Undergraduate Projects/Long Essays
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Item Death Rituals among the Chagga Of Tanzania: A Pastoral Challenge(Tangaza University College., 2002-02) Kessy, Marcel G.This thesis is a study of Chagga death rituals, their pastoral challenge to the mission and their significance for Christian inculturation. In this chapter we are going to focus mainly on; the background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, significance of the study, the research hypotheses, scope and organization of the study, methodology and finally limitations of the study. My choice of this topic has been prompted by many questions raised by the Catholic church in Moshi diocese - Kilimanjaro Tanzania about the Chagga funeral rites, and other commemorative rituals connected with the dead. In most of African cultures, people value their traditional practices very much. Some of these practices are categorized according to their values in the society. Among these practices are the rituals performed for the dead, the spirits and for appeasing the ancestors. In some other places, some rituals are performed for the living. One finds these rituals and sacrifices having cosmological and vertical dimensions. But after Christianity had been introduced to the African people, these cultural and traditional practices have been deteriorating. In most of East Africa, especially among the Chagga, in Central Africa, where I did my pastoral work, and the several places I visited in 1998, these traditional practices have been considered as a kind of double standard by the missionaries. You find that on the one hand keep the traditional practices are very strong and most valued. Some of these practices are being performed in hidden places while others are done openly. On the other hand, Christianity is very strong and explicitly practiced. This does not only apply to funeral rituals but also in every kind of traditional beliefs and practices. The teachings which African people received from the early Missionaries were very negative to their cultural and traditional practices. They were told that their traditional practices were pagan and devilish. People grew up in this mentality and this led many to perform these traditional practices secretly out of fear. According to Mzee Bernard Kiwory, "the people fear that spirits of the clan will turn against them, harm them and even cause death in the family". During funeral rites among the Chagga, you find that traditional rituals are performed first and then Christian ones follow later. The traditional rituals are done secretly and hurriedly before the arrival of the priest who comes to conduct the Christian funeral service. I have seen these in many places where I have attended funerals or burials. In these practices, I discovered that most of what is practiced traditionally is related to what is done by Christians. This has prompted me to deepen my understanding through this study in order to discover more about our culture. The aim is to find out the good elements which can be incorporated in Christian funeral rites as one way of bringing the Gospel message closer to the Chagga People. It is obvious that, not every thing which is practiced traditionally is positive and can be incorporated in Christianity. Some traditional practices have very good elements which can be useful for inculturation while some are against Christian values.Item Mourning the Dead among the Luo of South Nyanza: Reconsidering Some Traditional Luo and Christian Ways of Mourning(Tangaza University College, 2005) Bwana, Alfred orwaIt is observed that many Christians, when faced with crisis moments revert to their traditional African practices.' This could be taken to mean that the Christian faith is not firmly rooted in them. Such a move is most explicit particularly during death, among others. Consequently, many Christians seem to live in a dualistic state of mind by practicing syncretism of Christianity and African Traditional Religion as they strive to meet their spiritual needs. The Christian missionary work in Africa, and now in Kenya, was characterized by demoniz_ation of the African cultural practices of the various ethnic communities. The Roman Catholics missionaries, for instance, allowed all other indigenous practices except those related to death. 2 For them, such rituals were related to ancestor worship. Accordingly, they called for radical discontinuity of the values that Kenyans and others viewed as salient. This dichotomy threatens to tear the heart of our faith. Inculturation could be the 'medicine' for it. Evidently, many African communities valued traditional practices since they adequately treated their major ideals and issues such as those regarding life and death. Christianity, however, introduced new categories of responding to similar issues. Unfortunately, some of the issues of the Africans were not adequately responded to in this new religious dispensation. Christianity failed to profoundly address what the people felt that their whole existence and survival hinged on. Consequently, the whole system of Christianity weakens whenever the people are confronted with real critical issues of life. The present study examines the traditional mourning rituals of the Luo of South Nyanza, hoping to bring to light, some of the elements that were 'buried' in the process of "planting" Christianity in Africa through the medium of other cultures. We aim to capture some of the values embedded in the rituals and find means of expressing them in a much more familiar categories. Among the ethnic groups of Kenya, the traditional Abaluyia and Luo communities are known to be very scrupulous in their funeral rituals. Being a Luo, I have taken the challenge to do this task as an insider. The Luo are believed to have migrated southward from Sudan to where they currently stay. 4 They thus have undergone a great transformation. Accordingly, it would be unrealistic to generalize about them all. This is why this study focuses on a smaller group of the Luo in South Nyanza. Nevertheless, there have been certain practices in common. Consequently, some reference to those Luo outside South Nyanza may be helpful. It should also be noted that the present tense used in most of the text signifies that the traditional values, practices and institutions are still substantially maintained.