ISSN: 1570-0178 Volume 5, Issue 2 (16 May 2003) Teachings of the Jamaa movement: Texts and commentaries transcribed , translated, and commented by Johannes Fabian University of Amsterdam e-mail: fabian@pscw.uva.nl address: Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology University of Amsterdam Oudezijds Achterburgwal 185 1012 DK Amsterdam The Netherlands   Introduction   Text 1: Of man (1) Context and setting Swahili text and English translation Commentary   Text 2: Of man (2) Text 3: Of angels

Text 1: Of man (1)

Context and setting

July 6, 1966. In a settlement at Lubumbashi, just behind the famous overpass that still showed the scars of battles between U.N. troops and Katangese secessionists, people had gathered for evening mass in the sleek, modern church the railway company built for its workers. Afterwards the priest had given the Church's blessing to a few marriages, and poured the baptismal water over woolly-headed babies, most of whom were annoyed at the double discomfort of getting wet and being taken away from their mothers' breasts. Then some of us squeezed into a car and headed toward the quartier industriel to celebrate one of the baptisms. The air was crisp and clean, free still of the unnerving dusty gusts that would come at the height of the dry season. While I steered along the broad avenue whose changing names recorded the fate of bygone regimes, of deposed and hanged politicians, Baba Kabondo began to talk about umuntu. Cheerful, oblivious of the struggles for independence, he recited the myth of thought-man, God's intimate companion who was not touched by distinctions of color, sex, or social status.
I remember feeling somewhat uneasy about these great words and visions pronounced from the back seat of a car. The situation wasn't right. Was he trying to impress me? Or did he want to get his piece in before the big leader would take over? I still had much to learn about the ever-open door between mawazo and everyday life, about the ease and gusto with which Jamaa people would move from one to the other.
When we arrived at our destination, it was dark; a house in a large courtyard surrounded by warehouses, repairshops, and small factories. Inside we were greeted by our host, a tall, imposing man dressed immaculately in a grey business suit. Other guests were awaiting us, the men in their Sunday best, the women in that graceful, colorful fashion that seems to be pan-African. This was decidedly an urban gathering, much different from what I had known among the workers at Musonoi. These people were owners of small businesses, a police detective (who asked me about the color bar in the United States), one or two workers of the railway company, and the chef-boy of some important former colonial official. He was responsible for the dinner, to which we sat down and were served in European fashion. A few rounds of Simba beer were followed by an excellent biftec frites (steak and french fries), very Belgian down to the salad spread heavily with homemade mayonnaise. At the beginning the conversation was in French, small talk and polite inquiries about my work. Then, as the spirit rose, someone intoned a Jamaa hymn, Most joined in, clapping their hands. My neighbor at the table remembered that this was the song they had composed and sung for Baba Placide's farewell. It was a praise to him who had received mawazo from God. The mood became exuberant, and at times my still shaky Swahili made me lose track of the conversation around me. Noticing this, Fr. Somers, the parish priest, and Baba Nkondo helped out with translations and comments. A prayer signalled the end of the meal.
We all moved to a group of chairs arranged around a low table in the adjoining living room. Microphone and tape recorder were ready, and for a second everyone's attention seemed to be caught by this intrusive piece of technology. Someone made a remark I did not catch, the group broke out in laughter, and then Baba Nkondo pronounced the Jamaa greeting. We responded, and in his resonant, calm voice, he asked us: Fathers and mothers, what are we called?

