, the emotions of the speaker, the intellectual and personal creativity of the speaker, and by the collective experiences of the speaker. Such a word is alive, active, unique, and, above all, formative. Thus the storyteller is brandishing a power that a similar written story cannot measure up to. Perhaps this is why many people would rather see a movie than read the same story in a book. Indigenous peoples, especially the thinkers among them, have often realized the power of the spoken word, and thus use it sparingly and selectively. My grandparents spoke rarely. Most of the time they spoke to me was through well-selected and carefully worded stories, proverbs, and riddles. They knew the power of the spoken word, and through stories, they shared with me profound insights that have continued to be a little clearer for me as I get older. The formative power of the word in the context of Storytelling is therefore formidable, and indigenous parents, elders, and thinkers in particular have always known this. The second reason for the effectiveness of Storytelling is that, in essence, it is itself a teachable moment, (defined earlier as a moment in


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which, due to a certain circumstance or event, a person’s attention is heightened and his/her mind is ready to be informed and his/her heart is ready to be touched). At story telling time, awareness deepens and a person’s self-presence is more pronounced. A listener is ready to remember, to imagine, and to anticipate important ingredients in a teachable moment. One is more inclined, at story time, to dive deep into one’s innermost self, especially if the storyteller does the same. In a word, a listener is ready to venture into a transcendent mode of being and thinking, again, great ingredients for a teachable moment. When these dispositions are in place in a listener, inspiration takes place even before the storyteller begins—a teachable moment indeed. Third, storytelling is so effective because through stories we can “discuss each other without having to get overly personal.”11 My paternal grandmother would say: “a story is a gentle and entertaining critique of human behavior and of each other without raising a fight.” Stories are mirrors in which humans see and feel their own experiences, their strengths, and limitations. Stories reveal us to ourselves. Perhaps that is one reason we are so fascinated with them. Through stories we can marvel at our achievements and great capabilities, we can also see our folly, our mess, and our brokenness, and in the same context of the story, laugh at ourselves constructively. Personal and social transformation often take place in these very moments. Fourth, we are awed by stories because they recount not only experiences and events of yesterday, but also of things as they happen today. Abrahams quotes Camara, who says: The tale relates a drama which comes to a head on this side of reality of the event. It is not a part which is definitely completed: it is an impending drama. It may burst out at any time and anywhere.12

A good storyteller makes the listener feel as if the story is about him or her because it makes his or her experiences, anticipations, imagination, and fears come alive. It is as if the storyteller is reading the mind and heart of the listener. Often, my parents’ and grandparents’ stories made me feel this way as I was growing up. And yet these stories are so universalizing that a listener does not feel personally threatened. Abrahams explains as follows: “Stories operate, like proverbs, as a means of depersonalizing, of universalizing, by couching the description of how specific people are acting in terms of how people have always acted.”13 Storytellers and listeners therefore enjoy narration because stories

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fictionalize and summarize human behavior in a way that both entertains and evokes personal and social reflection and transformation. It seems to me therefore that the human fascination with stories is a pointer to our human predisposition and tendency to seek personal and social growth, especially in our spiritual or moral dimensions. Indigenous Chagga parents, elders, and formators instill in the young a love for stories for one main reason: personal and social moral transformation. THE ART AND DISCIPLINE OF STORYTELLING Among the indigenous Chagga people, storytelling is an art, a skill that some elders develop due to age, experience, practice, and giftedness. Master storytellers, like my paternal grandfather Naisa, capture audiences for hours on end because they have the ability to tell stories that provoke, challenge, and move listeners in their deepest selves. Their linguistic skills are incomparable and their use of imagery, metaphor, and similitudes captivate the memories, imagination, and anticipation of listeners. My godfather, Temu, for instance, tells stories in such a manner that an abusive husband stops his malice, a lazy wife goes back to work, and a corrupt leader abandons his ways. As I listened to him many times, I noticed plenty of laughter and tears on the faces of listeners, depending on the nature of the story. His skill is manifested in his choice of certain stories for certain audiences, in their relevance to certain concerns, and in his choice of words in telling these stories. His children, one of whom is a successful grade school teacher, have acquired some of his skills. Temu is therefore a master storyteller, an effective formator, and a community sage. He is living proof that storytelling is one of the most effective educational and formative tools in Chaggaland, and indeed in Africa as a whole. Good storytelling also has its own unique discipline. A good African storyteller is guided by a fundamental aim: to instruct, to teach, to inspire, to form. Personal and social transformation for the better, especially in matters moral and spiritual, is her or his greatest ambition.14 This laudable ambition disciplines his or her choice of stories and words. The storyteller, like indigenous doctors, is self-controlled, thoughtful, reflective, and almost ascetic. This disciplined mode of life keeps the storyteller from the temptation of becoming a mere comedian or entertainer. She or he often entertains, but only as a means to a transcendent goal: the moral development of the listeners. In the course of many generations,


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storytelling has developed into a distinct art and discipline because indigenous culture views it as an essential tool in the ipvunda process. One of the important disciplines of storytelling is the time chosen for this exercise. Many stories are told in the evening, around the fire or outside in the moonlight. This is the proper time because work has stopped and it is time to relax. Time to work is time to work, although some stories may be told at teachable moments during work. Other stories are narrated during celebrations and on days when inclement weather keeps people from working in their farms. Whatever the case, storytellers pick stories and story times carefully to maximize their effect and to use time as economically as possible. Thus a certain discipline becomes necessary in all forms of indigenous narration. Indigenous storytellers can be categorized into three groups: parents, grandparents, and elders; professional formators and storytellers; and everyone as storyteller. Parents, grandparents, and elders use stories extensively in the formation of children and grandchildren. As indicated in Chapter 1, parents and, in particular, grandparents, are expected, out of their wealth of age and experience, to counsel and guide the young through stories, proverbs, sayings, and instruction. Indigenous parents and grandparents are molded by the culture into fairly fine storytellers. Every elder therefore is, generally speaking, a storyteller, and a good one at that. Storytelling comes with the territory of being a parent, a grandparent, an elder. Raum describes Chagga storytelling thus: Stories are told by the grandfather on the pasture or on the grassplot in the yard; by the grandmother in the evenings, when the children huddle round the fire; by the father when they accompany him to the forest; and by the mother on the way to the field or market. When the grandparents recount a tale, not only the children, but any adults present listen attentively.15

So storytelling is a privilege enjoyed by the adult and married generation because it emerges from the magnificence of their experience. Many parents and grandparents use this formational tool well and effectively. The second group, professional storytellers, refers normally to the sages and the professional walosha mentioned earlier. These have perfected the art of storytelling. Rulers and citizens alike ask for their services, especially in tough times. Master storytellers are to the Chagga people what other religious traditions would call spiritual

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masters, gurus, and prophets. My godfather, Temu, is certainly of the caliber of this kind of spiritual master. The final category is everyone as storyteller. Chagga people, and African children in general, listen to a lot of stories during childhood and adolescence. The art gradually rubs off on them. Children begin to tell stories to other children, especially in their age groups. I remember telling stories to my age group when I was five years old and did not stop there. My appreciation for this art was nurtured by the storytelling capabilities of my parents, grandparents, and my godfather. In my twenty-year university teaching career, I have used stories more and more to inspire my students. Often I have used my own personal life stories and the effect on my students has been amazing. Students have told me stories (in research papers and in one-to-one conversations) that they never told before, “stories” that at first did not strike them as stories, until they actually told them. Other students have asked to share their stories with the entire class. My students were not only inspired by my stories, but also, and more profoundly so, by their own stories. I, too, was immensely inspired by their stories, and am infinitely grateful to them. These students, and many other storytellers I have met in life, indicate that everyone can tell stories and indeed should tell stories. To be human is, ipso facto, to be a storyteller and a story listener. It is hardly any surprise that the indigenous Chagga and other African peoples, particularly the thinkers among them, use stories as essential tools in the civilizing and humanizing process of their people. Why do indigenous Chagga people and other peoples everywhere use stories so extensively? The first and most important function is the moral formation of persons and communities. Let us here listen to Mandela’s story: After games such as these, I would return to my mother’s kraal where she was preparing supper. Whereas my father once told stories of historic battles and heroic Xhosa warriors, my mother would enchant us with Xhosa legends and fables that had come down from numberless generations. These tales stimulated my childish imagination, and equally contained some moral lesson. I recall one story my mother told us about a traveller who was approached by an old woman with terrible cataracts on her eyes. The woman asked the traveller for help, and the man averted his eyes. Then another man came along and was approached by the old woman. She asked him to clean her eyes, and even though he found the task unpleasant, he did as she asked.


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Then, miraculously, the scales fell from the woman’s eyes and she became young and beautiful. The man married her and became wealthy and prosperous. It is a simple tale, but its message is an enduring one: virtue and generosity will be rewarded in ways that one cannot know.16

The elders tell stories so as to evoke and awaken the potential for good behavior that lies deep in everyone. Some stories are told to inspire children to respect their elders and ancestors, others convince them of the importance of hard work, reaching out to others, honesty, and so on. Tales are told to deride vices such as greed, hatred, and ignorance. Many other stories make listeners appreciate their heritage, laws, and cultures. Whatever the story, there is always a lesson to be learned. The following story, told by the Nupe people of Nigeria, warns those who talk too much: A hunter trips over a skull and exclaims in wonder, “What is this? How did you get here?” Replies the skull: “Talking brought me here.” The hunter, amazed, runs back home, exclaiming about what he found. The king hears about it and demands that the hunter take him to see it. They come to the skull to which the hunter repeats the question: “How did you get here?” but the skull says nothing. The king accuses the hunter of deception, and orders his head cut off on the spot. When the royal party departs, the skull asks the hunter, “What is this? How did you get here?” The head of the hunter replies, “Talking brought me here.”17

This story is common in many parts of Africa with various nuances here and there. Its message is delivered more powerfully with the mere mention of a talking skull. Another function of story telling is that it makes listeners feel bonded to one another. A good story told by a good storyteller makes people laugh together, cry together, and get inspired together, regardless of their diverse experiences, races, or cultures. Stories have a bringing-together effect on listeners. In a good story, people of diverse backgrounds uncover their common vulnerabilities, their shared hopes, aspirations, and desperations, indeed their common human identity. Stories not only form, they also coform, that is, form or mold people together, through a process I could call interinspiration. Peter Paris explains how the African impulse for social bonding often was expressed through storytelling among the African slaves in America and elsewhere.18 Stories, music, dancing, and humor kept the slaves alive and gave them some sense of meaning and hope in situations where unimaginable injustice and hopelessness ruled supreme. Storytelling humanized their world in circumstances where

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dehumanization was the order of the day. The more stories people tell each other, the more they become bonded together, and the more they come home to the fact that they are indeed one human family. Thus stories penetrate into a person’s innermost core and usher into this core a desire for transcendent aspirations and anticipations. A third function of many stories is entertainment. These stories awaken our human deep-seated predispositions of cheerfulness, joyfulness, and playfulness. Humorous stories can give powerful messages in a playful and nonthreatening language. Even though many stories do entertain in this manner, almost all indigenous Chagga stories do teach a lesson. There is therefore a significant difference between the average indigenous storyteller and a modern comedian. The former almost always uses entertaining stories only as a means to a moral teaching and inspiration. He or she is essentially a formator, a guide, a wise counselor. The modern comedian, who can be defined as a professional entertainer who uses any of various physical or verbal means to be amusing,19 is not common in indigenous life. More of these “mere entertainers” are emerging in East Africa, on radio, television, newspapers, and magazines. Their main aim is to make the audience or reader laugh, and the more the better. A few East African media entertainers, however, are inspiring storytellers at heart. These keep and pass on the good indigenous tradition of Storytelling as a way of morally and spiritually transforming individuals and communities. Mambo Mbotela of Kenya is one such modern gifted storyteller who uses everyday occurrences as stories that help to fight corruption, injustice, infidelity, drunkenness, and so on. When you see Mbotela on TV or hear him on the radio, or read his stories in print, you feel that you have before you a concerned parent, a social conscience, a teacher, a formator. He is truly the embodiment of indigenous African storytellers. A final function of indigenous stories is to illustrate the meaning of maxims, proverbs, or sayings. For children younger than fourteen or so, stories are used instead of proverbs, and whenever the latter must be used, then a story is employed to unravel their hidden meanings. In this way, stories not only serve as means of teaching, they also help to pass on the oral tradition. In this sense, stories are an important part of the African oral literature.20 They hand on the history and traditions of the people in order to form, teach, and inspire contemporary and forthcoming generations.


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Thus storytelling is an indispensable tool in Chagga indigenous education. It is essential in the ipvunda process. For indigenous Africans, and indeed for all peoples, it is as basic as being human. PROVERBS The written literature on African proverbs is quite extensive. 21 Numerous authors, African and non-African, have collected and documented African proverbs from specific African peoples and countries—so we have for instance, Knappert’s Swahili Proverbs; Cisternino’s Proverbs of Kigezi and Ankole, Uganda; Barra’s 1000 Kikuyu Proverbs; Mirimo’s Luyia Sayings; Elkhadem’s Egyptian Proverbs and Popular Sayings; and so on. We also have authors who have selected some proverbs from all over the continent and documented them, such as Knappert’s The A-Z of African Proverbs; the Leslaus’ African Proverbs; Burton’s Wit and Wisdom From West Africa, to name only a few. In their introductions, many of these authors give useful explanations of the function of proverbs in African societies.22 The fundamental aim of using proverbs is to evoke deep-seated reflection in the listener and motivate him or her toward moral and spiritual action.23 Thus, Knappert defines a proverb as a “short expression of wit, containing the wisdom of past generations in condensed form, often in rhythmic language, easy to remember and pleasing to hear.”24 He further states that the function of “proverbs in some African societies is so fundamental that one might say that no negotiations of any kind could take place without them.”25 Proverbs, like stories, have a message for the listener in accordance with the situation and the circumstances. A cheeky child may, for example, motivate a parent to ask: “Does the cub teach the lion to hunt?” This proverb sounds gentle because it is in the form of a question, yet it is effective because it gives the child constructive criticism without harsh words. Thus proverbs keep the members of the society in line, as in the case of an Ethiopian grandmother who says to a grandson who tries to be what he is not: “The frog wanted to be as big as the elephant, and burst.” A Luo elder (Kenya) will say to a young adult who shuns cooperation and interdependence: “It is only a mad man who cuts his own hair.”26 A Maasai sage (Kenya and Tanzania) says to a parent who does not tolerate her child’s mistake: “Give birth without pain,”27 that is, tolerate your child’s mistakes. And a Yoruba adult (Nigeria) will ask a child who talks too

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much, “If you tell your friend a secret in the bush and it becomes known, was it the bush that talked?” Little wonder, therefore, that proverbs are used so extensively and so frequently. Almost every occasion calls for a proverb in one way or another. In the long run, this extensive and formative use of proverbs gives birth to a formidable collection, estimated to be over two million in Africa. In Burundi alone, three thousand proverbs have been documented. Among the Lega people of Congo (former Zaire), adolescent initiates learn about three hundred proverbs in the first stage of their initiation experience (which has seven or more stages altogether).28 For these initiates, each proverb is sung and acted out as a story, which is finally danced out before them. The initiates will then be given time to review and commit these proverbs to memory, before being tested by an expert. The result, according to Zuesse, is that the intimate study on these proverbs “transforms the way the initiate looks at the world.”29 One concrete result is that the initiate perceives a universal structure and connectedness, where an uninitiated one sees only disconnected phenomena or only a utilitarian use of cosmic realities. The initiate, on the other hand, through spontaneous reference to his or her wealth of proverbs, uses the newly acquired skill of reflection to see the transcendent aspect of each facet of the universe. The importance of proverbs in the moral transformation of individuals and society cannot therefore be overemphasized. Like stories, proverbs are an essential part of the oral literature in Africa. The following proverbs, about proverbs, demonstrate their special place in the African formation tradition. From Sierra Leone: “Proverbs are the daughters of experience.” The Yoruba people of Nigeria have two proverbs: “A proverb is the horse of conversation: when the conversation lags, a proverb will revive it,” and “A wise man who knows proverbs reconciles difficulties.” Thus indigenous African elders and sages have always realized that proverbs are as precious as, if not more precious than, diamonds, gold, tanzanite, and other soughtafter stones. Proverbs are, for the Chagga people, one of their four treasured possessions: land, cattle, water, and proverbs.30 Land, cattle, and water nourish their economy and bodies, whereas proverbs (wisdom, enlightenment, inspiration) nourish their moral integrity. Like all indigenous Africans, the Chagga people quote proverbs in everyday interactions, in conversations, in all kinds of meetings, in celebration and in mourning, in initiation programs, indeed in all occasions, private and public. In all these uses of proverbs, the fundamental aim is to invite and inspire listeners


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to actively seek personal and social moral transformation. The late Bishop Stefano Moshi, a famous son of the Kilimanjaro area, is quoted as saying: When a man is tempted by his own desire or by suggestions of an evil friend and remembers a proverb, he desists immediately. The youth of today treat many ancient things with contempt, but they never jest about proverbs. They respect the wisdom embodied in these sayings, for they strike like arrows into the heart.31

Bishop Moshi’s statement implies that proverbs are effective, not only when one hears them for the first time, but also long after that. Another obvious implication is that proverbs are powerful, effective, sharp like arrows, and that they penetrate into a person’s deepest core: the heart; that is, a person’s deepest identity, which I would call the spirit. The modern reflective and concerned formator, parent, or educator can perhaps see why indigenous peoples take proverbs so seriously. Indigenous education and formation would not be fully achieved without proverbs. My paternal grandfather often told his listeners that proverbs are the salt of conversation, speech, and teaching. Looking back to the memory of this great ancestor of mine, I cannot remember a single day in which he did not use proverbs and stories. He was indeed an encyclopedia of Chagga proverbs, stories, riddles, and so much more. Many of these still ring loud and clear in my heart and mind today. Some proverbs, like “If you run after two chickens, you will catch none,” help me to take one day at a time when there is so much to be done. Others, like “Your relative is always your relative, even if he or she is blind in one eye,” inspire me to forgive and become reconciled to a family member who wrongs me. They are that powerful. In a nutshell, Chagga proverbs (and African proverbs in general) are an important portion of indigenous sacred literature. These are for African indigenous people what the Bible is to Christians and Jews, the Vedas to Hindus, the Quran to Muslims. They provide a holistic formation of mind and heart. As such, proverbs are at the very center of the indigenous ipvunda process. RIDDLES Riddles are another crucial pedagogical tool in what we have identified earlier as an education for a living. Riddling helps significantly in the development of language skills, logic, and mathematical thinking.

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Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983 edition) defines a riddle as a mystifying, misleading, or puzzling question posed as a problem to be solved or guessed; a conundrum; an enigma; something or someone difficult to understand. Two African scholars, Nandwa and Bukenya, have this definition: “a riddle is a word puzzle in which an object or situation is referred to in unusual figurative terms, and one is expected to discover or decipher in literal terms what is meant.”32 Another scholar, Miruka, defines it as, “a short oral puzzle which presents the peculiar characteristics of a concept, whether those characteristics are physical, behavioral, or habitual, and which requires the unraveling of the concealed literal reference. The recipient of the riddle has to decode the literal reference and identify the concept meant.”33 The above definitions are useful and insightful. I would add that a riddle, from the African perspective, has four main characteristics: it is a puzzle; it uses figurative language; it refers to objects, situations or behavior; and its hidden meaning calls for deciphering. The four main components of African oral literature (narratives, proverbs, oral poetry, and riddles) are all interrelated and interdependent. In the average indigenous African community, riddling is used as a prelude to storytelling. Then proverbs are quoted to summarize a certain story, or inversely, a story is told to unpack the meaning of a proverb. In many cases, oral poetry is employed, especially for more mature audiences, to emphasize a deeply emotional or mystical part of a story, often in song. It is important therefore to keep in mind the interrelatedness of the four genres of oral literature in discussing the intellectual and moral functions of riddling. First, riddles assist listeners, especially younger ones, to know and appreciate the usefulness and awesomeness of cosmic phenomena around them. The Luhyia people of Western Kenya have these two riddles: 1. Riddle: Response: 2. Riddle: Response:

My coconut entertaining the world. The sun. I have a farm with two large stumps and several small ones. The sun, the moon, and the stars.34

In Tanzania and Kenya, one hears two Kiswahili riddles, which I have translated into English: 1. Riddle: Response:

I always hear him, but I can’t see him. The wind.


2. Riddle: Response:

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There is a fully grown cow among the heifers. The moon and stars.35

The above riddles illustrate the importance and awesomeness of the sun, moon, stars, and wind. The sun, for instance, is a master of space, a determinant of agricultural work, and an entertainer available to all. For the Kikuyu people of Kenya, the sun and moon also are police officers who keep away thieves at night due to their light, as seen in the following: 1. Riddle: Response:

All around my farm there is only one policeman. The sun or moon.

Secondly, riddles give environmental education. Here are three examples translated from Kiswahili: 1. Riddle: Response: 2. Riddle: Response: 3. Riddle: Response:

My watch never stops since it was wound up. The heart. My house is large but has only one pillar. A mushroom. My well is never without water. The mouth.36

In Somalia, one hears the following: 1. Riddle: Response:

When I slaughter my cow, I don’t throw away anything. A coconut.37

Third, numerous African riddles give excellent intellectual training in mathematics and logical thinking. Consider the following two:38 1. Riddle: Response: 2. Riddle:

Response:

The two-legged, sitting on the four-legged, waiting for the eight-legged. A bird, waiting for a tick (eight-legged) on a cow (from the Luo people of Kenya). There were two mothers and two daughters. They went to visit someone and were given three chairs. All of them sat on the chairs without sharing or anyone carrying the other. One was a grandmother with her daughter who also had a daughter. Miruka explains: “Logic argues it well that the grandmother to the grandchild was a mother to the mother of the child. Hence two mothers and two daughters.”39

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The following riddle is common in many areas of Africa: 1. Riddle: Response:

My grandmother has four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening. One crawls on hands and feet in infancy, later walks on two legs, and finally uses a walking stick in old age.

Many other riddles teach history and traditions, whereas others show the importance of various categories of people in society, such as children, parents, elders, and ancestors. In Chaggaland, as in the rest of Africa, riddling is reserved for children fourteen and over, while younger ones are told stories. Parents and elders make use of riddles to sharpen the mathematical and logical thinking of children; to teach about awesome cosmic phenomena and the environment; to impart to them language skills; to improve their memory; to teach acceptable norms and morals; and to entertain. My own recollection of riddling is that it took place mostly among people of the same age (that is, in the age group). Often we listened to adults riddling, then later we would carry it on in our own group. I have fond memories of numerous riddles, in particular those that tested memory, quick thinking, and those that entertained everyone. A few of these are as follows: 1. Riddle: Response: 2. Riddle: Response: 3. Riddle: Response:

Thirty-two gentlemen seated, one lady dancing. The teeth and the tongue. A little lady who is the best cook around. A honeybee. He changes his clothes wherever he goes. A chameleon.

One particular riddle comes to mind because my grandfather told it to me one day when I had showed more hospitality to a friend from far away than to my neighbor: Grandfather: Don’t offer libations at the gate and neglect the door. Sambuli: I don’t know the answer. (I was 15 then.) Grandfather: Do not neglect near friends for the sake of distant ones, or do not neglect relatives for the sake of your friends. This riddle has taught me to give special respect to family members, relatives, and neighbors without, of course, neglecting my friends. I also recall a Kiswahili riddle that reminds me of my mother’s undying love and ongoing care and concern:


Riddle: Response:

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Mother, carry me on your back. A bed.

Here the receptive, relaxing, and refreshing attributes of a bed are compared to Mama, who, in the African way, carries her baby (as mine carried me) on her back or on her bosom. Two other riddles that we enjoyed in childhood inspired our admiration and appreciation toward our fathers: 1. Riddle: Response: 2. Riddle: Response:

Father has a cowskin which cannot be lent. The yard. Father left me a bowl from which I have been eating ever since. The irrigation canal.

The first riddle reminds children about the hard work that fathers put in the care of their yards, gardens, and farms, so that the entire family can rest and play in the yard and enjoy the harvest from gardens and farms. It evokes admiration and gratitude in children toward their fathers. It does so in me, and so it always has done. The second riddle must be understood in the agricultural context of the Chagga people. They live and farm on hills and hillsides where the numerous rivers and rivulets in the valleys cannot irrigate their farms. This problem was solved by making canals, some as long as ten miles, that originate from the rivers and run along hillsides all over Chaggaland. Growing up as a child and adolescent, I could not imagine life without these irrigation canals (mfongo). The riddle above underlines the importance of these canals and reminds everyone of the hard work (impressive indigenous technology) that grown-up men (fathers) put into them.40 For these canals, and numerous other responsibilities great and small, my dad is a hero! In summary, riddling in indigenous Africa is important both in the education for a living and in the education for life. Riddles impart intellectual skills and wisdom. They also entertain. For this reason, riddles, like stories, are told in the evening after a day’s work, so that precious daytime can be given to labor. Riddling is therefore a significant way of educating and molding the heart of indigenous individuals and society. Indigenous elders, and the thinkers among them in particular, make sure that riddling is alive and its formative edge remains sharp. THE FORMATIVE ASPECTS OF SONG AND DANCE Like stories, proverbs, and riddles, song is an essential tool of education and moral formation among the indigenous Chagga, and, indeed, the same

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is true in Africa and the world. All important occasions offer unique opportunities for song. Osadebey writes: We sing when we fight, we sing when we work, we sing when we love, we sing when we hate, we sing when a child is born, we sing when death takes a toll.41

A song can be defined as a musical expression of powerful human feelings or emotions, thoughts, and ideas using words and musical sounds. Song also is one way of delivering versified poetry. Thus we sing our national anthems to express our strong dedication and love for our respective countries. Singing expresses feelings, thoughts, and teachings more powerfully than declamation or recitation. It is as if singing takes over where speaking stops and carries the minds and hearts of listeners into deep thought and reflection. Among the indigenous Chagga people, singing has four main formational functions. First, song, in the form of lullaby, is employed to relax infants and gently lead them into sleep. A mother can be heard singing the following lullaby to quiet down a crying baby: Kutsie mkoku Mai naienda sangar-a Naendepvo shisowiya Ngilye kimu Papa nalye shiwi Na iyoeulye shiâû Kite kikacha Naho lukifune Luchihiyo luwawi Kutsie mkoku

Please quiet down, baby For mother will go to market To buy sweet potatoes. I shall eat one, Your father two, You, little dear, shall eat three When the dog comes, We will chase him away. The two of us will enjoy together. Please quiet down baby.

This lullaby not only soothes the baby and gives her sleep, it also endears the mother to the baby, without forgetting beloved father who “gets two sweet potatoes.” My experience with my children is the same. When I sing to my children, they pay attention as never before. They are all ears. They are fully present. Singing really gets them. Singing creates a teachable moment, almost a magical moment, especially if the song is full of emotion and meaning. With my children, lullabies and songs have always been powerful relaxing and formational tools, whether the children are as young as a few months old or as old as ten years or more.


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Second, song is employed to pass on important information to children and adults. It is a teaching tool as well as an inspiring one. The following Kichagga poetic song teaches children and adults to carefully guard their tongues: Rumbu uwor-e nyi limu, indi mar-u nyi wawi; Nyi limu ir-er-a na iar-anyia nyi kawi. Meso uwor-e ni wawi na r-umbu nyi limu, Iambuo nawi indi iamba nyi limu Rumbu uwor-e ni limu indi mawoko nyi wawi Kupfo wawi we ûnda na limu lenyo kyumbo. 42 My translation: You have one mouth, but ears are two, So, talk once and listen twice. Eyes you have two, a mouth, you have one, See a lot therefore, speak but once. You have one mouth and two hands These are two for work, and one to eat kyumbo (a banana food). This song is a lot more formative and educational because it is expressed in versified poetry. The singer sharpens its penetrating edge by touching the body parts referred to and by pointing out the numbers one and two with his fingers. It was one of my favorite songs as I was growing up. I sing it often to, and with, my children. Song is thus a gentle but effective means of admonishing, critiquing, and counseling one’s listeners. Third, indigenous people employ song to control situations where fear, panic, and despair seem to take the upper hand. The famous Chief Rindi of Moshi (reigned from 1860–91) often used song to encourage his people in times of adversity. On one occasion he himself sang a song in which he announced that he intended to train the rising age group in courage and dedication to the good of the entire country. Chief Rindi is understandably known as the “molder of the people.” We have seen that song is a powerful way of expressing strong emotion. It is interesting to note that song also is used to control and calm emotions. It is an effective device for self-control and control of others when there is confusion or pandemonium. Songs, as a sort of intensified speech, are frequently used throughout childhood to

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The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa control children, to induce and habituate them to certain actions, to taunt the wicked and naughty among them, and to incite them to do courageous deeds.43

In wartime, singing not only encourages the fighters, but also disciplines them under their leader as they sing in unison. The indigenous Chagga people, therefore, sing when self-control is necessary. According to Raum, the German missionary Gutmann relates that one day he was asked “to assist at an operation where an anesthetic was contra-indicated. The patient implored, threatened, and cursed the doctor, but in a restrained voice and to the melody of a conventional chant.”44 I have noticed at many funerals, especially emotionally charged ones, that song is often used, not only to control and console the mourners, but also to let them express their sadness and even hopelessness in a calm and civilized manner. Song must be the reason why classic movies such as The Sound of Music, The King and I, Oklahoma!, Annie, The Fiddler on the Roof, The Lion King, Sarafina, and others remain dear in our hearts forever, actively influencing and molding us in many ways. Chagga elders, especially the thinkers among them and among indigenous Africans as a whole, realize the formational power of song, and thus exploit it to the fullest. They know that a good song goes beyond the intellect straight into our heart of hearts and there evokes reflection, intense feeling, inspiration, and a strong feeling of connectedness with those around us and with all that is. Song is, in many cases, accompanied by dancing in indigenous and contemporary Africa. Indigenous Africans define dance as a series of rhythmic, aesthetic, artistic, and patterned bodily movements, usually inspired by music, which emerges from deeply felt experiences such as celebration of a new baby, weddings, mourning, funerals, and so on. Dancing comes naturally to these people whose worldview is holistic and who view all that is to be interconnected and interrelated. In this pattern of thought, mind, soul, and body are beautifully and exquisitely interconnected in expressing lofty thoughts, intense emotional feelings, and profound intuition through word, song and dance. How can the body stay apart when the mind and the spirit are so intensely engaged? One of the professional dancers I knew in my childhood, Msema, used to tell his admirers, “When I dance, I am giving an outward expression of a vigorous dance already going on in my heart. My dancing is a mirror in which you can see my mind and soul.” There are six kinds of dance among the indigenous Chagga people. First is iîngi, a dance performed by everyone during celebrations such as


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the harvest, initiation rites, and all joyful occasions. Another is ushongolyo, whose purpose is to encourage and strengthen adolescent boys, and normally performed by orders of the Ruler, that is, Mangi. In this dance, adolescent boys are taught some fundamental lessons: respect for the Divine, the Ruler, the elders, parents, and all people; fearless defense for their wives-to-be, their children, all citizens, and the motherland; responsible parenthood; love and fidelity in marriage. They are taught to be grateful and appreciative in life. For example, they sing and dance the following song to thank the Divine for a peaceful night and to ask blessings upon the new day: Behold, I woke up full of joy, I slept safely in peace, Thank you God, My Father, My Protector As you have watched me thus, Omngikalyie kur o So also protect me today, Uwengiringe-se mfiri-chu So I shall enjoy peace and harmony Kundu ngikae na uû Thank you God, My Father, My Aika Awu Matengeâ Protector A third kind of dance is igoma, which is danced by newly initiated adolescent girls before their parents and parents-in-law.45 Here young girls and mothers-to-be express in song and dance the virtues they have so far learned in preparation for motherhood. They also display their physical fitness and attractiveness by well-coordinated dances that require strength and gentleness at the same time. It is a time of pride, excitement, and enjoyment. The fourth dance is kilya-shinga, which is performed by maidens to ridicule and curse sorcerers and other social enemies. This is a dance that underlines the importance of human and cosmic harmony. The maidens sing in unison in a big circle to demonstrate the beauty of harmony in community, then disperse and sing out of tune to show the ugly disharmony and disconnectedness brought about by sorcerers and other social enemies. The drama in these dances comes to a climax when the maidens curse sorcerers in high-pitched voices that the audience cannot forget and the sorcerers cannot ignore. Then there is ôsi, a war dance performed by men and young men at the order of the Mangi, who personally supervises it. The purpose of this war dance is shown in the words of the following song, which I heard from my maternal grandfather: Hee, ngaamka ngyi na siya Ngamlaa kipuo kukokya Aika Awu Matengeâ

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The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa Even if all the cattle of our country be stolen by the enemy, we shall not leave this country of ours. Even if Mangi Orombo carries off one and all, we shall not leave this country of ours. If we have no other food to eat, let us nibble the trunks of the banana plants in this land of ours.

When the audience sees this dance performed, everyone trembles with excitement, some shed tears of pride, and the warriors are encouraged to respect and defend their country. The final dance is wolyi, which is performed at weddings by married men and women only. In this dance, the newly married are congratulated and advised to become responsible spouses and parents. The dancers move in a big circle with everyone’s arms on the shoulders on those next to him or her. The married couple, dancing in the middle of the circle, is taught the secrets of a successful marriage through songs that are rich in metaphors, proverbs, and riddles. The pounding of the ground by feet laden with beautifully ringing bells helps to sink the message in the hearts of the couple, and the image of the unbroken circle inspires the two to hang on to each other for life. Few dances have influenced me as powerfully as the wolyi dance. I can vividly see the aesthetic movements of those dancers, hear their heart-piercing message, and feel the dignity of the institution of marriage shown by the wolyi dance. In a nutshell, indigenous dance has the following formative functions. The art and discipline of dancing trains a person to coordinate thinking, emotional feeling, and patterned bodily movements inspired by music. It is one of those profound human moments when body, mind, and soul are seen for what they are: three essentially interconnected facets of one whole. Raum reports that Chagga parents can judge whether their child will be intelligent or not, skillful in manual maneuvers or not, depending on how this child dances.46 A poor dancer is, according to Chagga elders, a flawed person, not only as a citizen, but also as a future husband or wife. My experience seems to validate this belief, mostly because good dancing requires a certain amount of intellectual capacity to coordinate musical rhythm, emotional feelings, and bodily movements in harmony with a partner or other partners. Second, dancing emphasizes the power of song and the power of words. The message of words is carried by song and penetrates into one’s spirit through the rhythmic movements of the body. When I dance and clap hands, for instance, I feel that my total self is involved with the message at hand. My body says “yes” to the invitation of my soul already in dancing, already in intense involvement with the message.


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Third, dancing takes over where words are inadequate to express a deep-felt emotion. The dancer need not speak, the dancing speaks for him or her. Often I noticed that my paternal grandmother would sing in a very emotional tone, but when the emotion was overpowering, she would dance it out. She would literally dance her heart out. Then, all of a sudden, she would find her tongue and the music would come out again. I shall never forget those moments. Four, indigenous Chagga dance is a vehicle for teaching not only discipline and artistic expression, but also skills for cooperation and group cohesiveness. In dancing, each one has the opportunity to improvise and be unique, whereas at the same time one is required to move smoothly with the group. For many Chagga youths, dancing provides the first opportunity for them to meet others outside their family and clan. It has a formidable socializing effect on these youths. Five, dancing teaches moral values and good conduct by dramatizing sections of folktales and song that emphasize these values. In such dances, the well-behaved and hard-working folk are extolled and appreciated, whereas the lazy are scorned, as in this dance recorded by Raum: Where were you when we broke the field with the digging stick? Where were you when we tilled it with the hoe? Where were you when we burned the weeds?… Where were you when we thinned the eleusine? Where were you when we weeded the fields? Where were you when we harvested our crop?… Where were you when we ground the eleusine? Where were you when we prepared the beer?47

No lazy person in the community will ignore the above message, so effectively expressed through song and dance. One can imagine how much more effective the message becomes if the spurned person is dancing along. It is goodbye to laziness, no doubt. Playgroups and age groups are particularly good in disciplining one of their own through this method. Song and dance become then very effective tools in the molding of young people among themselves. Finally, dancing is just good fun, enjoyment, and entertainment. Besides, it is a great physical exercise. Contemporary African generations tend to see only this side of song and dance and forget the more fundamental aspects described above. “Dancing becomes dancing when it challenges the mind, inspires the soul, and refreshes the body,” was my father’s favorite comment on modern music and dance. I could not agree more.

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In conclusion, therefore, we note that dance is significant in the ipvunda process of the indigenous Chagga people and all Africans in general. It teaches moral virtues, encourages youths and adults, expresses deep emotional feelings, and entertains everyone. Most of all, it emphasizes the celebrative and playful aspects of life, so important in pursuing a rich and meaningful life. In the final analysis, dance reminds indigenous people that the whole of life is a dance in which everyone participates. An Egyptian proverb expresses this point well: “If you can’t join their dance and song, clap your hands and sway along.”48 INDIGENOUS TRANSFORMATION RITES Indigenous transformation rites play an important role in the Chagga ipvunda process. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983 edition) defines a rite as “a prescribed form or manner governing the words and actions for a ceremony; a ceremonial act or action.” It cites rites of passage such as marriage, illness, or death rites. Then it describes ritual as the established form for a ceremony; specifically, the order of words prescribed for a religious ceremony. In trying to understand African indigenous rites and rituals, the above definitions are helpful, but far from being comprehensive. One must bear in mind the four aspects of the worldview described in Chapter 1, namely the divine as source of all that is; the fundamental need to grow spiritually and morally; the strong bond between individuals and their communities; and the universe as an interconnected and interdependent whole. These four aspects form a foundational worldview from which the meaning of all rituals emerges, and that is in turn confirmed, renewed, and revealed by rituals. Ritual in this indigenous context can therefore be defined as: a personal or communal sacred and ceremonial action, often accompanied by words, that renders present and visible that which is transcendent or spiritual by sanctifying, renewing, and transforming specific aspects of human life, the universe, time, or space. When, for instance, a child is given a name in a naming rite, several things, hitherto only imagined or beyond reach, become concretely present and effective: first, family and community come together for a single purpose; the invocation of the divine and the ancestors creates a transcendent presence and experience, and reminds everyone of an interconnected universe; second, the given name creates a special bond between the initiate and a certain ancestor, or will always remind him


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or her of the sacredness of cosmic phenomena; third, the shared meal nourishes everyone and strengthens the bonds between them; fourth, the uniqueness of the initiate is affirmed and appreciated; and, finally, the sacred and revered nature of this rite inspires the initiate and all present. Everyone experiences some kind of spiritual “tickling,” a touch in their deepest self. Thus, the naming rite, like all rites, becomes a teachable moment in every way. When we thus understand rites and rituals, we notice that the popular phrases “initiation rites” and “rites of passage” do not quite capture the comprehensive implications shown above. These phrases seem to emphasize the external expressions of rites, thus neglecting to highlight the inner, richer, and more profound meaning of spiritual reformation and transformation. In fact, these phrases are superficial and expressive of ignorance of the profound spirituality underlying indigenous rites and rituals. I prefer the phrase “transformation rites,” although it still needs explanation. CATEGORIES OF TRANSFORMATION RITES IN CHAGGALAND Indigenous Chagga rites and rituals, and most indigenous African rites, fall into five categories. These categories are only for the sake of explanation and understanding, as indigenous peoples experience life as one interconnected whole. The first category is transition rites, rituals that assist a person or persons to move from one current form to a new one. Although these, like all rites, have aspects of spiritual transformation in them, they have a more transitional tone than most. Examples are birth rites, naming rites, teething rites, widow and widower rites, death and funeral rites, and so forth. In many of these, there is more transformation taking place in the participating community than in the initiate because he or she is either too young to understand, or dead, as in the case of funeral rites. The dead person is given rites of transition to the next life and the mourners experience both a spiritual transformation and a transition to a new form of life without the loved one. Second, we have reformation and transformation rites. These rites facilitate profound spiritual and moral changes in initiates. These include adolescence-to-adulthood transition rites (sometimes called puberty rites), wedding rites, diviner-initiation rites, inauguration-of-a-ruler rites, professional-inauguration rites (of medicine men and women, professional

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drummers and dancers, circumcision experts), and so on. Those who go through these rites take on great responsibilities in their society, which explains why the rituals are significantly more elaborate, detailed, and solemn. Most of these rites are a climax of lengthy preparation in which participants go through intense spiritual reformation and transformation. In many cases, the entire formation period is a ritual in itself, as in the case of adolescents spending several months away from family in preparation for circumcision. Reformation and transformation rites have several dimensions, all significant for the ipvunda process. First, these rites draw one’s attention to new personal and social responsibilities, as in the case of wedding rites. Second, the words and ritual actions of transformation rites are so powerful that they set in motion a process of spiritual and moral change in the initiate. When, for instance, Chagga adolescent boys complete their preparation for marriage and adulthood in seclusion away from their families, they ritually burn their temporary tents to symbolize that they have departed from childhood and will never again participate in childish actions such as gossiping or loitering. All such actions are “burned” with the tents and are purged from their hearts. In reformation and transformation rites, the transition from one form of life to a new life is profoundly challenging and dramatic. Zahan calls this spiritual change “the death of the old man and the resurrection of a new being.”49 The new form of life is quite distinct from the former one, externally and internally. The depth of meaning, for instance, in marriage rites, is greater than that of a teething rite. The third category of transformation rites is supplicatory rites, which include prayers and petitions directed to the Divine Mystery and to the ancestors in order to secure the various needs of an individual or the community. These include prayers for good health, for success, blessings for wealth and prosperity, for healing, and for peace. When, for instance, a Chagga elder wants to pray for prosperity, he takes leaves from two plants, and, facing Mount Kilimanjaro (believed to be the footstool of the Supreme God), he prays thus to his greatgrandfather: You, Great-Grandfather, I pray to you with milk and Dracoena and Makengera, that you will receive this offering which you sent me. May you rejoice with your fellows and fathers. Bless my hand and my offspring, the harvest of my field and my honey hive. And give me honour before the nobles and chiefs.50


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In Nigeria, the Sheshi, or priest-king-maker, of the Nupe people, offers chicken and beer and prays for prosperity as follows: God, we have come. God, everybody has come. This ancient thing of Tsoede Which is lying on the ground, It says we should bring beer. Because of the old saying Which we have heard, Because of that, we bring beer and fowl. Tsoede, make the whole town prosper.51 Supplicatory rites also include praying for rain; for a good harvest; for blessings upon farm land, building areas and village sites; for seasons and various times of the day. The fourth category consists of reconciliation and purification rites through which a conflict between two people or two groups of people is resolved. In the African worldview where interconnectedness and harmony are often emphasized, elaborate rites and prayers are always employed to restore the wholeness that gets ruptured by conflicts. In some cases, a person may need to be reconciled to God, to the ancestors, and to the community through rites of purification. A person’s wrongdoing defiles everyone and threatens the harmony within the universe and within communities of peoples. Examples of wrongdoings that need cleansing include incest, bestiality, sorcery, injury to another, and murder. Referring to the Lugbara people of Sudan, Middleton makes the following observation: Rites of purification are found both as part of sacrificial rites and in rites in which there is no oblation. Both are referred to as “cleansing the body” when an individual is concerned, and as “cleansing the territory” when a lineage group is concerned. Some rites may have both purposes, and in many cases the same rite may be referred to by either term, according to the situation of the moment. Purification is part of the purpose of sacrifice and so all sacrifices include certain actions which may be called rites that purify body, territory, or both.52

The final category of transformation rites is that of thanksgiving rites and prayers for all occasions that call for celebration and festivity. These rites may include sacrifices of animals, offerings of first harvest, and libations

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of beer, honey, and milk. There are thanksgiving rites at daybreak, for a newborn, for a new harvest, for all kinds of success and achievements. Thanksgiving is directed to God, to the ancestors (generally and specifically), and to all members of the community. Chagga parents and elders sacrifice a goat and pray as follows when a child is born: Monyi Ruwa, Funvu lya Mku, Mfee o wandu woose Omluendiese mboâ, Ya mnangu chu afeo. Aikambee, Funvu lya Mku

Owner, God, Mountain of the Ancients, Parent of all people, Again you have blessed us, With this newborn baby Thank you, Mountain of the Ancients.

