Faith vs Social Paradigms

by Cyrus Gikori

A loose flap of the green canvas tarpaulin fluttered and slapped against the metal frame as the Mitsubishi L200 4X4 pickup sped along the Mityana-Mubende-Fort Portal road. Ricky Prince* and I had just traded places so he was in the driver seat and I was at the back with the luggage. In the passenger seat was Annette Brand*, our writer and Ricky’s Zimbabwean compatriot. We were headed for the little town of Fort Portal in south-west Uganda, where we would stay the night before going up the Rwenzoris; the famous mountains-of-the-moon, in search of the pygmies. It was in October of 1993.
Recent rains and the erosion they wrought had left deep gullies in the loose surface road, so the last fifty miles felt like a hundred. We finally drove over a ten-mile stretch of potholes on a weather-worn asphalt road into Fort Portal at the foot of the mountains and found an old colonial-style hotel. We wondered why a town in the boondocks close to the heart of Africa would still go by that name. Annette made a joke about Fort Pot-holes in reference to the road into town but Ricky felt it was in bad taste. Dinner was the Ugandan staple matooke (mashed bananas or plantains) and some rather hard chicken in a light broth. The following morning, breakfast was “nothing for mama to hear about” and I was glad that we had brought some “hardship supplies” with us from Kampala. I couldn’t wait to see the mountains in all their famed splendour, but most of all, I was eager to see the pygmies; the diminutive people that I had read about as far back as my primary school years in neighbouring Kenya.
It took us nearly a whole day to drive up to Bundibugyo (boon•dee•boo•joe), the last town on the road. Tired and disappointed that there was no moon to illuminate the mountain range that night, we checked into a guest-house and slept like babies. The following morning, our hearts sank when we found that the peaks of the Rwenzori range were shrouded by thick fog so we could only barely make out their outline. The journey had to go on, so I checked my two VHS video cameras to be sure that both were functional and that we had enough tape and the battery packs were fully charged. Bundibugyo was as far as the country’s power supply would go. We picked up a guide to take us to the pygmy village and anticipatory excitement began to show on our faces. The three of us worked for a pan-African marketing company that was researching on the lifestyles of various African ethnic communities. In my mind, the pygmies were a tribe of little people in a little village with a chief or a king; a people who perhaps still dressed traditionally and spoke a unique language. I could already visualize the reaction of my friends back in Nairobi when they see the footage.
“Ssebo, tumefika!” our guide announced. His halting Swahili was often interspersed with Luganda, but both being languages of Bantu origin; I understood him perfectly and translated for Ricky and Annette. I sprang down from the back with the Panasonic M3000 camera ready to roll. I was not going to miss a moment! But my heart sank as we were introduced to the small make-shift village of Batwa pygmies. They were dressed in modern clothes and they had intermarried with neighbouring tribes, therefore many of them were of “normal stature”. Some even spoke Swahili! The houses in their make-shift village were made mostly from wood and grass thatch, but there were even some that were made from shiny galvanized, corrugated iron sheets!
It was explained to us that the pygmies as a people had become scattered because they were always at loggerheads with the government owing to their nature as hunters and gatherers: the government had prohibited hunting in the forests to preserve endangered animal species. The pygmy community that we found was therefore one of the very few surviving groups. With no education and unable to use the only means they knew to earn a living, and surrounded by towns that had little in way of economic activity, they were forced to rely on donations from charitable organizations and philanthropic individuals.
So, no moon over the mountains, no view of the snow-capped peaks in the morning sun and then “no find authentic pygmies”! What a trip we were having!

