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CHRISTIAN VOICES AROUND THE WORLD {

‘THINKING
WITH AFRICA

Chapters by a Group of Nationals
Interpreting the Christian Movement

Assembled and edited by |
MILTON STAUFFER

Educational Secretary Student Volunteer Movement

  

ate
STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEM
FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS

by the
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
New Yorkca : sna iets SS

| IONE T Iteit 3 neti inetA RCS aT a a eee

 

084867

COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY JOHN A. MURRAY, JR.Cee een ae ae eee

CR i ee

AUTHORS OF THIS VOLUME

CHARLES T. LORAM
THOMAS JESSE JONES

R. V. SELOPE THEMA

J. D. RHEINALLT JONES
WALTER EDWIN OWEN
WINIFRED HOERNLE
DAVIDSON DON TENGO JABAVU
ZACCHEUS R. MAHABANE
WALTER BENSON RUBUSANA

MAX YERGANs

 

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

DR. CHARLES T. LORAM was born in Natal, educated there,
and was graduated at the University of the Cape of Good Hope.
He received his M.A. and Lt.B, from Kings College, Cam-
bridge, and entered the service of the Natal government as high-
school teacher and later as inspector of schools. Subsequently he
did post-graduate work in education at ‘Teachers College, Colum-
bia University, and received his Ph.D. on the thesis, “The Edu-
cation of the South African Native.” Upon his return to Africa
he was placed in charge of native education in Natal, and applied
to the schools lessons learned in the Southern States. In 1920 he
was appointed by General Smuts a member of the Native Affairs
Commission, the office he now holds. He was a member of the
two Phelps-Stokes Educational Commissions which inspected na-
tive schools in the Union of South Africa, North and South
Rhodesia, Portuguese East Africa, and Nyasaland, and in 1925
he accompanied Mr. J. H. Oldham, Secretary of the Interna-
tional Missionary Council, on a visit to Tanganyika Territory,
Kenya and Uganda. He was chairman of the Education Com-
mittee at the Christian Mission in Africa conference, Le Zoute,
Belgium, in 1926, and is now chairman of the Bantu Research
Board of the Union government, and examiner in African studies
to the universities of South Africa and the Witwatersrand. He
has written and lectured on native affairs in Africa, Europe and
America.

THOMAS JESSE JONES, sociologist, was born in Wales in

1873 and came to America in 1884. He studied at Washington

and Lee University and was graduated from Marietta College in

1897. He took his A.M. at Columbia in 1899, his Ph.D. there

in 1904, and his B.D. at Union Theological Seminary in 1900.

He was acting headworker at the University Settlement, New
iv

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a EL Ce ae eee eeST. nabiilinia an, een area eee

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Vv

York, 1901-02; director of the research department at Hampton
Institute, Virginia, 1902-09; statistician in the United States
Census Bureau, 1909-12; specialist in education for the United
States Bureau of Education, 1912-19; and has been educational
director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund since 1913. He was chair-
man of the Committee on Social Studies in Secondary Schools ap-
pointed by the National Education Association, chairman of the
Educational Commission to West, South and Equatorial Africa,
1920-21, and to East Africa, 1924. He is the author of Negro
Education in the United States, Education in Africa, Education
im East Africa, Educational Adaptations (ten-year report of the
work of the Phelps-Stokes Fund), and Four Essentials of Edu-

cation.

R. V. SELOPE THEMA (from an autobiographical statement):
“The story of my life may be summed up in the phrase, ‘up
from barbarism.’ At the time of my birth the Transvaal was prac-
tically uncivilized. My people were living in the northern
Transvaal, about thirty miles from the town of Pietersburg.
Christians in this part of the country were few in number, and
were often persecuted by the chiefs. They were regarded as mad
people, and sometimes were given herbs to drink in order that
they might vomit forth their madness. I was born in 1886. My
parents did not come under the influence of Christianity until
I was about ten years of age, At eleven I entered the village
mission school.

“In those days the government of the Transvaal had nothing
to do with native education, which was entirely confined to mis-
sionary efforts, The teachers were their own masters, and acted
as inspectors of their own schools. My studies were interrupted
by the Anglo-Boer War. My teacher, Mr. Dwashu, being a
British subject, left the Transvaal at the outbreak. The repub-
lican government became hostile to all natives who were learning
English, and Rev. William Mpamba, who was in charge of the
Donhill Mission under the Free Church of Scotland, and our
chief were arrested and imprisoned. In 1901 I ran away and
joined the British troops at Pietersburg. My work was to lookVi ' BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

after horses, After peace was declared I went to Pretoria and
worked as a waiter in a boarding-house. Then I got a job in the
Imperial Military Railway Dispensary.

“At the beginning of 1903 I went home to resume my studies.
This time native schools were under the colonial government,
and we were not allowed to go beyond the third standard, so
in 1904 I was sent to a place about nine miles from my home
to open a school there. With the little money I had earned as
a teacher I started for Lovedale at the beginning of 1906 and
was taken as a day scholar for two years and was then awarded
the Hutton scholarship.