A close look at the five categories of transformational rites reveals that in indigenous life, every aspect of life is covered by one kind of rite or another. It is a ritualized life in a ritual universe. Zuesse refers to this world as a ritual cosmos.53 The transformation rites are therefore so fundamental in every aspect of indigenous life that they are a formidable force in the ipvunda process. THE FORMATIVE FUNCTIONS OF TRANSFORMATION RITES The functions of indigenous rites can best be articulated in the context of the four aspects of the African worldview described in Chapter 1. These aspects are: a firm belief in, and reverence to, the Eternal Divine Mystery; a fundamental need for ongoing intellectual and spiritual reformation and transformation; an intrinsic unity between the individual and community; and the view that the universe is a living, interconnected, and interdependent whole. FORMING A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE IMMANENT AND THE TRANSCENDENT The indigenous Chagga people, like all African peoples, strongly believe that their everyday world consists of the divine and the human, the material and the spiritual, the visible and the invisible, this tangible world and an intangible spiritual world. These two aspects of indigenous experience of life are real, and in essence, one world, not two worlds. Indigenous rites bridge these two seemingly different worlds. Rituals bring the invisible


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realities into the here and now world, and lift the here and now world to the level of the transcendent, the spiritual and the divine world. In a ritual, the human facets of spirit, body, and mind are brought together in a very engaging way. When, for instance, we sing our national anthem, stand solemnly and cross our hearts, several things happen. For a short moment, which also seems infinite, we feel united as a people. Our love and dedication to our country is rekindled. Our presence and consciousness are visited by an overpowering transcendent presence. For this brief moment, which seems to capture eternity into the here and now, we feel blessed, united, and challenged to live according to our dreams and goals. Our national vulnerability, our social problems and individual shortcomings, for a brief moment take a back seat, and instead we feel our strengths, our good intentions, our hopes for a better tomorrow. This is the formative power of a simple ritual, if done well and solemnly. Suddenly we experience a sacredness all around us. Perhaps this is why Zuesse says that ritual “not only provides for classification of bodily, social, and especially cosmic space, it also seeks to interrelate these spheres in a harmonious and fruitful manner, so as to transform and renew the universe.”54 In those brief moments of singing our national anthem, we are renewed and we feel renewed. Echoing this same idea, Ray makes an important remark: The coming of divinity to man and man to divinity happens repeatedly with equal validity on almost every ritual occasion… The passage from the profane to the sacred, from man to divinity, from moral conflict to moral unity occurs Here and Now. In short, almost every African ritual is a salvation event in which human experience is recreated and renewed in the all-important ritual Present.55

Indigenous peoples, particularly the thinkers among them, are keenly aware of this awesome formative power of ritual. They realize that ritual is as basic as being human, in fact that it is a powerful humanizing factor. No wonder that among indigenous African peoples, rituals are respected and always performed solemnly. These people realize that ritual unites the three levels of human experience: the transcendent, the personal or ego, and the preconscious levels. In marriage rituals, for instance, these three levels are engaged in a process of centering, so that the couple’s focus of life is transformed from the ego-self to another level of consciousness: that is, awareness and commitment to the other. In this example and numerous others, we

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note that ritual helps the participant to see everything as symbol, as pointing beyond itself to transcendent meanings and truths. Thus ritual discloses the extraordinary and mysterious realities hidden in the ordinary. Inversely, rituals lift the ordinary to the level of the transcendent, the mysterious, the extraordinary. My paternal grandfather, Naisa, said time and time again: “In every ritual, mûmo, everyone and everything is present, the living, the departed, those to be born and God in the center.” I am not about to forget those words, ever! RITUALS PROVIDE PERSONAL AND SOCIAL SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION Many authors on African traditions have emphasized the transition aspects of indigenous rites, but few have penetrated beyond the external symbolisms of rites and thus have been able to come to the most fundamental meaning of these rites: personal and social spiritual inspiration and transformation. The second aspect of the indigenous worldview emphasizes the importance of ongoing reformation and transformation of human behavior, especially morally and spiritually. In numerous ways rituals fulfill this function. First, indigenous rites assist the initiate to be conscious of new personal and social responsibilities, thus realizing the importance of interior change and conversion to new heights of good behavior. Zahan comments as follows: Initiation in Africa must rather be viewed as a slow transformation of the individual, as a progressive passage from exteriority to inferiority. It allows the human being to gain consciousness of his humanity. This ascent may be marked by solemn events invested with such social importance that at times the society in some way finds its justification in them, or it may pass practically unnoticed, developing quietly throughout the entire life of the individual, like a long period of meditation.56

Second, indigenous rites can be compared to spiritual exercises that introduce and prepare initiates for the mastery of the body and the mastery of self. During circumcision, for instance, part of the ritual is that the adolescent boy should not cry out or shout out in pain, because this would symbolize cowardice and weakness of character. Instead the young man exercises courage and thus prepares for a life ahead that is not a bed of roses but a series of ups and downs. Some authors have referred to this as a practice in stoicism, denial of and indifference to pain. Experience and


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a close look at these rites (and their underlying worldview) indicate that, far from denying the pain, these initiates accept it and use it as preparation for the real pain and shortcomings of life. If one does not look at such a ritual from this transformation perspective, one is more likely to call it “mutilation” or “primitive sadomasochism.” Third, transformation rites provide an opportunity for, and symbolize, a dying to current immature behavior patterns and a rising, or rebirth, to new and more mature behavior. Zahan makes a good point: “Initiation is meant to be a sort of sacrament with the ability to grant the initiate resurrection and a new life after he has been symbolically put to death.”57 The new life is characterized by the possession of knowledge and wisdom, so fundamental for the future parent, spouse, and citizen in society. It is a time to reflect on, and practice, those virtues and dispositions deemed fundamental by the society, as seen in this example: Among the Fulani of West Africa, the candidate for initiation begins by practicing patience, perseverance, and later, discretion. Finally, at the end of his initiation, he develops obedience to his master, modesty, and the understanding of discipline. These virtues form, as it were, the physical and moral basis for the instruction he receives.58

In a Chagga wedding ritual, for instance, the couple is asked by the officiating elders to sit on two three-legged stools, facing each other. They are offered half-cooked beans (the type with two sections), which they are to eat from each other’s palms. As they eat and go through this ritual, some professional dancers celebrate with the special wolyi dance, while some elderly women ululate in jubilation around the couple. The transformational significance of each facet of this ritual is enlightening: The three-legged stool stands for the three stages of human life: childhood, adulthood, and old age. It also signifies the triangular image of father, mother, and child, in that their marriage is to move from a dyad of two to a triad of father-mother-child(ren). The two face each other, which means that they are to work together in cooperation for life. The beans represent fertility that is being wished upon them, and the two-part section of the bean signifies that it takes two, husband and wife, to bring forth and raise a child. The beans are half-cooked to tell the two that life is often punctuated by hard times, some disagreements, and even tragedies. They are to courageously face these life challenges as they now symbolically chew half-cooked beans. They eat from each other’s palms as a sign that they will feed and take care of each other. They are surrounded by elders

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to remind them that they will always find strength and support from family, friends, and elders in the course of life. This ritual, and several others in the wedding ceremony, are rich in spiritual and moral inspiration. Each part of it adds a layer to the wisdom and knowledge that the entire rite intends to impart on the couple. At my own ordination, this rite (celebrated a day before by my elders) not only deeply touched my mind and heart on that memorable day, but also it continues to do so now whenever I have a recollection of it and whenever I attend wedding ceremonies of family and friends. A well-carried-out ritual lives beyond itself and beyond the participant, and continues to inspire months and years later. RITUALS STRENGTHEN COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS Indigenous Chagga rituals, like rituals worldwide, have a social functional character. Every rite is a recreation of the group’s communion as it enhances the solidarity of participants and reforges communal life. Numerous rites teach initiates and participants that humans belong together, not only by physically bringing people together, but also by having specific elements that emphasize the importance of community living and cooperation. In the majority of indigenous Chagga rituals, there is some form of eating and drinking shared by all present. It is as if the eating and drinking together validates the foregoing rite and brings it to its climax. As rites nourish the mind and heart, the eating and drinking nourish the bodies of the participants. In every Chagga ritual, everyone present must share the food and drink offered. Absentees have food and drink sent to them. The deceased receive their part through sacrifice, offering, and libation. The ritual is incomplete if some do not get a share of food and drink. This universal sharing shows one fundamental fact: rites exist for the good of the community, and not vice versa. Eating together thus becomes one of the most important human rites, worldwide. Sharing food and drink is a ritual in itself, for it has the power to inspire and unite participants. In our time, many families struggle to eat at least dinner together several times a week. They are, perhaps unconsciously, thirsting to participate in the ritual of eating together in a time when rituals are on the list of endangered species. Rituals bind communities together. They are at the service of all healthy indigenous communities.


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RITUALS SANCTIFY THE UNIVERSE AND REVEAL ITS INTERCONNECTEDNESS In accordance with the fourth aspect of the indigenous worldview, transformation rites bless, rejuvenate, and sanctify the universe. Indigenous Chagga elders bless the new day by spitting saliva (symbol of life) into the air facing the east (from where the life-enhancing sun rises) and say, “Creator, you have given us a good night, now give us a good day.” They also have rites and prayers for blessing each season and each new year. The Mensa people of Ethiopia bless the new moon through a sanctifying ritual accompanied by these words: May you be for us a moon of joy and happiness. Let the young become strong and the grown man maintain his strength, the pregnant woman be delivered and the woman who has given birth suckle her child. Let the stranger come to the end of his journey and those who remain home dwell safely in their homes. Let the flocks that go to feed in the pastures return happily. May you be a moon of harvest and of calves. May you be a moon of restoration and of good health. 59

Other rites bless space, such as areas being cleared for a new village, a building plot, farmland, fishing waters and hunting locations. These rites illustrate the sacredness of the universe, the need to renew this sacredness through blessings, and also indicate that the universe is an interconnected and interdependent whole. When I was a young boy, I noticed that my parents and grandparents always blessed our house, our tamed animals, and our farm, sometimes by animal sacrifices and libations, and at times merely by spitting into the atmosphere in a solemn and prayerful manner. As I look back now, I am awed by the deep respect these elders accorded the universe and our surrounding environment. Their rites promoted the universe to a level that deserves respect and admiration. In a word, these indigenous rites of blessings and purification of the universe personify it. The universe symbolically becomes a person who must be cared for, respected, renewed, and protected. These indigenous rites and the accompanying respect indigenous people have for the environment have inspired me in an a way that all my “education” can only envy. Indigenous rites inspire participants to realize that the universe is to be respected and protected in all of its innumerable manifestations, and that human life is intimately connected to and dependent on the universe. My maternal grandmother used to say: “How awesome trees and animals are, they can do without us, but we cannot do without them.”

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Indigenous transformation rites are therefore fundamental in the ipvunda process of the Chagga people. They are an essential tool of formation, especially in the aspect of education for life. Rituals touch, inform, form, and inspire the mind and heart in a way that teachings and lectures cannot. Zuesse observes that “ritual is spiritually more profound than any theology; it accomplishes more for those who participate in it than any number of rarified mystical treatises…”60 His erudite words make a fitting conclusion here: …ritual, the way the body articulates true, enduring, and ideal structures in its world, is the highest mode the body has for molding together consciousness and physicality. Ritual is the highest form, it therefore follows, of the unity between the In Itself of awareness and For Itself of the world… No intellectual exegesis can replace it.61

ROLE-PLAYING AND ANTICIPATORY PLAYS IN THE IPVUNDA PROCESS Role-playing also has an important place in the education and formation of children and adolescents. In role-playing and anticipatory plays, children form, mold and educate one another. One can call this a process of interformation or intereducation within age groups and playmates. Three kinds of play activities exist among indigenous Chagga age groups and playgroups: first, the playful activities that mainly provide physical exercise, such as running, high jump, long jump, and all sorts of fun activities; second, competitive games that test the intellectual, physical, and social skills of participants; and third, role-playing in which children may imitate adults, mimic them, or engage in activities representative of adult behavior and responsibilities. Role-playing in the context of the indigenous ipvunda process can be described as activities in which children and adolescents mimic or imitate adult behavior and activities in order to cater to their own current needs; learn how to act like certain admired adults; and prepare for future adult behavior and responsibility. Kenyatta makes a useful comment: Anyone observing children at their play will no doubt be impressed by the freedom which characterizes the period of childhood among the Gikuyu [of Kenya]. The children do most things in imitation of their elders and illustrate in striking ways the theory that play is anticipatory of adult life.62


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In role-playing, children dramatize events and issues of real life in a playful way, thus actually anticipating behavior and responsibilities that are certainly around the corner. My experience is that in our childhood roleplaying, there was sometimes an atmosphere of awesome seriousness and solemnity because we realized we were enacting matters of profound significance. ROLE-PLAYING AMONG CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS Before puberty, boys and girls role-play together in play groups consisting of children ages five to twelve. The different sexes and ages provide the required dramatis personae such as parents and children, husbands and wives, teachers and students. Older children role-play as parents and teachers, younger ones take the place of children and students. Girls role-play as wives and boys as husbands. After each play, the audience of peers gives comments and evaluations to the “actors” and “actresses,” who are expected to take these seriously. In some occasions, some adults are present when children are role-playing as warriors, professional dancers, leaders, teachers, and so on. Adults get the chance to critique these “professionals,” cheer on the good ones, encourage the not-so-good, and single out future leaders. No aspect of life is beyond the scope of these plays. Children will role-play everything that their society does and goes through, including birth of children, parenting, spousal relationships, wedding ceremonies, and even the final experience of life: death. After puberty, say from age twelve, role-playing becomes strictly an age group activity in separate sexes. Here, group members are of the same sex and of about the same age. Boys role-play leadership roles, war games, court hearings, hunting skills, and so on. In each age group, one boy acts as king or chief, while the others role-play as subjects. Everyone gets a chance to be a “king” or “professional” person. Raum describes the experience in these words: Children frequently stage a court sitting. The occasions for ‘legal interference’ arise from the carousals at which the boys get ‘drunk,’ start a quarrel and fight. It is enacted with all the personages whom the playgroup, out of their pooled knowledge, remember as playing a role in such affairs. There is the plaintiff supported by his advisers, the defendant with his; the chief comes to preside over the hearing of the case and is accompanied by other boys pretending to be the wise men of the tribe.63

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Often, adolescent boys will seek the counsel of their fathers or grandfathers before an important role-playing event. They also learn plenty from actual events carried out by adults, for instance, during a family case or village court case. They here learn linguistic skills, such as the use of proverbs, riddles, and stories. Forty years ago, to prepare for role-playing in my age group, I often spent time with my father and grandfather, to learn from them the tricks of languaging. They taught me how to ask tricky questions and how to evade answering questions laced with traps. Each one in our group did the same. We echoed our fathers’ and grandfathers’ mannerisms, we personalized what we learned from them, often emerging with brand new ideas and modes of expression. Good old days, indeed! Role-playing among adolescent girls has its own unique characteristics. Notable among these is the significant supportive presence of a girl’s mother and grandmother, and the persistent interest in marriage-related teachings. We have therefore two kinds of role-plays here: within girls’ age groups, and between a mother and her daughter or a grandmother and her granddaughter. A mother, for instance, plays “husband” and her daughter plays “wife,” and viceversa the next time around. In these motherdaughter (or grandmother-granddaughter) role-playing sessions, a mother will teach her daughter, through this obviously playful way, how to be a caring and responsible wife and mother, how to resolve marriage conflicts, how to behave with in-laws, and how to thrive successfully in a new household. The mother may play the role of an angry husband and ask her daughter to role-play as a pacifying wife. Thus the mother can think of various scenarios in a marriage relationship and teach her daughter how to handle each situation successfully. Often she will first act the part of a pacifying wife, or kind, caring, thoughtful one, then later let her daughter imitate this model behavior. Often grandmother and granddaughter hold similar sessions. A young girl goes through many of these dramas before she is married. Perhaps this is why the indigenous Chagga bride seems to be more prepared for marriage than her groom. When I posed this issue to one elderly lady during my interviews, she said that a good and responsible wife is crucial in the stability of marriage and in the raising up of children, so “a little extra ipvunda for the girl is necessary,” she said. I cannot agree more. As the mother-daughter role-playing sessions are going on, role-playing among age groups goes on uninterrupted. Here the young ladies are on their own, completely free, ready to put their mothers’ teachings into practice. The contents of their role-playing are quite similar to those found


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in mother-daughter sessions. Young ladies take these role-playing sessions very seriously. Mothers encourage their daughters to actively participate in these age group activities because their daughters learn here much more than one mother can teach her daughter. A lot of molding goes on in these sessions, and indigenous elders and parents are well aware of this fact. In conclusion, let us summarize here the formational aspects of roleplaying. First, role-playing is de facto a teachable moment. Participants come to these sessions desiring to learn in a playful and relaxing way. They have a heightened awareness of the adult responsibilities they are about to undertake. Second, role-playing teaches several fundamental virtues, such as cooperation with others, respect for everyone in the group, responsibility for one’s part in the drama, and thoughtfulness. Role-playing in these contexts requires a lot of thinking because there is no “script.” One relies almost entirely on one’s memory and imagination. Role-playing therefore sharpens the faculties of memory, imagination, and anticipation. Third, participants in role-playing have an opportunity to be creative, original, and unique. In the course of these sessions, young people come up with fresh ways of expressing their traditions. They invent new vocabulary, especially when their culture meets another. In my own age group, for instance, we did not only imitate our elders, we also incorporated into our way of thinking new trends from foreign lands. We made wooden bicycles and wooden toy cars. We role-played modern professions like school teachers, religious leaders, doctors, nurses, and others. What a coincidence that some of the boys in my age group later chose professions that they had role-played in our adolescent days! In our age group we even invented and perfected a language code that nobody outside our group could understand. Thus role-playing in this context is more than imitating adults and heroes. It is also a unique opportunity for youngsters to be themselves and to disclose their unique gifts and talents, thereby enriching the entire tradition. Finally, role-playing keeps children and adolescents rooted in the traditions of their ancestors. In role-playing they make use of cherished stories, proverbs, and other oral literature treasures. They learn to appreciate and respect the wisdom, knowledge, and experience of their elders, much as a modern student of English literature appreciates and respects Shakespeare and his works. Role-playing thus becomes a living link between the wisdom of past generations and the hope and anticipations of tomorrow. It gives life to the past, inspires the present, and brightens the future. Forty years ago, a renowned sage in our village used to tell us

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during age group sessions: “When you role-play, you give a face to your ancestors, render appreciation to your parents, and bring forth the future.” My experience has always validated the wisdom of that sage. When we reflect on the power of modern stage plays and films, we can begin to understand why indigenous ancestors were so fascinated by role-playing and made it such an important tool for the education of their young ones. Thus, the indigenous Chagga elders have always valued role-playing as an important tool of interformation or intereducation within age group members. They exploit it fully in the process of humanizing their youngsters and renewing the tradition. We have discussed the formators at the center of indigenous Chagga education and the formation tools they cherish and use. In the next two chapters, we shall look at the positive dispositions or virtues that define a mature person in indigenous society. NOTES 1 Hiliary Rodham Clinton, It Takes A Village (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 7–19. 2 Saad Elkhadem, ed., Egyptian Proverbs and Popular Sayings (Fredericton, Canada: York Press, 1987), 17, no. 486. 3 Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, 9. 4 See Raum, Chaga Childhood, 323–339. 5 H. Odera Oruka, ed., Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy (New York: E.J.Brill, 1990), 53. 6 In some African countries, the notion of age groups is used as a good indigenous example or model for the building of national bonds beyond ethnical bonds. The argument is that the same fundamental human elements that bonded indigenous age groups could be inspirational to contemporary nation-building efforts. 7 Kenyatta, 1. 8 Raum, 264–274. 9 Raum, 289. Charles Dundas, in Kilimanjaro and its People, 310–340, tells seven popular Chagga stories and legends. 10 See Onyango Ogutu and A.A.Roscoe, Keep My Words (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1974). The quotation is taken from Okumba Miruka’s book, Encounter With Oral Literature (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1994), 133. 11 Roger D.Abrahams, ed., African Folktales (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), 2. 12 Abrahams, African Folktales, 2.

Formators and Pedagogical Tools in Indigenous Education 13

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Ibid., 2–3. A modern storyteller who derives his short stories from all religions and cultures is Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello (1931–87). See his Song of the Bird, One Minute Wisdom, Taking Flight, The Heart of the Enlightened, and Awareness, all published by Image Books, New York. 15 Raum, 216. 16 Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (New York: Little, Brown, 1994), 9–10. 17 Abrahams, 1. 18 Peter J.Paris, The Spirituality of African Peoples (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 119–120. 19 This definition is taken from Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983 edition). 20 See Austin Bukenya, Wanjiku Kabira, and Okoth Okombo, eds., Understanding Oral Literature (Nairobi: Nairobi University Press, 1994), 65–69. 21 See Bibliography. See also Wolfgang Mieder’s African Proverb Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography (Burlington, VT: Queen City Printers, 1994). Mieder gives 279 excellent annotations of books and mostly articles that analyze specific African proverbs so as to reveal their origins, contexts, structures, linguistic formations, and functions. 22 See, for instance, Cisternino, Knappert, and others. 23 Chamber’s Twentieth Century Dictionary defines a proverb as a short familiar sentence expressing a supposed truth or moral lesson. Miruka defines a proverb succinctly: a short, or brief, obscure or gnomic, relatively invariable statement, full of wisdom, truth or meaning. See Austin Bukenya, et al., eds., Understanding Oral Literature, 37. In Encounter With Oral Literature, Okumba Miruka posits four functions of African proverbs: (1) Aesthetic function: proverbs facilitate verbal communication (he quotes Chinua Achebe of Nigeria, who says: “proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten,” 76); (2) reflective function: they evoke personal reflection on life and world; (3) normative function: proverbs give counsel, advice, caution, warning, admonition, positive criticism and consolation; and (4) summative function: proverbs are like a code language that requires decoding and deeper reflection—see 76–85. 24 Jan Knappert, The A-Z of African Proverbs (London: Karnak House, 1989), 2. 25 Ibid., 6. 26 Miruka, Encounter With Oral Literature, 80–81. 27 Ibid.,81. 28 Evan M.Zuesse, Ritual Cosmos: The Sanctification of Life in African Religions (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1979), 5. 14

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The Heartbeat of Indigenous Africa 29

Ibid., 6. Raum, 217. 31 Ibid., 217. Bishop Moshi may have made this statement in the late 1930s. 32 J.Nandwa and A.Bukenya, African Oral Literature for Schools (Nairobi: Longman, 1983), 105. 33 Miruka, Encounter with Oral Literature, 2. 34 Miruka, 16. 35 S.S.Farsi, Swahili Sayings From Zanzibar: Riddles and Superstitions (Arusha, Tanzania: Eastern African Publications, 1981), 10 and 11, respectively. Unless otherwise noted, the translations from Kiswahili into English are mine. 36 Ibid., 3, 4, and 11, respectively. 37 Miruka, 21. 38 Miruka, 27. 39 Ibid., 27. 40 Today, many of these canals have been replaced by underground water pipes. 41 D.C.Osadebey, “West African Voices,” African Affairs 48, 1949. 42 Robert S.Machang’u, Kindo Kya Kando [Children’s Kichagga Language Book] (Morogoro, Tanzania: Sokoine University Press, 1993), 22. The English translation is my own. 43 Raum, Chaga Childhood. 221. 44 Ibid., 222. 45 In the Chagga language, there are special names for one’s father-in-law and mother-in-law. This applies to all in-laws. So, one calls one’s wife’s father “my father” and her mother mamka, short for “mother of my wife.” These names have a special reverential sound and implication to them. 46 Raum, 224. 47 Raum, 223–224. 48 Elkhadem, Egyptian Proverbs and Popular Sayings, number 286. 49 Zahan, 54. 50 Charles Dundas, Kilimanjaro and its People (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1968), 139. The Dracoena plant, sale, signifies peace and harmony; and kengeâ is a creeping plant that symbolizes wholeness and bondedness. 51 Aylward Shorter, Prayer in the Religious Traditions of Africa (Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press, 1975), 58–59. 52 John Middleton, Lugbara Religion: Ritual and Authority Among an East African People (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 102–103. 53 Zuesse entitles his book Ritual Cosmos and subtitles it The Sanctification of Life in African Religions. 54 Zuesse, 9. 30


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55 Benjamin C.Ray, African Religions: Symbol, Ritual, and Community (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976), 17. Emphasis mine. 56 Zahan, 54. Emphasis mine. 57 Ibid., 60. 58 Zahan, 58. 59 John S.Mbiti, The Prayers of African Religion (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1975), 33. 60 Zuesse, 238. 61 Ibid., 240–241. Emphasis in original. 62 Kenyatta, 61. Parentheses mine. 63 Raum, 254

CHAPTER 3

Reverence, Self-Control, and Silence

In the late 1970s, I taught courses in Christian spirituality to undergraduates at Kibosho Philosophy College, Tanzania. One of the subjects we discussed in class was the Christian Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity) and the Moral Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance) as these relate to everyday human experience. Often we tried to express these virtues in our various African languages in class. The students clearly became more interested in discussion whenever we examined our indigenous African cultures in order to disclose concepts and expressions that articulate indigenous African spirituality and virtues. At that time, my interest in the study and appreciation of indigenous religion and spirituality also significantly increased. Since then I have designed and taught several courses in African spirituality to undergraduates and graduates in Tanzania, Kenya, and the United States, which has given me the unique opportunity to focus, among other topics, on specific fundamental African virtues in my studies, lectures and writings. Now, twenty years later, I have identified six fundamental indigenous Chagga virtues that will be the subject of this and the next chapter. One of the important fruits of the indigenous educational system discussed previously is that individuals and society in general develop an awareness and understanding of certain specific modes of behavior that are viewed as crucial in the formation of a sane and civil society. Indigenous society expects everyone to have these positive dispositions or tendencies that help to strengthen society’s worldview and realize its goals, such as building strong and caring families and communities, 87

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nurturing responsible citizens, and strengthening the harmony already inherent in the universe. In short, indigenous society views these virtues or positive tendencies as the heartbeat that keeps society healthy and vibrant. The elders I interviewed for the writing of this book told me in no uncertain terms that it is their belief that without this healthy heartbeat (that is, without a fairly good understanding and practice of fundamental virtues), society disintegrates and chaos reigns. From Kenya, we have two Kikuyu proverbs that support the claims of my interviewees: “Virtue is better than riches,” and “Strength does not dwell in the calves of the legs” (which means one’s strength does not dwell in one’s appearance, but rather in mind and virtue). Before we embark on the discussion on these virtues or positive dispositions, it will be useful to define our terms. In English, a “virtue” is defined as a specific moral excellence; a commendable quality or trait; a positive disposition in character and behavior. Thus a person who has the virtue of respect has the tendency or inclination to affirm and appreciate others and world. According to Adrian van Kaam, such a disposition is a “distinctive, relatively lasting, human formation direction of life.”1 A distinctive disposition, say, generosity, makes a person to have a tendency of caring, being concerned and giving, of oneself or of something, whenever an opportunity comes up. One gradually acquires a generous disposition after repeated acts of generosity that eventually become a spontaneous inclination or tendency. In this book, we shall refer to this positive recurring tendency as a virtue or positive disposition. I have chosen not to use the term “value,” so frequently used in contemporary parlance, because it is not precise enough to suit the systematic description of virtue in indigenous African culture, or in any of the various human spiritualities. The six fundamental virtues to be studied (three in this chapter and three in chapter 4) are reverence, self-control, silence or thoughtfulness, courage, diligence in work, and communality. Why six? Why not less or more? In the course of many years of lived experience, study, and reflection, I have finally selected these six with the understanding that each of these has several subvirtues, which will be discussed with each of the fundamental virtues. This being the case, I could have listed more than six virtues, but I have limited them to six so that I may be as comprehensive as possible. This list was also approved by the majority of the elders and sages that I interviewed in Tanzania and Kenya. These are the fundamental virtues that the indigenous Chagga society looks for in a spouse-to-be, a hero, a leader, and in a good citizen.


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The procedure of the presentation of each virtue is as follows. First, I shall give a comprehensive description of a given virtue in the English language and then, with more detail, in the Kichagga language as spoken in the Vunjo District of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Then we shall study how the said virtue is taught to children, youth, and society. The question here is, how does indigenous society form children and youth in order to acquire this particular virtue? This formational aspect of the virtue will be followed by insights and examples from other African peoples, including proverbs and other forms of oral literature that emphasize the importance of the virtue under study. Finally, we shall relate the dynamics and dimensions of this virtue to the entire ipvunda process and to the strengthening of the indigenous worldview. REVERENCE In the English language, the noun reverence comes from the verb revere, which means: to fear, respect; to show devoted referential honor to; regard as worthy of great honor. Furthermore, reverence presupposes an intrinsic merit and inviolability in the one honored and a corresponding depth of feeling in the one honoring. When the divine is revered, we call this act worship, adoration, or veneration, all of which mean profound honor and admiration. Reverence is thus honor or respect felt and shown to the divine, a person, place, time, or thing.2 In each feeling, act or expression of reverence, there is a certain degree of respect, awe, wonder, admiration, and appreciation. In the Vunjo version of Kichagga language, the word for “to revere” is ishumbuo, which means “to recognize, affirm, and make known the uniqueness of a person, thing, or event.” Literally, the infinitive ishumbuo means “to set apart for admiration and appreciation.” Thus, a mshumbuo or a mshumbue is a revered person, one deserving honor and respect. In this context, everyone is a mshumbuo in one way or another. For the indigenous Chagga people, to be human is to be, ipso facto, a mshumbuo. A related word is isumba, which means “to highlight or bring to light the good qualities of a person or thing.” It is to “inflate” the bright side of a person, of which everyone has one. In everyday life, however, these terms ishumbuo and isumba are hardly used. Instead, it is the ways of showing respect that find their way into common parlance. The following section will deal with the several layers of meaning through which reverence is understood in the indigenous Chagga culture. First, there is the supreme reverence reserved only for the Divine, which is adoration or worship. In praying to God, a person may say, “Oh God,

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Ruwa, I fall before You in prayer.” Ruwa is thus worshipped because Ruwa is the Supreme Ancestor, the Supreme Parent who is Mystery through and through. Ruwa is adored because Ruwa is a life giver and a life preserver. This is why Ruwa’s name is not mentioned in vain or in swearing. The name Ruwa is invoked only in grave circumstances, like in times of prayer, sacrifice, or in taking an official oath. In self-defense, for instance, a suspect for a crime may say, “In the name of Ruwa, my testimony is true, for if I lie, may Ruwa take away my life.” This is enough to acquit the suspect, because no one would invoke Ruwa’s name this way in vain. One of the elders I interviewed, Merishai Lyimo, said that being in Ruwa’s presence is like standing at the foot of a towering mountain, at the edge of a vast crater, or at the shore of an expansive ocean. Such a person experiences reverence, awe, wonder, and humility. The sage I interviewed echoed Otto’s statement that for religious people like the indigenous Chagga, a conscious reflection on the Divine makes a person speechless in a feeling of personal nothingness and submergence before the awe-inspiring Sacred.3 One is moved to profound reverence, worship, and adoration. It seems therefore correct to state that the indigenous experience of reverence is intimately connected with Ruwa as a Sacred and Transcendent Mystery at the center of the universe. Thus the Divineadoring person is filled with the life-affirming positive dispositions of awe, wonder, and respect, not only for the Divine Mystery, but also for everyone and everything born of the Divine. Through the virtue of reverence, indigenous peoples therefore acknowledge and appreciate the transcendent as well as the immanent and interrelated aspects of all being. Reverence is an external sign symbolizing that indigenous peoples recognize and appreciate the interconnectedness of the universe. One sage puts it this way: “As I revere Ruwa, I also hold in higher esteem everyone and everything, and as I revere everyone and everything, I worship the Supreme Divine Mystery.” Second, there is reverence directed to all ancestors and especially clan and family ancestors. The names and memories of deceased family members and friends are mentioned with high respect. Ancestors are not worshipped, they are venerated or highly respected. Worship is reserved for Ruwa only among the Chagga and among African peoples in general. Some of my closest ancestors are my parents, my grandparents, my two brothers, Ndevumilia and Meena, and other family members. May they all Rest in Peace! As I recall them, I am filled with reverence, awe, wonder, and appreciation. One very insightful and formative realization is that the


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reverence I feel for them is not limited only to them. It expands to embrace all people and all things. This is one of the formational dynamics of reverence. On the relationship between ancestors and their “living” relatives among the Lugbara people of Sudan, Middleton makes an insightful observation: The dead are kin, but in most cases they are senior kin, and the living should behave towards them as towards senior living kin.4

There are several ways of showing respect to ancestors. One is through frequent prayers offered to Ruwa through the ancestors or offered directly to them. Accompanied by these prayers are various kinds of animal sacrifices, harvest offerings and libations of beer, milk, and honey. These sacrifices and offerings are eventually consumed by all concerned family members and symbolically by the ancestors being remembered. I recall that whenever my father and grandfathers made such prayers, sacrifices, and offerings, they called by name the specific ancestor or ancestors being remembered or being requested of a certain favor. What stands out in my memory is the deep respect with which these ancestors are recalled and remembered. With this respect is a conspicuous sense of appreciation shown to the ancestors. Similar reverence is given to all family and clan ancestors in all occasions, such as the birth of a new baby, celebrations, adolescent transformation rites, wedding ceremonies, mourning and funeral rites, and so on. I have learned this lesson well, so I do the same in all our family and clan functions, and teach my children to act likewise. The point here is to remember our ancestors, appreciate what they have been and will continue to be, and give them the reverence that they deserve as part of our family and part of the human family. In the Chagga tradition, appreciating and thanking a person is considered respectful. So a daughter or son who continually thanks her or his parents is honored as a respectful person. Thus people render respect to their ancestors by remembering and appreciating them. We therefore recognize the virtue of reverence through other virtues such as affirmation and appreciation. Another way of showing respect to ancestors is to give their names to their offspring—children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. My daughter Siya Matilda is named after my mother, Matilda, and my son Amani Naisa carries on my paternal grandfather’s name, Naisa. The same grandfather gave me my name Sambuli. Carrying on the names of our ancestors, or using names given by them serves to promote one important

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human formation dynamic: remembering, keeping the memories alive. One of the highest forms of respect to someone, something or some event is to remember. This is the whole idea behind memorial buildings, walls, parks, gardens, statues, streets, family photo albums, and so many other things. Such memories are formative because they awaken us to some positive way of being and positive way of acting. When we remember our ancestors through using their names or through other ways, we celebrate their special spiritual presence in our lives, and we commit ourselves to carry on the good they lived and died for. In so doing, we revere, honor, and appreciate them. Chagga ancestors also are revered through special shrines dedicated to them. In indigenous culture, every Chagga clan has a shrine in which ancestors are buried or where sacrifices, offerings, libations, and prayers are offered to them. As a little boy, I was shown our clan shrine, mbuonyi, located in my paternal grandfather’s farm. This is an area about ten feet wide and ten feet long, walled in by masale trees. It is a sacred place where only adults enter for a special function, either to remember the ancestors buried there, or to ask them for certain favors. Our clan shrine has since been replaced by an ordinary graveyard, no longer walled in, nor having the same atmosphere of a dreaded place, but still nonetheless a sacred and respected place. In today’s Chaggaland, each grave site or cemetery has become a revered place where family and friends can visit as often as they want. Again, the idea here is to respect our ancestors by respecting and caring for their grave sites. As I reflect on these experiences, I realize more and more that respecting our ancestors and respecting everyone and everything makes a person more human, it contributes positively to one’s humanization process. It deepens one’s education and one’s humanity. A third category of reverence is the type given to elders. 5 As outlined in some detail in Chapter 2, elders consist of everyone significantly older than I am; my parents, grandparents, and their peers; older siblings; all leaders, even if younger than I am; and in particular all elderly people. In principle, the older a person is, the more elaborate is the expression of respect. Elders are respected through several ways. One way is by giving their names to children and grandchildren, as it is done with ancestors. Our daughter Aika’s middle name, Leah, is also the name of my mother-in-law (mamka), her grandmother. When we told her that our daughter would take her name, she was beside herself with joy and gratitude. She has always felt deeply respected by this use of her name.


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A second way of respecting elders is by using a special, reverential title whenever a younger person greets or addresses an older one. In Chaggaland, we have various titles for the various categories of elders. The title for fathers, grandfathers, and men of their age is Mbe. When I say “yes” to my grandfather, I add Mbe to my response. It is almost like saying, “Yes, sir.” I would never refer to my father or grandfather by his name, rather I use his title. For my mother and grandmother and their age group, I use the title Mae or Mai.6 These elders reciprocate by giving an endearing title to their child or grandchild or any child. Thus a greeting session between my grandmother and I would be as follows: Sambuli: Kwamtza, Mae. Grandmother: Naiyo, mchuku oko. Sambuli: Ulee pvo kur-a Mae? Grandmother: Kucha tupu mchuku oko.

Good morning, Madame (Grandmother) The same to you, my grandson. How did you sleep, Grandmother? Very well, my grandson.

I would use the same title for my mother or any other ladies of her age. Although I can have moments of informal conversation with an elder, the two-way respect system is always kept so much so that I would never treat any elder as informally as I would treat an age-group member. Etiquette or good manners is the defining factor in all relationships and dealings between people of different ages and different social roles. There is a special title that everyone gives to older sibling and their peers. It is Awae. My younger brother and sisters address me as Awae in greetings. And I address them as Mananyu oko (that is, my dear young one). The idea in these titles is to honor, affirm, and appreciate other people. Titles for elders remind the young to recognize the elders’ experience and their leadership role in society, whereas titles for the young remind elders not to abuse their privileged position. Elders are further reminded that they must earn their respect by caring for and appreciating their children and grandchildren. Thus the respect for each group is based on care and concern rather than on age for its own sake. Third, the young show their respect to elders by listening to their guidance, experience, and stories. Listening here is a virtue born of respect. When someone speaks, especially an elder, everyone pays attention. If one disagrees, one does so respectfully through proper protocol. In

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Chaggaland for example, the ordinary people express their disagreement with their king, mangi, through song. The king, for his part, has been trained to listen carefully, to songs in particular. Listening therefore is an important avenue through which reverence is given. It is also one of the disciplines of story telling discussed in Chapter 2. I always marvel at my grandparents’ and parents’ ability to listen. They are excellent listeners, summa cum laude students of the indigenous educational system! Another notable way of revering elders is the care that younger people give to them in their old age. People who have good manners toward the elderly, and who give them tender loving care, are highly respected among indigenous peoples. A young girl or young boy, for instance, who takes good care of his or her aging grandparents is seriously sought after as a spouse. I recall a young lady in my neighborhood who once gave up a chance to get married so that she could dedicate herself completely to the care of her ninety-year-old grandmother. She did so for many years. When her grandmother finally died, many men were seeking her hand in marriage. In our village, she was a star, a hero, the best wife anyone could get. She is now happily married. In social functions and celebrations, the elderly are given a place of honor. Everyone is eager to serve them first. Younger people give the elderly the right of way as they walk along the way to some place. It is considered respectful for the younger person to initiate greetings to an older person. In such a greeting, the younger person will address the older person in a way that clearly shows that the greeted person is older or is an elderly person. In Kichagga, the masculine title meeku and the feminine title mkyeku are given to older men and women. Meeku means “old man” and mkyeku means “old woman,” not at all in the pejorative sense, but in a respectful and even endearing way. In Kiswahili the equivalent is Mzee. In fact, in indigenous culture, the titles meeku, mkyeku, and mzee are respectful titles, often given to leaders regardless of their age. In Tanzania, for example, a young chairman of a company may be introduced as the mzee of the company. The point here is that, in a culture where elders are leaders by definition, a person in a leadership position becomes an elder, no matter how young that person might be. All leaders, therefore, are highly respected; and the more they reciprocate this respect, the more revered they become. Special reverence is reserved for the king, mangi, his wife, mkamangi, the king’s councillor and the district headmen and women. People will greet or address the king with these titles: Njamayoombe, owner of the cattle; Simba, lion; Njofu, elephant; Kishamba-kya-uruka,


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the great one of the country; Msuri, the rich one; Kilayo, the sender of gifts of food in the evening; Ruwa-lya-umbe, the god of the cattle. A king’s councillor is greeted with: Kocha njama ya mangi, welcome privy councilor of the king; and a district headman is referred to as mangi ya kikaro, head of the district, or kocha manawo mangi, welcome younger “brother” of the king. These and similar titles do not imply servile submission. Rather they reveal a realization that the king is a mshumbuo, a person set apart for the good of all, an embodiment of divine blessing upon everyone. This show of respect is also a demonstration of the greeter’s human need to be known and honored by the king or his councilors. My paternal grandfather, Naisa, a councillor, was widely respected because he listened to everyone, and worked hard for the good of all, in particular those most in need. Even today there are many elders in my district who may not know my first name, but they certainly know that I am a grandson of Mzee Naisa. He once told me, Ochisuka nanga opva; that is, it is better to die than to lose one’s dignity and respect. Dignity and respect are extended beyond kings, councillors, and other elders in order to include everyone. In indigenous Chaggaland, the minimum sign of respect for everyone is the ordinary greeting, given in accordance to the age and social status of each person. When two people who do not know each other meet, the younger one usually starts off the greeting session, giving the other the same title that he or she would give to his or her own parent or an elder of the same age group. The older person reciprocates the greeting, and may proceed to find the identity of the young person thus: Older Person: Whose son/daughter are you, my child/grandchild? Younger Person: I am the son/daughter of…(mentions father’s name) Older Person: Are you the grandson/granddaughter of…? I am a friend of your father’s brother and your father and I are good acquaintances. Younger Person: Thank you Sir (or Madam), may you have a good day. Older Person: Thank you, my son, the same to you. After a few moments, the greeting session ends, perhaps with the older one asking the younger one to pass his or her greetings on to the younger person’s family. In the district in which I grew up, young persons who demonstrate good manners to everyone are highly honored and every

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young person would like to marry one of these. Besides, every young person would like to marry into families of elders known for their courtesy and dignity. The Chagga elders whom I interviewed for this book emphasized that respect is one of the most basic rights of every person. One of them said: “giving respect costs you only a few moments of your time, but its value is immeasurable. Without it, society breaks down.” Everything else in the universe also is given a certain form of respect. As mentioned earlier, in the fourth aspect of the indigenous worldview, the universe is a tapestry of one interconnected and interdependent whole. Everyone and everything is an important part of the one interrelated universe. Everything is alive; that is, everything is actively participating in the rising and falling of forms that make the universe tick. Everything has a distinct purpose in the circle of life, and everything therefore has a symbolic and transcendent aspect. In this pattern of thought everything calls for recognition and appreciation. For example, one must appreciatively recognize that whenever an animal is slaughtered or a tree is cut down, it is done so for the greater good of enhancing human life and cosmic harmony. I recall with awe and respect that my grandparents and parents never threw anything away. Everything was recycled, everything. Metallic substances were heated and made into tools and utensils. Wooden “wastes” were ultimately burned and the ashes used as insecticides, manure, or wall plaster material. Food leftovers, leaves, branches, and grass either were given to animals for food or decomposed into manure. I really cannot think of anything that my elders found “useless” and therefore unworthy of reverence. On the contrary, in indigenous philosophy, every cosmic phenomenon is an essential companion in the journey of life and world. My godfather, Temu, says that everything is greater than itself, everything transcends itself by its essential contribution to the inherent harmony of the universe. In this context, everything can be said to have a spiritual or transcendent aspect that should evoke awe, wonder, and reverence in human beings. Hence, indigenous people, in particular the thinkers among them, view everything and everyone with an aura of awe, wonder and reverence. When I told a group of elders that Saint Francis of Assisi (1182– 1226) revered the sun, stars, and animals as his brothers and sisters, they said: “This man Francis is one of our ancestors.” Upon further reflection on these findings, it seems eminently logical to conclude that indigenous people are able to respect, revere, and appreciate everyone and everything because they sense and feel that the universe is one, interconnected and interdependent, and each of its parts is essential for the harmonious being and functioning of the whole.


