Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Isaiah Shembe's Theological Nationalism, 1920s–1935

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057070903101847

1465-3893

Joel Cabrita,

African cultural and philosophical studies

Abstract This article situates the early twentieth-century writings of the South African NazarethaFootnote1 church and its founder, Isaiah Shembe, within a broader context of Zulu nationalism. Accounts of Zulu nationalism in this period have focused on the role of the Zulu king as a unifying symbol. The Nazaretha church, however, developed a strong polemic against the monarchy, and instead positioned its own leader, Isaiah Shembe, as the unifying national figure of the Zulu. In a fraught relationship between the two institutions, the church denounced the contemporary king, Solomon kaDinuzulu, as well as the historical monarchy, as sinful. By contrast, chiefly converts to the church were used as a template of virtuous political leadership for the nation. This study of Nazaretha ‘theological nationalism’ – a discourse that, to legitimate itself, posited national unity on ideas of virtue, healing, peacefulness, repentance and submission to Jehovah's dictates – suggests that Zulu nationalism could be a medium for criticising the African kholwa-monarchical élite of the day. Shembe's nationalism also demonstrates the importance of Independent churches to public debate in early twentieth-century Natal and Zululand. 1 ‘Nazaretha’ denotes members of the Ibandla lamaNazaretha (Church of the Nazaretha). Notes 1 ‘Nazaretha’ denotes members of the Ibandla lamaNazaretha (Church of the Nazaretha). 2 R. Papini and I. Hexham (eds), The Catechism of the Nazarites and Related Writings: Volume Four (Lewiston, Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), p. 62. * I am grateful for the comments of Paul la Hausse de Lalouvière, the anonymous referees, Nkosinathi Sithole, Timothy Jenkins and Derek Peterson. 3 Shembe's early religious influences included Methodist and Baptist denominations: E. Gunner, The Man of Heaven and the Beautiful Ones of God: Writings from Ibandla lamaNazaretha, a South African Church (Leiden, Brill, 2002), pp. 17–22. 4 J. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom: The Civil War in Zululand, 1879–1884 (London, Longman, 1979). 5 Cope writes that ‘a sense of Zulu national unity having the Zulu royal house as its centrepoint was not a characteristic of Zulu political life’. N. Cope, ‘The Zulu Petit Bourgeoisie and Zulu Nationalism in the 1920s: Origins of Inkatha’, Journal of Southern African Studies [JSAS], 16, 3 (September 1990), p. 433. P. la Hausse (personal communication with author, 10 July 2008) suggests that prior to this period there was nonetheless strong popular attachment to the figure of the king. 6 P. la Hausse de Lalouvière, Restless Identities: Signatures of Nationalism, Zulu Ethnicity and History in the Lives of Petros Lamula (c. 1881–1948) and Lymon Maling (1889–c. 1936) (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 2000), p. 19. 7 N. Cope, To Bind the Nation: Solomon kaDinuzulu and Zulu Nationalism, 1913–1933 (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1993), pp. 171–200. 8 N. Cope, To Bind the Nation: Solomon kaDinuzulu and Zulu Nationalism, 1913–1933 (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1993), pp. 133–36. 9 S. Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa: Class, Nationalism, and the State in Twentieth-Century Natal (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1986), p. 71. 10 La Hausse, Restless Identities, pp. 98 ff. See also H. Mokoena's article in this issue. 11 The Reverend Timothy Mate of the secessionist African Congregation Church, for example, established a branch in the vicinity of the royal household in Nongoma and became a member of Inkatha's inner council: la Hausse, Restless Identities, p. 244. 12 The Reverend Timothy Mate of the secessionist African Congregation Church, for example, established a branch in the vicinity of the royal household in Nongoma and became a member of Inkatha's inner council: la Hausse, Restless Identities, pp. 16–18. 13 Cope, To Bind the Nation, p. 108. 14 Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, p. 71; Cope, ‘The Zulu Petit Bourgeoisie’, pp. 431–51. 15 Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, p. 74; H. Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924–1930 (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 21–62. 16 Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, p. 71. 