Swahili text and English translation

Commentary

Communicative Situation and Genre
Public gatherings of the Jamaa may take place either following a regular, most often weekly, schedule, or on occasions which call for celebration or for response to a situation of crisis (illness, death). Main criterion for determining the public character of a meeting is the presence of the group. In weekly reunions, participation may approach the total of the membership, although it rarely does; on special occasions, frequently only a fraction of the membership may be present, although always with the assumption that the group (nkundi) is represented. The latter was the case when we recorded Text 1. Of the fifteen or twenty people who attended, most were married couples and belonged to the "BCK" group of Lubumbashi.²⁴ Led by the speaker, they were in fact his "children" through initiation (including the Belgian missionary who was present during the recording). I was not able exactly to determine the degree of membership (or rank in initiation); some may have been beginners and at least one of the participants was declared a mere sympathizer, a category which, I assume, would also have been applied to me.
Presence of not fully initiated members and interested outsiders is characteristic of public meetings, both the routine- and the special occasion kind. In the latter case, it may be more pronounced since relatives and friends of a celebrating or mourning family are often invited to participate. Praying and singing of hymns is more prominent at these meetings, and a communal meal will be planned, although it usually follows instruction in the doctrine. The Jamaa does not prohibit beer-drinking with moderation. As a matter of fact, when one of the participants in that evening at Lubumbashi refused beer and took only water, others jokingly called him a Protestant (alluding to the Methodist ban on drinking). Later, it was explained to me that he used to be a heavy drinker who had pledged abstinence as part of his conversion to the Jamaa, but that was regarded as his personal matter and outsiders would be told that he refused beer for reasons of health.
Let us now consider the speaker of our text. Baba Nkondo Sébastien (often called Baba Seba) was, like many of the other participants, an immigrant to Katanga from southern Kasai. The father of seven children, he held at the time of this recording the office of an administrator of the railroad workers' settlement ("Camp" in local parlance, also kompund or componi, from the English "compound," in Katanga Swahili. He shared that function with a colleague who was in charge of bureaucratic matters while he served as the chief arbitrator in all matters of litigation (concerning labor discipline and customary law). He was highly respected and had considerable influence. Originally, he was trained as an elementary schoolteacher in a mission school. For reasons of health, however, he gave up teaching an joined the railway company as a clerk one of the important railway posts to the west of Lubumbashi. There he was introduced to the Jamaa by another prominent leader of the movement in this area. Baba Nkondo lived in the settlement which he administrated and was the leading layman in the Catholic parish that was served by a missionary, a Jesuit priest who visited the church on a regular basis. Since that missionary was a supporter and himself a member of the movement, the Jamaa had complete control of the parish and beyond that considerable influence on the life of settlement. All this combined to give Baba Nkondo a position of unquestioned authority, which he exercised with obvious pleasure but also with discretion and great personal warmth. His instructions in Jamaa doctrine very clearly exhibited the feature of authoritative delivery which is one of the characteristics of the mafundisho genre of Jamaa speech events and texts (Fabian 1974, reprinted in 1991: chapter 3).
In many cases, a speaker's authoritative attitude or consciousness may have to be inferred from non-linguistic indicators and signals that are not recordable and do not show up in transcription. In Text 1, however, we can point to several instances in which the speaker resorts to an outright didactic stance when he elicits response to specific questions from his audience (see paragraph 5, for instance). This, incidentally, was even more pronounced in instructions he delivered to his group in the settlement. I attended several of those as an observer and was impressed by his classroom approach, something which he obviously brought to Jamaa teaching from his earlier training and which was not at all typical of other prominent leaders in the area.²⁵ With more emphasis than others, he would insist on the inner connections between teaching and fecundity, and between fecundity and spiritual filiation, i.e., initiation. In paragraph 24, we he describes the crucial steps in which Jamaa doctrinal discourse is seen to realize the process and relationships of initiation. At the beginning of that paragraph, fecundity of the soul as the goal specific to the Jamaa is contrasted to fecundity of the body, which everyone else seeks. Concretely, search for corporal fecundity is expressed as concern for offspring. Someone may have five, six, or even ten children, the speaker tells us, but then the family is complete. Spiritual fecundity knows no limits. The essence of that argument is somewhat obscured in translation; the original reveals an important switch from a general, somewhat abstract idea of fecundity (uzazi) to the idea of a kin group (kizazi) constituted by the realization of fecundity. Morphologically, both terms are based on the same stem (-zazi), and the mere change of prefixes from u- to ki- facilitates an important conceptual switch. In our attempt to work out the structural principles along which the Jamaa is organized as an social entity, we found that constant translation of a general value (uzazi) into specific relationships of filiation (kizazi) was a key to understanding (Fabian 1971:88-92).
A second conceptual transformation is involved when the speaker defines filiation qua activity as teaching. To teach is to exercise fecundity; to be taught is to be born. To give birth and to be born is the essence of initiation. Hence, if we carry on the argument to its logical conclusion, it is the pronounced distinction between authoritative speakers and audience, combined with emphasis on instruction rather than on the genres of testimony or encounter that makes public mafundisho such an important enactment of Jamaa teaching. In mafundisho Jamaa realizes itself as a social entity.

Content and Style
Articulation of the values and relationships expressed by uzazi/kizazi does not exhaust the communicative process which a speech event produces a given text of the genre mafundisho. To give birth and to be born through teaching are, by virtue of the notion of birth, linked to initiation, to the gradual formation of experience guided by mawazo. To expound that concept, to explore its dimensions, and to fill it with concrete content is the function of instruction as narrative. So our interpretation now moves from considering teaching as an event to what we may call the enactment of communicative competence. Any attempt to recognize and understand such competence must be based on the role that specific content plays in mediating between the total system of mawazo and concrete communication of mawazo. This calls first of all for an identification of the teaching content of Text 1 in terms of topics that make up the main divisions of Jamaa doctrine (Fabian 1971: chapter 3). Comparison shows that our text does not concentrate on one or the other of the recognized subdivisions. Under the general heading of umuntu, it brings together a number of topics in such a way that it covers almost the entire scope of teaching matter for the first degree of initiation. Schematically, this may be presented as follows:

Thus, Text 1 can clearly be located within the scope of teaching content. At the same time, it displays a number of significant deviations from that theoretical catalog. The bulk of the instruction is devoted to an exposition of the three thoughts (6, 7, 16-36). "Discovery" is treated only briefly, by way of introduction, and with respect to "origins" (Trinity, Jamaa), the speaker limits himself to bare formulae of standardized doctrine. Somewhat more extended are references to Jesus Christ, to the apostles and the church, topics we located under the common heading of "realization." Conspicuous for their absence are references to such crucial chapters such as the myth of thought-man, the creation of the angels, of Adam and Eve, and to the chapter on the Virgin Mary and the Holy Family. Furthermore, it appears that some of the topics are not introduced in the order in which they appear in our theoretical catalog (for instance, paragraphs 13, 37, 14, 27,30). All this goes to show that, in a given concrete instance, the speaker may be bound by outer limits defining what is teaching matter in public mafundisho, but not by those subdivisions and categories that are otherwise codified in written outlines that are the main source for establishing a "catalog." In the text under consideration, the general topic of umuntu, properly located in the "discovery" section, serves to organize a number of topics which the speaker is free to select and to arrange according to his own choice. This element of choice is one of the indicators for emerging patterns of a style.
Deviation from a generalized scheme and evidence for personal choice may in fact serve as analytical indices of stylistic variation. But variation as such is not what we are trying to demonstrate with our interpretation of texts. Variation is but a formal indicator of a process which we tried to identify in its concrete product and we will show presently that neither deviation nor choice is adequate to describe the results of the final phase in the production of a text. Neither can account for the specific shape it receives by being recited by a concrete speaker in a concrete situation. We shall therefore now consider Text 1 in the light of a specific kind of rhetoric appeal made visible in such a way that the final product can be related to the speaker's personal experience with, and his position in, the Jamaa.
Anticipating the results of that inquiry, we propose that Text 1 shows the major characteristics of a logical-moral style of presentation. To be sure, other influences are visible, but these will have to be dealt with later on. In this style, the succession of chapters or subdivisions will be based strictly on manifest taxonomies of doctrinal key-terms (see Fabian 1975, reprinted in 1991:chapter 2). As the following schema shows (see Figure 2), Text 1 is in its main parts clearly organized along the patterns of taxonomic divisions of umuntu. Brief versions or elements of other taxonomies are also recognizable but do not significantly shape the scope of this instruction. Here the taxonomy of umuntu; the numbers point to paragraphs in Text 1:

umuntu 1-3, 11, 12, 14, 19, 38
three great thoughts 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15
life-force 16		fecundity 22		love 31
spiritual 16, 17	corporal 20	spiritual 23	corporal 23	spiritual 31	corporal 34
Figure 2: Taxonomic distinctions and narrative structures in Text 1

In actual presentation, the sequence has certain flaws if measured against the ideal schema. There is a certain amount of back-and-forth tracking; occasionally, a step may be skipped; and the last part (about mapendo) is treated rather hurriedly; the speaker obviously was eager to come to an end. Nevertheless, there cannot be any doubt that this instruction about umuntu is consciously organized around a classification of mawazo (see also the concluding formula in paragraph 38), and that major subdivisions are introduced as nodal points in a taxonomy. It is also apparent that the speaker takes great care to develop his instructions following the logical relationships we find in that taxonomy. For the most part, he does this by implication, simply proceeding from one topic to the next. Occasionally, however, he explicitly points to the fact that he is about to introduce or complete a portion of his talk (e.g., paragraph 4, where a logical transition between two different approaches to umuntu is marked; see also paragraphs 15, 22, 38). The same regard for logical completeness and elegance is visible in the passages where he briefly introduces two other conceptual triads of Jamaa doctrine, the three names (paragraphs 5 and 7), and what we called the three rules (paragraph 37).
Conspicuous and impressive as they may be, these logical arrangements of key doctrinal terms only provide the scaffold on which baba Nkondo builds his instruction. They are neither the only recognizable structures of his narrative, nor does the final product consist just of propositions stating or elaborating terms of doctrine. Rhetoric is directed towards praxis, it derives its appeal from the ways in which the speaker can show to his audience what mawazo ought to be realized in daily life. In texts following the logical-moral scheme, the overall impression is that of a strong emphasis on the normative application of doctrinal tenets to action. Lexically, this is signalled by the prominence of norm concepts implying moral obligation, a moral urge or responsibility. The one most frequently used in Text 1 is tunapashwa, we are obliged to, and its derivatives (see paragraphs 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36). Others are ni lazima, it behooves, it is necessary (see paragraphs 13, 16, 17, 35), or kufaa, to be good, to be appropriate (paragraph 19). Added to this should be negative forms, expressing moral strictures, such as hatuwezi, we cannot, it is not morally acceptable for us to.
Concern with norms and applications not only is expressed lexically, it also shows in the structure of the text in the sense that it is possible to identify its segments with respect to their position in a matrix constituted by two axes. This is illustrated in the following figure:

The divisions we marked on the horizontal axis describe the narrative sequence in which the speaker develops the topic of umuntu. He begins with a statement concerning the "name" muntu (a kind of nominal definition), and then proceeds to give the Jamaa view of the derivation of mawazo, the distinguishing element of both divine and human nature (a kind of genetic definition). Then follows the exposition of the theme in terms of the three great thoughts, and their taxonomic subdivisions. The last section briefly introduces the three rules, and ends with a formula restating the main theme.
Along the vertical axis we indicated two or possibly three, levels of discourse, "Classification" is the predominant characteristic of those segments in which the speaker states normative concepts and their logical relationships, either through definition or through taxonomic arrangements.
"Application" describes segments in which these norms or rules are applied to action as concrete guidelines or through examples and counter-examples. Occasionally the statement of a concept and the call to apply it may occur simultaneously within the same segment. This explains why some paragraphs had to be listed both under "classification" and "application." It should be kept in mind that the present segmentation of the text is a compromise of various different considerations. All "applications" are placed in the immediate social context of the Jamaa movement.
There remains, nevertheless, a significant portion of the text in which emphasis is shifted from individual motivation to integration into institutional patterns, either of the Jamaa as a movement or, more prominently, into the Catholic mission church. Tentatively, we labelled this level "organization." One of the reasons why this remains tentative is that, with the exception of paragraph 14, concern with "organization" seems to be developed only with regard to the second of the great thoughts, fecundity. This affects the economy and elegance of the paradigm, since this last level appears to be limited to only one section in the narrative sequence. On the other this confirms earlier findings concerning the social organization of the Jamaa which is perceived as a transformation of uzazi into kizazi (see commentary on paragraph 24 in the preceding section). Important is also the way the speaker expresses the link between mawazo and its concrete individual and social realizations. Individual action, as well as institutionalized action, are depicted as an implementation of rules and principles. This is, as we argued before, the essence of the logical-moral style and its rhetoric appeal. There can be no doubt that Text 1 is thoroughly permeated by these concerns, lexically as well as in its narrative structure.
Our schematic representation of Text 1 in Figure 2 bears a certain obvious similarity to Lévi-Strauss,' orchestration of myth (see 1967:209f). It shares with it a tendency to separate synchronic (or paradigmatic) from diachronic (or syntagmatic) relationships between segments of a narrative. But we have no interest in showing that the synchronic axis is theoretically more important and more revealing of presumed universal structures. Nor do we think that it is useful to contrast the two axes with respect to time. In both dimensions, narrative is crucially dependent on, and expressive of, time. This may be more obvious along the syntagmatic axis, i.e., the one that follows narrative sequence. It is hardly less important in the constitution of paradigmatic relationships. The realization of projects from "classification" through "application" and "organization" (see the rows of Figure 2) clearly expresses conceptualizations of time which defy a cover-all designation as "synchronic." For us, schematic presentations of this kind are useful devices for quick orientation; their theoretical contribution to an understanding of Jamaa discourse is limited.
But back to the text. Our account of stylistic features in Text 1 would be incomplete if we were to overlook a more than incidental occurrence of elements we attributed to the existential-theological scheme that was identified in another context. Most conspicuous is the frequency with which the speaker invokes the notion of kutafuta, to search. More often than not, the term is embedded in phrases formulating moral appeals (e.g. paragraphs 12, 13, 16, 19, 22, 24, 26, 30) and can therefore be regarded as subordinate to the dominant pattern of logical-moral argumentation. But there are at least two contexts in which kutafuta is given independent significance. One of them is contained in the initial section (paragraphs 2 and 3), where kutafuta serves as a characteristic distinguishing divine form human nature. Both God and man are mawazo; but man is mawazo ya kutafuta, literally thought of searching. The crucial point is that this attribute is not so much conceived as a pragmatic norm; it is not defined with respect to something that must be found, but it is an existential determinant of human nature, irrespective of concrete goals or goods to be attained. In the monograph, we observed that this notion is typical of Jamaa teaching in the Lubumbashi area (Fabian 1971:96). A consensus of several important informants pointed to the missionary Jamaa leader in that city as the source. He himself admitted that emphasis on searching had been a concern of his in "training" local leaders. It was in line with his efforts to direct the movement away from the dogmatism and ritualism thought to be characteristic of groups in the Kolwezi area.
As we shall see later on, the term kutafuta may, in a different sense, be employed within a mythical-historical frame. In Lubumbashi, however, leaders would insist on its existential connotation: man is a searcher who never can acquiesce in his findings; he is someone who always lives facing the paradox that he must seek but not find. In Text 1, as in several other documents, this existential-ontological notion of kutafuta is linked to what could be called a phenomenology of seeking. This, in fact, was one of the starting points used by the founder in his "discovery" of the three great thoughts. He used to start his instructions with the question, muntu anatafuta nini, what is man looking for, what is man's desire? The three standard answers -- life, fecundity, and love -- are thus derived from an examination of concrete needs and hopes. Traces of this approach are found in our text at the end of paragraph 31, in 32, and 35. Other indicators of existential-theological concerns we can see in the reference to imani, faith (paragraph 17), and in a short passage (paragraph 21) where the speaker argues for the universal extension of a negative attribute of man: to be a sinner. The latter is definitely unusual for Jamaa teaching as I was able to observe it.
In a comparative historical perspective, Jamaa thought exhibits many, if not most, characteristics of gnostic thought (Fabian 1969). Accordingly, notions expressing loss of knowledge or forgetting, may be used as universal negative concepts. The present text contains several formulations of gnostic character (e.g., the problem of sameness/likeness between God and man based on thought, paragraphs 4, 6).
We should briefly note that Text I also contains elements we can ascribe to a mythical-historical style, notably in those passages in which the speaker develops the notion of njia, the way (e.g., paragraph 30) and kazi, work, task (e.g., paragraph 32). These, however, are clearly subordinate to the major pattern of argumentation, and can only lead us to reaffirm that our attempts to distinguish tendencies of stylistic variation are meant to identify historical contexts of a speaker's experience.
Finally, we should comment on the importance of what we can call rhetoric devices in Text 1. The overall impression is that the speaker makes extensive use of antiphonal contacts, i.e. calling for response from his audience by inserting the Jamaa greeting and by inviting completion of sentences and/or words. As we already observed, he occasionally takes an outright didactic stance when he poses doctrinal questions to his audience. This, too, may be regarded as a rhetoric device. On the other hand, there are only traces of rhetorical elements which the Jamaa borrows from popular oral art. At one point Baba Nkondo hints at what may be a Jamaa maxim or proverb (paragraph 16). In another place he dramatizes an account of the destitute Christian with a vivid imaginary dialogue (paragraphs 18 and 19). Several times he declares that he is giving a mufano, an example (e.g., paragraph 14, paragraph 20). But in these instances as well as in others that are not explicitly marked as mifano, the illustration of doctrine tends to be axiomatic rather than anecdotal or metaphoric. Some passages contain more concrete images that others (e.g., paragraphs 28, 32), but on the whole these mifano are applications rather than images, a tendency that is perhaps inherent in the logical-moral style.