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FORMING A REVERENT SOCIETY Reverence is so fundamental a virtue that the indigenous people do everything necessary to pass it on to the younger generations. How they do so is our immediate concern here. In attempting to understand how reverence is passed on to children and youth, it is useful for the reader to recall the three specific opportunities for the ipvunda process discussed in Chapter 1: everyday interaction in life, teachable moments, and specific transformation rites. We will need to keep these in mind whenever we talk about the method of teaching the fundamental virtues under study in chapters 3 and 4. In the formative context of everyday interaction in life, children and youth learn from the good examples of parents, older siblings, and elders. They cannot help noticing how each family member and each elder is greeted and treated with courtesy and even awe. When I was a young boy I noted that my dad, who often wore a hat, always lifted his hat to all elders, religious leaders, and all people of authority, regardless of their age. My dad is one of the most courteous persons I ever met. His disposition of reverence has a touch of the divine in it. I dedicate this section on reverence to him. Parents and grandparents are eager to raise children who are known for their etiquette. They therefore take every opportunity everyday to teach their children to listen to elders, appreciate their presence, and be inspired by their experience. Every older sibling and every elder is anxious that the children in their midst address others according to proper protocol and courtesy. Children learn that there is an elaborate system of verbal and nonverbal ways of conduct expected of everyone when relating to others. For example, it is considered good manners if one gives something or receives something with the right hand. Using both hands is even more respectful and appreciative. When shaking hands, which happens often among the Chagga people, using both hands is considered highly respectful. It is seen as bad manners if one answers a verbal question by a nonverbal response, for instance, nodding yes or lifting a shoulder for no. The proper thing to do is to give a polite verbal answer, followed by the appropriate title of the other person, especially if he or she is older than the respondent. Frequent use of the following phrases whenever relevant is expected of everyone: thank you, you are welcome (a reply to thank you), please, I am sorry, I apologize, I forgive you, may Ruwa bless you (when one coughs, sneezes, or is not feeling well) and so on. After eating everyone thanks the cook by saying: okoâ mae, that is, you

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really have cooked; and she replies: may you be nourished by the food. At the end of a banana beer party, mbeke, everyone thanks the host: wari wu wu-r ike, meaning, this beer is brewed indeed. These ways of showing respect are the minimum expected by the society. Doing more is encouraged, for it gives a person more dignity in society and creates role models who enrich the culture and system of good manners by rising beyond mediocrity and rigid mannerisms. In the limited space of this book it is impossible to document the innumerable ways of showing respect in various life situations, such as special greetings and conduct when relating to a sick person, a bereaved person, a bride, a groom, a new mother, a new father, and so on. Suffice it to say that there are numerous occasions when reverence is to be given or received, and that parents and elders use all opportunities in the everyday interaction in life to teach their young to be respectful and dignified. Teachable moments are a second opportunity for society to teach good manners to the young. One such moment is when grandparents, elders, and other adults visit the homestead. Parents and older siblings take the chance to help the young ones to greet in the proper way and to conduct themselves properly during the entire visit. This morning (Wednesday, March 25, 1998), before I started writing this section, I watched CNN in order to follow up the news of U.S. President Clinton’s visit to six African countries. I saw a segment in which schoolchildren received the president in Uganda with typical African manners that I find quite refreshing. These children half-genuflected and bowed to the president, then went on to sing “Welcome Mr. President” in a very reverential way. Mr. Clinton reciprocated their song and dance by dancing along with them. This is a beautiful example of respect, given, received, and given back. In that short instance, a certain mode of equality is born and enjoyed by the children, Mr. Clinton, and other participants. It is mutual respect, more than anything else in this situation, which brings forth a mutual experience of equality. My maternal grandmother was fond of telling me: “reverence is like a garden where other virtues can germinate and grow.” Other examples of teachable moments in which children learn how to give respect are: when a child disrespects a person or thing; storytelling times; role-playing; and any occasion of misbehavior. Parents and other adults use these opportunities to point out the mistake of irreverence and to suggest positive behavior through specific proverbs, stories, or other


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verbal admonitions. If, for instance, an adolescent despises a certain leader due to his or her young age, an elder will recite this saying: Msongoru nyi msongoru, manya katitia: an elder is always an elder regardless of his or her age or size. Finally, children and youth learn how to be reverent when they participate in adolescent transformation rites. Girls are given intensive lessons on how and why they should honor and appreciate their husbandto-be, their new family, and everyone else. They learn how to respect their parents-in-law and how to affirm and appreciate their children. Boys have the occasion to learn that a man is considered civilized if he treats his wife, children, and all people honorably. They learn many proverbs and stories which underline the importance of respect and dignity. The mlosha (teacher) tells them that respect for self and others is one of those fundamental dispositions that distinguishes boys from men. The proverb, ochisuka nanga opva (it is better to die than lose one’s good reputation), is repeated several times during lessons prior to initiation rites. When finally boys and girls emerge from this intensive preparation for marriage and adulthood, they show a remarkable sense of respect for people, life, and world, and for themselves. They have had about fifteen years of solid lessons in the virtue of respect and other fundamental virtues. They are, to some extent, ready to take on the next challenge of life: marriage and parenthood. INSIGHTS ON REVERENCE FROM OTHER AREAS OF AFRICA The aim of this section is to articulate the understanding and practice of reverence in several indigenous African cultures, and to highlight the thoughts of a few African thinkers and authors on the same subject. Relevant proverbs from various corners of indigenous Africa also will be cited. In his discussion of the origin and kinship system of the Kikuyu people of Kenya, Kenyatta shows the importance of good manners and respect for everyone in families and communities: It is good manners for a son or daughter to talk to the father in a gentle and polite tone, and the parent, except when reprimanding or correcting his children, is requested by custom to reciprocate the compliment in the same way as his children extend it to him.7

As it is with many African peoples, including the Chagga, among the Kikuyu it is impolite for children to address their parents and grandparents

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by their own name. Instead, children will address their parents as “my father or my mother,” “our father, our mother.” Other children will address any father as the father of so-and-so, or the grandmother or so-and-so, as the case may be. Among the Kikuyu, motherhood is highly respected and appreciated. The title “mother” is an honorable form of address, one which every Kikuyu woman (and every African woman) desires to get. Here is a useful observation by Kenyatta: When a woman reaches the stage of motherhood she is highly respected, not only by her children, but by all members of the community. Her name becomes sacred and she is addressed by her neighbors and their children as “mother of so-and-so.” To maintain her prestige, she must be hospitable to visitors and render assistance to her neighbors when they are in difficulty or need.8

Similar respect is accorded, in a nuanced form, to fathers, grandparents, elders, all adults, and all people. It is interesting to note that, in this area as in many others, the Kikuyu and other African people’s understanding of reverence is quite similar, especially in the fundamental elements. The following insights from Zambia attest to this fact. Zambian author Henry S.Meebelo devotes a significant part of his book Main Currents of Zambian Humanist Thought on politeness or respect. He makes the following note: All people-old and young, strong and weak, kinsmen and strangers-were treated with respect and consideration in the traditional society.9

He also quotes David Livingstone (1813–73), who in 1867 wrote as follows regarding the Lungu people of Northern Zambia: The clapping of hands on meeting is something excessive, and then the string of salutations that accompany it would please the most fastidious French man. It implies real politeness, for marching with them they always remove branches out of the path, and indicate stones or stumps in it carefully to a stranger.10

According to Meebelo, respect for human dignity is one of the basic principles of Zambian humanism, and I might add, of African indigenous thought. Respect for human dignity includes the following disposition: respect for age and authority (that is, for elders and those in authority); generosity; and hospitality. In a nutshell, it includes


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placing the highest value on humanity and acting accordingly. The following is Campbell’s observation: Let us once and for all recognize and remember that the native is not naturally lawless but has an inborn respect for law and authority.11

In Zambia (as elsewhere in indigenous Africa), respect for human dignity is based on morality that stems from the principle that whatever society says or does should improve everyone’s condition in harmony with the divine, the ancestors, those to be born, and with the entire universe. Here is another comment by Meebelo: The central position of man in all human activity in traditional society is implicit in all tenets of African humanist thought and practice that have already been discussed— the principles of inclusiveness, mutual aid, acceptance, communalism, cooperativism, egalitarianism, political leadership and trusteeship, respect for human dignity, respect for age and authority and hospitality.12

A great champion of Zambian humanism is Zambia’s first president and political philosopher Kenneth Kaunda.13 In his book A Humanist in Africa, and in various articles and speeches, Kaunda postulates that indigenous African ideas of respect for human dignity should be the basis of Zambian political ideologies.14 The result would be a political morality, an ethic founded on the fundamental principle that every human being is worthy of respect, dignity, and justice. Kaunda accords the highest form of respect to humanity in the following statement: The most important single unit in our democracy is man himself, and…this man is not defined according to his colour, tribe, religion, creed, or political leanings. Indeed, not even his material contribution is considered. It is simply that he is man, the beginning and the end of everything on earth.15

Kaunda’s political philosophy, and that of other African statesmen like Julius K.Nyerere of Tanzania(1922– ), Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (1909– 72), Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal (1906– ), and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya (c. 1897–1978), reflect the indigenous African virtues of reverence, communality, diligence in work, and other virtues discussed in this and the next chapter. Their worldview is that of indigenous Africa, even though these men are well educated in the modern sense of the word.16 In the following quotation, Nyerere sounds like an indigenous African sage, as well as a modern prohumanity religious leader:

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…the development of peoples follows from economic development only if this latter is achieved on the basis of equality and human dignity of all those involved. And human dignity cannot be given to a man by the kindness of others. Indeed it can be destroyed by kindness which emanates from an action of charity. For human dignity involves equality and freedom, and relations of mutual respect among men.17

A number of African proverbs support the statement that respect is a valued virtue in all of indigenous Africa. From South Africa we have several: “A polite mouth can open doors”; “With your hat in your hand you will travel through the land” (that is, good manners will open doors); and “the fruit tree is treated with respect.”18 In Tanzania and Kenya we have two proverbs here translated from the Kiswahili: “Courtesy is the hallmark of education”; and “Lucky is the father whose son has good manners.” From Congo Brazzaville we get this inspiring proverb: “Everyone is polite to a chief, but a person of good manners is polite to everyone.” And finally one from Namibia: “Honor your grandmother. Without her your mother would not be here.”19 The famous Tanzanian Kiswahili poet, Shaaban Robert (1909–62), wrote in prose and poetry, always admonishing his children and his readers to embrace a life of reverence for parents and for everyone. Below we have five such verses, with my translation into English: Verse 55: Baba hachapwi makofi Wala hadharauliwi, Dharau hata ukufi Kufanyiwa haifai, Radhi ya baba haifi Kupata fanya bidii, Uishi maisha soft Mwenye radhi husitawi.

A father is not to be slapped Nor is he to be disrespected, Disfame and disfavor He should not experience A father’s blessing is forever Work hard to earn it, So you will have a good life Because the blessed one prospers.

Verse 56: Mama hanyimwi msaada Kumbuka fadhili yake, Ulikaa kwa muda Mrefu tumboni mwake, Akashika kawaida Makusudi upevuke, Si mtu mwenye faida Mdharau mama yake.20

Never deny assistance to your mother Always remember her benevolence, For a long period of time You were in her caring womb, She endured a strict discipline So you would grow up well, It is not a useful person Who disrespects one’s mother.


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Robert counsels his daughter to respect her mother, father, and everyone else in the following three verses: Verse 69: Kitu cha bure heshima, Mpe baba na mama, Kila mtu mzima, Na walio nawe sawa.

Giving respect costs you nothing, Give it to father and mother, And to every elder, So also to all your equals.

Verse 70: Ukosefu wa adabu, Ni jambo la aibu, Wajibu kujitanibu, Mbali nalo kukaa.

Bankruptcy in reverence, It is a shameful thing indeed, It is your dire responsibility, To distance yourself from it.

Verse 71: Mpungufu wa adabu, Duniani ana taabu, Hakaribishwi karibu, Marafiki humwambaa.21

A person deficit in reverence, Will suffer in this world, No welcome is given to such a one, Friends and acquaintances will flee.

In conclusion, in indigenous Chagga and other African societies the making of a respectful and civil society is a fundamental element of the ipvunda process. The virtue of respect moves a person to affirm and appreciate everyone and everything as intrinsically valuable, awesome, and as an indispensable part of a much greater and transcendent whole. A medicine woman in my village, Matemu Kesi, said so many times: “Destroying anyone or anything is like cutting off one’s own hand, therefore, hold them all in high esteem.” She is, in my opinion, a sage who speaks well for all indigenous peoples. SELF-CONTROL In the English language self-control is defined as restraint exercised over one’s own impulses, emotions, or desires. The Oxford English Dictionary (second edition) describes self-control as control of one’s self, one’s desires, or self-government. And the Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines it as control or restraint of oneself or one’s actions and feelings. It is self-discipline, self-restraint, willpower, level-headedness. In the following sections these meanings will be implied and comprehensively expanded so as to articulate the Chagga understanding of self-control.

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In indigenous Chagga culture, self-control is understood as one of the fundamental dispositions of a person who can be described as becoming mature. Self-control is a sign of maturity. It is described as the ability to control oneself in all situations, particularly the unusual or challenging ones, so that one’s physical, mental, and spiritual energy is channeled positively and effectively. The Vunjo version of the Kichagga word for self-control is ipvuria, which literally means to hold oneself, to pull inward rather than push outward. The image here is that of pulling one’s energy inward at a time when it can scatter chaotically outside oneself, so that one has an opportunity to reflect and thus be able to channel one’s energies more positively and effectively. In Chaggaland the name Ndepvuria is common, and it means one who is self-controlled. One of the sages I interviewed said that self-control is self-mastery that enables persons to master their environment successfully because they have first mastered themselves. Without self-control, the sage continued, a person’s talents and potential are misdirected, and then the human negative inclinations of greed, hate, injustice, and ignorance take center stage. Chagga elders say that self-control is essential in several dimensions of human life. First, self-control means the ability to channel the urges of the body effectively and positively. For instance, one must control one’s desire to overeat or take the lion’s share when eating with others. It also means restraint on one’s urges for drink, sex, and other physical urges. In this case self-control rules out the desire for immediate gratification and invalidates the inclination to do something just because it feels good. Second, restraint enables a person to channel one’s intellectual powers positively. This is a disciplining of the mental inclinations to wander off in all directions so that a person becomes attentive, aware, and concentrating on a specific trend of thought or idea. Chagga elders often ask listeners or attendants at a meeting to “restrain your minds and listen carefully.” My grandmother liked to say, “an unbridled mind is a very dangerous tool.” Another dimension that needs restraint is our human emotions of anger, joyfulness, frustration, stress, and so on. These must be effectively restrained otherwise one lives to regret. When a person is angry, another will say “pvuria” (that is, hold yourself together, restrain yourself). One therefore needs to put one’s emotions in control, whether these are feelings of anger or celebration. The Chagga people have a saying: Nyashi yekeretza mî (that is, unbridled anger brings destruction to a homestead). Fourth, a human dimension that needs control is speech and use of language. Chagga elders consider self-control in speech to be fundamental


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for any civil society. In fact, one of the essential characteristics that defines an elder or a sage is the ability to control one’s tongue. There is a Chagga proverb: “the fools are speaking, the wise are listening.” (This subject will come up again when we speak of silence in the next section.) In everyday interaction, self-control is a powerful formation tool in the ipvunda process. Let us take a look at four specific life situations where self-control is indispensable. First, in ordinary human and family relationships, self-control is essential on the part of parents who are raising up children. It is common knowledge that children get into all sorts of trouble, thus often taking the patience of parents to breaking point. Without self-control, parents and other baby caregivers can become violently abusive, verbally and physically. It is so much easier to strike misbehaving children, and so much more difficult to control one’s anger at such a time. It takes a mature person to opt for the more difficult way of selfcontrol, one elder told me. Perhaps the reason for an increase in child abuse in our time is because modern parents and child caregivers have had less preparation and training in self-control. Self-control is equally important in the care of aging and elderly parents and grandparents in indigenous families. Handicapped and sick persons also require their family members to be self-controlled and patient. These virtues help to lessen the occurrences of verbal or physical abuses to family members who need tender care and patience. I have frequently noticed, with awe and appreciation, how elderly and aging people restrain themselves from speaking harshly when someone mistreats them. I am forever grateful for the inspiring example of my father who was bedridden for several years before he died in June 1989. I noticed that whenever I or anyone else lost patience with him, he would struggle to control his tongue, and often he succeeded. To me he was a towering example of self-control, not only in speech but also in all dimensions of his life. His richness in this virtue, and others besides, made caring for my dad so much easier. All said, there are numerous situations and scenarios in all families that make the virtue of self-control essential and life-enhancing. It is in the family, therefore, where indigenous peoples get their best lessons and experiences in self-control. Second, self-control comes in handy in a marriage situation. Controlling one’s anger and other negative emotions saves a marriage relationship from more serious troubles. It is particularly important that wife and husband control their urge to talk in difficult moments. Fortunately, as seen previously, each Chagga adolescent is well-prepared for times such as these. Although not everyone succeeds to control their tongue all the

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time, most couples do so quite frequently. This is one factor that helps to keep married people together for life in indigenous Chagga culture. The average indigenous couple also is highly self-controlled in the area of sex. The purpose of a sexual relationship, according to the indigenous worldview, is the procreation of children, period. As will be seen in a little more detail later in this section, all indigenous Chagga adolescents are given intensive lessons in self-control as regards sexual activity. As a result of much restraint in sexual activity in indigenous culture, there are very few occurrences of premarital sexual activity or premarital pregnancies. The overwhelming majority of brides and grooms are virgins when they first come together. Moreover, in most families children are well spaced, the average age between the birth of a baby and the next being three years. By the time the next baby is born, the previous one has had at least two years of breast-feeding. In that space of two years married couples refrain from sexual activity. It is important to remember here that these couples are previously prepared for this restraint during childhood and adolescence as shown earlier in Chapter 2. Self-control is equally important in other areas of life such as in celebrations where there is plenty to eat and drink; in times when one is provoked by another; times of adversity; and in various levels of leadership positions. In these and similar situations, the moral virtue of self-control empowers everyone to restrain themselves from acts of greed, overindulgence, and injustice, so that life may be more livable and meaningful to persons and communities. During interviews with elders and sages (Tanzania and Kenya, 1994– 95) I was curious to further understand why they put so much value on this virtue. They said that self-control is essential for several reasons. First, when people master themselves they are more capable of mastering their environment. This creates harmony within families, communities, and within the universe. One of them said: “Imagine the pain, damage, and loss that results when one injures another in uncontrolled anger.” Another said: “Premarital pregnancy disturbs the equilibrium of the family and community for a long time.” And a third added: “Our society is now being eroded by many who fail to control their urges for sex, material things, and power.” One of the sages, aged eighty five and with some experience on modern trends of life, said: “The virtue of self-control is like the braking system in a vehicle. Without a good one, a vehicle is unsafe and therefore not roadworthy. Similarly, a person without selfcontrol is a liability to self, to society, and the environment.” Second, self-control, according to the interviewed sages, facilitates


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the maturing process in persons and communities. It is a virtue that defines a mature person who gradually realizes that there is time for a definite no to eating, drinking, and leisure seeking, and that there is time for a definite no to the inclination to speak or act out one’s feelings and frustrations. Self-control is therefore, according to indigenous peoples, one of the essential elements in the humanization process. Third, and most importantly, indigenous Chagga elders and sages insist that the ability to control oneself in all human dimensions frees the mind and soul from averageness and mediocrity to great heights of mental sharpness and spiritual intuition. They believe that continued and uncontrolled indulgence in pleasing the senses blunts the mind, dulls the spirit, and sickens the body. These sages will go as far as saying that, in many cases, a certain amount of voluntary mortification and self-deprivation is essential for genuine human growth and for maximum mental and spiritual functioning. For example, indigenous doctors, herbalists, seers, and others refrain from sexual relations with their spouses, from alcohol, and from certain gourmet foods for several days before major functions that require great intellectual sharpness and spiritual insight. Chagga warriors also will abstain from marital relations before going out to defend their land. Kings and chiefs do the same in times of crisis and in times of important leadership functions. The intention is to create in oneself a superb ability to think, reflect, and act in the best possible way. According to this pattern of thought of Chagga elders and sages, there is a correlation between abstaining from legitimate pleasures and growing in wisdom in various stages and occasions in life. For this reason and others cited above, the virtue of self-control is considered essential in the ongoing formation of a civil society. It is a virtue that contributes positively to human and cosmic harmony through a gentle but persistent disciplining of one’s body, mind, and spirit. My godfather, Temu, says: “If you control yourself and hold your tongue, you will shine like the top of snow-capped Kilimanjaro. You will make yourself, and countless others, very happy.” HANDING ON THE VIRTUE OF SELF-CONTROL Indigenous Chagga parents and elders feel that one of their fundamental duties is to teach their young to gradually acquire all virtues considered essential. In the case of self-control they start teaching about it early in infancy and childhood when infants and children tend to demand a lot.

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Parents and elders are keenly aware that the most effective method of teaching self-control to children is through good example. They also put to good use the three teaching and learning opportunities: everyday interaction in life; teachable moments; and specific transformation rites. In the context of everyday life, parents and adults are always eager to help children and youth to control themselves. As noted above, they do so, first and foremost by their own good example. When I was six years old and my sister was three, there was famine in northern Tanzania. We had little to eat, yet my sister and I never starved. Whenever we sat down to eat whatever was available, our parents would not eat until my sister and I had enough. Then they would eat the leftovers, at times only a few morsels of food. I learned later that what my parents were doing was common in Chagga society, as Raum indicates here: The idea of motherly conduct is that she should not eat until her children are satisfied. A mother draws her children’s attention to this self-denying behaviour by means of a story: “When the cattle get their fodder, the big ones first plunder the calves’ trough and empty it before turning to their own share. Once the cattle were asked why they did so and they replied: ‘We do not want the stomachs of our children to burst from overeating!’ “You see the difference”, she concludes. “We are human beings, not animals!”22

My other experience with my own children is that the actions and behavior of parents speak much louder than words to their children. In too many examples my children do exactly what I am doing. Sometimes I become embarrassingly conscious of what I am doing only after noticing my children doing something unbecoming. Indigenous peoples, particularly the thinkers and sages among them, are keenly aware of the power of parental examples, so they struggle twice as hard to control themselves in the presence of children. Besides setting a good example, parents and elders actively engage themselves to help youngsters to gradually acquire the virtue of selfcontrol in all dimensions of life, with special emphasis on self-control in speech, in the inclination to satisfy the senses and in sexual desire. Adults help children to begin to distinguish between needs and wants, and to learn to delay immediate gratification even in the case of needs. Some of the values I learned in my childhood and early adolescence as regards self-control are: listening attentively without interrupting a speaker; refraining from hitting anyone or getting myself into a tantrum; eating only during official family meals: breakfast, lunch, and


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supper; minimize playtime to a few hours a day; and so on. I recall that all adults around me gently but firmly reminded me to control myself in all aspects of life. Often such reminders were given to me through stories, riddles, and proverbs, especially in those times we have been categorizing as teachable moments in this book. For instance, when I was in a wild rage my parents would quote this proverb: Hasira, hasara (a Kiswahili proverb meaning anger begets loss). And when I tended to push myself too hard, my grandparents resorted to this Kichagga proverb: Mochumia kyimbuo ekyekapa tulyia pvo (meaning a gentle walker does not stumble). Parents and adults also use the opportunity offered by specific transformation rites to teach self-control. From about the age of eight and in particular during adolescent transformation rites, girls and boys get intensive lessons and training in self-control and in all other fundamental virtues. Special emphasis is laid on the need to control one’s tongue, one’s sexual urges, and one’s emotions. Relevant proverbs, stories, teachings, and practical exercises in self-control are used extensively during the several months of seclusion before circumcision and marriage. Let us examine here a few of the teachings and practical exercises. A professional formator, the mlosha, gives the following lesson to adolescent boys before marriage: …my children, go about your business orderly. Do not provoke others, do not steal, do not commit adultery; drink with moderation; do not abuse the chief. For these rules were observed by your forefathers. If you do not restrain yourselves concerning these things, you will be involved in law cases and be robbed of your property, your children will die of hunger, and you will become beggars. Our fathers said, “The gentle walker does not hurt his toe.”23

Adolescent girls are advised not to expose their breasts and thighs and to protect their virginity by controlling the desire for sexual relations before marriage. The mlosha admonishes these girls: Guard yourselves, children. Be not deceived by the sweet words of youths into losing your honour and blessing. I repeat again solemnly: Guard your virginity.24

Indigenous parents and elders realize that teaching self-control through mere words is not enough. They create scenarios in which adolescents have to actually practice self-control. For instance, in an evening floodlit

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with moonlight, adolescent girls and boys are allowed to play outside in pairs. They talk, play, and generally have a good time together, but they are not to engage in sexual relations. It is a unique opportunity for them to practice self-control where nobody is watching them. In some cases, they are allowed to share the same bed at night, but again, no sexual relations. By the time a girl or a boy is about fifteen, she or he has had five or six years of this actual practical training, and about ten years of teachings, admonitions, stories, and proverbs that underline the importance of self-control. The transformation rites and related teachings are therefore a climax to many years of systematic instructions in self-control and in all other fundamental virtues. I am awed by the fact that indigenous peoples always insist that theoretical teachings and instructions must, as much as possible, be accompanied by some kind of practical experience before a person takes on a new form of life. In preparation for marriage and parenthood, for instance, indigenous Chagga adolescents have the following practical experiences besides comprehensive theoretical instructions: role-playing sessions, participation in numerous marriage rituals and celebrations, and actual self-control sessions (as explained above). Thus, indigenous society not only lectures adolescents on selfcontrol, but also actually gives them opportunities to practice some form of self-control. It is a community that goes out of its way to make sure that future parents and adults have all necessary information and skills on the one hand, and the actual acquisition of fundamental human virtues on the other. One of the sages in my village is fond of saying: Show me a self-controlled person and I shall show you a wise person. INSIGHTS FROM OTHER AREAS OF AFRICA John S.Mbiti, in his book African Religions and Philosophy, shows that many African peoples cherish the virtue of self-control.25 He gives the example of the Nandi people of Kenya whose adolescents are trained in self-control through a method similar to the Chagga ones mentioned above. Between the ages of ten and fourteen, girls and boys are allowed to sleep in pairs during several weeks of training in special camps, but sexual relations are prohibited. These youngsters role-play husbands and wives in preparation for circumcision and marriage. They work together, eat together, “build a home” together, and sleep together, and learn to control their sexual urges by not engaging in sexual activity.


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These parents and adults-to-be also learn, theoretically and practically, the necessity to control their tongue, their emotions, and their other several sensual desires. Like most African peoples, the Nandi of Kenya highly respect a person who can control himself or herself, and hold in contempt whoever seems to be “unable over himself or herself,” as the expression goes. Dominique Zahan is one of the few authors who has described selfcontrol in significant detail. In his studies on initiation and knowledge in indigenous Africa, he repeatedly shows that Africans seek to control their environment by first controlling themselves.26 He writes: One thing becomes remarkably clear as soon as we begin to look at initiation. That is that, first and foremost, initiation constitutes a progressive course of introduction designed to familiarize the person with the significations of his own body and with the meaning he gives to the environment. Moreover, each of these is in a sense a function of the other: the human body and the world constitute two inseparable entities conceived in relation to each other.27

In indigenous African thought, to familiarize oneself with the significations of one’s body also means to be aware of one’s bodily inclinations and of the necessity to control oneself. Once a person can control himself or herself to a great degree, that person will be able to control (or put to good use) the environment that is interconnected to oneself. We can take the example of long-distance runners (and also all athletes and acrobats) who “conquer” long distances by first “conquering” themselves through rigorous exercises, disciplined life schedules, and highly restricted diets. Zahan further states that among the Bantu people of southwest Africa the mastery of oneself goes hand in hand with the conquest of space. During marriage preparation rites boys and girls come together and role-play as married couples. During the day they perform duties according to their sex. Boys pretend to be cattle herders and hunters and their “wives” prepare meals for their “husbands.” At night they sleep together. But in no sense may cohabitation entail sexual relations between the initiates; rather it constitutes a school of endurance as part of the individual’s apprenticeship in the mastery of the body.28

According to Zahan’s findings, it would seem that in indigenous Africa, a person is defined as spiritually and morally mature if she or he has

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achieved a certain conquest of the environment and a mastery of the self. Such a person has knowledge, which consists of three dimensions: information and data on life and world; conquest of space or ability to maneuver one’s world in a friendly way; and self-control. This constitutes spiritual transformation.29 Of these three, according to Zahan, the African “valorizes above all the mastery of the self, making it, in fact, the foundation of his conduct.”30 For the Bambara people of Mali, as well as for other peoples of the valley of the middle of Niger, to know oneself means to be aware of one’s humanity and of one’s privileged position in the universe, and at the same time to master the self, which is the foundation of ethics. Zahan adds: “Self-mastery thus becomes a real factor in the social integration of the individual who is accepted by the group only to the extent to which he acquires a great facility for inhibiting the reflexes of affective sensitivity.”31 Following this trend of thought, I can conclude that, in indigenous Africa, self-control is a facilitating condition for personal and social transformation, a prerequisite for a sharp mind, an intuitive spirit, and an ever-growing sense of civility. Thus, concludes Zahan, “the power over the self constitutes the background of African spirituality.”32 Numerous African proverbs underscore the importance of self-control in indigenous formation and education. Egyptians have these two proverbs: “Anger and madness are brothers,” and “Your tongue is a horse you must subdue; hold the reins tight, and it serves you.” In Ghana they say: “One cannot both feast and become rich.” The Kikuyu people of Kenya value these two proverbs: “Indulgence breeds regret,” and “Virtue is better than riches.” The Luhyia people, also of Kenya have a proverb: Nandaulira yarandula lisombo (that is, an unsatisfied appetite tore the stomach). The moral is: moderation is best in all things. Ethiopians cherish the following saying: “Restless feet may walk into a snake pit.” And finally a proverb from Madagascar: “One day a hand will hit the mosquito,” which implies that the indulgent mosquito gets killed in the end. There are also many stories and riddles emphasizing the need for selfcontrol in indigenous Africa. Let us conclude this section on self-control by citing a popular Chagga myth that underlines the importance of this virtue. A long time ago, Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, had two smooth and well-rounded peaks, Kibo and Mawenzi. One morning Mawenzi found out that her fire had gone out during the night, so in accordance with a long-standing custom, she went to Kibo to ask for a few charcoals of fire. She found Kibo preparing a sweet meal of bananas known as makashi, some of which she gave to Mawenzi. Then Mawenzi,


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who enjoyed the makashi immensely, left after being given some fire that she carried on semidry banana leaves. On the way home she put out the fire so that she could go back for more charcoals, and especially for makashi. She did this several times. Finally, Kibo, sick and tired of this irksome neighbor, hit Mawenzi on her head with a stick. Mawenzi sustained some injuries because she could not contain her appetite for more and more makashi. Chagga elders and parents use this story to explain the importance of self-control and to explain why, to this day, Mawenzi has a rugged peak compared to Kibo’s evenly rounded peak. In indigenous Chagga cultures therefore, self-control is one of the essential virtues in the center stage of educating and forming the society. Without it the ipvunda process would be grossly deficient. The well-formed person, the mpvunde, must be one who is “able over herself or himself.” One of the essential offsprings of self-control is silence or thoughtfulness, the subject of our next section. SILENCE, THOUGHTFULNESS, REFLECTION The aim of this section is to articulate the meaning and understanding of silence in indigenous Chaggaland and elsewhere in Africa. This study views silence, not as a negative and passive entity or vacuum, not as absence of speech or words, but as a positive and active force that nourishes thinking and reflection and thus improves the quality of subsequent speech. In English the noun silence ordinarily means forbearance from speech or noise; absence of sound or noise; stillness. English people have this famous proverb: “Silence is golden.” Similar proverbs from various corners of the world show that silence is a fundamental human virtue. According to indigenous Chagga philosophy, one of the strong inclinations that a person must control is the urge to talk. Everyone is strongly admonished by the society to restrain from talking incessantly because keeping silent is valued as a means to several laudable ends. The Chagga elders and sages I interviewed noted that there are six levels of meaning in the fundamental virtue of silence. First, the disposition to keep silent implies the ability to control one’s tongue and tendency to speak. A mature person must be able to hold back her or his tongue at all times and in particular in occasions of anger and other emotional crises. It is time to keep silent, for example, when your colleague is speaking angrily and uncontrollably. It is also time to keep mum when you are angry and emotionally unstable. At such times a parent or elder will emphatically tell you: Tzia sau (which means, “keep completely mum”).

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My dad told me uncountable times: “When you are angry, there is one thing you are sure of: It is time not to speak.” He also repeatedly showed me how to respond positively and nondestructively in such situations. One of the sages I interviewed said: “It takes a strong and mature person to control his or her tongue, but a weak one to lash out at others in moments of anger.” Other times that call for silence are when one is unsure of what to say, when everyone is talking at once, and so on. In a word, the tradition encourages everyone to develop the ability to just keep silent at appropriate times in life. There is a time to speak and a time not to speak. Second, the virtue of silence means the ability to speak a little vis-a-vis speaking a lot or speaking incessantly. Everyone, from childhood to senescence, is asked to be brief in speech. An elder will say to a nonstop talker: Rera shifui (that is, be brief, shorten your speaking). In Chaggaland the brief speaker is highly respected, but the chatterer is disdained. People avoid the company of a chatterer or nonstop talker, and no one wants such a person for a spouse. There is a Chagga proverb: Rumbu ngikoâ na ilya ulangilye (which means, a mouth is for eating food, not for “eating” others through chatter and gossip). Third, silence is a facilitating condition for attentive listening. A good listener is a treasure, Chagga elders say. The listening disposition is essential in this predominantly oral indigenous tradition in which ordinary conversation, stories, proverbs, riddles, song, and so on, are important tools of handing on the tradition.33 The spoken word needs a hearing ear, just as the written word needs a reading eye. Listening in silence is therefore crucial in indigenous life. In fact, indigenous people gradually learn to be good listeners because orality is the most common means of getting knowledge and information. Silence, in this case a facilitating condition for listening, thus becomes an active and productive silence. Machang’u records a Kichagga song that says: Rumbu uwor-e nyi limu, indi mar-u nyi wawi; Nyi limu ir-er-a na iar-anyia nyi kawi. Translation: You have one mouth, but ears are two, So, talk once and listen twice.34 This song admonishes the people to talk less and listen more. When a Chagga youngster interrupts a speaker, a parent or an elder will say: tzia uar-anyie (literally, be silent and listen). The advice here is not just “be


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silent,” but “be silent, so that you may listen.” This is a silence pregnant with listening, a very productive silence for that matter. The fourth level of meaning in the virtue of silence has another offspring besides listening, which is thinking and reflection. Chagga elders believe, and know from experience, that silence helps in the process of thinking. When these elders hold a meeting, one thing is remarkably conspicuous throughout the meeting: there are short and long intervals of silence between speakers and in between one’s discourse for the purpose of thinking. If an elder is thinking before he or she speaks, everyone waits patiently. No one will push him or her to speak. These intervals of silence are pregnant with another kind of offspring: opportunity to think and reflect. If one seems incomprehensible in an endless speech, another will give this gentle but firm advice: tzia ukusaê (that is, be silent so that you may think). Again, we are speaking here of an active and productive silence. No wonder indigenous elders and thinkers are so wary of chatterers and nonstop talkers. They know that silence improves the quality of speech and that chatterers will tend to have less quality in their speech. Fifth, silence is a home in which important secrets and confidential matters rest secure. Experience has taught indigenous people that in life there are some issues or some information that must remain locked up in one’s heart forever. One simply will go to one’s grave with such information because divulging it can endanger the security of persons, communities, or of an entire country, or destroy the reputation of a person or persons. Indigenous tradition highly respects anyone who keeps confidential mattes in the silence of one’s heart. Examples of such confidential issues are: first, the information given by a mlosha (indigenous teacher) during adolescent transformation rites is not to be shared with uninitiated youths. A circumcised youth will say to an inquiring younger youth: Shione, molashiwio (that is, these are things that you go through, not things you are told about).35 The kind of information sought here is the kind that, indigenous people believe, rightly or wrongly, has no business being told just for the sake of information. They believe that this information is useful when given in the context of a transformation ritual or event. So, no one gives you the information, for instance on the details of a marriage rite, until your time comes. Those who have gone through it simply keep mum. Their silence motivates the uninitiated to keep working toward their own transformative teachings and rituals. I am glad to note that the confidential matters of my own age group have been in my heart for over forty years and will always remain there. I shall go to my grave with them.

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Another example of confidential matters that rest in silence is what we can call family secrets. There are certain matters that must not be told outside the family. Children and youth learn early to keep these things to themselves. This protects the family from unnecessary intrusions and curiosities. It is strictly forbidden, for example, for a bride to talk to her own parents’ family about the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of her new family. Before she gets married her mother counsels her: If you go to “the people,” take a bag with you. Whatever you hear and see among them put it in there. Don’t broadcast news concerning them, even if it be about a quarrel, for the peaceful minded are well beloved.36

This silence on the part of the bride helps to strengthen the relationship of the two families, thus in turn strengthening the couple’s marriage bond. Wife and husband contribute to the strength of these two relationships by not talking about each other to unconcerned people. If there is a problem between them, each of them or both are permitted to speak to their special marriage sponsor, mkaâ, who will try to solve the problem without anybody else hearing about it. If the problem needs the attention of some elders, then the mkaâ will make the arrangements. In this way, marriage problems are solved without spreading the news to unconcerned people. A certain amount of silence therefore is essential so that families and marriage relationships are protected and strengthened. A third example of confidential matters is the information possessed by community leaders, kings, elders, counselors, traditional doctors, and others. These individuals must keep many matters in strict confidence in accordance with their profession. They simply keep mum for the good of all concerned. My parents, for instance, were sponsors, wakaâ, to several marriages. As any inquisitive youth, I used to ask them to tell me what went on in their meetings with their protégés. The response was always the same: no comment. Father and mother went to their graves with this confidential information in their hearts. No wonder they are so peacefully rested. Finally, any information classified by a friend, colleague, or relative as strictly confidential must so remain. A person who really understands the importance of silence will keep a friend’s secret forever. Better still, Chagga elders say, the best kept secret is the one kept by one person. This explains the proverb: Mbuya yekyerika mnying’a-pvo (that is, if you have a skeleton to hide, do not show it to a friend). There is a Kiswahili proverb: Hakuna siri ya watu wawili


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(which means, a secret between two people is no longer a secret). Nevertheless, indigenous people emphasize that, if there should be a secret between two people, then both are bound not to divulge it forever. These secrets are protected in the silence of one’s heart. Silence in indigenous Chagga philosophy therefore, far from being a vacuum, is rather a deep ocean, a profound dimension of life full of meanings and activity. Thus the silence of the heart is a very sacred place indeed. The sixth and final meaning of silence is that it facilitates the art of speaking so that one’s subsequent speech has well-chosen words and phrases. “The art of speaking well comes to a person who makes use of silence before speaking, during a speech, and after the speech,” an elder told me. This makes sense, especially in oral traditions where speeches are not written beforehand. Silence thus helps, not only to choose the right words, phrases, and proverbs, but also to correct oneself in the process of speaking. One of the things I like most in the study of indigenous culture is to sit and listen to elders talking. Their sense of order, democracy, and use of silence are awesome experiences to behold. A researcher actually can write down everything being said because many elders speak slowly and articulately. These elders will tell you that silence and intervals of silence in between a speech are a fertile womb from which artistic and powerful languaging is born. Eloquence and silence are twins, one sage told me. “Silence is born first and eloquence follows immediately,” he added. In all my studies of other cultures and philosophies, I have not come across any teaching that contradicts this wisdom: silence is a golden pot in which the seeds of wisdom and knowledge germinate and grow. This is what a typical Chagga elder will tell you, then she or he will keep mum. For some time. There are several Chagga personal names which indicate the importance of silence, listening and thinking. Examples include Ndekutzia, a feminine name that means one who kept and keeps silence. Another feminine name is Ndeshiwio, meaning one who listens to be told tales and events. Ndekusaâ also is a feminine name that means one who thinks and reflects. There are also some masculine names: Kusaê, which means think (please think and reflect) and Makusaô, meaning thoughts and reflections. A third masculine name is Ndear-anyia, that is, one who listens. People who are so named tend to live up to their names and also become living reminders for others to do the same whenever these names are mentioned or brought to consciousness.

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TEACHING THE YOUNG TO CONTROL THEIR TONGUE AND BE THOUGHTFUL It is the aim of every indigenous Chagga parent to raise up children who can control their tongues and be thoughtful. No parent wants a chatterer and gossiper for a child, so every parent and society as a whole will go to great lengths to help children and youth to acquire the virtue of silence and thoughtfulness. The virtues of silence, listening, and thoughtfulness are given special prominence in indigenous culture where orality is the predominant mode of handing on cultural values and traditions. One ninety-year-old sage, Merishai, says: “the talker talks and causes destruction in the village.” As with all virtues, the main contexts in which silence is taught are everyday interaction in life, teachable moments, and transformation rites. First, children and youth observe how their parents and other elders struggle to control their tongues and the ever-present urge to speak. The good examples given by adults speak louder than words. My own experience amply testifies to this basic fact. As a young boy I noticed innumerable times that my grandparents had a great command on when to speak, what to say, and for how long to say it. This behavior did not make much sense to me then, but my young mind absorbed a lot of it. Now, as I look back, their disposition of silence makes a lot of sense. Some of the inspiring examples I learned from them include their consistent ability to listen for a long while without interrupting a speaker; their long pauses in between sentences as they speak; their disinclination to speak in times of high emotional talk by others; their unfailing tendency to ask clarifying questions before they speak; their readiness to take time to reflect on issues before giving their opinions, sometimes taking a few days to do so; and so on. My maternal grandfather, Nderumaki, would sometimes ask me to come back on the next day to get an answer to my question. It never ceased to amaze me that in some of these cases I did not go back because I had time to come up with my own answer, or because by the next day the question that at first struck me as all important, did not seem that important anymore. And in the few cases that I went back for an answer, my grandfather would say: “If you are back your question must be important, and since I have had time to think it over, let us now try to answer it”. Again, although this behavior of grandfather sometimes perplexed me, nevertheless I began to learn to slow down in my urge to speak. Now, his behavior is profoundly meaningful to me. I have sometimes done the same to my children, and it works well, much of the time.


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Everyday interaction is also a school where indigenous youth learn silence and thoughtfulness through the many stories, proverbs and riddles told by adults whenever an opportunity comes up. As discussed in Chapter 1, between the ages of six and fifteen, girls receive intensive and personal instructions from their mothers and grandmothers and boys from their fathers and grandfathers. One of the important lessons they learn during everyday interaction with these elders is the importance of silence, listening, and reflection. Mothers, for instance, will advise their daughters to use extreme discretion when talking about their in-laws. Fathers will admonish their sons to see a lot, hear a lot, but speak rarely. My dad used to advise me: “Words bring forth words, so speak little or choose your words carefully because unseasoned words will bring forth unseasoned responses and thus double or triple your problems.” Teachable moments in which the young learn the virtue of silence are mainly during story time and when someone talks nonstop. Elders and parents immediately make use of these ripe moments to assist the young to acquire a sense of thoughtfulness and reflection. The story of the talking skull (quoted in Chapter 2) is a good example of the many stories told and retold by parents and elders to show the importance of this virtue.37 When a person talks nonstop, an elder will quote one of the many proverbs available. Two of these are: “Silence is stronger than speech,” and “The chatterer discloses his mother’s defect.” During adolescent transformation rites, boys and girls have a unique opportunity not only to get advice on this virtue, but also to actually practice it by long intervals of silence and reflection. At this time they memorize and learn all proverbs, riddles, and stories that teach about self-control in speech and the power of listening, thinking, and reflecting. They learn, too, that what goes on in their secluded training camp is confidential information never to be shared with noninitiates or with members of other age groups. When these young people graduate from initiation school, one of the inclinations they have learned to control is the urge to speak. They hope to get better in controlling their speech, so that the older they will become the less they will speak. It is my observation that this hope is realized significantly for the majority of people in indigenous culture. A few of them become masters in the virtues of silence, listening, thinking, and reflection. Many of the sages interviewed for this work are some of these indigenous gurus of silence and thoughtfulness.