17 Cope, To Bind the Nation, p. 12. 18 Cope, To Bind the Nation, pp. 86–90. 19 La Hausse, Restless Identities discusses two early twentieth-century Zulu patriots whose marginalised status problematises a depiction of Zulu nationalism as ‘élite’ or tied solely to institutions such as Inkatha. 20 P. la Hausse de la Louvière, ‘The Message of the Warriors: The ICU, the Labouring Poor and the Making of a Popular Political Culture in Durban, 1925–1930’, in P. Bonner et al. (eds), Holding Their Ground: Class, Locality and Culture in 19th- and 20th-Century South Africa (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1989), pp. 19–57. 21 H. Bradford, ‘Mass Movements and the Petty Bourgeoisie: The Social Origins of ICU Leadership 1924–1929’, Journal of African History, 25, 3 (1984), p. 296. 22 S.M. Ndlovu, ‘Johannes Nkosi and the Communist Party of South Africa: Images of “Blood River” and King Dingane in the late 1920s–1930’, History and Theory, 39, 4 (December 2000), pp. 111–32. 23 Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, p. 72. 24 For example, the involvement of Zulu nationalist Petros Lamula in the United Native National Church of Christ in the 1920s and 1930s. La Hausse, Restless Identities, pp. 124–48. 25 J. Cabrita, ‘A Theological Biography of Isaiah Shembe, 1870–1935’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 2008), pp. 141–76. 26 C. Crais, The Politics of Evil: Magic, State Power, and the Political Imagination in South Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 122 27 ‘AIC’ has stood for African Independent Churches, African Indigenous Churches and African Initiated Churches. P. Makhubu, Who Are the Independent Churches? (Braamfontein, Skotaville Publishers, 1988), pp. 1–3. The first will be used in this article. For a historiography of AICs and politics up to the 1980s see T. Ranger, ‘Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa’, African Studies Review, 29, 2 (June 1986), pp. 1–69. 28 This point has been made most strongly by M. Schoffeleers, ‘Ritual Healing and Political Acquiescence: The Case of the Zionist Churches in Southern Africa’, Africa, 61, 1 (January 1991), p. 17. Sundkler, in one of the earliest studies of the Nazaretha church, commented on the progressive depoliticisation of independent churches, with healing practices emerging at the expense of genuine political engagement. B. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, Lutterworth Press, 1948), pp. 306–7. 29 I.J. Mosala and B. Tlhagale, The Unquestionable Right to be Free: Black Theology from South Africa (Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1986). 30 N.H. Ngada, Speaking For Ourselves (Braamfontein, Institute of Contextual Theology, 1985), pp. 1–26. See also B. Bompani, ‘African Independent Churches in Post-Apartheid South Africa: New Political Interpretations’, JSAS, 34, 3 (September 2008), 666–70. 31 A. Vilakazi et al., Shembe: The Revitalization of African Society (Johannesburg, Skotaville Press, 1986), pp. 6–10; C.A. Muller, Rituals of Fertility and the Sacrifice of Desire: Nazarite Women's Performance in South Africa (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 23–53; Gunner, Man of Heaven, pp. 3–10; A. Heuser, ‘Recovered Narratives of an Inter-Cultural Exchange: Gandhi, Shembe and the Legacy of Satyagraha’, Journal for the Study of Religion, 16, 1 (2003), pp. 87–102. 32 Scholars' translations of the Zulu texts have been criticised for their ‘Eurocentricism’. Vilakazi, Shembe, pp. 88–116. 33 Material ‘authored’ by Shembe was written down by a number of scribes and either buried with him in 1935 (and then re-written from memory shortly afterwards), or not buried and used as a template for later ‘copyings’. This material circulated informally until the Nazaretha ‘catechism’, or Mngcwabo, was published by the church in 1963, the first formal compilation of material attributable to Shembe. Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, pp. viii–xlv. 34 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites; and P. Dhlomo (comp.), Mngcwabo (unpublished photocopy, no date). 35 J.G. Shembe, Izihlabelelo zamaNazaretha (Durban, Universal Printing Works, 1940); and C. Muller and B. Mthethwa, ‘The Hymns of the Nazaretha’ (unpublished manuscript, 1996). 36 I. Hexham and G.C. Oosthuizen (eds), The Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume One: History and Traditions Centered on Ekuphakameni and Mount Nhlangakazi (Lewiston, Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), pp. 155–57; and I. Hexham and G.C. Oosthuizen (eds), The Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two: Early Regional Traditions of the Acts of the Nazarites (Lewiston, Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), pp. 243–53. 