Missionary Witchcrafting African Being: Cultural Disarmament

This paper examines 19th-20th century European missionary cultural attitudes, discourses and practices and their impact on African consciousness and socio-cultural security, read primarily through the prism of performative cultures (primarily song) in colonial Zimbabwe (1890s-1970s). For decades since their advent on the African continent, European missionaries rabidly assaulted African cultures, regarding them as special manifestations of what they called African “savagery.” This assault persisted throughout the colonial period, though it somewhat became tampered by a reforming Catholic cultural policy which, from the 1950s, allowed for selective appropriation of aspects of African cultures in the latter church’s battle to save itself from the winds of political change that were blowing across the continent. I argue that while many Africans held onto their indigenous musical and other cultural practices, the missionary assault significantly undermined the fountains of African being. As such, I posit that missionization should be read as an insidious attempt at cultural disarmament that greatly facilitated African subjection to colonialism and neo-colonialism.
Sponsored by the IHC’s African Studies RFG, the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Music, the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies and the IHC’s Public Goods Series.

Prof. Chikowero’s paper is available at the link below

hm 5/24/12