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FINDINGS FROM OTHER PARTS OF AFRICA Outside proverbs, riddles, and stories, almost no one I know has written on silence in indigenous Africa with some significant detail like Zahan has. In this section we shall therefore briefly examine Zahan’s writings on the virtue of silence as understood and practiced in indigenous Africa. In his excellent work, The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa, Zahan writes marvelously on such topics as Initiation and Knowledge; Ethics and Spiritual Life; and Mysticism and Spirituality. On the virtue of silence he explains as follows: The chatterer is without doubt the sole human being towards whom the African is not afraid of allowing himself the right to nourish feelings of hatred. Silence has nothing in common with other moral values aside from constituting at once their beginning and end. It is the supreme virtue, as it subsumes integrity, courage, the power of the soul, prudence, modesty, and temperance. Silence defines the man of character, and is the attribute of the wise man; it is a type of wisdom. He who knows how to be silent possesses true happiness, interior peace, and detachment.38

The Dogon people of Mali value silence when it is not experienced out of fear or weakness, but rather out of strength of character and profound self-control. Chattering, on the other hand, is “speech without a path and without seeds.”39 The Bambara people, neighbors of the Dogon, define a person who becomes easily irritated or who gets carried away by passion in his or her speech as “one unable over oneself,” meaning that such a person has no self-control. For the Bambara, self-control in speech also means the ability to use language artistically in such a way that one’s thought is not expressed too directly. Dominion over speech therefore is a means to more quality speaking through the use of proverb, euphemism, symbol, allegory, and poetic expression. The Bambara people see silence as a present reality, not an absence or a lack. They have this profoundly inspiring proverb: “Each thing gives birth to its child; speech gives birth to its mother.”40 Zahan explains its meaning: Silence is said to place itself before and after speech. It engenders speech which, however, is its “mother”: normally, it is said, the mother brings the child (speech) who gives birth to its mother (silence).41


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For this reason, the Bambara affirm that speech and language “only acquire their full value in relation to the silence which underlies them.”42 The Bambara people’s respect for silence is excellently revealed by these sayings: If speech constructs the village, silence builds the world. Silence adorned the word, speech made it hum. Speech dispersed the world, silence reassembles it. Speech destroys the village, silence makes its foundation good. Silence hides man’s manner of being from man, speech unveils it. One does not know what the silent man thinks, but one knows the thoughts of the chatterer. The secret belongs to he who keeps quiet. Silence delimited the paths, speech confused them…silence pondered; speech did not want to think. Silence soothes the dya [one of a person’s spiritual principles], speech frightens it.43

Thus the Bambara people see speech as the opposite of silence. Speech belongs to the category of lightness, diversion, and confusion, whereas silence is in the category of the true and serious. The former leads to destruction, the latter to healing of all illnesses, as these sayings reveal: Silence gives birth to the serious, speech to diversion. Any serious thing is made in silence, but any futile thing in tumult. Marriage [for example] is made in silence, free love in amusement and noise. If speech burned your mouth, silence will heal you. Silence is the antidote for all, speech opens the door to all [evil]. What silence could not improve, speech can not improve either.44

The Bambara, like the Chagga and other African peoples, have occasions when silence must be observed. It is the African’s best way of showing profound respect to moments or places considered sacred and beyond the need for speech. The Bambara, for instance, require engaged couples to observe silence between themselves during the entire prenuptial period and, in particular, avoid any flirtatious acts. Zahan explains: The reason for this prohibition is commonly explained by the symbolism of the partners in marriage. They are likened to the sun (the man) and the earth (the woman). As soon as they are betrothed, meeting and speaking to each other is equivalent to admitting that the sun can reach the soil with a goal other than fecundation… For the Bambara, marriage evokes the concepts of unity and cohesion. Within marriage man and woman combine to form a harmonious whole based essentially on intimacy and the interior. This is why

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coquetry is thought to be the worst enemy of the family, for it orients the human being towards the outside.45

A second example in which silence is observed in some mode and measure is during the death of a family member. Death threatens the unity of family members, and marks separation and confusion. A certain amount of silence helps to heal the survivors and restores their life. Thus, for instance, among the Bambara people, one should not speak in the presence of a dead person until he or she has been washed. The bearers of the corpse observe silence during burial. A widow does not speak until her husband is buried, and a widower is silent in the first three days of widowhood. Like many other African peoples, the Bambara also observe silence when near or in a cemetery and sacred shrines where people are buried or where ancestors are memorialized. Silence at these times and places is a pointer to life, it is a source of life, it thatches together the lives of those threatened by the separation brought about by death. My maternal grandmother quietly told me when her husband died: “Only in the silence of my heart I can find some energy and meaning to go on without my husband.” That the virtue of silence and thoughtfulness is as important to all indigenous Africa as it is to the Chagga and Bambara peoples is shown by the numerous African proverbs on this virtue. Few other virtues have as many proverbs. The following are select examples from several African countries and peoples. Egypt: 1. The longer the speech, the smaller the brain. 2. When you speak longer, you are liable to blunder. Mauritania: One must talk little, and listen much. Ethiopia: The fool speaks, the wise person listens. Burkina Faso: He who speaks incessantly, talks nonsense. Senegal: Nobody tells all he or she knows. Mali: 1. Each thing gives birth to its child; speech gives birth to its mother (that is, silence). 2. Silence does not exist so long as you are not master of yourself. Nigeria: If you tell your friend a secret in the bush and it becomes known, was it the bush that talked?


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Cameroon: The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water. Zambia: Let your mouth be the trap of your words. Zimbabwe: If your mouth turns into a knife, it will cut off your lips. South Africa:A word uttered cannot be taken back (Zulu people). Kenya:

1. 2. 3. 4.

To keep one’s tongue is worthy of praise (Kikuyu people). Home affairs cannot be told in public (Kikuyu). One lip over the other (that is, keep mum: Luhyia people). Better stumble in your steps than stumble in your mouth (Luhyia people). 5. Do not say the first thing that comes to your mind.

Uganda: 1. The one who talks, thinks, but the one who does not talk thinks more (Baganda people). 2. The talkers will lead the dog to the meat market (Baganda). 3. The tongue poisons (Kigezi and Ankole regions). 4. Silence is not weaker than speech (Kigezi and Ankole). 5. The talkative disclose their father’s defect (Kigezi and Ankole). Tanzania: 1. The talker talks and causes death in his family (Haya people). 2. A gentleman discusses secrets with his own heart (Kiswahili proverb). 3. The giraffe is the wisest animal: it never speaks. The above proverbs and numerous other African proverbs on silence summarize the understanding and practice of the virtue of silence in indigenous Africa. The wisdom they impart can be expressed in the following ten teachings: 1. It is best to talk little and listen much. 2. The wise listen and talk a little, but fools keep on talking. 3. Silence is an opportunity to listen, think, and reflect so as to improve subsequent speech and therefore life as a whole. 4. Silence is one clear indication of self-control in a person. 5. Secrets must remain in the innermost chambers of one’s heart. 6. Family affairs and secrets are best kept at home. 7. Chattering and nonstop talk can bring untold destruction and suffering to oneself and to others.

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8. One’s first thoughts are often not the wisest ones. It is better to think some more before talking. 9. Words scatter abroad and cannot be taken back. Silence brings one home to one’s deepest core and tends to centralize thoughts, insights, and especially the self. 10. Silence is mighty, creative, and productive. It is not a vacuum or a sign of weakness. We conclude this chapter and section by noting that the Chagga peoples, and all indigenous Africans in general, consider silence and thoughtfulness to be essential in the formation of society and in the ongoing quest for civility. It is, for them, one of the essential ingredients that contribute to a healthy heartbeat in a harmonious society. NOTES 1 Adrian van Kaam, Human Formation, Formative Spirituality, Vol. Two (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 1. Emphasis mine. 2 See Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983 edition). 3 Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 16–17. 4 Middleton, Lugbara Religion, 21. 5 See the section on elders in Chapter 2. Note the several levels of meaning in describing an elder. 6 The female title Mae or Mai given to mothers and grandmothers, has a connotation of motherhood in it. All women are potential mothers, so they are all given this title. In our times when we have celibate religious nuns, this title is also given to them. The same applies to the masculine title, Mbe. 7 Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, 6. 8 Ibid. 6. 9 Henry S.Meebelo, Main Currents of Zambian Humanist Thought (Lusaka, Zambia: Oxford University Press, 1973), 9. 10 Meebelo, p. 9. See also David Livingston, The Last Journals, ed. Horace Waller (London: John Murray, 1874), 205. 11 Dugald Campbell, In the Heart of Bantuland: A Record of Twenty-Nine Years of Pioneering in Central Africa Among the Bantu Peoples (London: Seely, Service and Co., 1922), p. 441. See also Meebelo, 9. 12 Meebelo, 10–11. 13 The Zambian Mail, April 28, 1967, reports: On April 27, 1967, the National Council of the ruling Independence Party, meeting at Matero in Lusaka, “unanimously approved” humanism as Zambia’s ideology—and an epoch-making


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political drama was enacted. See Meebelo, 15. 14 Kenneth D.Kaunda, A Humanist in Africa (London: Longmans, 1966). 15 Meebelo, p. 46. 16 See Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy: Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities (New York: Peter Lang, 1991). 17 Julius K.Nyerere, Freedom and Development:, A Selection From Writings and Speeches, 1968–1973 (Dar es Salaam: Oxford University Press, 1973), 218. 18 Jan Knappert, The A-Z of African Proverbs (London: Karnak House, 1989), 28, 29 and 59 respectively. 19 Ibid., 28–29. 20 Shaaban Robert, Marudi Mema (London: Macmillan and Co., 1952), 14 (verses 55 and 66). 21 Shaaban Robert, Maisha Yangu na Baada ya Miaka Hamsini, 17 (verses 69, 70, and 71). 22 Raum, Chaga Childhood, 192–193. 23 Ibid., 331–332. Emphasis mine. 24 Raum, 356. 25 Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 127–131. 26 Zahan, The Religion, Spirituality and Thought, 53–157. 27 Ibid., 56. 28 Zahan, 57. 29 Zahan, 66. 30 Zahan, 110. 31 Zahan, 112. 32 Ibid., 156. 33 I use the term “predominantly” because orality is not the only channel for handing on the Chagga indigenous tradition. Other channels are: art, ritual action and symbol, architecture, special tally sticks, and so on. 34 See entire song on page 63. Machang’u, 22. 35 The saying shione, molashiwio, is distinct from: shiwio, molashione, a saying that means experiences or events that you may be told, but you should not want to go through, such as calamities and other unfortunate events. These must be told to caution others about potential dangers. Literally it means: “Hear about them, but do not experience them.” 36 Raum, 183. 37 See the story on page 53. 38 Zahan, 113. See also G.Calame-Griaule, Ethnologie et langage: La Parole chez les Dogon (Paris: Gallimard, 1965). 39 Zahan, 113.

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Ibid., 110. Zahan, 117. 42 Ibid., 117. 43 Zahan, 117. Explanation in parentheses mine. 44 Ibid., 118. Parentheses in original. 45 Zahan, 119. Parentheses in original. 41

CHAPTER 4

Courage, Diligence in Work, and Communality

COURAGE, ENDURANCE, PATIENCE, SELF-SACRIFICE In indigenous Chaggaland, courage is one of those fundamental virtues that define a mature and civilized person. A courageous person is patient and enduring in the inevitable upheavals and hardships of life, and is able and ready to sacrifice time, energy, possessions, and even life in unselfish service for others. The Oxford English Dictionary defines courage as a quality of mind that shows itself in facing danger without fear or shrinking; bravery, boldness, valor.1 It describes endurance as the act of sustaining pain, hardships, annoyance; the habit or the power of enduring; long-suffering, patience. A related virtue, patience, is defined as the suffering or enduring of pain, trouble, or evil with calmness and composure; the quality or capacity of so suffering or enduring; forbearance; constancy in labor, exertion, or effort. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines courage as mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. The indigenous Chagga understanding of courage, endurance, patience, and self-sacrifice includes, as the following descriptions will show, the essence of the above definitions from both dictionaries. Whenever we speak of courage in this section, the related human inclinations of endurance, patience, perseverance, and self-sacrifice will be implied, at the same time noting the following slight nuances in meanings. According to the indigenous Chagga understanding and practice, courage is the spiritual and mental strength to face effectively the inevitable 127

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hardships of life; to take reasonable risk for the good of family and community; to persevere in doing good and avoiding evil; and to withstand the shocks and shakes caused by the tragedies of life (such as illness or death of loved ones). Indigenous elders and sages like to emphasize that courage is a positive soul force that defines a maturing person. It is a human disposition that distinguishes heroes from cowards, and that brings forth worthy parents, laudable leaders, professional persons of all sorts, legendary men and women, and a civil society. A number of Kichagga words and names give us some insight into the indigenous understanding of courage. The infinitive karia or karishia means to be courageous, be strong of spirit. Literally the word karia means to be tough, toughen yourself, and karishia means to be enduring, take the pain fearlessly. Kuwar-e kur-o is a phrase said to those mourning the dead. Literally it means to hold on tightly, but in this context it means to hold yourself together by summoning up your inner strength. The name Ndekarishia is common. It means, one who is courageous, full of endurance. Ndekuwar-a means the one who holds on to inner strength, and Kwilike is a name meaning one who courageously stands on one’s own feet, the fearless one. A courageous person has the ability to endure hardships and difficulties without backing out from a worthy and chosen course of action. Indigenous Chagga people realize, for example, that married couples must endure the inevitable personality differences among them and thus preserve their marriage and their family. As parents they are constantly called upon to persevere in the challenging responsibility of raising up their children, and to endure the difficulties inherent in whatever job they engage in for their livelihood. I always remember with awe and appreciation how my parents spent long hours in our farm cultivating bananas, vegetables, coffee, all kinds of yams, at the same time taking care of several cows, many goats, and chickens. Their workday started at sunrise and ended way beyond sunset. They endured innumerable difficulties without giving up, without slackening in energy, without paralyzing complaints. Mom and Dad were as tough as nails! Courage also implies the readiness and willingness to take certain reasonable risks for the good of family and community. In indigenous life, parents knew that every pregnancy had certain grave risks but they took the risk because they believed that children are precious and necessary for the continuation of the lineage. Women in indigenous traditions take this risk all the time. Men risk their lives in defending their country and families and sometimes in taking on hazardous jobs or professions. It is


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courage to the extent of sacrificing even one’s own life for a perceived greater good. In indigenous philosophy, courage also means the strength of spirit that enables people to accept the unavoidable tragedies of life without being disintegrated. It is the readiness to live with one’s human vulnerability and the ability to accept losses such as the death of a loved one, illness, weather related misfortunes, and so on. Many of the sages I interviewed noted time and again that every human being has the potential to formatively accept life’s hardships if each one receives the appropriate formation in childhood and adolescence. The sages believe that it is natural for humans to bounce back after tough experiences, and rather unnatural to allow oneself to slide into despair and disillusion. Whenever our family went through a very hard period, my grandparents would first offer a few words of concern and sympathy and then add: “hold on to yourselves,” implying “search into your inner selves for strength and courage”. When a person is mourning the death of a family member or friend, another says: “Kuwar-e ku r-o,” that is, hold on, you have what it takes to get through this. Courage, according to indigenous Chagga understanding, also means the ability to wait in patience in the innumerable instances of life when plain and simple waiting is the right thing to do. Courage makes the waiting meaningful, creative, and hope-filled. One of my interviewees said: “We wait nine months for a baby to be born, we wait for about twenty years before that baby becomes an young adult, we wait for the rains, for the seasons to change, for harvest time. We are always waiting for someone or something. Perseverance improves the quality of the waiting period so that the person waiting is filled with hope, meaningfulness, and positive anticipation rather than anxiety, boredom, and hopelessness. Courage and perseverance make the waiting intervals of life innovative and fruitful.” A Chagga proverb says: Mower-a kacha nekenyo wa tawo, which means “the patient one will eventually enjoy the milk of a heifer.” Indigenous Chagga people do not appreciate a coward (that is, one who will not take reasonable risk for the good of family, community, or country). Such a person is either paralyzed by debilitating fear or runs away from a situation where she or he should take decisive action. Equally unpopular is the person who will not dream dreams or dare to venture into a new enterprise or course of action; or the one who postpones decision making for too long. A proverb cautions such a person: Mokuruo kacha ekelasa pvo (that is, if you take aim for too long, you will not hit

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the target). On the other hand, a courageous person is appreciated and respected by everyone. Such a person is willing to sacrifice life, time, energy, or personal resources in order to serve or save a family member, a neighbor, or anyone else. Taking risks and making self-sacrifice, however, has its limits. One is not obliged to take unreasonable risk or be careless in the face of danger. Another Chagga proverb says Ko moowu kokyefiiô pvo (that is, there is no wailing [a mournful cry announcing a death] in the home of one who runs away from danger). In summary, courage, as understood by the indigenous Chagga people, is the moral strength and determination to keep on a chosen course of action in order to achieve one’s ends; the ability to hold on to one’s morale when opposed or threatened; patience and unwillingness to accept defeat prematurely; spiritual strength to positively go through hardships and tragedies; and the readiness to take reasonable risk for personal or common good. It is one of the fundamental virtues that helps indigenous societies to grow and thrive. TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BE COURAGEOUS Naturally, indigenous parents and elders are eager to raise up children who are full of courage. They teach the young to be courageous first by giving them good examples in everyday experiences of life. Young girls and boys notice that their parents endure long hours of hard work in the farm. They notice, too, that mother and father and other elders can bear much pain without complaining. I now recall that my parents had two extra acres of farmland, each about ten miles away from our home and about the same distance from each other. The maize, millet, and beans harvested from these two acres supplemented my parents’ income from our main two-acre farm on which we lived. My parents made most of the trips to these farms on foot, for many years. A few times, I accompanied and assisted them whenever I was off from school. Needless to say, this was tough work—walking ten miles to the farm, tilling the soil by hand for several hours, and then walking home for another ten miles after an exhausting day! But my parents endured all this, for many years. Their love for their children gave them almost infinite courage and endurance to sacrifice every ounce of their energy for us, the children. If theirs is not an awesome example of endurance and perseverance, I cannot think of any other. As noted earlier, a mother-daughter and father-son relationship develops between ages six and fifteen. Parents use this unique formational


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opportunity to teach their sons and daughters to be courageous through discussion, stories, proverbs, and practical exercises. Raum gives a good example: At about twelve years, a boy is given thorough training in hoeing. The aim is not to inculcate skill in handling the hoe, for the child has learned that long ago, but to engender endurance and diligence… He sometimes has to carry a heavy plant for several miles, and begins to weep or ask permission to get his load down. His father tells him to bear up.2

Mothers admonish their daughters to be brave and get rid of fear, especially in adversity, in time of pains and aches, and in particular, during childbirth later on. Indigenous women believe, with good reason, that a mother who is fearful during childbirth may complicate the birthing process and also cause the child to be weak and sickly. The young girl learns these things from her mother, her grandmother, and her age group, so that by the time her time comes, she has the moral and physical strength to go through it courageously. Playgroups and age groups are quite effective in dispelling fear and cowardice in indigenous boys and girls. These groups do not tolerate a coward. In some cases parents may fail to make their child courageous, but the success rate among peers in an age group is almost one hundred percent. Girls ages six through fifteen, for instance, act out a play in which one of the oldest girls acts as a midwife, a ten-year-old acts as an expectant mother, and a six-year-old acts as a new baby. All other girls silently watch the scene. The “expectant mother” begins to experience “labor pain” and the “midwife” encourages her to bear it like a woman and not to yell out. During the “childbirth,” the new mother “shows” courage and endurance by not crying out loud, not moaning, and not showing paralyzing fear on her face. The “baby” is born, a strong healthy one. The audience claps, sings praises, and dances. They have witnessed a courageous young mother, a courageous woman of the community. Then another scene unfolds on the stage. This time the “new mother” complains during “labor pains,” cries aloud and looks petrified, despite the midwife’s encouraging words and presence. As the “baby” is born, she screams and wails, with grave fear written all over her face. The disgusted audience calls her a coward and soon after the word spreads that so-and-so is a coward. The new baby appears “weak” and tends to cry out like the mother. At the end of the two scenes, the leader of the group asks: Who would you like to be, Mother Ndekarishia (one who is

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brave) or Mother Moowu (coward)? Obviously, everyone shouts: Ndekarishia! These role-plays are repeated many times, sometimes in the presence of a knowing mother or grandmother. The contents of the act varies to include experiences of pain, famine, defense of family when husband is away, and so on. In each scene the young girls learn that courage and endurance are virtues to be acquired, and cowardice is a vice to be avoided at all times. Boys of the same age have their own role-plays that teach courage such as battle scenes, hunting scenes, and scenarios in which pain is experienced. Often boys will accompany their fathers in a hunting adventure or assist them in chasing monkeys from the farm. But it is in the age group that most fear is dispelled from young boys. A father or a grandfather may be patient with a cowardly son for a while, but a playgroup or age group will not tolerate such a one. The group will do everything necessary to change this attitude, otherwise the timid boy will have to leave the group. In most cases he will summon up courage in order to stay with the group. Age groups, therefore, are very effective in dispelling fear and cowardice. When I was growing up there was one song that we sang to any member of our age group who showed excessive fear, tended to cry at the slightest challenge, or would run away instead of defending himself in our mock fights and rigorous games. The song goes this way: Manene koîo kelya kya mbuonyi Kyikamsia ukoîo-se-pvo kingi Manene koîo kelya kya mbuonyi Kyikamsia ukoîo-se-pvo kingi. This song, for which a literal translation is almost impossible, ridicules a cowardly girl or boy, who in the face of a challenge or adversity gets teary eyes and a running nose. By this song her or his peers say that they will create more tears for the eyes and more mucus for the nose, so that this cowardly boy or girl will always have plenty of them. Naturally no boy or girl enjoys this demeaning mockery, so everyone tries to be courageous. There are, as mentioned earlier, special moments in indigenous life when both young boys and girls are ready and open for learning, in this case learning to be courageous and to dispel debilitating timidity, or the moments themselves create a situation in which such learning is more likely to take place. Earlier we called these special occasions teachable


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moments. When a child or teenager shows signs of timidity or impatience, it is time for mother, father, or another elder to encourage the concerned youth through support, reassurance, admonitions, stories, and relevant proverbs. When sickness strikes, one is encouraged by the caring presence of family and friends, and advised to take the proper medicine, however bitter it may be. I recall that in my childhood and adolescence there was one indigenous medicine that my parents gave me whenever I got a certain stomach illness. This medicine, known as ngetzi, is the bitterest that I have tasted. It is a dosage of a handful of very small ripe berries of the ngetzi tree, now almost extinct in the Kilimanjaro area. It is so bitter and revolting that my parents had to literally surround and watch me so that I would not spit it out. It takes two hours or less for ngetzi to take effect. It gets rid of any poison from the body, plus any parasites in the alimentary canal. It heals recurrent fever, pains, and aches, and several other diseases. Taking ngetzi prepared me to take any other medicine later in life without unnecessary fear. There are other herbal medicines like kilao (roots for healing stomach pains) and msesewe (bark, for parasites), which are very bitter for anyone, but if you have taken ngetzi, these are cake and candy. The enduring lesson from taking these bitter medicines is that in life there are inevitable ngetzi-like events and experiences that will need all the courage in a person, all the moral and spiritual strength needed in such tough times. One sage, the late Mzee Kitimbo, once told me: “As ngetzi takes you across the valley of sickness and pain, so will courage and endurance take you across the many valleys of pain, disappointment, darkness, and failure of life.” Finally, Chagga boys and girls learn, through theory and practice, the importance of courage during transformation rites and rituals. During the several weeks or months in seclusion when teenagers are being prepared for marriage and adulthood in this intensive formation period, courage is one of those fundamental virtues which their mlosha will talk about everyday. Girls are counseled to be ready for the many challenges of motherhood and the ups and downs of life where courage, endurance, and self-sacrifice are necessary virtues. Everything they have learned from their mothers and grandmothers about courage is given new emphasis at this time, for example, that they need courage in trying times and in opportunities in which risk-taking may be necessary; that as future wives and mothers they will have to endure hard work and the ever-present chores of home management. They are reminded that patience will season their

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relationships with their husbands and be a facilitating condition in the tough work of raising up children; and that they must be ready to sacrifice time, energy, resources, and even their life for the family. On the idea of self-sacrifice, a certain medicine woman and a sage, Matemu by name, once told me: “Look at me, I am now an old lady, not as youthful as I used to be, but my joy is that I have passed on my pristine beauty and life itself to my daughters and granddaughters. Behold! How beautiful they are.” To the boys, the mlosha gives instructions such as these, quite common in the oral tradition: Behold the greatness of our country, our chief, and the elegance of our women and children. Look at the cattle, goats, and sheep… We, your fathers, protected all these with our courage and some of us gave up their lives. Some of your fathers sacrificed their very lives to defend our country, our people, and our property. Now we are old and our energy is in your bones and muscles. Remember: Everything depends on your courage and endurance. We your elders feel secure because we shall be protected by you.

The mlosha then uses relevant stories and proverbs to underline these instructions. Often he will sing a song that praises ancient and contemporary heroes of the community. The following story, among others, is told by the mlosha to warn the initiates against misguided acts of courage: A frog named Ndekushela (one who shows off) was swimming in a river with his friend Ndesaîo (the gifted one). Ndekushela saw a big bull grazing near the river and desired to muster enough courage to inflate himself to the size of the bull. So he breathed in long and hard then asked Ndesaîo: “Am I as big as that bull?” Ndesaîo replied: “Not at all.” Ndekushela tried again, this time much harder, until he was sweating and his eyes began to pop out. So he asked Ndesaîo: “Am I now as big as the bull?” Ndesaîo, seeing how his friend Ndekushela was awash with sweat, his stomach bulging out dangerously and his eyes just about to pop out, said: “Not at all, in fact you are only fooling yourself.” Ndekushela got angry and tried again, this time with all his heart and might. He then burst into two, his intestines spilled out and he died.

The mlosha concludes this story by saying, “When a situation requires you to be courageous, or when you need to take a risk, know your potential, your limits, and then act wisely and with discretion.” Then, after a long pause, he breaks the silence with this saying, “The rat that runs away from the cat lives to see another day.”


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The instructions on the virtue of courage often will be accompanied by practical acts of courage, endurance, and patience. The boys may be required to go hunting with a professional hunter, or asked to pass the night alone in a tent in the forest for several nights. Their instructor will sometimes order them to walk for many miles to test their endurance capability. To the fainthearted in the group he will say: “Be as tough as the kima r-o r-o tree, which has a very hard brown wood.” To be sure, every young man in the group aspires to be as tough as the kimar-o r-o tree. At the end of this intensive training, the young boy has had about ten years of rigorous formation in the fundamental virtues, courage being one of them. He is, to a great extent, prepared to face the challenges of adulthood, fatherhood, and responsible citizenship. FINDINGS FROM OTHER AFRICAN PEOPLES During adolescent transformation rites for boys, the Akamba people of Kenya, like many African peoples, go a step beyond instructions: They give them a concrete test. Mbiti notes a good example: On the first day the candidates learn educational songs and encounter symbolic obstacles. On the second day they have to face a frightening monster known as ‘mbusya’ (rhinoceros). In some parts of the country only the boys go through this experience, while in other parts both boys and girls do. This is a man-made structure of sticks and trees, from the inside of which someone makes fearful bellows like those of a big monster. The initiates do not know exactly what it is, for it is one of the secrets of the ceremony. Afterwards they are not allowed to divulge the matter to those who are not initiated. They face this ‘rhinoceros’ bravely, shooting it with bows and arrows in order to destroy it the way they would destroy a similar enemy.3

The Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania require their young sons to accompany their older initiated brothers, morani, as they go out to defend their cattle from marauding lions and other predators. And those indigenous peoples who are traditionally hunters, like the Mbuti people of Congo (former Zaire), take their young sons with them in hunting trips, in addition to ongoing instructions, stories, and proverbs on the importance of courage, patience, and self-sacrifice.

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The Dogon people of Mali, like most African peoples, see an intrinsic relationship between courage, patience, silence, and self-control. The patient person not only perseveres in adversity, but also is able to subdue his anger in order to avoid quarrels. They describe a patient person as one slow in anger and words. Like courage, patience is a strength of spirit, a force of character, a moral effort that enables a person to persevere and survive through times of pain and adversity, often for the purpose of achieving a good end. This person is, for the Dogon, a precious one in the village, a harbinger of peace. There is evidence that this pattern of thought is common throughout indigenous Africa. Numerous African proverbs underpin the great importance associated with the virtue of courage. The people of Kigezi and Ankole in Western Uganda have several: “He who cannot give up his sweetheart will die arguing” (that is, sweet things come from sweat). Another says: “Where there is nothing else, a bowl of gruel makes for a good meal,” which advises a person to be content with what is available. And a third goes thus: “He who accepts the leopard accepts its young ones.” The moral here is: If you work with someone, tolerate his or her defects and family. In Tanzania and Kenya, four of many Kiswahili proverbs on courage are: “The patient one eats ripe fruits”; “Slowly, slowly, the tortoise arrives”; “Cultivate in the hot sun and enjoy your harvest under the shade”; and “Courage is the fruit of the decision in the heart.” In Morocco they have this saying: “Patience is the key to all things.” From the Republic of Congo (former Zaire) we get this inspiring proverb: “No matter how long the night, the day is sure to come.” A Madagascar proverb emphasizes the wisdom of taking one day at a time: “Don’t take another mouthful before you have swallowed what is in your mouth.” The Kikuyu of Kenya have this insightful one: “Strength does not correspond with courage.” Its lesson: courage is a moral strength, so physical strength does not necessarily mean courage. Many African proverbs warn against being courageous without discretion. Congo (Brazzaville): “Courageous is he who looks carefully before fleeing.” Tanzania: “Do not try to fight a lion if you are not one yourself.” Uganda: “Caution is no cowardice. The soldier-ant walks with his rippers at the ready” (Baganda people). South Africa: The mamba is not poked at, it is poked at only in thought. (The mamba is an aggressive, venomous South African snake.) Ewe people, Ghana: “If you are a goat, do not go sleep near the leopard’s house.” In conclusion, the ipvunda process in an indigenous Chagga person will be considered incomplete if that person lacks courage, endurance,


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patience, and self-sacrifice. The average person is expected to have enough courage to assist her or him in the tough times of life, to endure fairly well in the inevitable repetitive responsibilities and chores of life; and to have the readiness and willingness to take reasonable risk for the common good. Such a person is referred to by indigenous people as a kimaôô, a tough person who “keeps going when the going gets tough.” In the Chagga worldview courage is intrinsically connected with all other virtues. A courageous person will persevere in respecting others and world; will have the inner strength to control one’s tongue, emotions, and sensual appetites; will endure daily in diligent work and thus contribute positively to the community. The virtue of courage in Chaggaland, and elsewhere in indigenous Africa, is understood and practiced as a fundamental disposition in an inseparable chain of virtues. It is, as it were, one expression of a greater whole that may be named maturity or civility. The next section will spell out the nature and importance of another expression of maturity: diligence in work. DILIGENCE IN WORK In indigenous Chaggaland, diligence in work is a virtue characterized by energetic, steady, and earnest effort in a given endeavor or work. The diligent or hard worker, known as m^ undi in Kichagga, is skillful, industrious, persistently active, zealous, ingenious, and regularly occupied in his or her chosen line of work or responsibility, known as kiûndio. A strong work ethic underlies this understanding because the Chagga worldview sees morality or spirituality in every aspect of life. There is a belief, therefore, that diligence in work is a moral good. From this perspective, work is sacred, in a sacred universe. Chagga elders distinguish three intrinsically related aims of working diligently. First, one works in order to earn a living for one’s self, family, and the larger community. Second, one works for the purpose of nurturing harmony and equilibrium with others and the universe, with the Divine, the ancestors, and with those still to be born. In short, diligence in work improves and deepens the interconnectedness of the universe. When Chagga farmers, for instance, are busy planting banana trees, they are keenly aware that this soil they are working on has passed on from their ancestors and that their children and their children will till the same land for years to come. This awareness makes them do the planting with awe and respect for the universe. They also know that the harvest of their work may be eaten by people they never met, for the world belongs to no

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one person. There is a Chagga saying: wer-ema nyiiwa, na welya nyi wengi (these will cultivate and plant, others will eat the harvest). Indigenous Chagga people, therefore, do not exploit natural resources in a utilitarian way; rather, they see nature as an essential partner whose respect and dignity is kept by diligent work. Third, working hard sharpens the mind and strengthens the body. Elders insist that they have to be doing something so that their minds may stay sharp and their muscles remain strong. If they cannot do physical work, they will tell stories, entertain the community, and give counsel. At one time when my father was bedridden for several years due to hypertension, he learned to read and write, listened to the news every day, and even learned some English words. He also was an active listener, a humorist, and an enduring counselor. My mother, incapacitated manually by arthritis in her seventies, walked every day, supervised our farming and animal husbandry, and never stopped telling stories. Mother and father, both diligent farmers up into their sixties, became hard workers in their seventies in another way: fulltime wapvundi, formators of the community. CHARACTERISTICS OF A DILIGENT WORKER First, an indigenous Chagga diligent worker is one who habitually works steadily and enduringly. She or he keeps at the chosen job for the duration of required daily and weekly hours and until it is done. When my father and mother set out to till a piece of land, they kept at it every day until it was completed, stopping only for intervals of rest in between. Only a sickness or a death in the family or neighborhood would interfere with their routine. Their sense of steadiness and endurance at work was superb. Second, diligent workers work reasonably hard, with maximum energy and effort. Mediocrity and averageness are despicable enemies of the indigenous worker, sages say. Everyone strives to do their best. My grandmother, Mbombo, used to counsel me: Mchuku oko, ûnda ko pvinya, na uûnde necha (that is, my dear grandson, work hard, and work well). Third, working diligently also means working in cooperation with others. Many jobs in indigenous culture are done together. Cattle grazing, for instance, is done by three or four boys to facilitate herding. The cattle of one household are taken out in the morning to an open spot, where they meet animals from three or four other houses. The four fathers concerned go in turn to supervise their herd-boys, each of


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whom controls a section of the cattle, not necessarily his own. In some cases, one boy would watch the entire herd, while his colleagues are discharging other duties. Agricultural work is another area in which indigenous people cooperate superbly. Tilling an acre of land by hand may look like a formidable job for one family, but when ten families do it together, the work becomes easy and even a pleasure. Then everyone would move to the next farm on the next day. Tilling ten farms (that would take weeks if each family does its own farm singly) takes a few days. Weeding and harvesting is done in cooperation as well. But each family keeps its own farm and its own harvest. These cooperative activities not only simplify work and increase the harvest, they also deepen and renew the ties of kinship and neighborliness. A classic example of cooperative work in Chaggaland is in house construction, as shown here: Boys and men have to construct the framework of poles, posts and rafters and fetch the required material from the forest. Girls and women have to collect grass in the plains, and thatch the hut with thick layers of it. In the western districts, banana sheaths are used instead. This work is done without any reward or wages, the only constraint being the mutuality of the obligation and the participation of the whole kindred group. However, it is rarely completed without some feasting and beer drinking.4

Four, diligence in work means abiding by a healthy rhythm of hard work and regular intervals of rest, reflection, and celebration of life. This is possible if work, be it physical, mental, or spiritual, is seen as only a means to personal and communal good, and not an end in itself. Elders say: “Work never ends, there is more to life than working.” Thus indigenous people realize that there are times when one has to stop one’s daily work routine, or some other designated work, for the sake of other personal or community concerns, such as family celebrations, weddings, mourning, funeral rites, and so on. To provide ample opportunities to celebrate many of these events, indigenous people allocate specific celebrative times such as after the harvest season. But in cases of unpredictable events such as death, these people will stop all nonemergency duties and attend to the concern at hand. Diligence in work therefore excludes workaholism and instead includes the rhythm of hard work, rest, and celebration of life. The compulsive worker or workaholic is not commonplace in indigenous Chagga society.

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Besides, this indigenous culture distinguishes between a mûndi (hard worker) and a mr-oko (lazy person). The mûndi has a well-kept and productive banana farm, miinda, on which one also harvests beans, vegetables, fruits, and several kinds of yams. His or her house has plenty of food, and a thriving animal husbandry project (shuma) completes the picture. Grandmothers and mothers tell their daughters: “A diligent woman saves her children with her hoe; a lazy one kills hers with hunger.”5 The m^ undi is a highly respected person, one zealously sought after for a spouse, if he or she is not yet married. Two proverbs underline the importance of working diligently. The first is mofurumia ko mangi nekekuruo kite (literally, the lazy one who comes last to the palace, will be asked to bury a dead dog, in other words good luck does not come to an idle person). And the second is molaterewe mo r- o ula r- u r- e sawo (do not ask for something unless you have diligently prepared yourself for it). This is really like saying: Good luck is preparation (previous hard work, mental and physical) meeting opportunity. The mr-oko, or lazy person, is not a famous person, to say the least. As the saying goes: a lazy parent kills his or her children with hunger. Often mothers sing to their children this song they heard from a bird: “The banana trees of a hard working man give us food, but the plants of a lazy one are bare and useless.” The following song for spurning idle people is often heard especially when people are drinking mbeke, banana beer: Where Where Where Where

were you when we tilled the field? were you when we burned the weeds? were you when we harvested our crop? were you when we prepared the beer?

When a father slaughters a cow or a goat, he gives special cuts to his hard-working children, and to the lazy ones he gives smaller pieces of lesser quality meat. He does so to awaken them, and in most cases the lazy ones begin to work hard. Parents and elders will go to great lengths to help idle children change their ways, because laziness is seen as a serious liability in their society, and for this reason no one wants such a person for a spouse. Thus, in indigenous culture, the importance of the virtue of diligence in work cannot be overemphasized. It is a mark of civility and maturity for the indigenous Chagga to be industrious and economically productive. The farm of a hard worker, the elders will tell you, is always alive with all kinds of birds, attracted by a good harvest.


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TEACHING THE YOUNG TO BE DILIGENT WORKERS Indigenous Chagga parents are eager to raise industrious children who will later be industrious citizens. They talk to their children about the indispensability of hard work as a moral virtue by means of stories, proverbs, ongoing reminders, and, in particular, through concrete practice. Parents ask their one-and-one-half-year-olds to do small things proportionate to their age and ability. There is a popular saying: “No one is too young to work, or too old to do something.” At age two a Chagga child will be asked to hand a banana to a brother or sister. At this age, children think they can do everything, so parents take this opportunity to help them do small things in and outside the house. A two-year-old can sweep the floor with a small broom, feed a baby goat or a kitten, carry small items into the house, pluck ripe coffee berries, and so on. Children this age like to play a lot, but they also want to “help” mom, dad, and everyone else. Our two-year-old daughter, Siya, and our one-and-one-half-year-old son, Amani, enjoy helping us carry small things around the house, to clean the table, and in general, to do something. Indigenous elders realize that this is the time to “strike the iron when it is hot.” It is time to mold a two-year-old into an industrious and diligent worker, always in accordance with her or his age and capability. Raum notes again: A very young child is given a little bundle [of bananas] to take home… Foibe and Siairuka were observed to be chasing them [goats and sheep] away with sticks before they could walk and talking to them in their second year.6

It was mentioned previously that at about age five, boys enter a special formative relationship with their fathers and girls do the same with their mothers. It is at this time that mothers and fathers will try to be their daughters’ excellent teachers in working diligently through ongoing instructions, good example, and in giving opportunities for practical exercises. Mothers, often assisted by grandmothers, ask their daughters to actively participate in childcare, household chores, cooking, farming projects, and in the care of cows and chickens. By age ten, the average girl is almost as good as her mother in discharging such duties. At fifteen she is ready to run her own household and to contribute significantly to the economy of the family and community. This hard working fifteen-year-old girl is the pride of her family and community. In indigenous Chaggaland, she is the rule, not the exception.

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Boys aged six to fifteen work along with their fathers and grandfathers in the farm, in caring for goats and sheep, in house construction, and all community building projects. A grandfather says to his grandson: Soil will never cheat you Get your hands into the soil for it will feed you and your family. Then he begins to sing a song with this refrain: Soil, soil, what a marvelous thing the soil is. Oh soil, soil. So, with such encouragement given when the two are actually working in the farm, the young boy learns to work hard, and to have an almost mystical relationship with the soil and nature in general. If it happens that a certain father has another skill in addition to the usual farming and animal husbandry skills, the son will learn to acquire such a skill as well. Such a skill could be any of these: bee-keeping, carpentry, iron-mongering, herbal medicine, and so on. By the time the young man is fifteen, he, like his sisters, is an industrious man, ready to support a family through the work of his hands. He has proven to everyone that he can work hard and produce results by actually farming on a piece of land given to him by his father or grandfather. When I was twelve my father gave me a piece of land to cultivate. I tilled it, planted corn (maize) and bananas, and got a good harvest. Meanwhile I participated fully in the main family farm work. I also cared for two goats that dad gave me, besides caring for the family herd of goats numbering about fifteen. After two years my two goats multiplied to eight. By my fifteenth birthday, I was a pretty good farmer, and was doing even better in animal husbandry. I was an industrious worker ready to face the world. I cannot thank my parents enough for giving me this gift. Then, when young boys and girls go into seclusion for adolescent transformation rites, the above emphasis on hard work is repeated by the mlosha. To the male initiates, he reiterates: My children, this is a lesson for all Chagga citizens: you are men now. Do not presume that your fathers and grandfathers acquired their possessions by chance. No, they worked hard and fought audaciously for them. Therefore, be of strong hands to seize hoe and weapons, do not give up. A lazy man brings shame to his manhood. My children, go about your business boldly, diligently and cautiously.


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Do not provoke anyone, do not steal, do not commit adultery, drink with moderation, and give high respect to the chief and to your elders. Work hard, always. These were the rules observed by your ancestors.