Socio-Cultural Context
We took great care to depict the communicative situation and the various formal features which allow us to link Text 1 to the production of mawazo, Jamaa discourse. In this commentary we concentrate on everything that allows us to identify the outward shape and the inner constitution of texts. In this sense, we aim at text-immanent interpretations. But our concern with the reality of the text should not give the impression that we intend to reduce the social reality of the Jamaa to spoken or written objectivations of mawazo. We should not project a picture of the movement according to which its followers would appear completely and unequivocally encapsulated in their own doctrinal world. In every instance, Jamaa teaching not only makes statements of a world, that is, of its own microcosm, but also speaks about a world. Such intentionality is necessarily part of any ongoing process of communication. Should content, the what? of statements, be completely transformed into procedures and structures, the how?, then one would have to conclude that the production of thought and, with it, articulative communication have ceased. Text 1 offers an opportunity to show how Jamaa teaching extends itself beyond the articulation of its own concepts and tenets into the social-cultural context in which most members live their everyday life.
The cell of all concrete realizations of Jamaa is the married couple. Their union is to be based on perfect equality. This is an ideal and Jamaa people know from their everyday experience that their beliefs are challenged by the values of the wider society. In the light of this, statements such as the one at the beginning of paragraph 10 have a real, practical edge. To assert the equality of all people may be gratuitous; to call for equality between the rich and the poor is largely futile, given the objective class structure of the society; Jamaa members are poor and likely to remain so. But to ask for equality of the sexes is a demand which has at least a chance to be fulfilled. One of the concrete issues, by the way, one which the Jamaa regard as a test of its teachings, is alluded to in paragraph 28: "This is a bad wife, because she does not give birth." In traditional as well as in urban societies, a woman's (presumed) sterility inevitably results at first in attempts to secure magic or ritual redress and finally in the breakup of the marriage. I have known and have heard of numerous couples who, supported by the communal approval of the Jamaa, challenged this accepted cause for divorce and refused to yield to the pressures of their kin group to separate. To exercise spiritual fecundity in the ritual life of the movement as it is described in paragraph 26 was deemed ample recompense for physical sterility.
Text 1 also provides vivid images for the concrete situation in which most recruits to the movement find themselves. In paragraphs 16, 18, and 19, the speaker depicts the estranged mission Christian who has come to regard his religion as the white man's contraption, the price one has to pay to get into school, and therefore basically a matter for children. It is through a second conversion that the typical candidate for the Jamaa is made to realize that Christianity is a matter for mature, responsible people in search of their humanity and that Mungu, the God of the missionaries, is their own God, a God who cannot be "returned" after one is through with mission schools (see paragraph 19). In conversations, Baba Nkondo identified this as his personal conversion experience: Mungu ni Mungu wangu, God is my God. Such reconversion to Christianity raises a problem for the people of the Jamaa. No longer protected by colonial prejudice, they must take a position vis-a-vis the mission church which, in the middle sixties when these texts were recorded was still represented largely by a European clergy. In paragraphs 14 and 26 and 27, we find typical Jamaa solutions to that problem. The church hierarchy is subsumed under the existential definition of man the "searcher"; it is depicted as searching for spiritual kizazi and in need of help from Christian laymen to accomplish the missionary task. But the fact is that many missionaries think of themselves not as searchers, but as possessors of truth; they have no interest in spiritual kinship but seek to erect buildings, educational systems, and bureaucratic structures; and certainly are most wary of unsolicited help from their African converts.
All this gives to these passages which we located on the organizational level of discourse (see Figure 16) a slightly polemic edge. In fact, they may have been stated for the benefit of the two Europeans present at the meeting. At the same time, they reveal the utopian character of a great deal of Jamaa teaching. Precisely at the point where the reconverted Christian sought to extend his predicament to social practice, where he saw a chance to overcome one of the main barriers of the colonial situation, his definitions and projects were bent back onto themselves -- onto the pursuit of life, fecundity, and love within the movement. The speaker is aware of these frustrations as well as of their effect on the Jamaa. In paragraph 33 he rejects the image the movement has among may outsiders as being an exclusive sectarian group of people who think of themselves as "the enlightened ones." The context of this observation — it appears in a section dealing with the great thought of love — makes it likely that the speaker also intended an allusion to heterodox branches of the movement. Most of these owe their existence to an exclusive, secret, and radical pursuit of "love," often in the form of ritualized sexual promiscuity.
Finally, we should point to paragraph 32, which documents Jamaa views of the pursuit of love in the industrial workers's situation. He is depicted as someone who seeks above all love and understanding and it is most significant that in this respect his contractual relationships with fellow workers and employers are compared to the bond that keep his marriage together. This equation is open to different, perhaps contradictory, interpretations. Does the Jamaa simply project its "cellular" views of human relationships focused on husband and wife onto all social relations? And is this to be taken as a confirmation of well-known colonial cliches of Africans seeking, like children, only personal recognition and gratification at work? Or is it the other way round? Does the Jamaa incorporate into its definition of marriage a new type of personal relation based on experiences in the urban industrial world? Turning back to paragraph 20 we find ample confirmation for the latter. There, the world of labor and its concomitants such as modern medicine are declared "good" means of pursuing life for the body and serve to delineate proper Jamaa behavior against pagan dependency on diviners and other "dark" practices.²⁶