The snow-capped Rwenzori mountains are far from my hometown; the city of Nairobi. The socio-cultural issues in the metropolitan environment of my city are certainly far removed from those of the peoples in and around a remote town such as Bundibugyo. But now, more than a decade later, I see the Batwa pygmies’ situation as the epitome of an issue that I have constantly struggled with in my own cultural setting: my own people’s loss of identity. I found among the Batwa a prime example of the many native communities whose socio-cultural infrastructure had been annexed by the forces of modernization.
For a good while I was angry about such subjugation. In my then not-so-objective stance, I wondered what it was that made us (Africans) so inferior to the people in the industrialized world that we seem to have no choice but to conform to their ways. It still disturbs me that many African governments appear to enjoy eating from the hand of the industrialized nations— literally. Even when they have the resources to build a formidable economy of their own!
I later conceded that there are certain battles that the world’s communities will perpetually and inevitably lose to the forces of civilization; but that reality need not mean that our very being as individuals and social systems must wholly modulate into conformity with the world. Sadly, however, we do.
In my view, the biggest blunder of those that heard the message of Christ from the early missionaries was in their assumption that it meant discarding all the values that had ably preserved community and social order for them over the ages. I say we should have understood faith and applied the values that Jesus Christ taught without the perceived need to move away from all the cultural structures that had kept us in organized societies, largely free of poverty and pestilence.
For instance, my family came to faith in the mid seventies. My memory of those days is filled with images of us learning to sing songs from America and Europe. Now, there was nothing wrong with that, except that somehow we grew up thinking that the only way to sing and be heard was by aping the styles of the great American or European singers of the day. It was considered backward and naïve to sing a song in Swahili or in mother-tongue, unless it had been modernized or “souped-up” and was playable with plugged instruments. But music in church was only the smoke if a fire burned. A lot more was changing about how family members related to each other, and how the youth conducted themselves in public or in the presence of elders and authority.
As far as cultural modulation goes, I believe that one of the most annexed of all peoples happens to be the largest tribe in Kenya—the Agĩkũyũ (or the Kikuyu the simplified name). Members of the Agĩkũyũ tribe were the key players in the struggle that led to Kenya’s independence from Britain in 1963. Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya who ruled for fifteen years, was from the Agĩkũyũ tribe and for that reason; the tribe enjoyed some preferential treatment in matters of governance and economic opportunity.
The Agĩkũyũ failed to preserve their cultural heritage for the future generations to see and, in my view, we were the first to discard our cultural values and embrace the British culture. The effect that the English and the Scotts had on us was such that some Agĩkũyũ mothers, especially in the rural areas have been known to fill the baby’s bottle with tea! We love tea as a culture, and I believe it has less to do with the fact that Kenya produces lots of tea than it has to do with the socio-cultural influence of the Brits on the native inhabitants of the fertile highlands of central Kenya. It is still discernible today. During the first era post-independence, the Agĩkũyũ squandered a golden opportunity to document, record and archive folk-tales and material from the first literate tribesmen and women, as well as find and gather relics and dress samples into a museum, and so on.
Some ethnic societies in Kenya are known to have had artistic and musical forms that have been preserved through time. At least we have heard their music and seen some artifacts. I grew up thinking that the Agĩkũyũ were the most inartistic and unmusical people. Very recently I had a conversation with my parents that was very revealing if not shocking. My father, in his early seventies now, told me that before the advent of the Europeans, there were Gĩkũyũ musical genres and styles beyond the little that we now know. My mother informed me that for lack of physical or graphic preservation, the true dress styles and adornments of the days of my late grandmother and great-grandmother may forever remain unknown. It is a pity that my parents have been of the school of thought that as Christians, we have no business discussing the old ways of the Agĩkũyũ.
But there is a jewel at the end of the dig: I have seen changes happening in the last seven years or so, that may reverse this dangerous trend. The youth are becoming more curious about the past and hungering to be defined as Kenyans. Although the Hip-hop and Gangsta Rap culture still holds a bigger sway in Kenya than I’m comfortable with, the trend of aping the world’s popular music and fashion styles that peaked in the 80’s and 90’s is losing its hold on us: perhaps the emergence of home-grown Hip-hop and American urban music based genres is a step in the right direction. From my now more objective vantage point, I have learned one thing: If you wish to change the direction of a moving vehicle, it might help to be on it!
My appeal to those who are in the cross-cultural mission field is: If you preach to the likes of the Maasai who are by far the most traditional of all East African people; begin by immersing yourself into their culture and find a way to introduce the faith from a “transformed-by-the-renewal-of-your-mind” point of view. They must not trade their shuka dress culture for shirt, tie and pants! Jesus left his heavenly attire behind and dressed like the Jews of that day. He ate the bread and fish that they ate and spoke the same language as they did. For sermon illustrations, he made use of stories and scenarios that were part and parcel of the culture that he was addressing.
For those taking the gospel of Christ to Islamic communities, wouldn’t it be more effective to establish a worship environment where they are allowed to wear their long robes and prostrate themselves? Why need they learn Western-style worship music? Why not create music that rhymes with the rhythm, melody and harmony in “their own bone”? With any culture in the world, what is good, upright and acceptable to God must be upheld. If it ain’t broken, it ain’t broken—period. We must help those that we reach to safeguard positive elements of their culture.
There is a great church-led effort happening in Kenya right now, to restore a Rites Of Passage system in the society. We learned the hard way that; while it has always been such a vital thread in the fabric of our communities, it was one of the cultural elements that gave in to modernization in many societies. Indeed Rites Of Passage for age groups is one of the solutions that Africa can provide to the many headaches of this world (if the world would listen). In proclaiming freedom to the captives, let us not forget to safeguard the social frameworks that have held the ethnic communities together through the ages. Who knows, while we are at it, we might pick up a cure for our own society’s illness! Let us spread the gospel of the faith, rather than that of our own social paradigms.

So there was no moonlight in Bundibugyo and not much of a pygmy society to see, but on our journey back down from the Batwa village, we were blessed with a morning of fantastic weather with a clear blue sky and no cloudy mist veiling the face of the Rwenzori range. We stopped dead in our tracks as we came round to a vantage point that gave us the snow-capped peak Margherita on one side, and a view of a plain in the valley below. A winding river with ox-bow lakes in its silvery path against the unadulterated lush green of the foliage gave the impression of a heavenly oil painting. The river was bordered on both sides by a steamy tropical rainforest. I have since been told that we were extremely lucky because even the great explorer H.M. Stanley waited three months while camped within less than 35 miles, to see the mountains of the moon!
The sun was setting as drove back towards the mysterious Fort Portal.

As published on the Matthews House Project web magazine