Page 31 - Research & Innovation Report 2020

HUMANITIES

The identity crisis we are

experiencing today

African traditional religion activist, Professor Nokuzola Mndende, has joined Nelson Mandela
University’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology as an Adjunct Professor.

“My focus is to restore traditional African culture so that our young spirituality, if we invoke them by their Christian or Jewish names
people are able to engage the world from a point of identity,” says who are we invoking? Another important issue is that when there
Prof Mndende, a qualified diviner or spirit medium (igqirha) with a are rituals today people use a lot of alcohol, particularly brandy,
PhD in African Traditional Religion and an extensive career in the but this is not historical. How can you talk to your ancestors when
areas of African culture, feminist and womanist theology, African you are drunk? Amasi was traditionally used in our rituals and
spirituality, and indigenous knowledge systems. subsequently umqombothi. Now people are using brandy as if it is
tradition, but it is not, and these things are destroying us.”
“When we achieved our democracy we all agreed on freedom
of religion, multilingualism and equality. As an African liberation Prof Mndende says this is all part of the identity crisis that people
theologian, I introduced the acceptance of African traditional are experiencing today. “Our young people have major problems
religion or inkolo yeSintu (indigenous practices) as a religion in its because we are doing things the wrong way and if you propose
own right, like all the others, as previously it had been interpreted the right way you are labelled as being archaic and not dynamic,
the colonial way as an exclusive practice or culture of the diviners. and we are emphasising that liquor does not make you dynamic.”

“In addition to this, the literature about African traditional
religion is still predominantly written by academics who are not
practitioners of the religion and who tend to use Christianity as a
point of departure, and so, as a result, the religion on paper is not
what the people are actually practising.”

In African traditional religion, Prof Mndende explains, “we believe
in the Creator and we communicate with the Creator through our
ancestors, performing rituals using natural objects.” The religion
embraces language, beliefs, spirituality, ritual practices, history of
events and naming identity. “Naming represents your identity and
when the missionaries, colonisers and early anthropologists arrived,
they introduced names that were easier for them to pronounce. At
school you would get a Christian name – like Nelson instead of
Rholihlahla, which is what his father called him.

“Another key issue is that historically we didn’t have surnames,
as we were clan based and used our clan name, but when the
colonisers arrived they wanted to record us and they told us that
we must come up with one name as a surname. So the amaXhosa
used the personal name of their immediate grandfather or great
grandfather as their surname, but your surname is not as important
as your clan name. Mandela, for example is from the Madiba clan.
The amaZulu, on the other hand, used their clan name, so if your
surname is Zuma or Mkhize, that is your clan name.”

Naming is all about identity and decolonising our minds, she
continues, “When we invoke the ancestors in African traditional Professor Nokuzola Mndende

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