37 I am grateful to Nkosinathi Sithole for invaluable help in conducting, transcribing and translating these interviews. 38 J.L. Dube, Ushembe (Pietermaritzburg, Shuter and Shooter, 1936), p. 97. 39 The wedding is reported in P. Lamula, UzulukaMalandela: A Most Practical and Concise Compendium of African History Combined with Genealogy, Chronology, Geography and Biography (Mariannhill, Mariannhill Mission Press, 1939), p. 79, and in Ilanga lase Natal, 15 October 1926. 40 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, p. 244. 41 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, pp. 243–53. Mncwango's daughter relates that her father was one of the men Johannes Galilee Shembe asked to help rebuild the temple in 1959. Interview with MaMncwango, Nongoma, 3 October 2008. Unfortunately, I have drawn a blank with the archival sources: both the Chief Native Commissioner's files and the Nongoma Magistrate's records are silent on Shembe's 1932 expulsion. However, church tradition mentions a fire that broke out in the Nongoma magistrate's building in the early 1930s. The present magistrate's building dates to 1937, suggesting that the fire was so severe that a new building was needed. Documents relating to Shembe's expulsion may well have been lost in the fire. 42 The present ministers of the eLinda temple, Ministers Zondo and Buthelezi, only spoke about the royal involvement in Shembe's expulsion when pressed, and then did so reluctantly, berating me for asking them to talk about ‘such things’. 43 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume One, p. 157. 44 This was true of other chiefs too. The alliance of Chief Mqhawe of the Qadi with the American Zulu Mission is documented by H. Hughes, ‘Doubly Élite: Exploring the Life of John Langalibalele Dube’, JSAS, 27, 3 (September 2001), pp. 445–58. 45 La Hausse, Restless Identities, p. 245. 48 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, p. 244. 46 Shembe, Izihlabelelo, p. 19; Muller and Mthethwa, Hymns of the Nazaretha, p. 21. 47 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, pp. 54–9. 49 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two 50 La Hausse, Restless Identities, p. 240. 51 Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence, pp. 15-41. 52 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume One, p. 157. 53 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume One, p. 157 Solomon died in 1933, a chronic alcoholic, a mere two years after receiving this rebuke from Shembe. 54 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, p. 245. 55 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, p. 243. 56 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, p. 246. 57 Interview with Minister Zondo, Nongoma, 5 October 2008. Zondo's account of Shembe's expulsion omitted Mnyaiza's involvement, only referring to it when pressed. He emphasised that Mnyaiza's children had since made amends: ‘they came with a cow to Shembe, to ask for forgiveness, saying, Mnyaiza had come to speak to them saying ever since he had passed away, he didn't get to heaven because of his role in the destruction of eLinda’. This further confirms the reluctance of contemporary church tradition to criticise Zulu royalty, portraying them as repentant before Shembe. 58 A 1921 report on Shembe estimated that 95 per cent of his followers were female. Central Archives Depot (CAD), Native Affairs (NTS) 1431, 24/214, Sergeant Craddock to District Officer, South African Police, 10 September 1921. 59 This is the argument of Muller, Rituals of Fertility, pp. 159–98. 60 The conversion of wives and daughters to the church caused continual conflict with male homestead heads and chiefs: Cabrita, ‘Theological Biography’, p. 115. 61 B. Carton, Blood From Your Children: The Colonial Origins of Generational Conflict in South Africa (Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 2000), pp. 66–87. 62 Pietermaritzburg Archive Repository (PAR), Archive of the Chief Native Commissioner (CNC) 212 (981–1,050), CNC to Nongoma Magistrate, 8 May 1916. 63 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, p. 247. 64 Interview with Minister Zondo, Nongoma, 5 October 2008. 