The mlosha seasons the above instructions with relevant stories, proverbs, and songs. Female initiates, in separate seclusion, receive essentially the same instructions, different only in details pertaining to their future roles as wives and mothers. When these rites come to a conclusion the indigenous fifteen-year-old girl or boy is a hard worker, ready to support self and family and to contribute to the economic growth of clan and community. The young girl leaves camp with this saying firmly etched in her mind and heart: “A diligent woman saves her children with her hoe; a lazy one kills hers with hunger.” And the young boy will never forget the mlosha’s admonition: “Do not presume that your fathers acquired their possessions by chance. No, they worked hard and fought audaciously for them.” HARD WORK IN INDIGENOUS AFRICA In African Philosophy, in which the Nigerian Segun Gbadegesin explores indigenous Yoruba philosophy and contemporary African realities, he describes the traditional understanding of work and compares it to modern ethics and politics of work.7 In indigenous Yorubaland, work is described as a productive activity, the main aim of which is to sustain human existence and transform nature in various ways.8 In this sense, play is not work, however challenging and rigorous it may be. The Yoruba people conceive of work as a source of wealth and well-being, and a cure for poverty. The following rhyme, a translation, amply demonstrates this conception: Work is cure for poverty Be hard-working my friend For one can become great Only through hard work. When we have no supporter We may appear lazy But in such a situation It only pays to Keep on working hard.9

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Gbadegesin further explains that work in indigenous society is productive because it is done with a high level of discipline, and everyone works hard through social effort rather than through individual work-effort. Everyone enjoys the harvest of one’s work in proportion to one’s input. In this context, exploitation of one person by another is kept at a minimum, because the existing social relationships are not essentially exploitative or utilitarian but rather cooperative and altruistic. Like other indigenous African peoples, the Yoruba’s idea of hard work excludes laziness, loitering, parasitism, and exploitation. 10 The diligent worker is highly esteemed and considered a blessing in the land whereas the loiterer is sternly warned to embrace hard work. Another author, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, writes about how the Kikuyu people train their children to be hard workers beginning in childhood: Both girls and boys accompany their parents to the garden when they are small. Little girls have tiny cultivating knives or digging-sticks which, when they are five years old, they can handle with amazing skill with their right hand while with their left they clear the soil away and gather the weeds and grass in bundles. Boys go with their fathers to herd cattle, sheep and goats, or to perform other tasks.11

During adolescent initiation instructions and ceremonies, Kikuyu youngsters are taught that hard work is the way to go about life and idleness must be avoided in every way. They are advised not just to work diligently, but to work together in cooperation. The indigenous Kikuyu are thus famous for their corporate activity in: housebuilding, cultivation, harvesting, digging trap-pits, putting up fences around cultivated fields and building bridges. They have a saying: “Kamoinge koyaga ndere” (collective activities make heavy tasks easier).12 Numerous indigenous African proverbs underscore the importance of working hard and avoiding idleness. A few examples that stress the former are, from Nigeria: The cure for poverty is work (Yoruba people); from Sierra Leone: To try and fail, is not laziness; from Egypt: You cannot get butter without churning hard; from South Africa: One does not cross a river without getting wet; from Kenya: To get the warmth of fire one must stir the embers; from Uganda: No sweet without sweat (Kigezi and Ankole areas), and The cow that has not explored new pastures does not find the fat grass; from Tanzania: Where there are fruit trees there live industrious people; and from Zambia: The field will yield its fruit when you are tired. The


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following proverbs warn against laziness and loitering: Congo (Brazaville): The sleeping fox: no hare fell into his mouth. South Africa: Idleness is where the devil finds work. Mozambique: Hands are worms: they will rot if they do not work. Kenya: If you sleep, your shop too will sleep, and The lazy one takes home the rotting one (Luhyia people). Uganda: No stirring stick, no porridge (English equivalent: no gain without pain). Finally, we note that in indigenous Chaggaland, and indigenous Africa as a whole, the hard-working person is a treasure. Such a person is considered mature, well molded, a mpvunde, a virtuous one. He or she knows the profound meaning of this Kiswahili proverb: Ukiona vinaelea, vimeundwa (that is, if you see boats floating, they have been built—much work has gone into them). Thus through diligent and enduring commitment to hard work, an indigenous person is able to contribute significantly to the social and economic wellbeing of family and community and to a healthy environment. He or she takes work very seriously because it is, in the indigenous worldview, a moral responsibility, a humanizing activity, a life-enhancing effort. Nevertheless, the industrious worker realizes that working hard is only a means to human and cosmic harmony, not an end in itself. He or she therefore knows when to work and when to pull away for rest, recreation, and celebration of life. Indigenous persons, and in particular the sages and thinkers, always keep another Kiswahili proverb in mind: Vuna juani, ulie kivulini (work hard [in the hot sun] and thereafter enjoy the fruits of your work in comfort [in the shade]). One-well known elder, Matunda, once told me: Our life is a beautiful rhythm of work and rest; when we work we build our communities and country, when we rest we reflect on life and world and thus gather new energy and a new vision to go on. Thus, in the indigenous Chagga worldview, working hard is a manifestation of a mature and maturing person and society. This is a virtue that, in coordination with the other virtues studied in this book, keep the heartbeat of communities alive and healthy. We now turn to communality, a virtue on whose stage all others find their expression and meaning. COMMUNALITY The aim of this section is to give a detailed description of the virtue of communality in indigenous Chaggaland and briefly in other areas of Africa. A lot has been written on community in indigenous African societies, but as far as I know, there is not much in print regarding communality.

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Working definitions of both community and communality are essential at this point. A community is a unified body of individuals: people with similar interests living in given geographical areas; a group linked by common purpose and policy; a body of persons or nations having a common history or common social, economic, and political interests. Communality, however, is defined by the Chagga indigenous worldview as a feeling of group solidarity; a communal state or character; the inclination to want to belong in a group; a moral and intellectual disposition that makes a person to gravitate toward togetherness and interconnectedness with others of similar interests, purposes, and social characteristics. We can conclude from these two descriptions that community and communality are two distinct words, though intrinsically connected. Community is the external expression of communality. The mother is communality and the child is community, although we do not see the mother because she is an internal personal disposition, an attitude, a deeply human tendency. Communality brings forth community and continues to sustain it. If the virtue of communality is eroded in a significant number of people, a community’s survival is seriously threatened. Such a community bounces back onto its feet when many of its people begin to feel deep in themselves that they belong together. Indigenous Chagga parents, elders, and sages work hard to nourish this sense of belongingness in the youth and in the community. FUNDAMENTAL EXPRESSIONS OF COMMUNALITY IN CHAGGALAND There are five fundamental expressions of community in Chaggaland: the kishari experience; generosity; cooperation; hospitality; and compassion. We begin with the kishari experience.13 In indigenous Chaggaland the kishari is a group of people (usually identified by a common name such as Temu, Mosha, Moshi, Mushi, Nyaki, Swai) who share the same ancestry and therefore are related by blood. A kishari can have as many as fifty or more people but rarely less than thirty people. My own kishari, for instance, consists of my paternal grandfather, his wife, his five sons and their wives, children, and grandchildren. His married daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters belong to the respective kishari into which they are married, although they are still part of their original kishari. The important point to be stressed here is the feeling of and thirsting for solidarity within each kishari. In my Mosha


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kishari, for example, every one is in one of these categories: grandparent, father, mother, brother, sister, wife, child, grandchild. We have no equivalent terms for cousins, nephews, nieces, in-laws, or half-brothers/ sisters. My sense of belonging with each of them is very strong and grows deeper as I grow older. Each kishari is related to several other shishari (plural of kishari) through marriages. My kishari, for example, is related to my mother’s original Lyimo kishari into which she was born. We also are related to the shishari into which our sisters are married and those from which our brothers have married their wives. The whole Chagga society is therefore an interconnected web of shishari in which everyone strongly feels related to everyone else. The term mshari applies to anyone in my kishari. Perhaps the closest English word is kindred or kinsman. It is also used to refer to any of my close friends. A good friend of mine is also my mshari and she or he is invited when my kishari is celebrating a certain event. Our neighbors, too, are welcome when our kishari is in celebration or any other important occasion. So the term kishari applies to four groups of people: blood relatives; relatives through marriage; close friends; and neighbors. In the farming village where I was born, Kyou, a five-squaremile area of about four thousand people, everyone is, to some extent, my mshari through kinship, marriage bonds, friendship, or neighborliness. I feel close to all of them. This then is the indigenous experience of communality. All the various smaller communities and units of families are formed by this disposition of belonging and are nourished by it. Communality therefore, is a fundamental virtue that contributes to the good health (heartbeat) of the society. It is important for its thriving and its survival. The second expression of communality is generosity. In the Vunjo version of Kichagga language, mndu mleki literally means one who opens one’s hands so as to let go of something that someone else needs. The mleki is disposed to be generous to others. He or she is referred to as mndu ekelekia, a generous person who reasonably lets go of whatever someone else needs. A generous person is therefore defined by indigenous society as one who has the moral tendency to share one’s time, energy, and resources with others, especially those in need, whoever they may be. Such a person renders communality tangible and thus enhances the life of the community. No wonder, then, that the generous family will be a popular choice. One of the lady sages in my kishari, Makyao, used to quote this Kichagga proverb: Mana mhoo nekyeoâ mî (a generous child brings prosperity to a household).

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Cooperation is another manifestation of the virtue of communality. One of the aspects of the indigenous Chagga worldview (discussed in Chapter 1) holds that the universe is a tapestry of one interconnected and interdependent whole. It is a universe in which humans, life, and world, form one chain of relationships that must be maintained through the practice of the six virtues discussed in this book, cooperation being one of them. Indigenous peoples, therefore, strongly feel that cooperation in personal and community projects is essential not only for the sake of survival but also for prosperity and cosmic harmony.14 A Chagga proverb says: Kiâma nyi wawi (literally, two people bring forth blessings; that is, the cooperation of two or more people is the beginning of good things to come). The fourth expression of communality is hospitality. Indigenous Chagga society enjoys being hospitable. This is one of the indigenous virtues for which they are particularly noted. Their understanding of hospitality can be described as a unique communal inclination to warmly welcome guests, visitors, and travelers, and to give them the best available service. Hospitality is extended to all: family members, neighbors, friends, and unknown visitors. A person with whom a host is not familiar is referred to as a myenu (that is, a visitor). For the sake of security, the myenu’s identity is carefully sought right after initial greetings and a seat has been offered. In most cases a visitor’s identity is fairly easily established, because everyone knows everybody else in a given geographical area. Welcoming a guest normally takes this sequence: initial greetings outside the house, welcoming guest into the house and giving him or her a seat, elaborate exchange of greetings, offering of food and drink, letting guest make known his or her concern if any, and finally goodbyes are exchanged in case the guest is leaving the same day. If the food has to be prepared, some of the hosts will do it while others sit and converse with the guest. Indigenous Chagga people take hospitality to guests so seriously that in many homes specially tamed animals like chickens, goats, and sheep are fattened for any guests or visitors who may come unexpectedly. In a typical homestead there are always some bananas in a corner of the farm set aside for guests. This custom is so common that there is a Kiswahili saying: mgeni aje watoto washibe (let guests come so that the children may have a special sumptuous meal). Guests and visitors are expected to eat and drink what is offered to them. This is why I would visit relatives or friends only one at a time because I could not possibly eat all the food offered if I visit more than one household a day. Hosts will do everything


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to make sure that visitors and guests get the best of everything offered: food, drink, and bedding. The generosity of indigenous people to visitors, guests, and travelers is truly remarkable. This virtue must be one of the profoundly human inclinations, because I have always experienced it in every country I visited in Africa, Europe, and North America. My maternal grandfather, Nderumaki, used to tell me: “When someone visits, there is always one more chair, one more plate of food, one more bed. Always one more.” The fifth and final manifestation of communality is compassion that is extended to a person or persons in difficult times in the form of support, or monetary or material contributions. If someone’s house is on fire, everyone immediately joins others in a frantic effort to put it out. If someone dies, relatives, friends, neighbors, and work colleagues will join the bereaving family in mourning for several days. Indigenous people really support one another in hard times. One of the best and most inspiring experiences I have had was the ever-present support of relatives, neighbors, friends, and work colleagues when my father died in June 1989 and mother in April 1995. Our home was full of supportive people days before the funeral and days after that. Day or night there were always fifty or more people with us, for about seven days. Most people, including clergy, nuns, professors, doctors, nurses, teachers, and others, would stay for not less than three or four hours. Almost everyone who came brought food, drink, or money, so there was plenty to eat and drink for all. As is characteristic of indigenous ways of mourning, these people did not say much during their stay. They realize that there is not much to say at such times. What we as a family appreciated more than anything else was their presence, a warm and extended handshake or a hug, and financial support. They gave us time and they gave us their heartwarming and healing presence. I must confess here that this experience radically changed the way I participate in mourning of relatives, friends, and colleagues. I now have much more time for them. I have understood, just a little bit better, that the presence of a caring person in tough times is powerful, energizing, and curative. I owe this piece of wisdom to indigenous people. The elders I talked to on the virtue of communality told me that there are three occasions when an indigenous person experiences a special heartfelt responsibility to cooperate and participate fully: in sickness, at a wedding, and in bereavement. Everyone gives the most possible help at these times, and at all times of need, including less serious occasions. In Chaggaland, two enemies, whether relatives or

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neighbors or former friends, are reunited when one of them is ill, is in bereavement, or has a wedding in the family. The virtue of communality, therefore, takes precedence over, and eventually melts away, one’s feelings of anger, hate, or revenge. It is the noblest expression of humanity in which human and cosmic harmony is a supreme ideal. My godfather, Temu, likes to say to his children and grandchildren: “With a strong sense of communality we are everything—prosperous, happy, human; without it, we are nothing.” PASSING ON THE VIRTUE OF COMMUNALITY In the three main contexts in which indigeneous children learn the fundamental virtues, we have also identified three means through which the virtues, and everything else, are learned: the examples set by parents, elders, and the community (role-modeling); hands-on practical opportunities; and theoretical teachings through instruction, stories, proverbs, riddles, song, and dance. Everyday interaction in life is by far the most influential context in terms of the acquisition of the virtue of communality in children and youth. Indigenous children are born into, and are raised by, families, clans, and communities, in which there is a strong sense of communality. First, at childbirth, there are several elder women assisting the new mother under the leadership of the paternal mother-in-law, who also is the chief midwife. As these midwives do their job, the new father and other relatives are waiting nearby. The baby’s first cry is heard by many people and his or her birth is celebrated by many relatives. When the baby opens its eyes for the first time, there are many welcoming eyes and faces all around. Then the subsequent birth rites and naming rites will be attended by many celebrating relatives and friends. Thus one of the baby’s first major experiences of life is the presence of a lively, close-knit, and welcoming community of people. This is only the beginning. The baby will be cared for, not by one or two caregivers, but by many relatives and friends, one or two of these at a time. Obviously, one of the main psychological impressions on the young mind and spirit is the experience of many caring relatives and friends from day one of life. The new person learns early to relate warmly and closely to a great number of relatives and friends. Her or his predisposition of communality begins to emerge and grow. The young child will grow up in a close-knit web of relationships whose major components are the family, the clan (kishari) and age groups all the way from birth to death. As I grew up (between the ages of one and fifteen),


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the kishari experience imprinted an indelible mark on my mind and heart that has continued to bond me with relatives and friends to this day. No wonder that our people cherish this proverb: Iura monowomoo nyiipva (that is, to miss relatives and caring people is to die). The naming ceremony in childhood is also influential in the ongoing acquisition of communality among the young. Of significant note in this rite is that the very first name given to the baby is the name of the clan or kishari, often the name of the first ancestor of the clan. This name is shared by everyone in the same clan. It is more than a way to identify members of various clans. It signifies the bondedness of the clan members to each other, to their first ancestor, to those who have died and to those to come. Such is my name Mosha, or my mother’s clan name Lyimo. We are many Moshas and many Lyimos, and we all feel close to one another. Thus in the Chagga culture clan names point out the idea of communality; they are an invitation to practice communality; and reveal a sense of connectedness. Other similar names in Chaggaland include: Massawe, Swai, Shirima, Minja, Marealle, Umbella, Shayo, Kilawe, Njau, Ngomuo, Mushi, Mbowe, and many more. For the indigenous Chagga people these are their first names, although, perhaps due to European influence, they are now considered last names. I personally like to refer to Mosha as my first name. It bonds me to so many people and reminds me of the importance of communality and community. A second name is assigned in the naming ceremony. This is a personal name, which identifies each one from everyone else. This name, like my own Sambuli, has a special meaning as explained earlier in chapter 2. Basically, the aim of a personal name is twofold: first, to underline the identity and unique individuality of everyone, and, second, to articulate certain family experiences, important events in the family history, events at one’s birth, family hopes, and aspirations, and so on. Some examples fit our current discussion on communality. The name Ndekiô means one who has been saved by the benevolence of the community. Ndesaîo implies the blessed one; Mringi is a name given to one who protects others; Mringe is the protected one, and Mkunde is one beloved by all. Negatively, Ndeonio is a name denoting that someone in the family (father or mother in particular) was not treated well by others; Ndesaângimonyi is one who has to rely on one’s own judgment (because others have not cooperated); Kitengeso means one who has been kicked around, that is, not assisted by family or friends. These latter names are given so that the community may be reminded of its less shining moments, and thus be awakened to rise above its shortcomings.

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In numerous teachable moments and in particular during adolescent transformation rites, many instructions are given by parents, grandparents, elders, and the designated walosha. At home and during seclusion sessions the young are admonished to stick together and to care for one another. According to Raum, the members of each playgroup and age group learn to “depend upon one another in their many activities,” and to nurture among themselves “comradely qualities, such as commensality, solidarity and mutual devotion.”15 Adolescents are taught by their elders and walosha that good relations with kindred, neighbors, and peers not only bring harmony in the community, but also render their fields fertile and their tamed animals abundant. Mothers teach their daughters to be generous and community-oriented because as future mothers they will be at center stage in forming community-minded children. A young daughter learns to share every gift she gets with her brothers and sisters. If she is hungry and goes to the farm or garden for fruits or vegetables, she must bring something for everyone, not just for herself. Boys are taught to do likewise. I recall that as a young boy I would sometimes feel like getting an ear of corn (maize) from our farm. My mother would say: Help yourself. If I would then bring one ear of corn for myself my mother would send me back to get some for everyone. After a few such selfish trips to the farm, I slowly learned to think of others whenever I wanted to pacify my hunger. I began to learn, in the words of Raum, that “no ideal, therefore, is realizable without collaboration; indeed no virtue is thinkable without such social reference.”16 Another indigenous saying comes to mind: Kilakarisana kunu nyi mafumvu (mountains do not meet, but people must meet and associate). This is one of the most fundamental lessons that indigenous people learn throughout their lives. They learn, through word, practice, and experience, to forge strong bonds with one another, to support one another, and to journey together from the sunrise of life to the sunset of life. They learn to be there for one another because they know that sooner or later everyone is bound to be in one of these moments. Another Chagga proverb says it well: Ngikiâ kowaa ngikukiê kokapa mvuo (that is, come to my rescue when it is shining and I shall rescue you when it is raining). Rain or shine, solidarity is always the common denominator in indigenous Chagga society. Practicing communality is therefore one of the essential characteristics of a mature and civil society. It is a mark of the truly mpvunde, the truly educated person.


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COMMUNALITY IN INDIGENOUS AFRICA Literature on community life in indigenous Africa abounds, so my aim here is to articulate briefly the understanding and practice of communality in some other parts of Africa and to point out related literature by a few African political philosophers. The indigenous Chagga experience of communality is only one expression of a much larger trend in indigenous Africa. As the following several examples show, communality, understood as a feeling of and inclination for group solidarity, is a fundamental experience in every indigenous African ethnic group. It is important to note first that the indigenous African view of a person strikes a balance between one’s collective identity as a community member and one’s individual identity as a unique person. In this view, each African person therefore has two inseparable elements: unique individuality and communality. According to one Chagga sage, Mtenga, to be human is to be both individual and communal. For this reason Chagga elders make sure that these two essential dimensions of a person are adequately formed during the ipvunda process of children and adolescents. Mbiti explains this idea well: (Marriage) is not an affair between two people only but between those two people together with their families and relatives. This has grown out of the African view that a person does not exist all by himself: he exists because of the existence of other people. The philosophical formula about this says, “I am because we are, and since we are therefore I am.”17

Indigenous African elders, in particular the thinkers among them, recognize that there is always a danger and a tendency to overemphasize one of these essential elements, the I and the we, resulting in exclusive individualism or exclusive communism, respectively. Indigenous communities work hard to avoid these two deformative tendencies. Two Chagga proverbs witness to this ongoing effort: Iu ^ ra monowomoo nyiipva (to miss brothers and sisters [communality] is to die); and Wana wa mka wekehiana pvo (no two children [people] are alike, each is unique). Thus the statement that indigenous Africans always strive to strike a balance between individuality and communality is valid. To assert, as some writers have, that indigenous Africans deemphasize individuality and overemphasize communality, is incorrect. Second, we note that indigenous Africans practice communality not only as a commendable value, but also as a fundamental moral

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virtue. They feel that they have a moral obligation to live in solidarity. The harmonious integration of the self and the world is considered a moral ideal.18 In the indigenous culture of the Dinka people of Sudan, the word cieng means both morality and living together in community.19 This rich concept has two implications. First, it means that to live together in communality and solidarity is to fulfill a moral obligation, and second, the morality or immorality of a word or action is determined, not by individual judgement, but by the norms set up by the community. Communality therefore is an avenue that leads to human and cosmic nourishment in all spheres: mental, spiritual, economic, social, environmental, and so on. Paris articulates the importance of community living as follows: All African peoples agree that…community is the paramount social reality apart from which humanity cannot exist. Similarly, all agree that the community is a sacred phenomenon created by the supreme God, protected by the divinities, and governed by the ancestral spirits. Thus full participation in the community is a fundamental requirement of all humans.20

There is an inspiring story which the Kikuyu people of Kenya tell their youngsters over and over again in order to impress upon them the importance of communality. “Once upon a time,” an elder begins as young people enthusiastically listen, “a group of ten boys were asked by their parents to sit in a circle. At the center of the circle there stood a large bowl full of sweet-tasting honey. Each boy was given a wooden spoon about five feet long and invited to eat the honey only by holding the end tip of the spoon. None of them could feed himself because the spoons were too long when held only at the end. The boys then shouted in desperation: ‘We cannot feed ourselves, the spoons are too long.’ One of the parents then said: ‘Feed one another.’ They did so. Each one of them had enough to eat, with relatively little effort.” The listeners nod their heads in agreement as the moral of the story sinks into their minds and hearts. A famous son of the Kikuyu people, Jomo Kenyatta, freedom fighter and first president of Kenya, perhaps listened to the above story many times in his youth. 21 His political philosophy, harambee, urges Kenyans to cooperate in all aspects of life, at the same time upholding their individual rights and challenging each one’s talents to the highest degree. Harambee is a word, now incorporated into


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Kiswahili, that a leader shouts out when she or he invites a group of people to put together their energy and resources in order to achieve a desired goal. Kenyatta’s harambee philosophy is echoed by other famous sons of Africa, all of them the founding presidents of their countries. Kwame Nkrumah (1909–73), prime minister and first president of Ghana (1960–66), is known for his push for panAfricanism, a movement urging Africans to work together for a united Africa in all aspects: political, social, and economic. Nkrumah writes at the end of his autobiography, recalling the day when he announced to parliament that his country would finally regain independence from Britain: As I drove home, physically and mentally tired but indescribably happy and content, I reflected on the long and difficult road on which we had travelled towards the goal of Independence. African nationalism was not confined to the Gold Coast—the new Ghana. From now on it must be Pan-African nationalism, and the ideology of African political consciousness and African political emancipation must spread throughout the whole continent, into every nook and corner of it.22

Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s first president, summarizes the Zambian Humanist tradition by his maxim: “One Zambia, One Nation.”23 The Zambian Humanist tradition, like similar political philosophies in Africa, is an offspring of the experience of communality in indigenous Africa. Comparable political thoughts are: Madagascar’s socialism of former president Philbert Tsiranana, based on work, equality, fraternity, and love of fatherland in the reawakening of ancestral communitarian traditions; and Tanzania’s Ujamaa, or familyhood, spearheaded by her first president, Julius K.Nyerere, who made the following wise observation: We, in Africa, have no more need of being ‘converted’ to socialism than we have of being ‘taught’ democracy. Both are rooted in our own past—in the traditional society which produced us. Modern African socialism can draw from its traditional heritage the recognition of ‘society’ as an extension of the basic family unit.24

These political ideologies are based on indigenous Africa’s understanding and practice of human solidarity. Some of these ideologies were hard to swallow, according to some critics, because they seemed to idolize communism. Whereas this may be true in some cases where an ideology became fossilized, rigid, and dogmatic, the truth is that their origin is indigenous culture in which communality is a moral virtue: flexible,

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adaptable, and life-giving. The major difference between indigenous experience of communality and modern communistic socialism is that the former is understood as a spiritual-human disposition to gravitate toward others and world in a worldview in which all are interconnected and interdependent, whereas the latter tends to disregard the spiritual dimension, the mystery and transcendent aspects of life and world thus becoming merely a functionalistic-intellectual type of solidarity. Indigenous communities tend to be spiritual, linked to all life and world, human centered. Modern capitalistic and socialistic communities, on the other hand, tend to be materialistic, disconnected from the spiritual and rigidly ideological. It seems to me, therefore, that we can learn much from indigenous Africa on the issue of community and communitybuilding. Two lessons seem very fundamental: first, that communities are formed not by a physical proximity of people, but by a growing sense of communality that must be nourished from birth and throughout life; and second, that communality is a spiritual virtue that must be deepened by spirituality rather than by material wealth alone. I conclude by quoting a few African proverbs that underscore the importance of communality. Ghana: The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people. Mauritania: Two eyes see better than one. Congo, Brazzaville: One finger cannot wash your face. Congo, Kinshasa: A single bracelet does not jingle. South Africa: Let the singers sing in unison, then the job can be done. Tanzania: Over many rollers can the ship be moved; and One hand washes the other. Kenya: If a dead tree falls, it carries with it a live one. (The weakness of one person hurts others in a community); and Team spirit is better than individualism. Uganda: Teeth without gaps chew the meat. Ethiopia: A cow gave birth to a fire; she wanted to lick it, but it burned; she wanted to leave it but she could not because it was her own child. (Do not abandon anyone in your family or clan, for whatever reason). Nigeria: Other people’s wisdom often prevents a chief from being called a fool. Communality is the master virtue on whose stage the other five virtues find concrete expression. In fact the virtues described earlier are only the means and facilitating conditions for a vibrant and prosperous community. In indigenous Chagga society, for instance, respectful people nourish their families and communities by bringing in a sense of awe, transcendence, and connectedness to the divine, the spiritual, the human, and cosmic facets of life and world. Those who are thoughtful and reflective inspire the community with insight and wisdom. The community is equally nourished and its sense of community deepened by those who are selfcontrolled, the courageous and hard-working ones.


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Thus an indigenous Chagga community is described as bonded and prosperous if many of its members practice the fundamental virtues as much as they can. Their sense of communality must include an adequate understanding and practice of the six fundamental virtues. This is why indigenous society strives continually to inculcate these virtues in its members. This is the single most important goal of the indigenous Chagga ipvunda process and of the indigenous African systems of formation and education. In these indigenous contexts, communality spells civility and maturity. It is an essential ingredient that keeps the heartbeat of society strong and healthy. I cannot for the life of me think of an alternative ingredient that can achieve the same results in indigenous society or in any society. NOTES 1

Second edition, 1989. Raum, Chaga Childhood, 205. 3 Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 124. 4 Raum, 210. 5 Ibid., 183. 6 Raum, 199. 7 Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy: Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities (New York: Peter Lang, 1991), 215–253. 8 Ibid., 217. 9 Gbadegesin, 226. 10 Ibid., 226–232. 11 Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, 69. 12 Ibid., 72. 13 It seems to me that the kishari is what some authors refer to as the extended family. For the indigenous Chagga people and other African peoples, there is really no extension here; there is only family, a large family. There is no word in the Kichagga language that literally means extended family. The word kishari is a precise one used by these people to describe themselves and their relationship, whereas the phrase “extended family” is foreign and imprecise. 14 See the previous section on work in this chapter. 15 Raum, 274. 16 Ibid., 193. 17 John S.Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion (Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1975), 108. 18 Ray, African Religions, 133. 2

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Ibid. Paris, The Spirituality of African Peoples, 51. 21 Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, 32–40, 70–74. 22 Kwame Nkrumah, The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1957), 290. See also Opoku Agyeman, Nkrumah’s Ghana and East Africa (Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1992). 23 See Meebelo’s Main Currents of Zambian Humanist Thought and Kaunda’s A Humanist in Africa. 24 Julius K.Nyerere, Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 12. 20

CHAPTER 5

A Reflection on Indigenous Education and on African Europocentric Education

The aim of this chapter is first to recapitulate and reflect on the main findings and insights disclosed by chapters 1 to 4 that are relevant to the improvement of contemporary educational programs in Tanzania, and, second, to highlight and to reflect on the major shortcomings of colonial and postcolonial education in Africa. My approach in this chapter, as is the case throughout the book is based on the paradigm that sees all of human and cosmic life as interconnected and interdependent, one that views the human person as having three inseparable dimensions: body, mind, and spirit; and a paradigm that posits that human and cosmic well-being depends on our moral and spiritual awareness and action. I believe that spirituality and education belong together; in fact, the former is, in my opinion, a constituent and essential part of the latter. This belief is amply supported by indigenous peoples and by many thinkers and scientists in fields that are classified as human sciences. A SUMMARY OF AND REFLECTION ON THE MAIN FINDINGS In this section I shall summarize and reflect on the main findings disclosed in chapters 1 to 4. The summaries will remind us of the main relevant lessons that we can learn from these indigenous people, and my reflections, purposely more elaborate and thought-out, will help us make connection with contemporary educational concerns, with the critiques that follow this section and with the proposals given in chapter 6. 159

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In Chapter 1, we looked at four aspects of the indigenous African worldview. From their belief in a Divine Mystery and other transcendent entities, the indigenous Chagga people enjoy the experience of awe and wonder. They accept and revere that that is mysterious and incomprehensible, at the same time realizing that humans have the potential to unravel many of the mysteries of the universe. Indigenous people have a special ability to stand in awe and wonder before various facets of the universe in part because they revere, adore, and appreciate a Transcendent Divine Mystery and recognize the transcendent or “more than” aspect of life and a deeper meaning of every phenomenon. For these people, knowledge and information do not disprove the need for awe and wonder; on the contrary, they enhance and deepen them. Basing myself on this insight, I would conclude that scientific knowledge and technological advances should not do away with our natural predispositions of wonder and awe. On the contrary, they should deepen our sense of wonder and awe. From this perspective, science and spirituality should never be seen as contradicting each other, as some in academia tend to think. They are, in fact, complementary. The more scientific knowledge we get, the more we marvel at the wonders of the universe, and the more we wonder, the more we are motivated to study and research. Anjam Khursheed, a physics professor in Singapore, makes an insightful observation: The more science progresses, the deeper the mysteries of the universe and the mind appear to be. The discoveries of science do not take away the mysteries of the universe, they deepen them. The claim that science eliminates mystery from our world is characteristic of the spiritual confusion that dominates our modern age… The scientific spirit lies much in affirming the presence of universal mysteries, than in rejecting them in favour of techniques and impersonal observation.1

According to the indigenous Chagga people, the process of becoming human is defined as an ongoing and gradual acquisition of fundamental human virtues. Moral living spells living humanly. The entire educational or formational system of indigenous Chaggaland is inspired by this paradigm: Human and cosmic harmony hinges upon human moral living. Today we live in a time when many people, a lot of them “well-educated,” tend to think that if a high-ranking public official does a good job in government or in a company, it does not matter that he or she is immoral in his or her private life. Deeper reflection, however, makes us realize that, sooner or later, such immoral

A Reflection on Indigenous Education

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acts weaken a society because life is one. To think of the possibility of a good public service distinct from and independent of an immoral private life in the same person or society is a fatal fallacy. Indigenous peoples, and the thinkers among us, know better, and we owe this knowledge and wisdom to our students. The Chagga people, with good reason, believe that good family and community relationships eventually render the fields fertile and productive in the sense that in an atmosphere of good and appreciative human relationships, it is more likely that each one will be more responsible, cooperative, and efficient in discharging individual and community duties. After all, in the circle of life, every human action has a ripple effect like a pebble falling into a pool of water. A school is one crucial institution in which this fundamental truth should be discussed time and again. According to the Chagga and African indigenous peoples, there is an intrinsic unity between an individual and the community. Indigenous people work hard to strike a fairly good balance between these two so that there is a minimum of self-destructing individualism and freedomconstricting communism. These two deformative dispositions, or vices, must be avoided in every way, says one indigenous sage, Ndevungio Temu, and other sages nod their heads in agreement. Has our age sunk so deeply into rugged individualism that this wise reminder comes too late? What are our academic institutions doing in regard to this issue of individualism that seems to spread around the world like a killer fire? These are serious questions that belong to the very core of school programs. The indigenous view is that the universe is one interconnected and interdependent whole. Indigenous peoples do not compartmentalize and dichotomize these intrinsically linked entities: spiritual and material, sacred and secular, moral and intellectual, knowledge and wisdom, human and transhuman, science/technology and spirituality. Rather they see these dimensions as manifestations of a unified Oneness. Separating one from the whole destroys the whole. Studying physics, for instance, as if it is distinct from spirituality or morality, not only fails to reveal the intimate relationship between spirit and matter, but also destroys an essential constituent of physics and spirituality. John Hitchcock, a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, says it well: From the point of view of physics, the physicist cannot avoid dealing with spirit, but must take account of the spirit aspect of spirit-matter, its patterning and dynamism. We don’t have the intellectual luxury of cutting spirit off since we are part of the natural realm. A physicist will avoid doing anything intentionally mysterious with

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“spirit” but we also recognize that our “models” evolve toward greater and greater depth and subtlety. The case, as now understandable, amounts to a spiritual imperative.2

The main point being underscored by Professor Hitchcock reiterates the view of indigenous people that each component of the universe is intimately connected with all others. Indigenous people know that humans cannot live a harmonious human life in a desacralized, abused, and polluted world. Rather, they see and treat the world as family, as a good friend. Capra and Steindl-Rast have made a statement that we cannot ignore: I belong to all other humans. Even if there’s nobody around, this is clearly felt. I belong to all the animals, to the plants. And belonging means I am at home with them, I am responsible for them and to them. You see, I belong to them as much as they belong to me. We all belong together in this great cosmic unity.3

If every teacher or professor in a classroom situation discusses this fact with students from the perspective of whatever subject they may be studying, graduates certainly would feel more connected to one another and to the world, and thus have the power to contribute positively to the society at large. They would realize, like indigenous peoples have, that a holistic and friendly approach to every fact of the universe is life-giving and life-sustaining. It is one of the essential centerpieces of a civilized society. No academic institution is worthy of the name if its graduates do not understand and experience this fact. Another piece of wisdom, also related to the previous ones, as they all are, is the necessity to involve the entire person in each academic course or program. One of my revered professors used to say in class: “We are not just a collection of brains and legs. We are also spirit through and through.” What she meant is what indigenous people, and especially the thinkers among them, have been saying and doing all along: An authentic humanization process is one that gives adequate attention to all three dimensions of the human person, body, mind, and spirit. In practice, this means, for example, that any educational program, to be authentic and formative, should give full attention to a student’s body, mind, and spirit in all levels of education, kindergarten to college and beyond. The indigenous Chagga people answered this fundamental human need by providing everyone with a balanced diet, physical exercises, and medicine for a healthy body; information and various skills to


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challenge the intellect (education for a living); and inspiration and training in the acquisition of wisdom, intuition, and fundamental virtues (education for life). These three facets of indigenous ongoing formation are given integratively throughout life. Indigenous parents, elders, sages, and professional formators (walosha) do not distinguish formation into physical care, intellectual stimulation, and spiritual formation. Rather, formation and education is given in such a way that all three dimensions are nurtured and nourished, spontaneously, frequently. This approach to holistic education is more clearly understood when we note that the Chagga word imanya means both to know and to be morally enlightened. In the Chagga worldview, knowledge “plus” wisdom (fundamental virtues, spirituality) “equals” knowledge (holistically understood). But knowledge “minus” wisdom “equals” personal and community destruction, so also wisdom “minus” knowledge. Simply put: knowledge plus wisdom equals knowledge and knowledge without wisdom equals no knowledge, no human maturity or civility. To avoid this deformation, indigenous people make sure that an education for a living is also inseparable from an education for life. There are three learning opportunities in indigenous Chagga education: everyday interaction in life; teachable moments; and specific transformation rites. The bulk of indigenous education is given in the context of everyday interaction in life. Indigenous peoples realize, as many of contemporary people do, that, for the average person, most learning takes place in everyday interaction with culture and traditions. The culture and the world here and out there are great classrooms. Indigenous people know this and make use of this learning opportunity by having parents, elders, and others teach children and youth in this classroom: everydayness. In the African and Euro-American systems of modern education, there is also a realization that the culture out there is a classroom, but somehow these societies continue to think that a college graduate, for instance, leaves the campus and exits into the world out there. The fact is that the “world out there” has always been with this student, forming him or her, giving its values and worldviews, influencing this student, in many ways more than college has. If our contemporary school systems are to give a more holistic and formative education, there is need to help our students to go on learning wherever they are, and perhaps more important, to make society, in particular the media people, realize that whatever is being done and said “out there” is either forming or deforming our young people. Like indigenous peoples, we perhaps need to help our students to turn

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every life situation into a teachable moment. Best of all, if learning institutions pay as much attention to ethics and spirituality as they pay to intellectual stimulation, our students would be more prepared to constructively critique the world around them in ways consonant with spirituality and fundamental human virtues. By the time an indigenous youth is fifteen years old, she or he has had about ten years of intensive preparation for marriage, parenthood, and responsible citizenship. Few of our grade schools, high schools, and colleges believe that school is the locus for this preparation, although some of these institutions have a few elective courses on marriage, responsible citizenship, and so on. In the spring of 1997 two of the seniors in my class in one U.S. university were preparing to get married in the fall. These two had attended my course on African spirituality because they hoped to get some useful insights for their married lives. One day I asked them in class if college had helped them for what was coming to them. Both said all they had was a course on marriage in high school and another one in college. Otherwise they relied on religious teachings (one of them did not have a religious affiliation) and discussion with married friends. It was clear that the education they had received so far had no systematic, ongoing program intended to prepare them for married life and responsible citizenship. The same can be said of university graduates in Tanzania and Kenya, where I taught for several years at university and high-school levels. I believe that this situation is unacceptable. Educational programs at all levels should devote a significant part of their time, resources, and personnel to deepen the spiritual and moral formation of students.4 In Chapter 2, four findings that contemporary educators may find insightful in their attempt to improve educational programs were identified. First, indigenous society educates the young with the presupposition that several levels of formators are each crucial in childhood and adolescent education: the large family unit, parents, grandparents, elders, and age groups. The indigenous child is literally surrounded by teachers and formators, all aiming at forming him or her morally and intellectually. In our times, I see a tendency in Tanzania and in the United States to leave the bulk of educating to the concerned parents and to the schools and teachers. In many cases, the parents assume that schoolteachers will provide the necessary moral and intellectual formation, whereas teachers may assume that moral education is the responsibility of families and religious institutions. The lesson we learn from indigenous people is that every adult and elder with whom a child has considerable contact should


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contribute actively and significantly to the moral and intellectual education of such a child. It takes a village not only to raise but also to educate a child, in a worldview where raising and educating are one, not two distinct processes. The second finding is about the use of narration, storytelling, and recounting of personal experiences in education. We have seen earlier their formative power in indigenous education, including their capability to create any situation into a powerful teachable moment. Stories and recounting of personal and communal experiences evoke interest in learning new ideas, and arouse reflection that often is followed by some sort of personal communal transformation or change of attitudes for the better. Stories and deep-seated personal experiences connect listeners and tellers to higher values that transcend them and their immediate situation. In my own twenty-year-long teaching career, I have noticed time and again that my students tend to remember the stories we told in class long after they have forgotten the innumerable “facts” that we learned in class. Our students and society in general are much better off if whatever is learned is viewed in the wider and transcending context of the largerthan-life story of our life. Every single story, every facet of learning, is part of a much larger story: the circle of life without which human life finds no meaning. Storytelling and story listening in class will connect each student’s life stories to whatever is learned and ultimately to the one and awesome human and cosmic story. It also will make learning so much more interesting, informative, and formative. The third finding concerns the extensive use of proverbs among indigenous peoples. While this use may not be necessary in all classroom situations, it certainly points to one fundamental fact: There is much to learn from the experiences and wisdom of previous cultures and generations and from all contemporary cultures and societies. As humans we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and shoulder to shoulder with one another. We need the accumulated wisdom of those who have gone before us. A reflective use of proverbs is one source for such timely and timeless wisdom. According to my teaching experience, there is a need to motivate contemporary students to appreciate the experiences, knowledge, and wisdom of past generations, especially in the moral-spiritual dimension. The exaggerated use of analysis and adoration for novelty has tended to blunt our appreciation for stories, proverbs, and other wise quotations because they require more mental and spiritual attention, deeper thinking, and reflection—which seem to be a waste of time to a modern society that is constantly on the move, perpetually in the linear mode of

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life. Socrates was right: the unreflected life is not worth living. Proverbs and other such wise sayings and maxims will help us, and our students, to reflect on our life and world. The formative use of song and dance for youth education among indigenous people is a fourth finding worthy of reflection. The combination of song and dance is a powerful formation tool, because, according to the indigenous Chagga people, it spontaneously engages a person’s body, mind, and soul. A Latin proverb, Qui cantat, bis orat (whoever sings, prays twice), means that singing emphasizes a point twice as much as reciting does. I believe that we can make more use of singing (and dancing, whenever possible and appropriate) as a vehicle for teaching fundamental human values, especially in kindergarten through the eighth grade. In the United States, the influence of Barney, Sesame Street, and similar TV programs on children is public knowledge. It is my reflection that Barney, for instance, would not be so formatively powerful if he just talked and never sang or danced, even if his dinosaur appearance is so fascinating and captivating. Furthermore, he would not be so formidably formative had he not sung and danced with young children. It is the combination of singing, dancing, the presence of participating children, and the joyfulness of Barney himself that makes Barney so influential to children and even to adults. My children (ages 1, 2, and 7) sing along and dance with Barney. They have learned these fundamental human values from the show: bondedness and cooperation, joyfulness, and playfulness; need to eat fruits and vegetables; not to waste water in the bathroom; and cleanliness. We need more of such programs, and a school is a perfect place for them. We can teach the essentiality of the following virtues through song and dance: respect and appreciation of humanity and the universe; communality and cooperation; justice and peace; caring for one another, and so on. In a nutshell, the potential formative power of music, song, and dance is infinite and our young schoolchildren need more of it, not only from the entertainment industry and public broadcasting services, but also from well-prepared school programs. Although chapters 3 and 4 offer many insights, I shall reflect on only one that I consider pertinent to our contemporary concern about moral education in schools: the how of forming children to understand and freely practice the fundamental virtues. Many elders and sages among the indigenous Chagga people, as well as contemporary educators and writers, realize that mere intellectual grasping of the moral code or fundamental values does not


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necessarily make a child a moral agent or a morally responsible person. It is one thing to know that it is good to respect other people, and entirely another to actually respect them. The Ghanaian philosopher, Kwame Gyekye, writes: (Good character) is, in the Akan moral thought, the crucial element in morality, for it profits a society little if its moral system is well articulated intellectually and the individuals in that system nevertheless have bad character and so do the wrong things. A well-articulated moral system does not necessarily produce good character; neither does knowledge of moral rules make one a good person or produce good character.5

The same idea is expressed by Lonergan, who states: “knowledge, of itself, does not settle a course of action…while there are things that can be proved in knowledge, future courses of action are not among them.”6 This realization directs indigenous peoples to use the following several effective and time-tested pedagogical methods to pass on moral education to the young. As much as possible, moral virtues are taught by good example because actions speak louder than words; these values are taught as early as possible in the developmental stages of infancy, childhood, and adolescence; and nonthreatening and nonauthoritative means like song, dance, ritual, stories, proverbs, riddles, and whatever would make children learn in freedom and relaxation are used. Most of indigenous education takes place in the everyday interactions of life, in teachable moments, and during specific transformation rites. For the most part, children learn spontaneously, in the meantime receiving ongoing explanations and clarifications as to why and how certain positive behaviors are acquired. Thus they acquire not only knowledge about virtues but also motivation and willingness to practice these virtues. In our time children are almost over-motivated to play certain sports and games because they constantly see sports-stars doing so and being adored for what they do. Young people are less likely to care for one another or contribute their money for the alleviation of hunger because society and the media do not, generally speaking, always prioritize these acts of benevolence. Indigenous people, therefore, may have a thing or two to teach us on how to assist our children to acquire and practice the fundamental moral virtues. For one thing, they remind us that there is a major distinction between talking about a certain virtue and actually practicing it and that both dimensions of education must be present in an authentic educational program.

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One important insight I learned in the writing of chapters 3 and 4, and in the research leading up to the writing, is that the indigenous Chagga people, like indigenous peoples everywhere, tend to emphasize the practical day-to-day facets of living a moral life and give less time to long lectures and analyses on the nature, dimensions, and dynamics of fundamental virtues. My paternal grandfather, Naisa, frequently said: “The authenticity of a man is recognized by observing his homestead. He works hard, takes good care of his family, has a good house, and lives peacefully with his relatives and neighbors.” The same is said on the authenticity of a woman. Action triumphs over idealism, although the latter has its merits. Robert Coles, professor of education at Harvard University, quotes one of his students who said that he was “tired of seeing professors give lectures, then walk away from the moral matters they mentioned until the next lecture,” even as he “abhorred a similar inclination in students.”7 My experience seems to support the view of this student. Too many lectures and too many words at our schools—and too little done practically. A fellow professor jokes, “I am in the business of selling words.” Professor Coles is right by stating that his students who “tutor children or work in soup kitchens and read…social science texts of related interest” are awakened not only to the needs of others, but also to what they can do to make a difference. 8 Students who engage in such practical community services have one invaluable advantage: they are able to practically experience and identify fundamental virtues such as caring and communality. No wonder that when Professor Coles asked students about the role of a university in the collective moral life of its students, they repeatedly “stressed the importance of a kind of education in which the idealism in books gets translated into the way we live.”9 The Latin proverb, Fabricando fit faber (A carpenter becomes one through doing carpentry work; in English: Practice makes perfect) is a useful reminder in our contemporary efforts to reinject moral education into our schools where students, faculty, and staff can be assisted gradually to become moral agents through comprehensive community involvement and services, volunteer programs, cultural exchange programs, and so on. In summing up this section it is insightful to note that the experiences, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom of indigenous peoples, can and should assist in our contemporary efforts to improve our academic institutions and the quality of human and cosmic life as a whole.