Notes

¹ Throughout these texts we shall use "greeting" as a short translation gloss for the Jamaa formula yambo yetu (bababa na bamama). According to the Oxford Standard Dictionary (148 f.), jambo, lit., matter, affair, is a worn-down form of hujambo? "Nothing the matter? (response: sijambo). In Shaba Swahili only the shorter form seems to be in use. When the greeting is addressed to a multitude the pronoun yenu (second person plural) may be added. It is in conscious contrast to the latter form that the Jamaa insists on yambo yetu (first person plural) as a distinctive sign of membership in the movement.
² The cogency of the argument is somewhat lost in translation. The speaker utilizes the common root -ntu to derive from the form ba-ntu, people, humans, the necessity of understanding u-mu-ntu, the essence of being human.
³ One of the rare instances in which Jamaa teaching employs the term nguvu (see also paragraphs 20 and 21 of Text I) for "power, force." More often the notion of power, as, e.g., in " the power of God," will be rendered by uwezo. In any case, nguvu has no systematic place in Jamaa terminology and it is in no sense a key term of Jamaa thought. As I have argued elsewhere (1970:20-23), this has to be recognized in any interpretation and critique of Tempels' earlier formulations. Especially in his Bantu Philosophy, the concept of force vitale appeared to figure as a central idea. In Jamaa teaching, the notion of vital force is rendered by uzima, one, and only one, of the "three great thoughts." There may have been doubts about the intention of Bantu Philosophy, but Jamaa doctrine offers no basis for accusations that Tempels ideologized Bantu thought as Kraftphilosophie.
⁴ Taxonomic differentiation of mawazo is in the present text first introduced in the form of the three names, later the exposition concentrates on the three thoughts. Also, the present formula lists "Holy Spirit, love" as the third link instead of the somewhat esoteric but logical ubwana/ubibi, being husband/wife. This occurs frequently, especially when the speaker does not intend to give an exegesis of the formula.
⁵ Notice that in this context the three thoughts are stated, not as the essence of umuntu, but as a measure of likeness between God and man. The first aspect will be developed later (paragraphs 15 ff).
⁶ The speaker uses the French non, in this case apparently in order to emphasize negation. Such selective use of French words and phrases is relatively rare in the Kolwezi area while some speakers in Lubumbashi and Kinshasa would tend consistently to employ a limited number of terms, such as mais (but) instead of alafu (see also this speaker in paragraph 34). Of course, French expressions regularly occur in contexts of technical and administrative language (see below, paragraph 32).
⁷ Our translation falls short of the subtlety with which the speaker chooses his attributes. We render muntu wa bule as "useless person." The phrase is used currently as an expression of contempt and disregard, especially for people of lower status. The rejection implied in the present context is not based on the addressee's lower socio-economic status (it is used of the white man). Abuse, rather than contempt, is what the speaker seems to intend. An interesting gloss is provided by the Kiluba term kidima, idiot, imbecile, lourdaud, homme stupide, insense, as applied to Christians who no longer follow traditional custom (see Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:116).
⁸ The passage invites a comment on color classification in Jamaa teaching (see also above, paragraph 8). As such, color is not treated explicitly in the doctrine. It is my impression that many speakers simply surrender to the conceptual force of the classical Bantu triad: black, white, red. Going on evidence presented in our text, two reasons can be adduced for this interpretation. First, the speaker betrays his uncertainty about the "red man" in the parenthetic remark "wherever he lives." If questioned, informants would vary in their responses. Some pointed to the "redskins," i.e., The American Indians mentioned in elementary school texts. Others suggested that the red man "lives in Asia" and that "Jesus Christ belonged to the red race." The latter is a highly significant point, since it implies that the founder of Christianity is placed outside of, or elevated above, the black-white opposition characteristic of the racial and social situation in Katanga. I am not aware of any category of persons living there being classified as red, although several Hindu families occupied rather prominent positions as tradesmen and Union Minière contractors in the Kolwezi area. Secondly, the choice of attributes in our present instance shows significant lexical deviation from what would be the classical formula. "White" is not rendered as mweupe, a neutral color term, but as muzungu, the current expression for white man with its racial, social, and cultural connotations.