65 Interview with Minister Zondo, Nongoma, 5 October 2008 66 I. Hexham and G.C. Oosthuizen (eds), The Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume 3: The Continuing Story of the Sun and the Moon: Oral Testimony and the Sacred History of the amaNazarites under the Leadership of Bishops Johannes Galilee Shembe and Amos Shembe (Lewiston, Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), p. 277. 67 Shembe, Izihlabelelo, p. 140; Muller and Mthethwa, Hymns of the Nazaretha, p. 90. 68 Interview with Minister Zondo, Nongoma, 5 October 2008. 69 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, p. 246. 70 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, p. 18. 71 Interview with Minister Mthethwa, Msinga, 27 August 2008. 72 Interview with Minister Zondo, Nongoma, 5 October 2008. 73 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, pp. 60, 229–30. 74 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, pp. 54–9. 75 Shembe, Izihlabelelo, p. 19. In 2005 the church changed this verse. The number of ‘children of the royal family’ in the church meant they would feel ‘shame in their hearts when they heard it said that their grandfathers were hard hearted … So [Vimbeni Shembe] changed it, he said it was not only the Zulu kings who hardened their hearts, but all the black people who are our forefathers, who hardened their hearts’. Interview with Minister Zondo, Nongoma, 5 October 2008. 76 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, p. 69. 77 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, p. 62. 78 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, pp. 45–9. The prayer's reference to Mnyaiza indicates it probably originated after the expulsion from eLinda. 79 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, pp. 233–34. 82 Shembe, Izihlabelelo, pp. 124–25; Muller and Mthethwa, Hymns of the Nazaretha, p. 83. 80 Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, pp. 229–30. 81 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, pp. 185–92. 83 Hexham and Oosthuizen (eds), Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, pp. 191–2. 84 Muller and Mthethwa, Hymns of the Nazaretha, p. 7. 85 Hexham and Oosthuizen, Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume One, p. 96. 86 S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906–8 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970), pp. 198, 230. 87 PAR, CNC 1913/817-883: Assistant Magistrate Inanda to CNC, 12 February 1914; Assistant Magistrate Maphumulo to CNC, 2 July 1916; Lawyers Allison and Hime to CNC, 12 May 1916. 88 A 1922 police report also refers to the healing, observing that ‘Shembe [is] supposed to have cured Chief Swayimane … of some illness, in consequence of which the majority of the tribe under that Chief have adopted the Shembe religion’. CAD, NTS, 1431, 24/214, Craddock to District Commandant, South African Police, 31 July 1922. 89 Hexham and Oosthuizen, Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume Two, p. 86. 90 J. Guy, The Maphumulo Uprising: War, Law and Ritual in the Zulu Rebellion (Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2005), pp. 213–14. 91 Interview with Thandekile Qwabe, Ekuphakameni, 29 September 2006. 92 Cabrita, ‘Theological Biography’, pp. 96–107. 93 J. Clegg, ‘Ukubuyisa Isidumbu – “Bringing Back the Body”: An Examination into the Ideology of Vengeance in the Msinga and Mpofana Rural Locations, 1882–1944’, in P. Bonner (ed.), Working Papers in Southern African Studies (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1981), pp. 164–98. 94 Muller and Mthethwa, Hymns of the Nazaretha, p. 96. 95 Muller and Mthethwa, Hymns of the Nazaretha, p. 96 96 A.S. MacKinnon, ‘Chiefly Authority, Leapfrogging Headmen and the Political Economy of Zululand, South Africa, ca. 1930–1950’, JSAS, 27, 3 (September 2001), pp. 567–90. MacKinnon points out nonetheless that ‘the erosion of chiefly authority under “indirect rule” was uneven and contradictory’ (p. 568). 99 Hexham and Oosthuizen, Story of Isaiah Shembe, Volume One, pp. 158-9. 97 Mabuyakhulu's testimony originates from the 1930s–40s. He lodged testimonies and stories at Ekuphakameni in the 1940s in response to Johannes Galilee's appeal that those Nazaretha who had been ‘writing about his father bring their work to their office’. Papini and Hexham (eds), Catechism of the Nazarites, p. xxv. 98 Chief Mbonambi had belonged to the church since at least 1922: PAR, CNC 2155/1912, S.A. Police to Magistrate Empangeni, 13 November 1922. 100 1 Samuel. 101 Chief Mbonambi was one of three speakers at Shembe's funeral in 1935. E. Roberts, ‘Shembe: The Man and his Work’ (M.A. thesis, University of Witwatersrand, 1936), p. 49.