Speaking with the Dead

I met a Sangoma today!

If you have no idea what a Sangoma is, no worries, I had no idea what it was either. Today a good friend of Reg (the main leader of our semester program) came to explain the Zulu religion to us. He grew up in a Zulu tribe and converted into Christianity when he was a young adult. He's now a pastor, so he was able to give us the perspective of a Zulu person and a Christian Zulu person.

The Zulu people have 4 names for God: uMvelingqangi(the one who appeared first), uSimakade(the one who's always been there), uMdali(creator), and uSomandla(the One with power). The first missionaries who came to the Zulu people explained the Christian God as uNkulunkulu(great, great)

The Zulu people value Ubuntu, which means, human. They believe you show Ubuntu when you show love to others and welcome them. They don't believe in personal space because all space belongs to the community. A person's identity is based not on him or herself, but on the family and the tribe from which that person comes from. Each tribe has a way to identify themselves, whether it's a special haircut or cutting themselves to get a certain scar. The Sangoma we met today was missing the top part of his pinky finger because that's the mark of his tribe.

The cultural hierarchy of the Zulu people has respect of people your age on the 1st level, respect for your parents and uncles on the 2nd level, respect for grandparents on the 3rd level, respect for ancestors on the 4th level, and respect for God on the top level. Their way of communication is: the people go to the Sangoma, the Sangoma talks to the ancestors, and the ancestors talk to God. The Sangoma tells them what sacrifice to make or what potion to drink when they need healing or want an evil spirit to go away. The ancestors guide the people because they are outside of time and space so they can see the future.

When an older person dies, the Zulu people say they have left and they allow them to peacefully go rest. When a person dies prematurely, they use the word death and believe someone caused it. There's no such thing as accidents for the Zulu people; young people who die were cursed by something.

The Sangoma showed us his robe and cow tail that he wears. He showed us the altar he uses to speak to his ancestors and the many ingredients for potions he gives the people. I was expecting to see something cool and to feel strange in a "spiritual" place like a Sangoma's house, but when I got there it felt really dry. I was talking to my friend Shaun about it and we discussed how interesting it is that people can be completely convinced of a religion, but those who don't believe it see it as something silly and pointless. The Zulu people seriously believe in these potions, but to us it's just a random mix of powders.

We were also discussing how hard it is for Zulu people to become Christian. To a Zulu person their tribe and their family is everything. Their whole lifestyle revolves around the worship of their ancestors. The guest speaker was telling us that converting into Christianity meant a whole change of lifestyle. It's funny how we see that and think it must be really hard to give all that up and abandon all your old ways, but then Leslie brought up the point that we are called to do the same thing. We might not worship the dead, but there are several things we do that we're supposed to give up when we become Christian. The guest speaker hit us hard when he said Christians in America have tried to combine their lifestyles to make a Christian mindset work without losing some of our traditions. It was hard to hear, but I think he makes a good point and it's worth thinking about.