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A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE COLONIAL EDUCATION SYSTEM IN AFRICA In this section I will critique the colonial educational system that the Europeans established in Tanzania at the beginning of the twentieth century. I hope to accomplish this not by examining their specific curricula and teaching methods, but rather by closely examining three aspects of the European worldview from which European educational systems and colonial educational systems emerged and continue to emerge. It is logical to contend that the worldview of a people or nation determines its forms of government, social life, everyday life, and its view of, and treatment of, self and others. In Chapter 1, for instance, we see how the indigenous African worldview molds the indigenous system of raising and educating children and the understanding and practice of the fundamental virtues articulated in chapters 3 and 4. In the same way, the European worldview in general, and in particular the European view of Africa, has profoundly colored their colonial governing policies, their approaches to, and intentions for, education in colonized countries and indeed everything they do and do not do, to Africa during the colonial period and now. It is not my aim to give a comprehensive articulation of the European worldview that has prevailed in the last two or three centuries, but rather to examine some of its aspects that I consider important in charting out the kind of education that Europeans packaged especially for Africa and Africans. In many ways, these aspects of the European worldview that molded the contemporary systems of education in Africa from the beginning of the twentieth century, are still operating today, so my criticisms of the colonial educational system are applicable then and now. Besides, this same European worldview has, in my opinion, influenced education, not only in their colonies before and after political independence, but also in Europe itself, in the Americas, and in numerous countries where Europeans and North Americans had and still have influence, political and economic. In short, the Euro-American view of themselves and of the rest of the world has influenced, positively and negatively, almost every facet of life in much of the world. These criticisms, therefore, apply not only to modern African educational systems but also to European and American schools, as well as to schools in many countries. I am approaching this critique from the point of view that fundamental human virtues are the heartbeat of a harmonious human society, and that moral integrity is indispensable if human society is to remain reasonably civilized. Moral integrity is thus fundamentally

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essential in a genuine humanization process. Equally fundamental is an ongoing conscious realization, by a significant portion of the population (not just by philosophers, artists, and thinkers) that this moral integrity is indispensable for a civilized and human world, and, more important, to then engage in an untiring struggle to live a moral or spiritual life. This conscious realization and the consequent frequent attempt to live morally is one of the most important findings that this study on the indigenous Chagga people has disclosed. Simply put: Indigenous elders and sages are keenly aware of the necessity for moral integrity in human societies, and thus try, as best they can, to live a moral life above reproach; furthermore, they take up the responsibility of building morally responsible societies. My experience and study has shown that the formation of morally responsible societies is the number one priority of indigenous society. This does not in any way imply that indigenous societies in Africa or elsewhere were or are perfect. Indigenous people have, like everyone else, their strengths and shortcomings, ups and downs. What this study has found out, however, is that indigenous African peoples do several important things: keep alive the consciousness that moral living is a conditio sine qua non for human thriving and survival; continue against all odds to uphold this realization in conversations, proverbs, and stories; and, best of all, try to raise up children and youth in a holistic way in which intellectual development and spiritual formation are inseparable. This is the point of departure, where Euro-American educational systems and their satellites around the world take off seemingly in forgetfulness of, or unwilling to accept, the inseparability of intellectual and moral education. One of the sages in my village, Mzee Merishai, says: If you have not taught your child to be honest, you have not taught her or him anything yet. FIRST CRITIQUE: EUROPOCENTRISM Generally, Europocentrism or Eurocentricism is defined as a worldview in which Europe is seen as the center or apex of civilization. Although every people or nation has some amount of ethnocentrism (seeing its own group as superior), I would like to describe here a deforming aspect of Europocentrism that has negative impact on European education in Europe and on colonial education in Africa. I describe this kind of Europocentrism as a mentality in which


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Europeans see themselves as the standard of civilization that they feel obliged to spread throughout the world. The form of Europocentrism that concerns me as an African whose country was colonized first by the Germans (1885–1918) and then by the British (1918–61), is of two kinds: first, that Europeans see themselves as the most civilized people (we will have to define civilization later), thus practically despising and rejecting non-European cultures; and second, that Africans, plunged in an abyss of colonization and neocolonization, oppression, and exploitation, see Europe as the model civilization, therefore despising and rejecting their own culture and civilization. These two forms of Europocentrism have dogged preindependence and postindependence education in Africa for a whole century, and its grip on Africa seems to get stronger as we become poorer and thus more dependent on Europe economically. The North African scholar Samir Amin makes a relevant point: Eurocentrism is therefore anti-universalist, since it is not interested in seeking possible general laws of human evolution. But it does present itself as universalist, for it claims that imitation of the Western model by all peoples is the only solution to the challenges of our time.10

It must be argued that the very fact that Europocentrism is antiuniversalist makes Europe’s programs of education, at home and abroad, narrow-minded and far from comprehensive. Europeans, and those they create in their own image, see that there is nothing to be learned outside of Europe. Africa and Africans are disdained and rejected. Thus, the British explorer Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) could, without even a blink of an eye, give some of his books titles such as Through the Dark Continent and In Darkest Africa.11 How could anyone learn anything from a continent whose people were described as ignorant savages? Consider Webster’s following remarks: My dear fellow, when you’ve been out here (in Africa) as long as I have you’ll realize that there’s no such thing as a civilized native. The dark centuries of savagery are too deeply rooted in the native character, and although a native may live peaceably and behave to all intent and purposes like a white man, you can never be sure that his heritage will not come out in him one day. And that goes for Africa North, South, East, and West.12

Such manifestations of a debilitating Europocentrism made the European educators in Africa to begin, not from the known to the unknown, but

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from tabula rasa (an empty slate-mind) to the known. To completely disregard indigenous knowledge and wisdom, as seen, for example, in chapters 1 to 4, was and is a monumental shortcoming in the modern educational programs, even before any school opened its doors. Colonial education was a flawed program from the beginning. Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the renowned Kenyan author, recalls his experience at the University of Leeds in England: It was possible all round to graduate with a literature degree in any of the European languages without ever having heard of Achebe, Lamming, Tagore, Richard Wright, Aimé Césaire, Pablo Neruda, writers from that area of the globe that has come to be known as the Third World.13

My own experience confirms wa Thiong’o’s statement. I received all my education (the modern one, vis-à-vis the indigenous one previously described) through missionary-founded and-administered schools, kindergarten to college. It was an Europocentric education through and through. Consider a few instances. During my primary and middle school days, we learned nothing about African culture. If we studied anything about Africa, it was about Europe in relationship to Africa. In the fourth grade (standard four, 1957) we studied that Speke discovered Lake Victoria. (Later, in the 1970s my younger brother and sister learned correctly that Speke was the first Englishman to see Lake Nyanza, its local name).14 In high school (1962–65) most of my history classes were about West European history, a few on American history, and almost none on early African, Asian, or South American histories. In English literature we knew Shakespeare’s works like the backs of our hands and little or nothing about African literature. It did not make much difference whether a teacher was European, American, or African, lay or clergy, although there are always exceptions. Most of them were molded in the same Europocentric and Americentric image. The brilliant West African author, Malidoma P. Some, a native of Burkina Faso, describes one of his African professors in the seminary thus: Father Joe was also a French teacher. He was nicknamed Joe the Spartan. He was the only Black priest in a white world of educators. As an African priest he was dead to Africa, a fine specimen of European brainwashing and indoctrination. No wonder I always annoyed him. For a while I was stupid enough to think that because he looked like me, he would agree with and support me. Little did I know that he had been brainwashed to brainwash us. We called him Spartan because of his athletic looks.15


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Only later (1969–71) did I have a good dose of African studies as an external student of Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. For the first time since 1952 (my kindergarten year), I had a systematic study about the wisdom of my parents and grandparents. I then began a study and a spiritual journey that has taken me into my innermost self, and into the wisdom of our people, and to this book. The heavy load of Europocentrism now feels much lighter on my shoulders. It is ironic that some of my most intense studies on African indigenous knowledge and wisdom have been done in American universities and libraries. It is also well and good to add here that, although the education I received from church institutions was plagued by Europocentrism, this education gave me some important tools to reflect on it, to go on learning, and to have the ability to express myself in this book. I am most grateful for this gift. Going back to the subject of Europocentrism, it seems appropriate here to examine its ramifications on indigenous African education and spirituality. Colonial education denied African students and teachers (and Europeans themselves) a golden opportunity to systematically study indigenous knowledge and wisdom for everyone’s benefit, African and non-African. When Africans reject their own culture, they are rejecting their own self, a sure path to pseudospirituality. Finding who one is, and coming to appreciate one’s unique dimension, is a homecoming, a profoundly spiritual experience, and enlightenment. Colonial education tends to deny students this essential homecoming in a person’s life. One day in 1972, a friend of ours who had been studying abroad for five years, came back and we went to meet him at Kilimanjaro International Airport. He walked out of the plane with his nose high in the air and greeted us in English. We welcomed him in Kiswahili and Kichagga, but he went on in English. We began to smell a rat. Our friend was not the same. When his mother and father greeted him in Kichagga, he asked someone to translate into English. His parents were so sad. We all felt that he was lost somewhere between Europe and Africa. He rejected his Africanness, and he certainly was not a European, although he tried to talk and walk like one. He was a nobody! This sounds like an extreme case, yet it gives us an idea of how Europocentric education can destroy the African’s identity, and hence deny him or her access to the fundamental values embedded in that identity.

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Thus when colonial education makes Africans idolize and internalize the several forms of Europocentrism such as education, culture, Europeanized religion, and models of government, they ipso facto deny and demonize their own culture and traditions. The result is that they begin to experience, often unconsciously, a spiritual crisis in their deepest core. They become a living contradiction as they go through a love-hate relationship with themselves and with all that is African. This is a spiritual crisis in which the African feels uprooted from his or her ancestry, spirituality, and humanity. You will hear someone in Tanzania or Kenya say: “Mr. X has taken over the leadership of this company from a European. Can he do the job well?” Another will say: “Miss Z has a degree from Canada. She will certainly become a good administrator.” These comments could be quite valid when applied to specific persons. But when they become commonplace, when that that is Euro-American is put on a pedestal and that that is African despised, we have on our hands a serious identity crisis. It is one that takes us away from the fundamental virtues of our ancestors (discussed in chapters 3 and 4) and the humanizing worldview outlined in chapter 1. We must forge an educational system that gives the African back to herself, and that learns to appreciate humanizing knowledge and fundamental virtues from all over the world. Wa Thiong’o puts it well: Institutions of higher learning in Africa, Europe, Asia and America should reflect this multiplicity of cultures, literatures and languages in the ways they allocate resources for various studies… Only in this way can we build a proper foundation for a true commonwealth of cultures and literatures.16

As contemporary Africans try to free their minds and hearts from the yoke of Europocentrism, Americentrism, and other similar -isms, they must avoid the mistake of creating Afrocentrism (seeing Africa as the cultural and intellectual center of the universe) and its shoots of ethnocentrisms. Any of these are just as destructive and dehumanizing as the Europocentrism we are trying to dislodge from our African minds and hearts. Europocentrism, is, in my view, one manifestation of a human weakness and descent into vanity, and not therefore a uniquely European sin. We all can commit this sin.


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SECOND CRITIQUE: A SEPARATION OF KNOWLEDGE FROM MORALITY European education and its offshoot, colonial education in Africa and elsewhere, has another fundamental shortcoming: a view that knowledge and morality are two distinct entities. At first a person may deny this observation vehemently, but there is overwhelming evidence to prove the above statement. This is evidence that is perhaps not conspicuous to the average academician or researcher. The separation of knowledge and morality is a product of several factors in Europe: the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the emphasis on rationalism, the crystallization of capitalism, industrialization, the separation of the sacred and the secular, the triumph of science and technology, the rejection of traditional social, political, and religious ideas, and so on. Gradually, many in Europe (and subsequently in America) began to deify reason, reasoning, and knowledge. Rene Descartes (1596–1650) said, “I think, therefore I am.” Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) described the Enlightenment as a period of “daring to think for oneself.” The problem here was not the emphasis to think, but the overemphasis on thinking and reason and the deemphasis on the innermost voices of inspiration, intuition, and spiritual experience. According to Kant, the laws of nature and moral laws are completely different and mutually independent of each other.17 This is the same as saying that knowledge and morality are separate. Knowing and acting morally are distinct, a worldview quite unlike that of indigenous people who see these two as intrinsically connected. The consequences of this kind of thinking began to appear in European schools and especially in institutions of higher learning. Some thinkers, however, tried to strike a balance between intellectual and moral formation. The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal (1623–62) defended the importance of intuition and inspiration by stating that the heart has reasons that reason cannot fully understand. He argued that the human innermost core or heart (spirit) is as much a source of knowledge as our power to reason. The German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) argued strongly against the split between nature (science, knowledge) and moral action. Long before these philosophers, the Greek thinker, Plato (c. 428–348 BC), held that the highest truth always carries a moral value. Apparently many in Europe were not listening to these thinkers, so the gap between education and moral formation grew bigger in European universities and later in American institutions of learning. It was and is possible, in Europe and America, and now in Africa, to form a mental

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image of a person who is well educated but who has a questionable moral life. It is possible in America in 1998 to think that the private moral life of a public official has nothing to do with that official’s public service. Knowledge, intelligence, and power are seen as being distinct from spirituality. Such is the worldview that colonial education brought to the African classrooms. Colonial schooling lays great emphasis on mastering the three “r”s (reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic) and less on how to live morally. Thinking, reasoning, and memorization are idolized, whereas reflection on experience and the formative power of inspiration and intuition are marginalized. The functioning mind is called into action, but the intuiting spirit is forgotten. Even in religious instruction and theological courses, the emphasis is in memorizing doctrines, rules, and rubrics. I recall that in my high school days (seminary), memorizing teachings was our main preoccupation in the two or three religion classes every week. This was intellectualizing religion at its best. In my four-and-one-half years of theology, the trend was more or less the same: get the facts, memorize them, and reproduce them in examinations. Reflection on experience, personal intuition, and inspiration were rare. Even in seminaries the emphasis is on intellectual understanding, although all authorities concerned will vehemently swear that a seminary is a place where seeds (Latin semen means seed) are sowed and nurtured (a place where young men are nurtured for the priesthood). But consider this: during my theology years we had only one hour a week for an all-school spirituality talk. The rest of the week was spent on classes and private study. The result: plenty of information and minimum formation of heart and character. Yet we all graduated as well “educated” young men. This is how I size up the situation: the colonial system of education that tends to emphasize the grasping of information, knowledge, and facts, on the one hand and deemphasize moral formation on the other, has infiltrated into religious teachings and theological studies as well. The missionaries too, are, to some extent, victims of the Europocentrism that pervades everything European. So you will find that even in church institutions designated as houses of formation, it is the intellects that are hard at work, whereas the hearts are getting cold. Exceptions here and there accepted, I still contend therefore that colonial and postcolonial education in Africa, including education in religious institutions, remains mostly on the informative level (giving of information and facts) and pays less attention to the formative aspect; that is, the spiritual and moral formation aspect.


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The European type of education we have in Africa is thus a system that deifies knowledge, science, technology, and a never-ending thirst for information. The emphasis here is on deifying. When these become gods, personal and community experiences of inspiration, intuition, and all matters spiritual are jeered at. One day in 1982 I told some educated friends that I was considering taking doctoral studies in spirituality. They all laughed. One said: “Come on. Your mind can do better. Don’t insult it.” Another said: “Study something substantial, like philosophy or economics.” A third one pitched in: “Spirituality is for monks. Study something we shall all be proud of.” And on and on. There are indications that I would get similar responses today. The problem of separating knowledge from morality is well described by Ivana Marková, professor of psychology at the University of Stirling, Scotland. 18 Professor Marková first states that, in Western culture, people in general “largely operate with a pre-reflexive conception of knowledge that separates itself from morality,”19 and then proceeds to substantiate this claim. Marková explains that from ancient philosophy to the modern philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the search for universal laws meant that impartiality and neutrality were essential presuppositions of any search for truth. Marková makes a point worthy of reflection: This conception is thus based on the assumption that knowledge exists quite apart from individual human beings—that is, apart from the knowers… Just as in this pre-reflexive, pre-Hegelian conception of human awareness, knowledge is separated from the knower, so too, morality as a universal is separated from the individual moral agent.20

Hegel, according to Marková, did not agree with this pattern of thought. He “argued strongly against this split between nature and moral action.” Following in the steps of this Hegelian trend of thought, Marková writes as follows: To be self-conscious and reflexive, in a modern sense, means to be aware of oneself in terms of others and of others in terms of oneself. It is in this sense that to know is to act morally.21

The first idea that comes to my mind when I hear what Hegel and Marková are saying, is: How well they echo the thinking of the indigenous Chagga

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elders who say that to know, imanya, means to get knowledge and to get moral/spiritual enlightenment! These Chagga elders, Hegel, and Marková would make a great discussion group, a trinity of sages! Apparently European universities, according to Marková, did not, in general, make much of Hegel’s thinking. Marková says: “As far as I am aware, in the United Kingdom the issue of moral values at universities only assumed importance after the Second World War.”22 She then quotes Moberly who “explicitly refers to the moral collapse of the German universities under the pressure of the Nazi regime.”23 Moberly, according to Marková, goes on to state that German universities achieved the highest standards of education in the nineteenth century, so much so that their examples were soon followed by British and U.S. universities in their desire to establish modern universities. But because these German universities, according to Moberly, were poor in their universal approach to morality, they were so impotent that they could offer no resistance to the destructive Nazi ideology. In spite of high intellectual standards, these universities had no independent standards or values that would protect them against demonic indoctrinations. Marková continues to quote Moberly, who further states that “thought divorced from responsible action is sterile, and a purely theoretical analysis is liable to lead to impotence.” 24 In addition, Marková states that although universities aim at promoting intellectual understanding, such a function cannot be achieved if academic thought is sterile and therefore morally wanting.25 This partly explains, in my opinion, why “educated” people can commit despicable atrocities such as colonizing others, enslaving people, burning people in concentration camps, ethnic cleansing and genocide so common today, and similar unmentionable brutalities. Then we have overwhelming majorities of people, many of them “well educated,” who watch these demonic actions with indifference, disinterest, or rationalized hopelessness. Albeit Einstein’s famous observation states that the world is a very dangerous place to live in, not because of the evil done by some, but because of the many people who just sit and let it happen. The central point in my second critique is that colonial education separates knowledge from morality, or in other words, is presented in such a way that one can be said to be educated without being morally responsible and accountable. In short, colonial education, then and now, as well as contemporary Euro-American education still separates


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knowledge and morality, mind and heart, intellect and spirit. I am contending that this is a major weakness in our schooling systems, without prejudice to exceptions here and there. Many of our graduates in Africa have a good intellectual education, and much less moral formation. My experience as a student and professor in three university colleges in Tanzania and Kenya, and in six such institutions of higher learning in the United States, substantiates my statement and those of Professor Marková and of several others in and outside academia. So much head stuff and so little heart in it all! Colonial and postcolonial education in Africa, and Euro-American education in general, all tend to separate as irreconcilable what Professor Khursheed calls the universe without and the universe within, and devotes most of its time studying the former (that is, the universe around the human person). This kind of education, using the tools of modern science and technology, drives learners to be obsessed with everything tangible and experimentable, at the same time despising and suppressing the human innermost spiritual dimension and its offsprings: intuition, inspiration, the inner voices, and the ever-present human search for the transcendent meaning of life and world. The French philosopher August Compte (1789–1857), for instance, emphasized the exclusiveness of scientific investigation that he saw as becoming the ultimate method of distinguishing truth from untruth. According to Khursheed, Compte “envisaged a time when all education would be scientific, and where theology and metaphysics would be abolished.”26 This trend of thought, which departed from Kant’s idea that our mind should always stand in awe and admiration of the starry heavens above and the moral law within us, seems to permeate every facet of today’s educational systems in Africa, Europe, America, and elsewhere. It creates a chasm that is essentially a divorcing of morality and spirituality from knowledge, science, and technology. The inevitable consequence is a crippling heart disease in our educational systems and therefore in modern society as a whole. A story told by Professor Holland seems appropriate at the conclusion of this critique: Consider this story told to me by Alston Chase. A friend of his was teaching at a small liberal arts college. One of his students vandalized her off-campus apartment in the amount of several thousand dollars, then refused to reimburse the landlord. As the college did nothing to encourage her to pay the damages, the professor took matters into his own hands. He gave her an F in the course she was taking from him and told her that he would not change it until she paid the landlord. He justified this,

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he told the college review board, on the solid Socratic grounds that if a student did not know right from wrong she should not pass a college course. The college authorities were incensed. The grievance committee overruled him, expunged the F from the student’s record, and did not renew his contract.27

Thus the problem before us is monumental. An educational system that views morality to be a purely personal affair is in trouble at its very core. The second critique has tried to articulate this serious problem in which knowledge and morality are viewed as separate entities. Contemporary educational systems in Africa have inherited this problem from their colonizers. THIRD CRITIQUE: VIEWING EDUCATION AS GATEWAY TO WEALTH AND POSSESSIONS Colonial education in Africa was, and still is, a major force in the dissemination and promotion of Europocentrism and its multiple manifestations. The colonizers handed on their Europocentric education to a few select Africans whom they could use for the general administration of the colonies as assistant administrators, clerks, and messengers. It was not the purpose of such education to form good and responsible citizens unless this was related to the success of the colonizing machinery. Rodney describes colonial education as follows: The main purpose of the colonial school system was to train Africans to help man the local administration at the lowest ranks and to staff the private capitalist firms owned by Europeans. In effect, that meant selecting a few Africans to participate in the domination and exploitation of the continent as a whole… Colonial schooling was education for subordination, exploitation, the creation of mental confusion and the development of underdevelopment.28

The purposes of colonization and neocolonization were to fleece Africa, and therefore the aim of the little “education” given to a few is exactly the same: to fleece Africa and Africans. No wonder, as Rodney reports, “at the time of regaining political independence, the Congo had only 16 graduates out of a population of more than 13 million.”29 In many cases, only Africans who lived in or near principal towns were educated. In Ghana, for instance, the North was neglected educationally because it offered no products for export. In Tanzania it was the south, in Kenya and Uganda the northern districts. The missionaries, however, did a better job in penetrating into the so-called remote areas.


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In this scenario it is inevitable that the impression given to Africans is (and was) that education is a tool for manipulation, for gaining power and influence. This is clear when one notices how much power the few “educated” Africans had and have over the rest. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are powerful ammunition in a new selfish struggle for wealth. In colonial times the barely “educated” African became headman over the others in forced labor. The mnyapara, or headman in Kiswahili, was feared and hated in colonized Tanzania. The Kenyan philosopher D.Masolo quotes Cheikh Anta Diop, who sees such knowledge (given by the colonial education system) “as a source of power against Others.” Masolo adds: His point, then, rests on demonstrating the double role of science: as a source of knowledge, but of knowledge that also marginalizes Others.30

In contrast, indigenous African education tries to empower its people to come closer to each other and to respect everyone. We do not have much evidence to substantiate that colonial education tries to do the same. Second, colonial education as an extension of European education is more concerned with earning a living than with learning how to live. Most contemporary Africans believe that education is the key to financial success and comfortable living. Although they would expect an educated person to be a good and responsible citizen, few would see this as a major purpose of modern education. In fact, according to the experience of many, including my own, a good number of educated Africans get the “education-for-a-living” component from the European type of education, and find the “education-for-life” component from the indigenous one. It is common knowledge, in Tanzania, for instance, that people seek to be educated in order to get a well-paying job and therefore a comfortable lifestyle, to live, as many say, kama mzungu, (Kiswahili for like a European). Lost in this frantic marathon to an education that paves the way to wealth and European-style comfort is the fundamental indigenous quest for an education for life, for spirituality, and for moral responsibility. Gone is the appreciation for pristine indigenous wisdom. Instead Africans begin to worship a new god: money and comfort as most important goals of life. How do you get there? Get an education.

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European style education thus becomes a commodity one buys as an investment for profit and wealth. It is a sellable commodity that eventually produces material commodities such as money, property, and all kinds of luxury goods. In a word, this is a schooling system that promotes consumerism, materialism, and individualism, a good copy of the Euro-American school systems. John Kavanaugh describes the American situation: We are told that, while in 1967 40% of U.S. college freshmen thought “being well off” was important to them as opposed to 80% who thought “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” was important, by the late 80s the numbers had reversed. It was not so much that money and possessions were seen as being a value in one’s life; they were becoming the only value. And having more of them was becoming the only goal.31

Michael Lerner nuances Kavanaugh’s observation by stating that the focus of educating American youth is to give them the ability to enter the job market. Lerner calls this an education for the corporation not for the community.32 In Europe a similar situation is described by the French sociologist Jacques Ellul who writes: The new pedagogical methods correspond to the role assigned to education in modern technical society. The Napoleonic conception that the Lycees must furnish administrators for the state and managers for the economy, in conformity with social needs and tendencies, has become world-wide in its extent. According to this conception, education no longer has a humanist end or any value in itself; it has only one goal, to create technicians… The intelligentsia will no longer be a model, a conscience, or an animating intellectual spirit for the group, even in the sense of performing a critical function. They will be the servants, the most conformist imaginable, of the instruments of the technique.33

It is almost certain, therefore, that most Africans struggle to get the Euro-American style of education for one main purpose: to eventually get a good job, the gateway to wealth, and a comfortable life—European style. Normally there is nothing wrong in aspiring for wealth and the acquisition of life’s needs. What is grossly wrong here is that money and possessions become the only purpose of getting an education. In fact, in this worldview, which we in Africa have inherited from the Europeans, education becomes a process by which one gains enough information to pass school examinations, after which most of that information can be


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discarded. This may explain why so many students today (in Africa and in the United States—my field of experience as a professor) seem not to enjoy schooling and studying. For them education has no other value than a shortcut to wealth. Many are therefore bored in class and aim at achieving the minimum requirements before they can graduate and be free from “all that boring schoolwork.” It comes as no surprise that the incidents of cheating and corruption in the school systems have increased and educational standards have gone down. In The Tragedy of Technology, Stephen Hill makes this observation: In alignment with late twentieth-century high-technology economic competition, universities (and government support of them) are increasingly focusing on the teaching of knowledge that is instrumentally useful now, namely commercial, computer, engineering, and applied scientific knowledge. Few of these courses involve genuine integration of coursework with an understanding of the society we live in, its trajectory, or social alternatives.34

Thus it is fair to say that the kind of education that Europe introduced into Africa is one that deifies science, technology, information, and ultimately wealth and possessions that come with it. In the language of indigenous Africa, it is mostly an education for a living, and less an education for life. This, in my opinion, is a serious failure in the colonial educational system as well as in contemporary systems in Africa, Europe, America, and elsewhere. This section has been a description of three fundamental shortcomings that I see in the colonial and contemporary educational systems in Africa, namely: Europocentrism; a separation of knowledge and morality; and viewing education solely as a gateway to wealth and possessions. Europocentrism is a basic weakness because it makes Africans idolize and deify everything European at the same time despising and rejecting their own. It also narrows the Africans’ view of education and the world because they are made to see the whole world through the European perspective—thus instead of becoming educated they become deeducated to a great extent. The separation of knowledge and morality is a fatal shortcoming because not only does it give a picture of a fractured universe, it also separates intellectual formation from spiritual formation, with overconcern for the former and little attention to moral virtues and

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moral living. Seeing education exclusively as a key to wealth and possessions erodes the quality of human and cosmic life because, again, the spiritual dimension of our life is neglected. Students miss a golden opportunity to learn what Michael Lerner refers to as core values: love, empathy, caring, cooperation, commitment to others, spiritual and ethical sensitivity, respect for difference, respect for learning, respect for hard work, responsibility, self-discipline, tolerance, and honesty.35 As one sage in my village would say: “If you have not taught your child to be honest (responsible, hard-working, caring) you have not taught her anything yet. You have in fact destroyed her.” By identifying and articulating the three criticisms above, I do not in any way imply that colonial education in Africa has no positive contributions to the continent. This would be a false and an unenlightened statement. The European style of education brings to Africa a new way of looking at reality, a new window through which to look at life and world. To a great extent European education and culture have improved the quality of life in Africa. In this sense, Africa will need to learn from Europe and from all other countries. This is only one side of the coin. The other side is that Europe and all other countries should consciously feel the need to learn from Africa. This is where Europeans and Americans fail miserably. The majority of them feel (due to Europocentrism and Americentrism) that they know it all, and “primitive” Africa has nothing of value, except of course cheap labor, natural resources, a dumping market and the so-called safaris.36 You would think that all the “educated” people in Europe and America would know better! But the point I am making remains the same: Africa and Africans have benefited from Europeans and their style of education that, like everything else, is not perfect. Nevertheless, I consider the shortcomings listed above to be serious and as such must be dealt with just as seriously. The present interest among African academicians, authors, and some politicians to reclaim and appreciate indigenous knowledge and wisdom is one important step in the right direction. I would like to contend that this book may be one of the places they could look at as they participate in the improvement of our African school systems and the quality of life in general, which is the subject of chapter 6.


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NOTES 1

Anjam Khursheed, The Universe Within: An Exploration of the Human Spirit (Novato, CA: Oneworld Publications, 1995), 167. 2 John Hitchcock, The Web of the Universe: Jung, the “New Physics” and Human Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), 3. Emphasis in original. 3 Capra and Steindl-Rast, Belonging to the Universe, 15. 4 See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury Press, 1970); Jacques Maritain, Education at the Crossroads (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943); Charles Silberman, Crisis in the Classroom (New York: Random House, 1970); Dennis L.Thompson, ed., Moral Values and Higher Education (Albany, NY: Brigham Young University, 1991); Roger Straughan, Can We Teach Children To Be Good? (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1988); Andrew Garrod, ed., Learning and Life: Moral Education, Theory and Practice (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), and others. A concern for moral education is manifest in these and other past and present educators. They are, in my opinion, prophets and sages to whom few are listening. 5 Kwame Gyekye, An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 149. 6 Bernard Lonergan, Understanding and Being, An Introduction and Comparison to Insight, Edited by E.A.Morelli and M.D.Morelli. (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1980), 279–280. 7 See Robert Coles “Walking a Certain Fine Line” in Moral Values and Higher Education, ed. Dennis L.Thompson (Albany, NY: Brigham Young University, 1991), 86. 8 Ibid, 89. 9 Colles, “Walking a Certain Fine Line,” 86. 10 Samir Amin, Eurocentrism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1989), vii. 11 Henry Morton Stanley, Through the Dark Continent (New York: Harper and Brothers [c. 1906]). 12 F.A.Webster, Son of Abdan (The Reader’s Library, 1947), 124ff. 13 Ng*g, wa Thiong’o, Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers, 1993), 17. 14 They also learned that Tanzania regained its independence from Britain in 1963, not “got its independence from Britain.” 15 Malidoma P.Somé, Of Water and the Spirit (New York: G.P.Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 116. 16 Wa Thiong’o, 11. 17 Ivana Marková, “Human Awareness and Moral Values in Higher Education,” in Moral Values and Higher Education, ed. D.L.Thompson, 54.

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Ibid., 47–64. Marková, 48–49. 20 Ibid., 52. Emphasis in original. 21 Marková, 56. Emphasis mine. 22 Ibid. 56. 23 Ibid. See also: W.Moberly, The Crisis in the University (London: S.C.M. Press, 1949), 22–23. 24 Marková, 59; Moberly, 53. 25 Marková, 59. 26 Khursheed, 42. 27 Jeffery R.Holland, “Moral Values and Higher Education,” in Moral Values and Higher Education, ed. D.L.Thompson, 144–145. 28 Walter Rodney, How Europe Undeveloped Africa (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1974), 240–241. 29 Ibid., 245. 30 D.A.Masolo, African Philosophy in Search of Identity (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), 19. See also Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization (Paris: Présance Africaine, 1974). 31 John F.Kavanaugh, Still Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992), 12. 32 Michael Lerner, The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1996), 271. 33 Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1964), 348–349. 34 Stephen Hill, The Tragedy of Technology: Human Liberation Versus Domination in the Late Twentieth Century (London: Pluto Press, 1988), 238. Emphasis in original. 35 Lerner, The Politics of Meaning, 256. 36 The Kiswahili word safari means a trip, a journey. It does not mean hunting and viewing of wild animals in Africa, as some tend to understand it. 19

CHAPTER 6

Reclaiming the Foundations of a Humanizing and Civilizing Educational System

The aim of Chapter 6 is to reflect on what I see as an urgent necessity to improve our educational programs radically in Tanzania and in Africa as a whole. Although I am limiting this discussion to the African situation, I strongly believe that similar improvements are needed in many other countries, including Europe and the United States. If my reflections sound like suggestions for a possible course of action, it is because that also is part of my intention in the concluding chapter of this book. My reflections and suggestions emerge out of several sources. First, from the findings and insights disclosed by the previous chapters and sections; second, from my hypothesis—which weaves its way throughout the book—that a genuine humanization process consists of nurturing all three human dimensions, body, mind, and spirit, in the context of profound respect for uniqueness, communality, and interconnectedness with all that is; and third, from strong and persistent voices from an increasing number of authors warning us about the impending moral collapse of a world deep in the clutches of materialism, consumerism, greed, and utter disregard for the environment, and other authors who are getting concerned about an educational system that seems value-free or noncommittal to a systematic teaching of moral values and virtues. In addition, I have drawn on personal experience as a native of the designated area of study, as a parent, and as a professor of spirituality for the last twenty years and also on sixteen years of study, research, writing, and teaching based, in large part, on the theory and writings of Professor Adrian van Kaam on the Science of Formation and Formative 187

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Spirituality, and related theories and writings by other authors, and an ongoing integrating reflection on all of the above. This final reflection will limit itself to what I consider to be the most fundamental elements of education, and, as such, these elements are meant to be universal. It is the task of parents, educators, teachers, formators, and all concerned, besides enriching my thoughts with their own reflections and experiences in a spirit of open dialogue and discussion, to create actual school programs and syllabi rich in moral/spiritual studies and discussions that are unique and compatible to specific countries, cultures, formation stages of students, and other situational factors. A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF EDUCATION IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE In Tanzania, as is the case everywhere, the raising of children and the school systems are part of the larger Tanzanian culture, itself also a mosaic of African indigenous traditions, contemporary trends, and the emerging global culture of consumerism and materialism. Parents, students, teachers, school administrators, and national officials of education are all part of the larger population bringing to their classrooms and offices every facet of the local, national, and global cultures. It is therefore true to assert that a school system is just as good or as bad as the culture from which it is born and in which it is brought up. In reality, a school system consists of the formative and deformative constituents of the surrounding culture. In our time we witness that many of our social ills manifest themselves in our schools: individualism, materialism, consumerism, permissiveness, political and scientific irresponsibility, cynicism, multiplication of needs, overindulgence in comfort and entertainment, greed, insensitivity to the pain of others, weakening of family ties, destruction of the environment, and so forth. Professor Marková writes from the context of higher education: The university as an institution is part of the life of the community, and the degree to which it promotes moral values and moral norms closely reflects the promotion of values and norms in the community as a whole.1

In this case, our efforts to provide an education rich in moral studies and enlightening discussion will be futile if we let our societies degenerate further into the moral deformities mentioned above. How can

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we conduct a useful discussion in the classroom on the merits of strong bonded spouses and families when more than fifty percent of the students in the same classroom have divorced or separated parents? How does one teach about the virtue of self-control when, continually, TV commercials seduce our children to satisfy their desires by nonstop shopping for this or that product? After all, is self-control considered a virtue any more? James Billington, Librarian of Congress, in Washington, D.C., makes a relevant point: …both the fabric of our society and the functioning of our universities may well be in deep trouble. It is disturbing that neither our political nor our educational leaders seem to be aware that there is much of a problem…there is a special quality to the moral callousness of our times. We have quite simply created a public culture in which selfishness has itself become almost the major social virtue.2

It is therefore imperative that, as we in the global community try to provide a more holistic and formative education to our children, at the same time we must abide by high moral standards in our world. The Weekly Review in Nairobi, Kenya, editorialized on May 15, 1998: For national integration is born in the hearts of citizens. When it dies there, no army, no constitution, no government can save it. As the famous Indian academic and public servant, Mr. Nani Palkhivala, says, “state of mind precedes states.”

So, as I identify what I consider to be fundamental in a formative school system, I am presupposing that the nations and communities in which schools are located will continue to do their part in acquiring and upholding high moral standards. If we let the life of virtue fall by the wayside in our families and communities, no school can revive it, as the writer of the editorial above would say. As it behooves us to nurture virtue in our hearts, so also must we nurture it in our students because it is a fundamental imperative to do so in a genuine humanization process. THE ROLE OF FAMILIES IN A HOLISTIC EDUCATION PROGRAM I would define a holistic education program as an educational system in which students are challenged continually to achieve both high academic standards as well as high moral standards of living. In the

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language of indigenous Chagga culture, “it is an education for a living and an education for life,” seen as one whole, not as a system consisting of two parts. As noted in earlier chapters, the family and the larger community have a central place in raising and educating a child holistically in indigenous society. All who form the child—family and larger community, parents, grandparents, elders, age groups, and the specialized teachers (walosha)— work closely together, passing on the same fundamental virtues to children, and acting as role models (in other words, the African saying: It takes a village to raise a child). For centuries, this is how the raising and educating of children and youth was done in Tanzania and in the rest of Africa, and indeed in all indigenous societies worldwide. Then all of a sudden colonial and missionary schools began to mushroom all over Africa. These new schools, steeped as they were in Europocentrism, refused to recognize that the indigenous people had anything to offer in any sphere of knowledge and wisdom. The new school systems thus took upon themselves the task of deindigenizing and then educating African people using a European worldview and European ways of teaching. No effort was taken either to appreciate or make use of indigenous knowledge and wisdom in the new colonial and missionary schools systems. European educators demanded that African schoolchildren should reject their own “primitive and pagan” customs in order to embrace the new “civilized” ways of learning and living. This automatically meant that schoolchildren and anyone who desires the new “civilized” way should cut themselves away from the indigenous influence of families, elders, and anyone or anything that stands for, or promotes, indigenous knowledge and wisdom (there was no indigenous knowledge and wisdom from their point of view). This complete break between the colonial/missionary schools with the indigenous families and communities was the beginning of a painful separation between the modern African school systems and indigenous knowledge and wisdom. Many Africans began to believe, and a significant number still believe, that the school system is the magic place where all educating and raising of children take place. In many cases boarding schools were established for children as young as four or five years, in order to remove them from “pagan and primitive surroundings,” to remove them from the influence of their families, parents, elders, and the indigenous community as a whole.3 This was the beginning of alienating the family and local community from the educating process. Families and local communities were seen as


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hindrances to education and modern progress. In no time, indigenous families and communities began to see themselves as such. In Tanzania and most African countries, these unfortunate events began around 1885 with the European scramble for Africa, Most African parents and communities trusted that the new schools would give not only a key to wealth and riches but also a holistic formation process that includes an education for a living and an education for life. They were wrong. As outlined in the critiques above, the European type of education tended to be more analytical and compartmentalized, rather than integrating and holistic. But the indigenous people at first did not notice this fatal shortcoming in the new school system. They simply and innocently trusted the European. In the meantime the new school system drifted farther and farther from the control and influence of parents and local communities. My own experience is a case in point. My parents were not given the opportunity to participate in the designing of the school curricula that I attended from kindergarten through college. They did not know what subjects I was learning at school. They had no say in the running of the schools I attended (four schools, from kindergarten through twelfth grade). They were not given any detailed academic report of my academic work. My parents’ only involvement was to pay the fees and provide me with the necessary school needs like uniforms, writing materials, and food. The only communication that my parents received from these schools concerned payments of fees, any misconduct at school on my part, and a few similar issues. The message that I got—and all other students got as well—was that my parents and village community and elders were not coeducators with my teachers. They had nothing significant to contribute to the school system. This is another serious shortcoming of the modern African school systems. We have here a scenario in which parents and families believe that the schools do give holistic formation programs, on the one hand, and, on the other, the school systems are increasingly abdicating the responsibility of moral education to families and religious organizations. The disastrous results are beginning to show up everywhere in Tanzania. The urgent need to let parents, families, and local communities participate actively in the educational process cannot, therefore, be overemphasized. Gone must be the days when the schools in our villages were secluded islands and ivory towers. Parents and communities should have the right to participate in the designing of school curricula and courses, the hiring of staff and faculty, and, especially, be involved in the moral education of their children. Studies in the United States and Canada

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show that such cooperation by educators and families does produce excellent results in academic achievement and moral responsibility in students.4 Thomas Lickona writes: Moral education in these times is too big a job for schools or families to tackle alone. Working together, they have the best possible chance of helping children become moral people and of creating a good and just society for all.5

It is interesting to note that Professor Lickona, of the Faculty of Education, State University of New York, sees moral education as “too big a job for schools or families to tackle alone.” As mentioned in Chapter 2, one of the elders I interviewed said: “The raising of children is such a great responsibility that parents alone cannot do it adequately. They need the entire family and community.” We indeed stand to learn a thing or two from indigenous peoples. One advantage that school systems in African countries have is that most families are still quite strong and therefore have the potential to give moral guidance to their children. Most children are brought up in traditional type families; that is, families with both parents, several siblings, grandparents, and other relatives in relatively close geographical and emotional proximity. School systems can take this advantage and initiate massive campaigns to let families and communities realize that schools alone cannot adequately educate the children. Here is an opportunity for school administrators and teachers to confess that it was a grave mistake for colonial and missionary schools to establish seemingly independent and self-sufficient academic institutions that presumed to have the capability to give adequate education without the help of parents and communities. If the definition of education is expanded to include both “reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic” and moral awareness and responsibility, then all concerned-students, educators, and parents will gradually realize that even “illiterate” parents, grandparents, and elders can help in the education of their children and grandchildren. My own experience shows that my parents (first-grade graduates) and my grandparents (never went to modern schools) are some of my best teachers. They not only continually enriched and challenged my intellectual potential; they also guided me on the way to becoming a gentleman. They taught me the importance of pursuing excellence (in knowledge and wisdom) and the merits of hard work, a conditio sine qua non for


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high academic achievement, moral living, and responsible citizenship. As this study has demonstrated from the experience of the Chagga people, some of the most universal and fundamental human virtues are best taught in families (examples are: respect, self-control, courage, diligence in hard work, communality, and caring). Without these virtues, no education, in my opinion, can be considered complete, or even formative. Parents, families, and communities have a way of forming (educating) children, which only they can do. Professor Lickona identifies two important aspects of life that families contribute to the moral growth of a child: love (caring, bonding) and spiritual heritage; that is, “a coherent vision of life that speaks to life’s ultimate meaning.”6 In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela gives numerous examples of how his own deep sense of bondedness, caring, and humanness was shaped by his family. Mandela remembers: I was seven years old, and so on the day before I was to begin [school], my father took me aside and told me that I must be dressed properly for school. Until that time, I, like all the other boys in Qunu, had worn only a blanket, which was wrapped around one shoulder and pinned at the waist. My father took a pair of his trousers and cut them at the knee. He told me to put them on, which I did, and they were roughly the correct length, although the waist was far too large. My father then took a piece of string and cinched the trousers at the waist. I must have been a comical sight, but I have never owned a suit I was prouder to wear than my father’s cut-off pants.7

It becomes necessary therefore that modern African school systems should encourage and allow parents, families, and communities to participate more fully in education, in particular in the areas of values education, formation of curricula, hiring of administrators and teachers of virtue and who deeply appreciate the virtuous life, ongoing discussion between educators, families, representatives of the local community, religious leaders, and the concerned students. This kind of participation seems quite well-established in U.S. elementary, middle, and high schools, but almost nonexistent in Tanzanian schools. Even in the growing number of private schools founded by parents and religious organizations, these same parents and families have little say in the dayto-day running of these schools. The maxim, “it takes a village to raise a child,” must be expanded to: “it takes a village to educate a child,” with the understanding that educating a child in school is only a part of raising her or him.

