River of Blood: The Genesis of a Martyr Cult in Southern Malawi, C. A.D. 1600

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Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1992 - 325 pagini

The culmination of years of fieldwork in southern Malawi, River of Blood reconstructs the beginnings of the Mbona martyr cult, follows its history to the present day, and reveals the fascinating intersections of an indigenous belief system with European Christianity.

In the cult of Mbona, the central African mythology of the snake that is beheaded to make the rains come has been combined with a more spiritual interpretation: the snake has been transformed into a human martyr and redeemer. According to the cult, the rainmaker Mbona was tracked down by his enemies; they cut off his head, and his blood formed the River of Blood. Mbona returned as a storm wind and asked that a shrine be dedicated in his name.

J. Matthew Schoffeleers recounts how the Portuguese presence in Zambezia in the period 1590-1622 led to more than three decades of internecine warfare and caused the people of southern Malawi tremendous suffering. In response to this political oppression and social upheaval, Schoffeleers shows, the people looked to Mbona, their "black Jesus," for redemption.

Beyond reconstructing the cult's genesis, Schoffeleers traces its recent history, particularly in political context. He provides texts of seven cult myths from different historical periods in both Chimang'anja and English. His analysis presents the Mbona myth as a continuous social construction and deconstruction. Emphasizing the impact of political and spiritual oppression on the cult, he distinguishes between the differing versions of the myth preserved by the aristocracy and by the commonalty and demonstrates how these disparate views unite to preserve historical information. In so doing, he shows that cults serve as valuable repositories for historical information.
 

Cuprins

The Shire Valley and Its Population 17
17
The Ritual Cycle of the Mbona Cult
49
The Principals and the Medium
71
The Quest for a Spirit Wife and the Struggle
92
The Lundu State in the Late Sixteenth and Early
117
Oral Traditions and the Retrieval of the Distant Past
140
Ideological Confrontation in Oral Tradition
160
General Introduction
175
Text IIA M E Rambiki 1960
183
Text IIB S Chimbuto 1966
197
The Mbona III Tradition
207
Text IIIB Che Chapalapala 1967
224
Notes
259
Sources
303
Index
317
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Despre autor (1992)

J. Matthew Schoffeleers is professor emeritus of anthropology of religion at the Free University in Amsterdam. A catholic priest, he worked for many years as a missionary in Malawi. He is an internationally recognized anthropologist.

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