⁹ We translate the attribute muzima as "total." The concept is closely related to uzima, life-force, one of the three great thoughts. It has a wide range of connotations, from physical "wholeness" to general health and well-being. In expressions such as dunia muzima, the entire world, it may connote abstract totality.
¹⁰ At his point, mawazo rather than roho is used to signify the spiritual aspect of human constitution. We take this to confirm our interpretation that mwili-mawazo is used when man's essential nature is referred to (such as in the present instance in which the absence of mawazo means death). The pair mwili-roho is only employed in classifying aspects of the realization of mawazo.
¹¹ The preceding discussion is an instance of explicit reflection on a complex and changing semantic field. Here the speaker opts for an exclusive definition of muntu: a being which is complete when body and soul are united. Little emphasis is put on the aspect of "totality," i.e., that which makes a being a personal being, which seems to have been the traditional connotation of muntu.
¹² In the original, the speaker uses a play on words when he argues that it is a necessity, lazima, to search for life-force, uzima. The link is one of phonological similarity rather than etymological relation. Lazima is not of Bantu origin.
¹³ Jamaa must be used here in its general meaning of "family" (i.e. not the name for the movement) because it to recommend consulting a diviner would contradict Jamaa doctrine.
¹⁴ Literally it says: "Me, this is not here on earth, I know." The whole paragraph represents a change of register and the translation is unable to convey the sense of mocking and irony the speaker projects through intonation and choice of expressions.
¹⁵ The terms muganga and mufumu which we translate as "doctor" and "sorcerer" are examples for the complexities of semantic change that may occur between autochthonous and Shaba Swahili usage. In our text, the first one refers to the European-style medical doctor, the second to the traditional practitioner. Muganga is approved by the speaker, while mufumu is rejected as a pagan concept. Other speakers, however, may use the same terms to express different connotations, often those of one of the native languages. In Kiluba, for instance, nganga is the initiated and official preparer of bwanga, magic medicines (see Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:24, 26), while mfumu (corresponding to mfumo in East Coast Swahili) is a title given to notables, chiefs, and their counsellors (ibid.:168).
¹⁶ Baba Nkondo uses two terms in Tshiluba to evoke practices of divination. Mikiya, I am told, refers to a moral debt (incurred by an infraction); mishinga to corresponding penalties.
¹⁷ In this paragraph two terms are used to refer to missionary sisters: the French form of address preceded by a personal class prefix: ba-ma Soeur (this is the plural form; in the singular the prefix is dropped), and bikira, plural ma-bikira, literally virgin(s). The choice of the plural prefix ma- over ba- may imply a subtle connotation difficult to translate. Ma- is used of persons when the speaker wishes to express distance, lack of relationship to a collectivity: e.g., ma-boy, current plural for houseboy; ma-baba, expression I found for remote, no longer personally known ancestors. Other examples in the present text are ma-rafiki, friends (paragraph 26) and ma-padri, priests (paragraph 26).
¹⁸ Our translation of kizazi as "family" should not be taken in any specific sense. It simply is the visible realization of the great thought of uzazi (the prefix ki- indicates that it is in the order of "things"). But the speaker also has in his mind kizazi as "kinship (group), i.e. the social organization of the Jamaa.
¹⁹ This is an elliptic remark which must be understood as a reference to the counter-examples of true fecundity mentioned earlier.
²⁰ The original uses the term bukweli, for which I do not find a comparable meaning in East Coast Swahili. The literal sense is "a state of certainty, authenticity (from -kweli, true). In Katanga it signifies a marriage properly arranged and confirmed by the payment of bridewealth (see Lenselaer 1983:250; perhaps also Kiluba kwela, verb for coitus; Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:298).
²¹ I take miyujizi to be a form of mjuzi, from kujua, to know. Possibly it is a plural of ujuzi, possession of knowledge (Oxford Standard Dictionary, p. 159).
²² In this context, mwekunda, red, does not refer to a racial or color category but to a standard of beauty: not too light, not too dark.
²³ The choice of the French term, familiar to most listeners from their labor-world, emphasizes the inappropriateness of such an attitude.
²⁴ Most of the members lived in the workers' settlement of the BCK railway company.
²⁵ On the role of elementary school teachers in the Jamaa, see Fabian 1971:74f, 106.
²⁶ A more comprehensive commentary on Jamaa conceptualizations of labor as well as on paragraphs 20 and 32 of Text 1 may be found in Fabian 1973.