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SOME FUNDAMENTAL APPROACHES TO A HOLISTIC EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM In order to forge more formative and effective educational programs in Tanzania and elsewhere, we need, in my opinion, the courage to make profound changes in the way we define and understand education and development. In my attempt to redefine these two, I shall be guided by insights from the indigenous model of education, the indigenous English and Roman (Latin) models and from several authors and sages whose recurrent strong voices on the need to improve educational standards refuse to be silenced. These redefinitions will be followed by my suggestions and reflections on the following topics: spirituality and moral values in all levels of education; the relationship between science and spirituality; the role of teachers in moral education; and religions and moral education in our schooling programs. REDEFINING EDUCATION In Chapter 1, we saw that the indigenous Chagga people experience life holistically and integratively. Living, knowing, raising up children, working, acting morally, are all experienced integratively in a circular dance of life. This worldview that sees all life and world as intrinsically connected and interdependent is shown and seen symbolically in numerous Chagga (and African) actions and artifacts: dancing in a circle, sitting in a circle (as in a meeting), circular houses, utensils, furniture, and so on. In this context there is no separation between knowledge and wisdom, mind and heart, the sacred and the secular—these are inseparable, intrinsically connected facets of one sacred whole. Ipvunda, as already defined, means to form a person in all aspects: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. It means constantly challenging a person to achieve excellence in physical health and fitness, in intellectual stimulation and in ongoing spiritual or moral reflection and responsibility. The ipvunda process is not anywhere near adequate if any of these three potentials are left dormant or insufficiently developed. The result of this process is imanya, which means three things: to know, to be conscious of moral responsibility, and to act knowingly and morally. These two indigenous Chagga words, ipvunda and imanya, constitute what the Chagga call education, also known as raising of a child, or forming/molding a child. We note here that this is the ideal that the Chagga people, and all indigenous African people, aim for, it is their theoretical framework that they try to practice


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day after day, with improvements here and there and with the usual human shortcomings one finds in every human community. But one thing became increasingly clear to me during my interviews and research: The indigenous parents and elders, in particular the sages and thinkers, hardly lose sight of this ideal. Their motto: Our raising of children must be holistic and the fundamental virtues must act as the heartbeat of a healthy society. The above, in a nutshell, is the concept of education among these indigenous people. This brings us to an important question: Are the ipvunda and imanya concepts that define education, a monopoly of the Chagga people? An in-depth study of the meaning of the words educate and education in the English language indicates that the “indigenous” English people have a similar holistic approach to education.8 The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that the origin word education actually is two Latin words: e and ducere. E means out, as in exit, and ducere means to lead. Educe therefore signifies to bring out, to lead out, to develop from a condition of latent, rudimentary, or merely potential existence. A related Latin term, educare, means to rear, to bring up a child or young animal. From these origins the dictionary gives several related meanings to the words educate and education. It is interesting to examine the meanings closest to the concepts of ipvunda and imanya. To educate (in the indigenous English language and culture) means to bring up young persons from infancy so as to form their habits, manners, and intellectual and physical aptitudes. It also means to train in order to develop the intellectual and moral powers generally.9 The word education means the systematic instruction, schooling, and training given to a person in preparation for the work of life. It also denotes a development of powers, formation of character as contrasted with the imparting of mere knowledge or skill, often with these limiting words: intellectual, moral, and physical.10 The similarities between these English meanings and the Chagga concepts of ipvunda and imanya are unmistakable. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1993) also provides several insightful meanings of the word educate.11 One of these is notably very close to the Chagga concept of ipvunda. To educate means to develop a person by fostering to varying degrees the growth and expansion of knowledge, wisdom, desirable qualities of mind or character; it also means to assist in providing with knowledge or wisdom, moral balance, and good physical condition. Several aspects of education, according to these dictionaries, stand out in proximity to the Chagga concept of ipvunda. Thus to educate means to rear; to bring up; to form habits and manners;

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to develop intellectual and moral powers; to form character and mind beyond the imparting of mere knowledge and skill; and finally, to give intellectual, moral, and physical nourishment. In other words, the Roman and English indigenous systems of education are essentially similar to the Chagga ipvunda process of giving an integrated formation of mind and heart. It seems reasonable, therefore, to conclude that giving a holistic education is a fundamental or universal human value, given the fact that similar concepts and practices have been observed in indigenous cultures and religions worldwide. There was even a time in Europe when philosophy was regarded as a handmaid of theology (philosophia est ancilla theologiae). Philosophy was then seen as intellectual reasoning and thinking that prepared a person to understand the more transcendent realm of faith, spirituality, and theological virtue. Scholars of those days struggled to gain intellectual knowledge as well as spiritual insight. That is how they understood education, and that is how, in a different context and culture, indigenous Africans understand education: an integrated formation of mind and heart. As Socrates would say: “for the argument is not about just any question but about the way one should live.”12 Furthermore, according to Professor Holland, “Plato held that not only was there truth but that the highest truth always had moral value.”13 It seems to me that at stake and grave danger in an educational system where virtue is marginalized is not just the well-being of society and the environment, but rather education itself. The laudable search for information, knowledge, and an ongoing education will be cut short if society, students, and educators minimize the importance of studying and living the life of virtue and spirituality. Let us consider for instance the indispensability of hard work, self-discipline, perseverance, and selfcontrol in the pursuit of excellence.14 Authors, scientists, artists, soldiers, parents, and so on—all need these and other fundamental virtues in order to do their best in their respective fields. Without these and similar virtues the business of education will fail miserably and haul society into its own pit of doom. The indigenous Chagga elders, as noted previously, believe and know that when the human body and its senses sink in overindulgence in food, drink, rest, sex, entertainment, and so on, the human mind and spirit are drowned in mediocrity, averageness, and worse. They further know that a sharp mind and an intuitive spirit emerge when people continually live in simplicity, seasoned by diligence in hard work, selfmastery, respect for each one, communality, and caring. Anyone who has taught in a classroom or has done any work with young people, knows that the students who achieve excellence are those who work hard, spend


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long hours in study, give up certain pleasures and entertainment opportunities, spend much time in reflection, and have the social and cooperative skills to work fruitfully with professors, classmates, librarians, and the society around them. In my twenty-year teaching career, it is often the ladies and gentlemen of good conduct in and out of class who have generally soared to the heights of academic excellence. If we therefore do not work for, and encourage, a life of virtue and moral responsibility in academia, we shall have mentally mediocre students who not only know less and less, but also who are not interested in learning. In the United States, studies have shown that many high school teenagers know little about the rest of the world and even about their own history and civic affairs. Some do not know how many senators there are in Congress and others cannot mention the three branches of the U.S. government. This trend would seem to prove that American philosopher and educator John Dewey (1859–1952) is right in asserting that democracy, education, and moral character are interdependent.15 And the great Indian civil rights giant, Gandhi (1869–1948), said: All of your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be in vain if at the same time you did not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.16

I truly believe that voices such as those of Dewey, Gandhi, and van Kaam 17 must be listened to in our attempts to give a holistic education to our young people. In fact we may be faced with a need to change current educational programs radically in order to accommodate the paradigm of education in which students experience a profound formation of mind and heart. I would dare say that this will be nothing short of a revolution in our schooling systems. Our human and cosmic survival depends on such a radical change and revolution. Anthony de Mello tells the story of a spiritual master who, after touring a certain university campus for an hour, said in his convocation speech: Laboratories and libraries, halls and porch and arch and learned lectures—all shall be of no avail if the wise heart and the seeing eye are absent.18

DEVELOPMENT It seems to me that the meaning of the word development as popularized by Europe and America is grossly inadequate, even

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downright dehumanizing. I am raising this point here, only briefly, because it is intimately connected to a holistic educational program. We tend to identify certain countries and cultures as developed because they have high concentrations of industry, widespread use of science and technology, very good transportation and communications systems, good social and health services, and so on. Countries where these are lacking or just in the infancy stage are termed developing or underdeveloped. This trend of thought is prevalent in our schooling systems. In Tanzania, for instance, students will tell you that to be well educated is ultimately to be able to live the European lifestyle and to recreate Tanzania in Europe’s image. While I recognize that we in Tanzania stand to learn a lot from other countries—economically, socially, and politically—I find this thinking dangerous and deformative because it does not consciously and continually emphasize the other essential dimension of development: the spiritual and moral development of the human person. It emphasizes rather the development of things: machines, tools, buildings, transportation, and communication systems, and deemphasizes the development of the human spirit. As noted by Professor Khursheed, we concentrate most of our effort and resources on the universe without, and neglect the universe within. This, in my opinion, is not development, it is not even underdevelopment; it is, rather, a destruction of humanity and the environment. Indigenous people worldwide would not only assert that it is essential to develop both the universe outside us as well as the universe within us, but go further and contend that the world within us, the spirit or soul, should inspire our relationship to, and involvement with, the universe without. In other words, wisdom and spirituality should gently and firmly take the lead, and not the other way around. The Burkina Faso author Malidoma Somé reflects as follows on these two “universes” as understood by the Dagara people: The priest of the earth shrine reminded me of Grandfather, and made me understand why the wise pay little attention to their bodies. In their world dirt has no negative effect on life because they have no concept of its being evil. These earth people live like Mother Earth—their cleanliness is in their spirits. I wondered if those who spend their lives obsessed with looking beautiful are not fighting to cover up something ugly deep within. Our shallow appreciation of outward beauty might be a confused reaction to the memory of true beauty than an actual encounter with it. In that case the


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beauty that exists on the outside of a person would serve only as a reminder to us of the real beauty of the spirit behind it. These elders had long ago understood this and chose to focus their energies where they really count—on matters of the soul. 19

Another son of Africa, Tanzania’s first president Julius K.Nyerere, defines development in terms of development of people. He writes: “For the truth is that development means the development of the people.”20 Nyerere further explains that roads, buildings, and similar things are not development in themselves, they are only tools of development. He gives the example of the material developments of Egypt in the Roman Empire (pyramids, roads, buildings, bridges) that still amaze us, but that could not prevent the empires from collapsing because there was no parallel development of the people.21 Nyerere gives an insightful reflection on these empires: …it is doubtful whether either the Egyptian pyramids, or the Roman roads have made the slightest difference to the histories of the countries concerned, or the lives of their peoples.22

Thus Nyerere’s political philosophy and spirituality reject the amassing of wealth for its own sake and remain committed to the well-being of citizens as well as the promotion of human dignity and social justice.23 This is his paradigm of development, which I support, and that is supported by many sages of our time and of the past, not least of which are the indigenous people studied in this work. It is my contention, therefore, that we urgently need a new paradigm thinking in education, development, and other related concerns such as civilization, freedom, globalization, and so on. In this new paradigm there should be a shift from an overemphasis on intellectual development and a commodity-centered development to an integrated total-person development in body, mind, and spirit, and a human centered development in fundamental human virtues: reverence and respect for everyone and everything, caring, communality, justice, peace, and so on. In this new paradigm thinking, reading, writing, and arithmetic will be seen as only one side of the coin; the other is a solid moral or spiritual education. I conclude this section by quoting John Dewey: The business of the educator—whether parent or teacher—is to see to it that the greatest possible number of ideas acquired by children and youth are acquired in such a vital way that they become moving ideas, motive-forces in the guidance of conduct. This demand and this opportunity make the moral purpose universal and

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dominant in all instruction—whatsoever the topic…it is not out of the question to aim at making the methods of learning, of acquiring intellectual power, and of assimilating subject-matter, such that they will render behavior more enlightened, more consistent, more vigorous than otherwise it would be.24

IDENTIFYING FUNDAMENTAL VIRTUES IN MORAL EDUCATION Indigenous society, like the one under study in this book, is sufficiently uniform almost to guarantee universal agreement on the virtues cherished and passed on to the young. It is relatively easy, in this context, to speak of fundamental human virtues. The scenario changes when varying African indigenous societies come into contact, and changes are even more significant when African cultures meet other world cultures and religions. Tanzanians today interact daily in multiethnic, multicultural, and multireligious formation fields. The same is true for most of the world. Can we, in this contemporary global reality of interformation (as van Kaam calls it), speak of fundamental human virtues?25 Is there a universal theory or guiding principle for morality or spirituality? This work so far has indicated that in Africa we can identify universal or fundamental African virtues (chapters 3 and 4). It is clear also that in the African worldview (discussed in Chapter 1), there are basic virtues that are common in Africa although the details, nuances, and practical dynamics are different from place to place. The similarity in essence of numerous African proverbs is a good example that points to the existence of universal African virtues and principles of life. But today’s Africa is already in active interaction with the rest of the world, and therefore the need to identify universal human virtues becomes more acute day by day. In a way, Africa brings into the world stage her own experiences of virtues that are already universal. The virtues discussed in chapters 3 and 4 are a prime example. Yes, we do indeed have universal human values or virtues, and one of the main reasons that motivated me to articulate the indigenous Chagga virtues is that, in essence, they are universal. I would not have written this book if I was not convinced that my people, and my African continent, share something profoundly valuable with the rest of the world: the ongoing human quest for harmony, tranquility, justice, peace with self, with others, and with


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the entire cosmos, and the consequent desire to acquire the necessary virtues that will open the door to the desired life of harmony. Our common human search for the most basic needs such as food, good health, shelter, and peaceful living is the very dynamic that helps to define common human virtues. Numerous thinkers, artists, poets, authors, and sages have shown us that, yes, indeed, there are virtues, or certain ways of behavior that are acceptable and therefore humanizing, and there are vices or unacceptable behaviors that are dehumanizing, deformative, and destructive of our environment. Professor van Kaam makes a good point: No other life-form on this planet has created such a rich and subtle universe of form-directive meanings. The human life-form has overlaid cosmos and history with a wealth of these meanings. These directives make up our sociohistorical formation field. People of many generations disclosed together symbolic directives. In the light of experience, experiment and dialogue, they appraised them as effective for the formation of human life and its expanding fields. Neither a single life-form by itself alone nor a few generations of life-forms would have been able to accomplish this.26

In a subsequent volume, Formation of the Human Heart, van Kaam articulates in great detail some of what he calls effective symbolic directives for the formation of human life: the dispositions of the heart.27 In this volume he systematically describes dispositions (what I call virtues) such as compassion, social justice, peace, appreciation, reverence, gentleness, privacy, effective social presence, and so on. These are, in my opinion, universal human dispositions or virtues that eventually give birth to what van Kaam calls consonance or harmony with self, others, and world. In chapters 3 and 4 I have described some of these dispositions and the similarity between van Kaam’s insights and those of the elders and sages heard in this book is striking. Perhaps that is why van Kaam (a Dutch-American) felt so much at home with my parents and other African elders when he visited Tanzania in 1984. In the light of the above reflection, the argument that we can identify universal human virtues gets stronger. It makes me believe that when it is time to teach moral education to our students there is plenty of food for thought and discussion. My contention here is that we must find an effective way of establishing stronger moral and spiritual education programs in our schools in a manner that is straightforward, open, and enlightening. Virtues need to be named, clearly and

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unequivocally, so that our students realize, in mind and heart, that respecting one’s parents and elders is good, laudable, and therefore must be done, and so also respect for each person, thing, or event. A student once stunned me in class when he said that he would respect his father only if he earned it. I believe that this kind of relativism is not healthy. I cannot agree with this student. If people have to earn respect, how about a helpless baby, the unborn, those to come, how about the weak and poor, how about plants and animals who in the strict sense cannot earn respect? My father taught me a proverb and I shall go by it. He said: Lyapvo nyi lyapvo tupu, ma lyikapaîka riso (that is, your parent or child or relative is always yours even if she or he is one-eyed, “seriously flawed”). No matter what, this person is to be respected, which does not exclude disagreement in case of shortcomings or wrongdoing. Without this basic respect and reverence for life and world, it is not so hard to see the forces behind the indescribable evil of Nazi Germany, Rwanda’s genocide, the former Yugoslavia, the evils of slavery, exploitation, and so on. Perhaps we have been blinded so much by extreme analysis, rationalization, subjectivity, and relativism in our time that we fail to see that we are all brothers and sisters in an interconnected universe. What I am proposing is that we can and should identify universal human virtues and acceptable behavior patterns and make these an essential component of our educational programs. To speak of a value-free curriculum, or value-neutrality in education, and actually to practice these theories, is, to put it mildly, suicidal for society. Roger Straughan, in Can We Teach Children to be Good?, outlines clearly the main approaches to moral education in the United States in the last three decades and finally affirms that: Moral education, of both a descriptive and an evaluative kind, can and should be tackled in a number of different ways, in at least three different contexts—by parents in the home, by all teachers in their everyday teaching, and by ‘specialist’ teachers in planned ‘moral’ programmes and activities.28

Straughan argues well that like it or not school and teachers do transmit values just by being who they are and by upholding certain school rules and regulations. He then shows that value-neutrality and a value-free education are impossible, and even if these could be practiced, it is my opinion that they would be destructive, because in real life there is no standing still in morality or in any human endeavor for that matter; rather,


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one either goes forward or lags behind. It is also abundantly clear (or is it?) that if schools do not pass on definite values to their students, there are powerful and consistent forces all around them telling them in various ways (commercials and infomercials being only a couple of examples) how to live, what they should eat and wear, and so forth. Our students learn either good or bad habits; there is not an in-between. Straughan does a good job in arguing against these destructive approaches in moral education: value-free curriculum, value-neutrality, values clarification, relativism, absolutism, and related ones, and goes on to state that moral education can best be given through both the descriptive approach and the evaluative approach.29 In the descriptive model, teachers and students have the opportunity to discuss thoroughly the complexity of morality and spirituality so that students can talk intelligently on moral issues rather than passively accept moral responsibility. In this approach students and teachers sharpen their moral reasoning and build bridges between moral values and the rest of life. The evaluative approach identifies specific values and vices so that students and teachers contextualize their understanding of and reflection on virtue. This model discloses a commitment to some fundamental values, such as those described by van Kaam or those articulated in chapters 3 and 4 in this book. Students must, in other words, be assisted to acquire what Michael Lerner calls “a moral compass.”30 As noted before, Lerner advocates that schools must take a stand and be explicitly committed to “inculcate certain core values: love, empathy, caring, cooperation…”31 It is imperative therefore that schools take a hard look at their moral education programs and make every effort to design a syllabus that is holistic, equally rich in intellectual nourishment as well as in formation of heart and acquisition of moral responsibility. Both are equally essential. As much as we teach our students that oxygen and a balanced diet are essential for good health, we owe it to them to let them understand with their mind and feel with their heart that virtue is good for you, that it is essential for a harmonious human and cosmic life. This requires all concerned to name virtues and vices, discuss them at length, and then try to acquire the willingness to live a virtuous life and avoid the life of vice. TEACHERS AS CARING COMPANIONS I intend here to first express in outline general teaching approaches that may nourish moral awareness and responsibility in students, and, second,

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discuss some teacher dispositions or virtues that might facilitate the nourishment of moral responsibility in learners. Much has been written in the area of moral education, so I shall confine my reflections to my recurring hypothesis that moral education should be given as much weight as the other academic subjects in order to have graduates who continually seek excellence in intellectual pursuits as well as in an unrelenting moral living. I do agree with Roger Straughan that spirituality or moral education should be tackled “by all teachers in their everyday teaching, and by ‘specialist’ teachers in planned ‘moral’ programmes of lessons and activities.”32 The emphasis we are looking at here is that all teachers should take upon themselves the awesome responsibility of becoming moral agents, moral teachers, and moral examples. This may sound like asking too much, or asking them to do the impossible, but, honestly, I do not see any other way of doing it if we sincerely intend to build a society of intelligent, civilized, and caring people. Asking less of our teachers would be going against the time-tested wisdom of all indigenous cultures and religions who always have regarded teachers as formators of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. I believe that we need more improvement in this area of education so that education really will be education. Teachers who desire to become holistic educators will need to fulfill several conditions. I suggest three fundamental ones. First, teachers, in whatever subject they teach, should aim at informing the minds and at forming the hearts of students. The teacher should, as many education theorists have shown, stimulate students and create an atmosphere in which students are actively involved, thinking, discussing, debating, always open to further inquiry, but nevertheless coming to some practical and/or approximate conclusions. The formative teacher, as opposed to the merely information-giving teacher, sees the learning process as one in which students seek knowledge on the one hand, and thirst for insight and enlightenment on the other in an integrated manner. She or he is constantly awake to the fact, already known by indigenous peoples, that a person’s mind and spirit must be formed, molded, and developed together. Mental growth and moral awakening must go hand in hand. My experience is that, when a teacher pays close attention, he or she finds out that students have many concerns and questions in academic matters as well as in moral matters. Straughan has a similar experience: “Moral questions will confront young people in their everyday lives at least as frequently as, say, scientific or historical or artistic questions…”33 Teachers should be prepared not only to address these questions, but also to assist students to


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develop their spiritual dimensions. Often some students may indulge in drugs, gangs, or other destructive ways because they are unconsciously looking for meaning, for the transcendent realities of life—and just as often, few teachers are unwilling or unable to help. In these students there is a debilitating hunger for spiritual or moral “food” that, too often, modern education has failed to satisfy. Teachers must therefore be ready to feed the minds and hearts of our students. Anything less is a sure recipe for their eventual destruction and that of the larger society. Secondly, teachers should, as much as possible, relate their subject of study to the whole of life. Lofty intellectual ideas are of no good if they cannot improve some aspect of human and cosmic life. One of the most noticeable shortcomings of educational programs in Tanzania is that often many high school and university graduates fail to carry on an intelligent conversation with their so-called illiterate parents and grandparents. They are so “educated” that they cannot sit down on a three-legged traditional stool and converse with grandmother. How can you translate physics theories or scientific metalanguage to grandfather? some ask. As a result we in Africa experience a dividing wall between the “educated” and the “illiterate.” It is ironic that the more “educated” some become, the greater the wall becomes between them and the ordinary villagers or “country people.” In fact the separation of the two groups often extends to a geographical one because the new generation of “educated” people live in towns and cities, away from their relatives in the rural areas. It is as if the linear and analytical type of education in schools disconnects the indigenous circle of life, mentally, physically, and geographically. In this state of affairs, I believe that teachers can and should assist students to understand and experience that life is one whole. Teachers can do so in several ways: frequent reference to indigenous wisdom, proverbs, and stories; asking students to relate class discussion to experiences at home with parents and elders; encouraging students to consult village elders and sages on certain topics; inviting some elders to class; carrying on in-class lively discussion on indigenous culture, knowledge, wisdom, and so on. If teachers have great interest in indigenous culture, their students will follow suit. The main idea here is that teachers help students to see that they are part of an interconnected universe in which everyone and everything is intrinsically connected with everything else. Teachers can and should give a clear message that all fields of study and scientific research are integrated, interrelated, and interdependent in the web of the universe. Chagga indigenous education tries to do so in the raising up and education of children and youth. When, for example, a Chagga elder tells

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the story of the origin of Mount Kilimanjaro, the listeners will almost always experience, deep in their hearts, a sense of awe and wonder. They will know and feel related and interconnected to the mountain. Their imagination will be stretched to see a transcendent aspect of Kilimanjaro that evokes in them reverence and awe for the mountain and for everything that is. Indigenous education is so formative, mentally challenging, and spiritually intuiting because elders and sages appeal to their listeners’ powers of thinking, memory, imagination, and anticipation. As I reflect on my experience with indigenous elders, I become more convinced that the heart is a powerful integrating and knowing center in the humanization process. Teachers, therefore, always have the opportunity to appeal not only to student’s minds, but also to their hearts. One day in 1992 I had the privilege of chairing a panel of professors whose responsibility it was to evaluate a doctoral candidate’s dissertation presentation and defense. She had done a brilliant research work on the need to integrate reflection and active work in the everyday life of the average African working person. One of the questions posed to her that drew great applause and anticipation from the audience was: please explain, in ordinary nontechnical language, one of your main conclusions that you have expressed in a scientific language in your dissertation, in a way that your mother or other village elder will understand. She gave an excellent response, first by expressing her answer in her own African language, and then by translating it into English. I felt that my own mother, who only got as far as the second grade, would also have understood her answer. The audience, mostly scholars and students in various academic disciplines, gave her a standing ovation. Hers was a splendid example of relating learning to the ordinary everydayness. Teachers likewise have a unique opportunity to assist their students to do no less. One very effective way of assisting students to relate all facets of learning to all of life and world is to help them complement the more common analytical mode of study with formative or meditative ways of reading, thinking, and being. Most of us, educated in the Euro-American type of education, tend to think and read in an analytical and linear fashion. We move on from one idea to another, from sentence to sentence, chapter to chapter. We hardly go back for reflection and meditation. In this “fastforward” mode of thinking and reading, numerous opportunities for integrative learning are lost. We fail to involve our hearts, experiences, and memories in the learning process. This is where teachers can work miracles.


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I experienced one of these learning “miracles” when in 1982 I enrolled in a Formative Reading course taught by Professor Susan A.Muto at Duquesne University. Dr. Muto made a fine distinction between informative reading that gives us knowledge, information, and data on whatever we are reading, and formative reading that complements the former with insight, intuition, and wisdom. Formative reading is slow, repetitive, meditative, and integrative. One dwells on words or sentences, lets their meaning flow from mind to heart and heart to mind in a circular way, so that layers of meaning emerges from words or sentences that did not mean much at first reading. Dr. Muto changed my way of reading, thinking, and being once and for all.34 Doing formative reading with Dr. Muto is like listening to an African drum. Every beat is related to the ones before and the ones to come, and the dance it brings forth is alive, meaningful, and inspiring. The drum points beyond itself to ordinary and transcendent meaning and every time we beat it we experience a newness and freshness that surpasses the previous meaning without decreasing it. Formative reading, likewise, helps the reader to relate ideas to real life, and every time one rereads the same passage, new meanings and inspiration emerge without changing those words. It is like watching The Sound of Music or James Cameron’s Titanic again and again. The following passage, for instance, makes more sense with a second and third reading— slowly, meditatively. In this passage, Malidoma Somé reflects on the power of silence and speech in the culture of the Dagara people of Burkina Faso: As the years have passed, I have realized that some things can be told and others not. Telling diminishes what is told. Only what has been integrated by the human aspect of ourselves can be shared with others. I have also come to believe that things stay alive proportionally to how much silence there is around them. Meaning does not need words to exist. There are times, however, when words come to us. My experiences could not pass from me to you without the agency of words. But remember: the word is not the meaning and the meaning is not the word. At best words are merely a vehicle, a very shaky and second-rate means of human communication. This is because meaning does not have a body. Shamans tell us that, were meaning to come to us fully unveiled, it would turn us into it; that is, it would kill us. This is why we must content ourselves with whispers and glimmerings of meaning. The closer we get to it, the wiser we become.35

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The more times I read it, the more meaning I discover. It is like watching a certain movie several times. Every time we watch it again we notice some scenes and meanings not seen in the previous time. This discovery makes us even more present and attentive next time we watch again. It is the more intensified presence, attention, appreciation, and subsequent reflection that make our watching all the more inspiring and formative. The same applies to reading, thinking, and being. I have therefore come to gradually believe that teachers who encourage formative reading and learning in their classes ultimately become formative teachers, and not merely informative ones. These are the kind of teachers many of us will remember long after we have graduated. A third approach that can mold a teacher into a holistic formative teacher is a willingness and ability to facilitate a process through which students in a given classroom become a caring community. The teacher sets the example by becoming a warm and caring presence in the class, in a way that makes students feel at home with her or him. Eventually this may translate into students caring for each other. If the fundamental goal of schooling is to help students become intelligent and responsible citizens capable of making our world a better one, then the caring and the experiencing of responsible citizenship has to come alive in the classroom—kindergarten to college and beyond. Fabricandor fit faber is a Latin proverb meaning “one becomes a carpenter by actually doing carpentry work.” A classroom should be a place where students form a small caring community, a small family of learners. The teacher sets the pace, lets each student disclose his or her predisposition of communality, and things begin to happen. I have often been amazed by the awesome potential for caring in students whenever they are given a chance. In one undergraduate class in Chicago, our class became such a close-knit community that they asked me to announce to the class any serious concerns that students were going through. One student wanted the class to know that she was soon going for surgery. Another one asked me to let everyone know that his grandfather had passed away. Several times during the semester I told students what was going on in my family and if I needed support and prayers I asked for it. A few times some students brought some cookies and other goodies for everyone in the class. By the end of the semester we had a caring family in which everyone knew everyone’s name. We experienced, to some extent, what Professor Hitchcock calls, “a clearer seeing” and a “deeper feeling”


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toward one another.36 According to Hitchcock this is a transformation in the spirituality process, an experience of “a new moral attitude.”37 Somehow, each student in that class experienced being engaged in her or his inner depth, and this according to Hitchcock is moral awakening. At the end of that semester, it was hard to part, so the class organized to have a farewell party. Everyone brought food and drinks, even friends and family members. We all agreed that this experience of communality and community was one of our best learning and human experiences. The following words of Carl G.Jung made plenty of sense to our class: The best of truths is of no use—as history has shown a thousand times—unless it has become the individual’s most personal inner experiences. Every equivocal, so-called “clear” answer mostly remains in the head and only finds its way down to the heart in the very rarest of cases. Our need is not to “know” the truth but to experience it.38

One of the topics we had discussed in class was the indigenous African understanding and practice of communality. That truth became real for us as we experienced a sense of bondedness in our class. This experience was more important than the many details of African communality that filled our minds. It is that part of the learning experience that will live with us for many years to come, long after we have forgotten the numerous theoretical details learned in that course. This experience is by no means limited to my class in that spring of 1997. Many teachers and students have had similar experiences everywhere I have taught—Tanzania, Kenya, and the United States. It is my contention that all teachers should let a caring community emerge in their classes, especially in the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. THE DISPOSITIONS OF A FORMATIVE TEACHER I strongly believe that all teachers and educators, whether they are specialists in moral education, spirituality, or any other subject, should set good examples in moral responsibility and living. They should be conscious of this responsibility because, like it or not, willing or unwilling, teachers do pass on certain values to students—positive and negative. It is a true fact of life that as soon as someone is named teacher, educator, or professor, students automatically look up to her or him as a model. For this reason, and especially because we want teachers to be good moral

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agents in our schools, I would suggest that teachers try to acquire the following virtues or formative dispositions. First, teachers should approach the teaching responsibility with a feeling of awe and deep appreciation. Imagine having in your class three-or four-year-olds for several hours a day, five days a week for a whole year, and repeating the experience every year for many years! It is an awesome responsibility. These children are so full of life, of potential, dreams, and yet so vulnerable, so innocent. If teachers would spend a little more time reflecting on this awesome calling, they would more likely approach it with fear and trembling and therefore with more humility, caring, and reverence. I believe therefore that the first fundamental virtue of a good teacher is an ongoing awareness of the awesomeness of this responsibility. The indigenous elders and walosha spend much time in silence and contemplation so that they can be effective at what they are called to do. My godfather Temu, an indigenous teacher (mlosha) par excellence, says: “A mlosha’s responsibility includes the common and mysterious, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the human and the divine. No one should take this duty lightly.” And I have always tried not to take this advice lightly. Second, teachers should be willing to, and always try to, set a good moral example to their students, in and out of class. Whether one teaches nuclear physics, or theology or geology, it does not matter. Julius Nyerere, founding president of Tanzania, always referred to by Tanzanians as Mwalimu (teacher), makes a powerful statement: In all cases the child is like a young tree which can have its growth stunted or twisted, or which can be fed until it grows beyond its unassisted height, or whose branches can be pruned and trained so that the maximum fruit is obtained at maturity. And the people who have the opportunity to shape these infants—who have that power—are the teachers in our schools.39

Nyerere, a high school teacher before becoming president in 1961, echoing indigenous wisdom, went on to say that the most effective teaching technique is “teaching by being.” In so doing, a teacher inculcates a “spirit of equality, of friendship, and of mutual respect.”40 The past president of Brigham Young University, Jeffrey Holland, makes an equally important comment: Professors and presidents are in “high places.” They are—and should most assuredly


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be—“custodians of a nations ideals, of the beliefs it cherishes, of the faith which makes a nation out of a mere aggregation of individuals.”41

Straughan complements the above statements by saying that, as it is vital for children’s moral education that they see adult moral agents in real life, it becomes imperative that teachers set good moral examples, and not just authoritatively express their feelings and preferences.42 My personal experience shows that students keenly watch their teacher’s behavior. They are especially interested to see whether a teacher’s conduct conforms to his or her words and teachings. I have seen students who started smoking because some of their teachers smoke. Others come to class late or early depending on what time the teacher comes in. The point here is that the teacher’s behavior does matter, one way or another. It matters if the teacher cares for his or her family. Students pick up these vibes. It matters whether or not the teacher is a hard worker, a good organizer, a decently dressed person. Young people, by nature, are obsessed by role models, they easily imitate parents, teachers, and other significant adults. And the younger they are, the more they imitate. Thus the need for teachers to set good examples, regardless of the subject they teach, cannot be overemphasized. Third, a teacher should be an elder, a parent, a friend, and a life companion to her or his students. The indigenous Chagga image of a teacher deserves some attention here. The Chagga word mlosha or mloshi (plural walosha, waloshi) is usually represented by the word teacher in English. In the Chagga culture, however, the word mlosha is much more than implied by the English term teacher. The term mlosha refers to a sage who has a number of responsibilities in a community: she or he shows by example how to live as a responsible citizen; the mlosha teaches first and foremost how to live, and then also how to earn a living; he or she prepares the young for adulthood and marriage; the mlosha also is a revered counselor and guide; a storyteller, custodian, and commentator of history and tradition; and peacemaker. The indigenous mlosha therefore is an all-encompassing teacher who takes upon himself or herself the heavy responsibility of shaping the future of society through a comprehensive formation process of the young and old alike. It is important to note here that the walosha are not, strictly speaking, paid for their services. Like indigenous doctors and diviners, they are not motivated by profit but by their desire to bring harmony, prosperity, and happiness to the community. The mlosha is to the community an elder and sage, to the youth, a parent and grandparent, to everyone a friend and life companion. Her or

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his effectiveness is in just being who she or he is: a wise one who is fully present and profoundly concerned, always willing to give counsel and support. This is the indigenous mlosha. This is a teacher par excellence. I believe that our contemporary schoolteachers should try to do and be the same, because this is the future of our nations and cultures. We are always saying that our children are our future but we pay so little attention to our schools, the kind of teachers we hire, and the curricula in place in these schools. Consider the following statement by Professor Kaplan of the University of Haifa: We spend on advertising, in direct costs alone, three times as much as we do on higher education; the commodities advertised are chiefly cigarettes, junk foods, liquors, and cosmetics. For every dollar spent by the thirty-five top advertisers, thirty-five top university libraries spend one and a half cents.43

In the fall of 1998 many school districts in the United States hired untrained “teachers” to teach in elementary schools because “teachers are not enough.” Are we really serious when we say that our children are our future? More than ever before we desperately need to redefine what we mean by education and therefore prepare and hire teachers accordingly. Like the indigenous walosha, our teachers will be more effective as moral agents if they become concerned parents to their students, caring companions, and good friends to them. Two years ago, when I turned fifty, I noticed that most of the freshmen I was teaching were young enough to be my children, even my grandchildren. Several times I referred to them as “my sons and daughters” and quickly explained that in the African culture any children their age are referred to as “my children.” To my surprise, many of them felt respected and cared for by calling them “my daughters and sons.” They saw me as a father, then as a friend, and a learning companion. Together we created a great learning atmosphere. When I look back to my school days I vividly remember some teachers, not so much due to their high intelligence, but especially because they deeply touched my heart. They cared for me and other students, they shared my pain and success, they were always present in the ups and downs of my life. They were good people, so human, so down-to-earth. Our kindergarten teacher, Bruno Lyimo, was, and still is, a perfect gentleman. He encouraged us, trusted us, and cared for us deeply. I have a lot of respect for him. The last time I sat in his class


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was in 1952. Yet I remember our class and our great teacher as if it was yesterday. I remember other great teachers, from grade 1 all the way to graduate school. Fourth, it seems to me that every teacher has a story to tell, and should therefore try to gradually acquire the ability to tell stories. I say so because our human life and world are in fact one monumental human, cosmic, and transcosmic story (the fundamental story) consisting of innumerable stories of every kind. The fundamental story gives life and meaning to every big and small story emerging from it. Every human being and everything, seen and unseen, is part of the fundamental story, which is why we find stories to be interesting and inspiring because they point to realities much larger than themselves, yet close to our own experiences. In fact none of our experiences make sense if they are severed from the much larger context of life and world-human, cosmic, and transcosmic. Schooling, in my view, is one important way of actively participating in and contributing to the great fundamental story of life. Learning divorced from the fundamental story is grossly inadequate, inauthentic, indeed it is not learning at all. But schooling that recognizes the fundamentality of the much larger story that supports it is holistic, humanizing, and, hence, formative. This recognition is one of the main strengths of indigenous education. I believe, therefore, that every aspect of schooling should be seen as what it really is, a story born of the fundamental one, yet in its own unique way contributes fundamentally to the big story. Following this premise, we can move on to contend that every subject taught in school is a story being told by both the teacher and the students. Teachers and students become storytellers and story listeners. A formative teacher, therefore, tries to create a learning atmosphere where she or he is the leading storyteller and the students gradually learn to become master storytellers and listeners, in and out of class, before and after graduation. In this learning situation, schooling becomes more formative (not merely informative), because learners and teachers relate this subject to the fundamental story, all the time attempting to fit it in its appropriate niche in the great story of life. Teachers who gradually become good storytellers and listeners, whatever their subject of specialization, will in this process evoke in students a profoundly formative moral and intellectual consciousness. Such teachers become more effective, formative, practiceoriented, and human. I strongly believe therefore that every teacher should strive to become a master storyteller and listener, an expert in relating his

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or her subject to the web of the universe. This is the way of the indigenous walosha, the gurus of Asia, the Greek philosophers like Socrates, and numerous sages across cultures and ages. Their teachings are simple yet profound and wise, because they are intimately connected to everything else. They are accomplished storytellers of the great story of life. In conclusion, it seems proper to say that our national and local agendas, in Tanzania and elsewhere, should assist teachers to reclaim their pristine respect by giving them much better salaries and benefits. Our teachers are paid so poorly that the message seems to be: Education is not our number one priority and teachers are not important. We have noted in the critiques above that in a world situation where profit making and material things are ultimate priorities, education is seen as a gateway to success and wealth. And if one can become rich without an education, then who needs it? We have seen in Tanzania some who have amassed wealth through business deals without a whole lot of education in their curriculum vitae. Others have quit school, at primary or secondary school levels, and plunged headlong into businesses, hoping to get rich quickly. A few of those who succeed become proof that you can become rich without an education. In this unfortunate situation there are several victims: the importance of a good education; the learning process itself; and the teaching profession. Many graduates despise teaching because “there is no money there.” And a majority of those who ultimately become teachers have either been forced into teaching by mandatory government selection, or because teaching is the only job available. These trends are undermining our school systems in profound ways. If teachers and students are in the class because they have no other choice, then our society is really in trouble. In this scenario gone will be formative teachers, teachers as storytellers, holistic learning, excellence in intellectual and moral education, students as lovers of knowledge and wisdom, and the civility born of a holistically educated society. We have therefore a serious situation upon us, one that requires a radical change of mind, an overhauling of our value-system—all based on a solid moral and spiritual awakening and deepening. A close examination of the spirituality of indigenous people would be one great place to start.


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THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS IN HOLISTIC EDUCATION From 1977 to 1982, while I taught spirituality full-time at a philosophy college in Northern Tanzania, I also had two hours weekly to teach a course in religion for the senior class (Form 4) at a nearby girls’ secondary school. Every year for those six years I had in this class about forty Grade 12 girls who eagerly waited for graduation and who obviously were concerned about their future. As is the case most of the time in Africa, all these girls belonged to one religion or another—Christians of several denominations and Muslims.44 The majority, however, were Catholics, because this was a private secondary school owned by the Catholic diocese of Moshi, Tanzania. According to an arrangement by the Tanzanian government and the various religious organizations, religion may be taught in all schools, public and private. For two hours a week, representatives of different religions come to each school and teach religion in separate classes according to one’s religion. In this way, no students find themselves being forced to learn about religion other than their own. Several times in a semester all students and teachers would come together for common prayers and religious services presided over by several interdenominational religious leaders. In the first few months of every academic year, all the students in my class were Catholics. The number increased gradually as we were joined by students of other religions. We then had a good mixture of Muslims, Protestants, Anglicans, and Catholics. I soon learned that the non-Catholic students came to our class, not to learn about Catholicism, but because it appeared to them that we were learning about religion in a way that related to their lives and concerns. All these young ladies, whatever their religious affiliation, were looking for some answers to their ever-present concerns on social, political, and economic issues. They were anxious about establishing careers, about how to find a good husband (now that the indigenous way of assisting in spouse-choosing is almost nonexistent), about how to raise a family, and on and on. We followed a suggested syllabus (used in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) that touched on these concerns, but which, as expected, did not answer everyday practical questions. These young people were searching for fundamental religious guidelines that would be a compass in their lives. They were not looking for what they can do for religion, but what religion can do for them.

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The girls’ persistent search for answers, and their fundamental trust in religion—even though they had certain criticisms on some religious issues—energized me and prompted me to be more ecumenical and universal in my class discussion, and especially forced me to look at the most basic teachings found in religions. This new challenge gave me an opportunity to explore new ways of understanding and teaching religious values to a multireligious group of people, which is a reflection of the world today. Now, sixteen years later, after more study, research, and teaching spirituality and indigenous African virtues, I have gradually realized that there are certain fundamental guidelines that are common in all religions and that there is such a thing as a fundamental human spirituality. I believe in particular that religions are here for the betterment of humanity and not vice versa. Religions are at their best, and they shine like the stars, when they improve the quality of human life and of the environment. Religions acquire moral authority and authenticity when they bring humans closer to one another and assist us to care for one another, in particular for the weakest and most vulnerable among us. This most fundamental aspect of every religion is a good topic for discussion in a multireligious community, and, in our specific interest in this book, in moral education. So, should schools teach religion in order to deepen the moral and spiritual awareness of students? Michael Lerner has a good suggestion: “Don’t teach religion; teach about religions and teach spiritual awareness.”45 Lerner then elaborates: Schools should teach about the religious, spiritual and philosophical heritage of the world, which should include the traditions of Asia, Africa, and South America, as well as Europe and North America. Some schools do this already, but usually to fulfull a mandate to “teach diversity,” rather than to attune children to their spiritual dimension of universal human existence.46

Lerner’s statement that world religions do have a common spiritual heritage is supported by Towards a Global Ethic, an Initial Declaration by the Parliament of the World’s Religions, which met in Chicago, August 28 to September 5, 1993. This Parliament, attended by over 157 religious leaders, theologians, and spiritual masters from all over the world, declared: We affirm that there is an irrevocable, unconditional norm for all areas of life, for families and communities, for races, nations and religions. There already exist ancient


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guidelines for human behavior which are found in the teachings of the religions of the world and which are the condition for a sustainable world order.47

In addition, the Parliament identified the following as fundamental values: respect for the community of living beings, for people, animals, and plants, and for the preservation of Earth, the air, water, and soil; nonviolence; a just social and economic order; patience and forgiveness; discipline of mind and heart; sacrifice; a spirit of compassion with those who suffer, with special care for the children, the aged, the poor, disabled, refugees, and the lonely.48 The entire Declaration (ten pages long) is excellent material for discussion in a religious class or a moral education class, especially for high school and college students. Religious organizations can therefore contribute to the moral education of all learners by preparing teachers and professors who are well rooted in their own religious tradition, but have the capability to transcend their own religious perspectives in order to discuss fundamental human values in an intelligent and inspiring way. These teachers should feel at home with youth of diverse religions through their comprehensive knowledge of several religions and especially by their profound respect for all religions. A teacher or professor who shows genuine care and respect to each of her or his students, regardless of their religious background, is already giving them a great lesson in moral education through this caring and respecting. Such teachers, like the indigenous mlosha, will be able to relate basic religious teachings to the here and now situation, to issues of justice and peace, respect and communality. My experience is that a religious teacher who really cares for his or her students in all their concerns is the best candidate for teaching about religion in a multireligious class. Perhaps that is why Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Theresa touched and continue to touch so many hearts and lives—they truly care. It is important to note here that religions, like all human institutions, are not perfect because they are the work of fallible humanity—vulnerable, weak, imperfect, yet always capable of rising above imperfection and achieving excellence in many ways. Thus in using religion and religious values in moral education it is imperative that religious educators and spiritual leaders recognize the potential pitfalls in all religions caused by human greed, hate, ignorance, appetite for possessions, power and prestige, superficial knowledge about the dynamics of religion, lack of ongoing reflection, and so on. Such pitfalls include religious fundamentalism;

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idolatry (deifying religious beliefs and teachings); legalism; superstition in religion; turning religion into an ideology (a way of achieving personal or communal political, social, or economic power); exclusively using religious faith and excluding reason; authoritarianism and dictatorship; seeing one’s religion as exclusively authentic and thus despising others; religious persecutions and wars; extreme mortification; a pseudospirituality that discounts the importance of earthly happiness, prosperity, and peace; and so on. History is everywhere littered with the debris of religious persecutions, wars, and forced conversions. There are skeletons in the attic of every religion or religious tradition. Every religion has sinned. De Mello says it so well: If religious people had always followed the instinct of their heart rather than the logic of their religion we would have been spared the sight of heretics burning at the stakes, widows walking into the funeral pyres, and millions of innocent people slaughtered in wars that are waged in the name of God.49

The same is true when we look at other human institutions such as governments, schools, families, and so forth. None of these is perfect. Yet all of them, including religions, have contributed in countless ways to the well-being of humanity and our planet. History, again, is full of innumerable examples of goodness emerging out of such institutions and out of the persons who constitute them. Perhaps, when all is said and done, the good in human history far surpasses the evil. The shortcomings we find in religions due to human frailty should not therefore make us dismiss them, neither in our ongoing quest for harmony, justice, and peace, nor in our holistic educational programs. We should not, so the English say, throw away the baby with the bath water. In the same way we cannot dismiss the importance of governments, families, and various organizations simply because they are far from perfect. We shall keep them like we keep our babies, and throw away the bath water. So also in our religions. In teaching about religions and moral education in our schools we therefore should focus on the beautiful things that religions have offered and will continue to offer, such as the fundamental human values so powerfully articulated and lived by Moses, Buddha, Muhammed (570–632, Arab prophet and founder of Islam), Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Dag Hammarskjold (Swedish United Nations Secretary General, 1953–61), and countless others, including ordinary nonfamous people like some of our neighbors, relatives, and friends. These are giants of virtue who should decorate all the pages of our


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school textbooks just as conspicuously as people like Julius Caesar (100–44 BC), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), Isaac Newton (1642– 1727), the ancient queens of Ghana, and others. The human heroes in spirituality are no less important than scientists, philosophers, and other specialists. We cannot afford to discard any of them. As we claim, reclaim, and appreciate the formative potential of religious traditions for our communities, families, and schools, we stand to receive infinite moral and spiritual treasures if we keep in mind that it is the saints in every religion, the courageous women, children, and men who tirelessly strive for excellence in virtue who are also the best and unrelenting critics of their own religions. The very fact of being a saint is itself a biting criticism of the greed, ignorance, and hatred so rampant everywhere around the saint. The presence of a virtuous person illumines the darkness brought about by human insensitivity to others and to the environment. But these giants of virtue do more than just criticize by their radiating presence. They verbally express their disgust on the mediocrity, materialism, and rugged individualism that surround them. They also criticize their own religions whenever appropriate and try to awaken their sisters and brothers from the slumber of believing that religions are perfect. Martin Luther (1483–1546) said: Religio semper reformanda (Latin for “religion is in constant need of reform.”)50 And De Mello quotes Buddha who says: Monks and scholars should not accept my words out of respect but should analyse them as a goldsmith analyses gold by cutting, melting, scraping, and rubbing it.51

Religions will become more formative and effective if their adherents, leaders, and theologians keep in mind that religious creeds, codes, and ceremonies (that is, beliefs/dogmas; laws/commandments/ regulations; and ritual words and actions, respectively), which are common in all religions, should be understood as means pointing beyond themselves, and not as an end in themselves. Beliefs, regulations, and rituals have the purpose of awakening and conscientizing believers to continually strive for responsible moral living and a deepening spirituality. The concrete and tangible results of such moral and spiritual living is a growing human and cosmic harmony. The best theologically articulated beliefs and creeds, the most comprehensive religious laws, and the most moving religious ceremonies are useful only when they gradually motivate believers to care for one another, to care for the environment, to work for justice

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and peace. This will be religion at its best. Religion establishes its raison d’être only when it continually brings forth good fruit: human and cosmic harmony. Religions have done that with considerable success and will continue to do so, notwithstanding the fact of their shortcomings. Ultimately then, it is religions for the good of humankind and the environment, not vice versa. I sometimes speculate that if all humans one day come to a point of universal concern for one another, and profound respect for all that is, if that point would be reached, then religions would have done their job, and therefore would be redundant. But in reality, we know that this is not possible, so the fact remains that we shall always have religions in our midst, with the condition that we shall always critique them so that they do not degenerate into quasireligious ideologies, tools of oppression, authoritarianism, and so on. Believers have the responsibility to see to it that their religions continue to be one of the major sources for a strong morality and spirituality, one of the best inspirations for a life of virtue. In conclusion, religions, seen from this perspective, have much to offer to students of all ages, cultures, and religious backgrounds, in private as well as public schools. Rejecting or denying their fundamental teachings of respect, care, justice, and peace is robbing our students of a unique opportunity to learn and acquire these fundamental human values. KNOWLEDGE AND SPIRITUALITY Is there a link between knowledge and spirituality in contemporary educational programs? Do educators and students understand that knowledge and spirituality are essential constituents of a good education? The evidence, according to my experience, seems to suggest that both our contemporary cultures and school programs are quickly moving toward an understanding that knowledge, science, and technology are everything we need for human and cosmic well-being, and that spirituality is a private aspect of life and therefore an optional area of study in educational programs. Knowledge, science, and technology are glamorized, idolized, and almost deified. Spirituality, on the other hand, is seen as a personal affair, a private responsibility of individuals, their religious organizations, and families. It is possible in our time to have many people who think that a public official’s service to the people is a public affair, and her or his moral life is a private affair. The dark side of this situation is that so many people can


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mentally separate someone’s public service from that person’s spirituality. The bright side is that there are many other people who are saying that a person’s skills and success in public are intimately connected to his or her moral life. The debate between the two groups is anything but cold. But the mere existence of a growing number of people who see a neat distinction between knowledge and spirituality is a very dangerous state of affairs. This distinction, with the consequent marginalizing of spirituality, seems to be common in our culture and in our schools. A definition of the terms knowledge and spirituality may shed light on this discussion. Knowledge is learning, erudition, scholarship; it is facts, data, ideas acquired by study, investigation, observation, and experience. Science, briefly defined, is knowledge covering general truths and principles or the operation of general laws, obtained through rigorous study, research, investigation, using a specific systematic method of observation, analysis, and documentation of theories and approximate conclusions. Technology is a scientific method of achieving a practical purpose; it is the totality of the means employed to provide objects necessary for human sustenance and comfort. Thus defined, knowledge, science, and technology are related terms, their common denominator being knowledge and its usefulness for human and cosmic life. Spirituality, on the other hand, seems harder to define. The prefix spirit refers to the deepest identity of the human person, the innermost core that every culture and religion has acknowledged as real and fundamental in a person. Whether we call it spirit or soul or transcendent mind, the fact is that we experience deep in us a reality, a presence, a life force that we sometimes call the inner voice, the heart of hearts, an entity often indescribable, yet as real as our visible body. Our spirit is the home of insight, inspiration, intuition, the place in us where no other person can reach (except God, for believers), a center where we feel most alone (but not lonely), most unique, and yet, ironically, the place from where we feel deeply connected with others and the universe. It is this center of our being that we find hardest to describe to another person, so we say, “I cannot put into words what I am going through, and even if I could find the words, you cannot ever fully understand my deepest core experience.” This center is a potency that continually wants to grow, to inspire every other dimension of human life. It wants to burst forth and to bloom in order to humanize us, but it also needs to be given the opportunity and freedom to make each person the best one can be. I believe that in each human being lies this powerful center, this spirit or soul, which, when

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given the freedom and opportunity to flower, when not blunted by materialism, consumerism, greed, mediocrity, and cowardice, makes a person work “miracles,” to survive the harshest of situations, to hope in hopelessness, to live in the midst of death. How else then can we have a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, Jr., a Mother Theresa, a Nelson Mandela? Each one of them got their life-strength from his or her deepest core, the spirit, in which, being believers, they meet the Infinite Meaning, that is, God. Most people will never be a Gandhi or a Mandela, but all of them, all people, have the same spirit-potency, unique in each person that is fundamental in the process of becoming human. Having said the above about the prefix spirit, I would define spirituality as follows: a willingness and tendency, which should become increasingly conscious, to continually listen to, and draw strength and inspiration from, one’s deepest center, so that practically one cares for and respects others and the universe, feels interconnected to all that is, works for personal and community harmony, and always tries to make the world a better place to live. A spiritual person has the ability to be fully present to what is going on inside and outside of him or her. His or her presence makes you relax in peace, even and especially when things are not going well. Such a person continually tries to treat everyone as sister or brother, with respect, dignity, and justice. A spiritual person will always try to be morally responsible, well-behaved, civilized, a lady, a gentleman. This is what I understand by spirituality—moral responsibility, civility, and good conduct—practiced, not once in a while, but as often as possible. It may be hard to define spirituality, but perhaps it is easier to recognize it when we see it in a spiritual person. When Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago died in November 1996, everyone mourned, Jew, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Muslim, White, Brown, or Black. The Cardinal’s love for everyone moved freely beyond race, color, or creed. When I fail to describe spirituality or cannot do so adequately, I look at people like Cardinal Bernardin, or my parents, or some of my friends or neighbors, and many others, and behold! There I see spirituality in the flesh, so tangible, much sweeter than honey. When I read and reread the following reflection that a friend of mine wrote for his wife, I see that it spells s-pi-r-i-t-u-a-l-i-t-y: I watch you give birth and forget all about the pain, And I praise God for the gift of life. I see you bonding with our children while nursing them, And I praise God for the gift of nourishment.


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I hear you singing with our children and truly enjoying it, And I praise God for the gift of song. I marvel at your organization and your ability to manage it all, And I praise God for creativity. I observe you avoiding conflict through creative distraction, And I praise God for the gift of peacemaker. I hear you sharing with your children the joy of reading, And I praise God for the gift of intellect. I witness your persevering patience, And I praise God for the gift of love. I watch you preparing meals with our children on the counter beside you, And I praise God for the gift of hospitality. I witness the fruits of your heart, And I praise God for the gift of you. This author is an ordinary person whose growing spirituality is manifested and deepened by his deep awareness of and appreciation for the many gifts that his wife gives to the family. Here is a husband so fully present in his life situation that out of his contemplative heart flows a beautiful song of appreciation, affirmation, and thanksgiving. Imagine the joy experienced by his wife when he gives her this reflection in writing. What I am seeing here in both wife and husband is a spirituality that deepens their family love and union, gives it meaning, and heals the inevitable bruises that we all get in human relationships. I may not be able to define spirituality more comprehensively, but I certainly see it in this family. It is so real and tangible that you can lean on it. Although I have tried to define knowledge and spirituality separately, indigenous peoples, ancient cultures worldwide, and the sages and spiritual masters among us do not distinguish the two so neatly. We have seen throughout chapters 1 to 4 that the indigenous Chagga people raise and educate their children holistically. They form their minds and hearts simultaneously, with special (not exclusive) emphasis on spiritual and moral formation. Indigenous people know that the ongoing development of the spirit is crucial in a person’s humanization process, and therefore do everything they can to awaken and nurture this dimension in every child and youth. They take this responsibility very seriously because it is a matter of life and death. That is why indigenous peoples have initiation programs and rituals that may look “primitive” or even cruel to the modern mind, and yet, for the indigenous initiates, this is a time of intense spiritual awakening and growth. Malidoma Somé describes the Dagara initiation process:

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For me, initiation had eliminated my confusion, helplessness, and pain and opened the door to a powerful understanding of the link between my own life purpose and the will of my ancestors. I had come to understand the sacred relationship between children and old people, between fathers and their adolescent sons, between mothers and daughters. I knew especially why my people have such a deep respect for old age, and why a strong, functioning community is essential for the maintenance of an individual’s sense of identity, meaning and purpose. I used this knowledge as my starting point.52

Malidoma, who from the age of five to the age of twenty received plenty of knowledge in a missionary seminary in his West African country (Burkina Faso [formerly Upper Volta]), later found wisdom (spirituality) in his own village listening to elders, his parents, remembering his grandfather, and going through an initiation formation program for six weeks. He says: “During the Dagara initiation process, I grew into myself. The problems I had became resolved as I entered into my own true nature.”53 I am taking the liberty to translate his “growing into myself” to imply “becoming more mature, growing in spirituality,” and “I entered into my own true nature” to mean “entering into my own deepest spiritual center.” It is evident throughout Professor Somé’s book that the Euro-American education he received for many years only left him confused, unconnected, and even angry. He knew a lot but felt that something profound was missing in him. It is the wisdom and spiritual formation program of his people that gave him back to himself, gave meaning to the vast amount of intellectual knowledge he had received in modern schools, and, above all, made him appreciate not only his people and their precious wisdom, but also those very “educators” who had given him an analytical, unconnected, and confusing knowledge. By this reflection I am not advocating a return to indigenous initiation rites in Tanzania or anyplace else. It is impossible to do so because times have changed and we have to move with the times. The point I am making is that educators and teachers today have the moral responsibility to create programs and curricula that will facilitate the positive development of the students’ minds and hearts, not just their minds, not mostly their minds. Knowledge and wisdom (Latin: scientia and sapientia) must go together, complementing and fulfilling each other. On May 8, 1937, Gandhi said: Unless the development of the mind and body goes hand in hand with a corresponding awakening of the soul, the former alone would prove to be a poor lopsided affair. By


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spiritual training I mean education of the heart. A proper and all-round development of the mind, therefore, can take place only when it proceeds pari passu with the education of the physical and spiritual faculties of the child. They constitute an indivisible whole. According to this theory, it would be a gross fallacy to suppose that they can be developed piecemeal or independently of one another.54

I believe Gandhi has said it excellently, and when Gandhi speaks, I am all ears. When I look around in our world today, I see a lot of good things happening, hoping always that we can do much better than we are doing now. I see too grave shortcomings often caused by people who are “well educated.” Consider these tragic situations: a widening gap between the rich and the poor; half the population of the world goes hungry every day; the power of multinational corporations (not owned by many nations, but they exploit many nations) that often supersedes that of nation states; the economy of the majority of the world’s nations being controlled by a handful of nations; the world’s military spending equaling the income of nearly fifty percent of the world’s people; the breakup of family life; increasing materialism, consumerism, and selfishness; a seeming loss of our sense of the common good; polluted air, water, and soil; and so on. How can these things happen in a world rich with knowledge, information, science, and technology? Experts, economists, politicians, and others will say something like this: “the situation is more complex than we see it”; “there are no easy answers.” My grandmother has a simple answer: “People are increasingly caring less and less for one another. Caring for one another gives life, greed and unchecked materialism bring death.” No surprise therefore that Pope John Paul II calls modern culture the “culture of death.” When spirituality takes the back seat instead of the steering wheel, we rush headlong to our death. Life, on the other hand, is brought and sustained by a spirit of caring, a spirit of profound respect, a spirit of simplicity. Educational programs have therefore a life-and-death responsibility to awaken and develop the hearts and souls of students as much as they nourish and enrich their intellects. To quote Gandhi again: “Knowledge without character is a power for evil only, as seen in the instances of so many ‘talented thieves’ and ‘gentlemen rascals’ in the world.”55 It is important to note here that a certain school of thought, only becoming increasingly known now, has been vehemently opposed to the mainstream educational thinking in Europe and America. Described as the “romantic,” “child-centered,” and “humanistic” education, this trend

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of thought has been alive since the publication of Rousseau’s Emile in 1762. The leading thinkers in this tradition in Europe include Pestallozzi, Froebel, Montessori, Steiner, Tolstoy, Ferrer, and Neill; in the United States Rousseauan ideas have come to us via the Transcendentalists, in particular through Bronson Alcott. The central theme of their thinking is that education should provide a deep respect for the organic unfolding of life processes, including the spiritual and intellectual development of human, beings. I am keenly interested in this kind of approach to education, not because in many ways it is similar to the indigenous African education systems, but particularly because it reiterates my recurring contention that a genuine life-giving education has to be integrative, holistic, human, and cosmic friendly. In the late 1970s this new kind of humanistic education began to be described as a holistic education, which severely criticized modern culture and modern schooling programs. This holism, as seen in the Chagga and African educational systems, emphasizes wholeness, meaning, interconnectedness, and spirituality, in opposition to today’s materialistic, fragmented, and reductionistic perspectives in life and education. Holistic education, like the Chagga indigenous one, is a way of knowing that does not separate science and spirituality. Gregory Cajete, a Tewa Native American from New Mexico, splendidly shows in his book Look to the Mountain that modern culture and education do not serve life but modern technology.56 He shows that the Native American education, again like the indigenous African, is a life-centered education that holistically integrates the individual person within larger-that-life contexts: community, nature, and spirituality. Other related sources as “a must read” for the interested reader and educator are, among others: Parker Palmer, To Know as We are Known; William E.Doll, A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum; James Moffett, The Universal Schoolhouse; John P.Miller, The Holistic Curriculum; New Directions in Education (a collection of thirty articles); the Holistic Education Review; and so on. In conclusion I would like to note that the interconnectedness of science and spirituality in educational programs cannot be overemphasized. In fact, I would go so far as saying that an authentic spirituality or life of virtue is a conditio sine qua non, an indispensable foundation for all human endeavors and cosmic consonance. First, spirituality is a foundation for a good and humanizing education. Without virtues like awe and wonder for natural phenomena, perseverance in the hard work of research, truthfulness in documenting approximate conclusions and theories, openness and humility toward other researchers and thinkers, and


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insightful ongoing reflection on findings—without these and related moral virtues, education plunges into mediocrity, that is mediocre educators, mediocre students, mediocre findings, and, mediocre conclusions.57 Needless to say, this would pose great peril for humanity and the cosmos. Second, spirituality is indispensable if science, knowledge, technology, and wealth are to be put to good use for the welfare of all humans and of the environment. In our world today, the possibilities for science and technology to do good or evil are beyond our wildest imagination. Without virtue these powers will be used against other nations and communities for the benefit of only some of us. This is already happening. All indications seem to point to more havoc, more misuse of science and technology. The power to destroy is really no power at all. Real power is in caring for one another, in seeing to it that the weak and poor and marginalized are loved and treated justly. That is why one act of Mother Theresa attending a dying person on the street is mightier than any army, any nuclear bomb, any act of destruction. The house of science and technology must be built on the sure foundation of virtuous living, without which this eventually collapse and destroy all of us dwelling in it. , spirituality must be the solid basis on which government and governing must be anchored. Governments, like science and technology, are very powerful. The greatest atrocities against humanity and the environment have been, and continue to be, committed by governments. The skeletons are too many to be counted. In fact, in our time, all skeletons can be annihilated (almost) by “efficient” technological means so that no evidence remains. Think of Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, South Africa, and slavery on all continents, to name a few examples. Without spirituality, any government—whether it is Marxist, socialist, democratic, fascist, or whatever—will be a destructive tyrant beyond description. Fourth, political ideologies will be useful, human, and environmentally friendly if they are based on genuine care, respect for all, and an unrelenting quest for justice. In a democracy, for instance in the United States and Tanzania, citizens need to discuss issues, talk to one another, and vote for public officials. The freedom enjoyed by such citizens is a great moral responsibility that absolutely requires ongoing respect for one another, justice, and a strong sense of commonality. It is freedom to rigorously work for everyone’s dignity, for moral integrity, and for justice. It is not freedom not to be virtuous, rather it is an obligation to be virtuous. A democracy cannot survive any other way. There is an inspiring inscription at the Korean Memorial in Washington, D.C., which says Freedom is not free. This means two things to me: first, that people may have to fight and

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even sacrifice their lives to preserve their political and social freedom; second, freedom is not freedom from moral responsibility, rather it is a fundamental human call to live virtuously. Moral responsibility is not an option, it is a must. In this sense, only those who continually struggle to be morally responsible can enjoy authentic freedom. So, freedom is indeed, not free. The other forms of government—totalitarianism, monarchy, and rule by so-called divine call—like democracy, must continually rule by moral laws. This is, again, possible only through virtuous living by allgovernment officials and citizens. Spirituality and holistic living are to a good governing ideology what a central roof pole is to an indigenous Chagga house. Fifth, families and communities flourish when their members feel connected to one another and care for everyone. The unique contribution of each individual must be respected and received by a community in which the spiritual values of communality, respect, and justice are practiced as much as possible. Thus the foundation on which families and communities are built is virtuous living. This is why indigenous Chagga people do everything they can to prepare responsible adults, parents, and citizens. They know that moral responsibility is the heartbeat that keeps the society strong and healthy. We have already seen the Ghanaian proverb: “The ruin of a nation begins in the home of its people.” In other words, virtue builds families and, therefore, nations. This is a theme that should weave through anything and everything that goes on in our schools. I have had the opportunity to study and teach in the United States for about ten years. Of the fifty states, I have visited nineteen and toured numerous cities and towns. Everywhere I have been I have seen the marvels of human effort: historical monuments of distinguished art and beauty, inspiring museums, towering skyscrapers, great highways, and a transportation system that Tanzanians can only dream about. I have seen achievements of science and technology that appear to be miracles to anyone who does not know the dynamics that make them tick. While I realize that what I have seen and heard is only a fraction of human marvels worldwide, I must admit, after some reflection, that what has been achieved in the United States is, to a great extent, a product of the hard work and selfless sacrifices of the founding mothers and fathers, a fruit of the perseverance and discipline of countless previous generations—all of them powered by an underlying spirituality emerging out of the Judeo-Christian traditions. In short, I am saying that the great economic and social achievements in the United States are as much the direct fruits of hard


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work, perseverance, discipline, and a persistent desire for excellence (that is, fruits of spirituality), as much as they are products of knowledge, science, and technology. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the profound desire of the U.S. founding fathers and mothers to lay a solid foundation for the future. In the minds of these U.S. ancestors, their future, which is now for contemporary generations, was always real for them. They felt deeply concerned and connected to their children and grandchildren. Every line of the U.S. Constitution testifies to the fact that the founders were men and women who really cared. They were grounded in a solid spirituality and moral directives. It is this solid spiritual grounding that is largely responsible for what Americans call “Our Sweet Land of Liberty.” Now, if the Sweet Land Of Liberty is to continue to be so, the United States urgently needs to go back to that solid spiritual grounding. The United States needs it, Tanzania needs it, the whole world needs it. What will save us from perdition (if it is not too late) is not more knowledge, science, and technology, but rather a spiritual revival in which our most profound values and priorities will be concern for everyone’s well-being, justice, a clean environment, a hand-up (not merely a hand-out) for those we have marginalized, and the creation of a world where we all feel at home. These fundamental human values, so dearly cherished by indigenous peoples, will not be achieved if the people of the world—rich and poor alike—continue to idolize profit, wealth, money, and power. The more I reflect on the state of affairs in our world today, the more I deeply appreciate the wisdom of our indigenous elders whose priority at all times is to awaken and develop the spiritual dimension of children, youth, and society. Gandhi writes: “The most spiritual act is the most practical in the true sense of the term.”58 Finally, I see spirituality as a necessary foundation for religions if they are to be useful to humanity. I distinguish between religion and spirituality because I see spirituality as both the foundation and final purpose of religion. In the history of every religion there are individuals who have soared high above the others because they persistently practice what their religion preaches. They let the creeds, codes, and ceremonies of religion touch and motivate their deepest identities—their spirit or heart. These are religious people who transcend religious creeds, codes, and ceremonies in order to become spiritually and morally responsible people. These are the ones who keep religions alive and valid among humans. They realize that a mental grasp of religious beliefs and ritual performances, however perfect, are only the beginning of the journey that should lead to

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spirituality; that is, awakening to, and practicing of, the fundamental human virtues. One of the Christian spiritual masters of the fifteenth century said: “I would rather feel compunction than know its definition” (Thomas a Kempis, 1379–1471). Let us listen to Gandhi one more time: It is not the Hindu religion which I certainly prize above all other religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever purifies.59

That religion within religion is what I call spirituality. This is the force that, as Gandhi says, changes human nature, and purifies it. Thus understood, spirituality as a reachable goal is the common denominator in all religions, and, above all, it is the center where all human beings feel most united, most at home, most human. Spirituality is the language that all human beings can speak. And when we speak it, all cosmic phenomena will hear and understand. For what language is clearer to the mind, sweeter in the heart than kindness, appreciation, freeing the poor, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, one at a time? When religions speak this language, everyone understands and is touched. It is the language that Mother Theresa talked and everyone of the six billion people in the world understood. Thus, spirituality is, and must be, the foundation of religion. And so, to summarize the six points above, I would state that spirituality or a life of virtue must be made the foundation of families, communities, and nations; governments and growing ideologies; economic systems and practices; religions; all human endeavors and institutions; and, of course, educational programs. It is spirituality and only spirituality that makes us feel at home with everyone and with every cosmic phenomena, united with our past, our ancestors, and the future. Spirituality grounds us in the circle of life apart from which we can only experience alienation from self, others, and the world. Its is my profound conviction, therefore, that moral education should be given much more room in our schools than it is getting now. How much room? The sages of indigenous Africa, of all indigenous peoples everywhere, and of all cultures, religions, and ages have the answer: Give as much time, if not more, to the development of students’ spiritual dimensions as is given to their intellectual development. It is as important as that.


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NOTES 1

Marková, “Human Awareness and Moral Values in Higher Education,” 47. James H.Billington, “The Role of a Western University in Forming a Social Morality,” in Moral Values and Higher Education, D.L.Thompson, 35. 3 In many instances boys and girls who wanted to become converts, priests, and nuns were kept in mission schools, seminaries, or formation houses for several years without going back to their families to free them from “paganism” and to keep them away from indigenous elements that would “kill” their vocations. 4 See Thomas Lickona, “Schools and Families: Partners of Adversaries in Moral Education,” in Learning For Life: Moral Education, Theory and Practice, ed. Andrew Gaddod (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), 98–106. 5 Ibid., 105. 6 Thomas Lickona, 93. 7 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 12. 8 See R.Sambuli Mosha, “Indigenous Knowledge and Education: An Integrated Formation of Mind and Heart: A Case Study on the Chagga People of Tanzania East Africa”, in What is Indigenous Knowledge? Voices from the Academy, eds. Ladi Semali and Joe Kincheloe, (New York: Falmer Press, 1999). 9 Emphasis mine. 10 Emphasis mine. 11 Mosha, ibid. 12 Allan Bloom, trans. The Republic of Plato (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 31. 13 Holland, “Moral Values and Higher Education,” 140. 14 Sometimes it seems as if the search for excellence is no longer a virtue in our mediocrity-laden age! 15 See John Snarey and Thomas Pavkov, “Moral Character Education in the United States: Beyond Socialization Versus Development,” in Learning For Life: Moral Education, Theory and Practice, ed. Garrod, 37–38. See also John Dewey, Moral Principles in Education (1916) and Democracy and Education (1916). 16 Richard Attenborough (ed.), The Words of Gandhi (New York: Newmarket Press, 1982), 19. 17 Adrian van Kaam, Fundamental Formation and Scientific Formation. See also: Human Formation, Formation of the Human Heart, and Traditional Formation, all by Crossroad, New York. 18 Anthony de Mello, One Minute Wisdom (New York: Image Books, 1985), 201. 19 Somé, 184. Emphasis mine. 20 Nyerere, Freedom and Development, 59. 2

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Ibid., 59–60. Nyerere, Freedom and Development, 60. 23 Nyerere, Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism, 91–105. 24 John Dewey, Moral Principles in Education (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), 2–3. Emphasis in original. 25 van Kaam, Fundamental Formation, Chart V, 296. 26 Ibid., 246. 27 Adrian van Kaam, Formation of the Human Heart, Formative Spirituality, vol. 3 (New York: Crossroad, 1986) See also his Human Formation, vol. 2 (Crossroad, 1985). 28 Roger Straughan, Can We Teach Children To Be Good? Basic Issues in Moral, Personal and Social Education (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1988), 126. 29 Ibid; 256. 30 Lerner, The Politics of Meaning, 255. 31 Ibid; 256. 32 Straughan, 126. Italics mine. 33 Straughan, 120. 34 See, among many others, the following of Dr. Muto’s books: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Reading; Pathways of Spiritual Living; Steps Along the Way; The Journey Homeward; Renewed at Each Awakening; Approaching the Sacred: An Introduction to Spiritual Reading. 35 Somé, 258–259. 36 Hitchcock, The Web of the Universe, 26. 37 Ibid.,71. 38 Carl G.Jung,. Psychological Reflections. Selections edited by Jolande Jacobi (New York: Harper and Row, Harper Torchbooks, 1961b), 226. 39 Julius K.Nyerere, Freedom and Socialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 226. 40 Ibid., 227. 41 Holland, “Moral Values and Higher Education,” 139. 42 Straughan, 123. 43 Abraham Kaplan, “Moral Values in Higher Education,” in Moral Values and Higher Education, ed. D.L.Thompson (Albany, NY: Brigham Young University, 1991), 12. 44 Tanzania has hardly any followers of African Independent Christian Churches . In many African countries there would have been students from such churches in the average classroom. 45 Lerner, The Politics of Meaning, 258. Emphasis in original. 46 Ibid., 263. 22


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47 Towards a Global Ethic (An Initial Declaration), 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions. Chicago: Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, (P.O. Box 1630, Chicago, Illinois 60690–1630, USA), 1993, 1. A video cassette of the Parliament’s proceedings is available at the same address. My students and I found it very useful. 48 Ibid., 1–10. 49 Anthony de Mello, The Song of the Bird (New York: Image Books, 1984) 152. 50 Brennan R.Hill, Paul Knitter, and William Madges. Faith, Religion and Theology: A Contemporary Introduction (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1993). 51 Anthony de Mello, The Heart of the Enlightened (New York: Image Books, 1991), 70. 52 Somé, 3. 53 Ibid., 288. 54 Mahatma Gandhi, All Men Are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections, ed. Krishna Kripalani. (New York: Continuum, 1997) 138. See also Adrian van Kaam, Formation of the Human Heart, Formative Spirituality, Volume Three. 55 Homer A.Jack (ed.), The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1951), 146. 56 Gregory Cajete, Look to the Mountain (Durango, CO: Kavaki Press, 1993), 80. 57 Studies show that the instances of cheating and plagiarism are increasing in all school campuses. The Washington Post on Sunday, October 4, 1998, reported on its front page that computers have made it easier for students to copy papers off the Internet, buy papers form paper mills, and so on. This trend seems to reveal two things. First, there is disinterest in learning for its own sake; and second, if education is perceived solely as a bridge to wealth and a comfortable life, then why not cheat? 58 Jack, The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi, 17. 59 Ibid., 15. Emphasis in original.

Epilogue

The research and writing of this book have been part of a journey inward to the universe within myself, an experience that I can only try to express in words. It is a journey homeward in which I am reunited with my ancestors and with part of their wisdom etched deep in my heart and memory. It is a journey to my deepest center where I find not only my own deepest identity as a Chagga African, but also where I experience oneness with self, with all humans, and with all that is. This is a center that renews meaning and purpose in my life even as it remains a mystery, in the sense that it is so rich in meaning that it cannot be fully unraveled or understood. This book emerges out of the silence of that innermost center. If the words circle of life, connectedness, and communality appear many times in this book, it is because the song that is on the lips of everything and everyone deep in the universe within me is a song emerging from interconnectedness and bondedness. It is the most beautiful song that I have ever heard, and every facet of the universe is one verse in that song. A repetitive stanza in the song reminds me that every human being and everything is so much a part of me that alienating any of them would fatally erode my humanity. I shall always go back to my universe within, my soul, for there I find the meaning and the reason to be. For, as I realized in utter amazement, this is the kind of homecoming that my parents, grandparents, and other Chagga elders have all along worked so hard to bring me to. All these years, half a century to be exact, my elders have tried to point to a center within myself, and would you believe that I have, instead, often misled by modern education, tried to look outside myself for it? This is an awesome homecoming, a larger-than-life education that 235

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Epilogue

everyone can and must come to throughout life. No human being, no student, should ever be deprived of this journey. This writing has also been part of a special journey outward to the universe outside of me. I say special because most of the education I have received in modern schools has drawn my thinking, imagining, and anticipating to the universe without, mostly from a Euro-American perspective. It is an education that gave me, and still gives me, seemingly disconnected bits of facts, information, and data, with the understanding that the more of these I grasp mentally, the better educated I become. But this special journey outward began to change all that because it is made simultaneously with the journey inward. The journey inward brings connectedness to everything we know and experience in the universe without. The deeper I plunged into my heart of hearts the more connected I became to the connectedness already inherent in the universe, but unveiled to us when we shun the journey inward. In other words, a consistent and gentle journeying to our human innermost center, the spirit, sheds a bright and inspiring light on our journey in, and through the universe outward. For instance, my rediscovery of the part of the wisdom of indigenous Africa has aroused in me an intense desire to sit by the side of elders and sages, be they African or otherwise, and endlessly drink from their fountains of insight. I hunger for the timeless and timely sapientia (wisdom) that often oozes into our information-overloaded age from all human cultures, religions, and traditions. I feel an urgent longing to be reunited with all my living relatives, friends, classmates, childhood play groups and age groups, and celebrate life with them. Yes, I feel an intense desire to jump afresh into the circle of life so that the heartbeat of my interrelatedness with the universe may be revived. It is a little clearer to me now that the journey inward, which is a facilitating condition in a life of virtue, and the journey outward (in search of science and knowledge) are both foundational and indispensable for human and cosmic harmony. Any educational program therefore, that loses sight of one of these human dimensions, or deemphasizes any of the two, is doomed to lead its students and society at large to perdition. A word to my fellow Tanzanians and Africans. In our frantic endeavors for “development” and better political, economic, and social systems, we must remember and reclaim the knowledge and wisdom of our ancestors, even as we open our minds and hearts to knowledge and wisdom from outside Africa. We must keep in mind one fundamental fact: the life of virtue, so deeply cherished by our ancestors and elders, is absolutely indispensable to keep the heartbeat of our continent healthy. We need to

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vehemently reject any tendencies, ancient and contemporary, that dehumanize anyone, like materialism, consumerism, and heartless individualism—dangers already giving us heartache and irregular heartbeats in our society. I believe that one of our most serious problems today is that we have bought wholesale the highly seductive belief that money, profit, and comfort are everything. Our economic poverty is driving us to spiritual poverty at a frightening speed. We have swallowed every spiritual and social illness from outside our shores, blindly believing that Euro-American ways of life are the yardstick by which we are to go. This is a suicidal tendency and the resulting skeletons are already everywhere around us in Africa. Our ancestors, however, call us to realize that the development of our spiritual lives is fundamental. Nyerere reminds us that our best possession is a healthy utu; that is, good and moral conduct. Mambo Mbotela of Kenya keeps asking us: Is this or that selfish or greedy conduct human? In Kiswahili, he asks: Huu ni uungwana? (that is: Is this really human?). This is the time to live by the wisdom of our traditions, the wisdom that prioritizes spirituality above everything else, wherever that wisdom comes from. As for me, as I pay attention to such wisdom, I shall continue to embrace the life-giving words of my parents and grandparents, because, as Professor Malidoma of Burkina Faso says: “Without a mentor, a young [person] is a disempowered knower.” After all, the life of virtue, so deeply cherished by our mentor-ancestors as the heartbeat of society, must also be the heartbeat of all societies in their unrelenting quest for harmony. Needless to say, contemporary societies are no exception.

Glossary

A. In Kichagga Language, as Spoken in the Subdistricts of Mwika, Mamba, Marangu, Kilema, and Kirua Vunjo Imanya. To know intellectually and to be morally or spiritually motivated at the same time. These two aspects of imanya are inseparable. Ipvunda. To raise up or educate a person in all three interconnected dimensions: physical, mental, and spiritual; holistic education. Ipvuria. To be silent, to refrain from speaking. Isumba. To identify and accentuate the positive side of a person, to revere and respect someone. A mshumbuo is a highly revered person. Kishari, plural shishari. A group of people related by common origin from a common ancestor whose name usually becomes the family name of the entire group; kin; clan; kinship. Manake. A young boy who is not yet married. Mangi, plural Wamangi. A chief, a ruler of a district. Umangi, chiefdom, usually is inherited. Mbuonyi. A sacred place near a Chagga homestead where ancestors are buried and memorialized. It is also a special place for prayer, offerings, and sacrifice. Mfee, plural wafee. Literally, one who brings forth a child, a mother or a father; a parent. Mfongo. A traditional water canal originating from a river or spring, and winding its way along hills, sometimes going through rocks and across valleys through wooden tubes. The mfongo is indispensable in Chaggaland for irrigation and for daily water supplies for homes and 239

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Glossary

domestic animals. A marvelous example of indigenous technology, the mfongo unites and defines neighborhoods. According to tradition, every teenage boy and grown-up man works on the mfongo whenever the subchief, mchili, announces mfongo community work. Mkamangi, plural wakamangi. The wife of a chief. Mkara, plural wakara. A marriage councillor for a specific couple. She or he is a life companion who is reputed and respected for the ability to keep everything confidential forever. Mlosha, plural walosha. A professional indigenous teacher, especially in matters pertaining to moral and spiritual growth. The mlosha is well known and highly respected due to his or her wisdom, virtuous life, and zeal for civility in society. Also known as a mpvundi. Mloshi, plural waloshi. Same as mlosha Monowaka. A young girl who is not yet married Mpvunde, plural wapvunde. A well-molded or holistically formed person; an all-round educated person, intellectually and morally. Mpvundi, plural wapvundi. A person who molds another holistically, such as a parent, a grandparent, an elder, a sage, a mlosha, a chief, and so on. Mrumo. A ritual action, sometimes accompanied with ritual words directed to God or the ancestors as petition, thanksgiving, worship, or reconciliation. All transformation or initiation rites are centered around mrumo. Mshumbuo. A highly revered person. Everyone is a mshumbuo by virtue of one’s humanity and this reverence increases whenever a person goes through another transformation rite. Msongoru, plural wasongoru, an elder. A person considered “ahead” of others due to age and experience. The Kichagga word kusonguo means to be ahead, be in front of. The msongoru is therefore given respect and a listening ear. Rika. Of the same age or almost same age. People in an age group belong to a rika. The underlying factor here is common experience, particularly of going through specific transformation rites together. Ruwa. The Kichagga name for God, the Divine Mystery, the Mountain of the Ancients, the Chief of Chiefs. Sale, plural masale. A dracaena plant used in rituals, especially in petitions and reconciliation ceremonies. The masale plants are used as a fence going around a family farm. Its leaves are fodder for animals and also are used to heal several ailments. Indigenous doctors commonly use it in divination and everyone brings a leaf to another when asking for

Glossary

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forgiveness. No petition or request for forgiveness can be turned down when the petitioner places a sale leaf in the hand of the one petitioned. B. In Kiswahili Language Harambee. A word that one uses to call people to community action; the act of people coming together to raise money or other resources for a common good or for a particular person or group in need; a word that a group leader utters out energetically when a group of people is about to do something together. Kichagga. The language of the Chagga people of the Kilimanjaro Region of Northern Tanzania. It has three main dialects according to the three original districts at the time of regaining independence in 1961: Hai, Vunjo, and Rombo. There are about one million Chagga people. Kiswahili. The national language of Tanzania and Kenya. There are indications that Kiswahili is in use here and there in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique. Mzee, plural wazee. Literally, an elderly person. Also used to denote respect to a person’s age and experience. Mzee also is a title given to any leader or person in authority, regardless of her or his age.

Map 3: A political map of Africa, showing all the countries on the continent.

Bibliography

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Index

African world view, 7–15 Divine Mystery in, 7–9 the individual and the— community in, 11–12 a living, interconnected and interdependent universe in, 12–15 ongoing formation, reformation and transformation in, 9–10

Courage, 127–130 insights from other parts of Africa, 135–136 some African proverbs on, 136–137 training in, 130–135 Critique of colonial education in Africa, 169–184 Development, 197–200 Diligence in work, 137–138 characteristics of a diligent worker, 138–140 insights from other parts of Africa, 143–144 some African proverbs on, 144–145 training in, 141–143 Dispositions of a formative teacher, 209–214 Divine Mystery, 7–9

Communality, 145–146 capitalism and, 156 expressions of, in Chaggaland, 146–150 insights from other parts of Africa, 153–156 modem communistic socialism and, 156 political ideologies and, 155 some African proverbs on, 156 training in, 150–152 Community, 146 naming ceremony in, 151 Compassion, 149–150 Cooperation, 148

Education adults in, 164–165 in contemporary culture, 188–189 as a gateway to wealth, 180–184 holistic, 189–190

249

250 in the indigenous English language, 195 Latin origin of the word, 195 practical community service in, 168 redefining education, 194–197 song and dance in, 166 use of proverbs in, 165 use of stories in, 165 Endurance, 127 Europocentrism in African education, 170–174 Formative dispositions, 87–158 Formative reading, thinking, and being, 206–208 Formators, 35 age groups as, 44–46 elders as, 41–44 family as, 35–36 grandparents as, 38–41 parents as, 36–38 Foundations of a civilizing education, 187–230 Holistic education, 189–230 redefining, 194–197 role of families in, 189–194 role of religions in, 215–220 Hospitality, 148–149 Imanya concept, 163 Indigenous education education for a living, 17–18, 163 education for life, 16–17, 163 pedagogical tools in, 35, 46–82 Indigenous knowledge, ix-xv contribution of, xv curriculum development in, xiii global conversation with, xiv new research methods for, xiv objectives of, xiii–xv production of, xiii; validation of, xiv

Index Intrinsic unity between individuals and communities, 11–12 Ipvunda concept, 15–18 Ipvunda process, 18–30 for a child, 22–23 for an infant, 21–22 for a young boy, 26–30 for a young girl, 23–26 pedagogical tools in, 46–82 specific opportunities for, 18–30, 163 Journey inward, 235–236 Journey outward, 236 Knowledge and moral action, 166–167 separating morality from, 175–180 Knowledge and spirituality, 220–230 Knowledge and wisdom, 163 Living, interconnected universe, 12–15, 161, 162 Madagascar’s socialism, 155 Moral education, 200–203 fundamental virtues in, 200–203 Narration, 47–55 Ongoing formation, refomation, and transformation, 9–10 Parliament of the World’s Religions, 216–217 Patience, 127 Pedagogical tools in indigenous education, 46–82 President Bill Clinton in Uganda, 98 Proverbs, 55–57 Public officials and morality, 161, 220–221

Index Reflection on main findings, 159–186 Reverence, 89–103 insights from other parts of Africa, 99–102 some African proverbs on, 102 training in, 97–99 Riddles, 57–61 Ritual, 74–78 definition of, 68–69(see also Transformation rites) Role playing, 78–82 Self-control, 103–113 an African story on, 112–113 insights from other parts of Africa, 110–112 some African proverbs on, 112 training in, 107–110 Self-mastery (see Self-control) Self-sacrifice, 127 Sense of belonging, 162 Science and spirituality, 160, 161 (see also Knowledge and Spirituality) Silence, 113–117 insights from other parts of Africa, 120–122 personal names emphasizing meaning of, 117 some African proverbs on, 122–123 summary of teachings on, 123–124 training in, 118–119

251 Specific transformation rites, 21 Spirituality, 14, 221–230 and government, 227 as a foundation of religion, 229 definition of, 221–223 families, communities, and, 228 physics and, 161 political ideologies and, 227 science, knowledge, technology and, 227 Stories (see Narration) Storytelling, 50–55 Summary of main findings, 159–186 Teachable moments, 19–20 Teachers as caring companions 203–209 Thoughtfulness (see Silence) Transcendence, 160 Transformation rites, 68–74 functions of, 74–78 (see also Ritual) Ujamaa, 155 Virtues (see Formative disposition) Wholeness, 3 Zambian humanist thought, 100–101

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