References

Fabian, Johannes. (1969b). An African Gnosis: For a Reconsideration of an Authoritative Definition. History of Religions 9: 42-58.
Fabian, Johannes. (1971). Jamaa: A Charismatic Movement in Katanga. Evanston: Northwestern University press. (234 pp.)
Fabian, Johannes. (1973). Kazi: Conceptualizations of Labor in a Charismatic Movement among Swahili-speaking Workers. Cahiers d`études africaines 13: 293-325.
Fabian, Johannes. (1974). Genres in an emerging tradition: An approach to religious communication. In: A.W. Eister (ed.), Changing perspectives in the scientific study of religion. New York: Wiley Interscience. 249-272.
Fabian, Johannes. (1975). Taxonomy and ideology: On the boundaries of concept classification. In: M. Dale Kinkade, Kenneth L. Hale and Oswald Werner (eds.), Linguistics and anthropology: In honor of C.F. Vögelin. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press. 183-197.
Fabian, Johannes. (1977). Lore and doctrine: Some observations on story-telling in the Jamaa movement. Cahiers d`études africaines 17: 307-329.
Fabian, Johannes. (1991). Time and the Work of Anthropology: Critical Essays 1971-1991. Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Fabian, Johannes. (1994). Jamaa: A Charismatic Movement Revisited. In Thomas D. Blakely, Walter E. A. van Beek and Dennis L. Thomson (eds.), Religion in Africa. Experience and Expression. London: James Currey/ Portsmout, N.H.: Heineman. 257-74.
Lenselaer, Alphonse. (1983). Dictionnaire Swahili-Français. Paris: Karthala.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. (1967). Structural Anthropology. Garden City, N. J.: Doubleday.
Van Avermaet, E. and B. Mbuya. (1954). Dictionnaire Kiluba-Français. Tervuren: Musée Royal du Congo Belge.

[Introduction]

[Text 1: Of man (1)]

[Text 2: Of man (2)]

[Text 3: Of angels ]

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