“J left Lovedale at the end of 1910 and became a teacher
at home for a year. Then I went to Pietersburg and became clerk
to a labor agent for three years, and in 1915 became a clerk in
Johannesburg. I soon became interested in the African National
Congress and served as its secretary. At the end of the Great
War I went to England as secretary to the Deputation of the
National Congress which was appointed to lay native grievances
before His Majesty’s government. On my return I toured the
Transvaal, Natal, and the Cape, giving the report of the Depu-
tation. In 1921 I became a member of the Joint Council of
Europeans and Natives, the organization which was inspired by
Drs. Thomas Jesse Jones and J. E. K. Aggrey of the Phelps-
Stokes Education Commission, and in 1925 I was appointed As-
sistant Secretary to the Council.”

J. D. RHEINALLT JONES is Secretary of the Council of
Education for Witwatersrand, and lecturer in Native Law and
Administration at the University of Witwatersrand. He is the
editor of “Bantu Studies,” and organizer of the Witwatersrand
University Movement. Among the offices with which he has been
identified are Secretary of the Johannesburg Joint Council of
Europeans and Natives; convener of the National Conference of
Joint Councils, 1924; Secretary of the Dutch Reformed Church
European-Bantu Conference, 1923 and 1927; President of the °
Transvaal Workers Educational Association; member of the
Council of the South African Association for the AdvancementBLOGRAPHICAL NOTES Vii

of Science; and member of several social welfare committees
among both the white and colored peoples.

The VENERABLE ARCHDEACON WALTER EDWIN
OWEN, born in 1879, has been Archdeacon of Kavirondo, Kenya
Colony, since 1918. He was educated at St. Enoch’s, Belfast, Ire-
land, and at Islington Theological College, and was ordained in
1904. He was rural Dean of Budu, Uganda, in 1915, and chap-
lain to the forces in the German East Africa campaign in 1916.
He has published articles on native questions in the East African
Standard, and has made translations into three Bantu languages.

MRS. WINIFRED HOERNLE is an English South African,
born in Kimberley in 1885 and educated in South Africa, a
graduate in 1906 of the old University of the Cape of Good
Hope with honors in philosophy. Thereafter she went to Newn-
ham College, Cambridge, to study anthropology, continuing this
study in Germany and France until 1912. Returning to South
Africa, she was sent by the University of Cape ‘Town into the
field to study the social organization of the Hottentots. In 1914
she was married to Professor R. F. A. Hoernlé and with him
went to the United States, to Harvard University. In 1922 she
returned to Southwest Africa to complete her studies of the
almost extinct Hottentot culture. Some results of this work have
been published in the Harvard African Studies, the American
Anthropologist, and the South African Journal of Science. Since
1923 Mrs. Hoernlé has been lecturing in social anthropology -at
the University of Witwatersrand, making a special study of
African kinship organization and African sacrificial systems with
Professor Radcliffe Brown, formerly of Cape Town and now of
Sydney, Australia.

DAVIDSON DON TENGO JABAVU was born of Christian
parents in 1885 at King Williamstown, Cape Province, and
began his education in a school of the Wesleyan Methodists in
his home village. He attended high school in Morija, Basutoland,
and in 1902 took the Junior Certificates at Lovedale Highviii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

 

School. Thereafter, on being refused admission into white col-
leges, he took his London University matriculation at Colwyn
Bay, North Wales. After six years of study in London he received
the degree of B.A. from London University, and later his edu-
cation diploma from Birmingham University.

After qualifying in the theory and practice of journalism at
the Kensington Business College and with the Kent Messenger
at Maidstone, he took courses in religious and social work in
the Woodbrooke and Kingsmead Quaker settlements at Birming-
ham. He then went to the United States to study the educational
system at Tuskegee Institute where, at the request of the South
Africa Union Government, he wrote a report in which he
showed how the Tuskegee methods could be adapted to education
in South Africa.

Returning to South Africa in 1914, he conducted his father’s
newspaper, Ivo Zabantsundu (Native Opinion), and two years
afterwards was appointed Professor of Bantu Studies at the first
college of university status ever established for the Bantu of
South Africa, the South African Native College, Fort Hare,
where he now lectures.

Mr. Jabavu is a layman in the Methodist church and a public
lecturer before white and black audiences. He started the move-
ment for Native Farmers’ Associations, of which there are now
over thirty throughout the country. He also organized the native
teachers into an influential Union Federation of which he is now
President. At the death of his father in 1921 he took charge of
the Imvo Zabantsundu. He is the author of The Black Problem.

ZACCHEUS R. MAHABANE, born in 1881 at Groot Lock,
in the Union of South Africa, was a herd boy until he reached
the age of eleven, when his parents were converted to Chris-
tianity. He received his elementary education at the Wesleyan
Mission School at Thaba Ncho, later entering the Normal School
at Morija, Basutoland. He obtained his teacher’s certificate of
the Cape of Good Hope Educational Department of the first
grade in 1901, and acted as first assistant teacher at Thaba Ncho
from 1902 to 1904. He entered the local magistrate’s office as.BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES iX

interpreter in native languages and clerical assistant from 1905
to 1908, when he entered a theological school, being ordained
to the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of South
Africa in 1914. He was stationed at Bensonvale in the Herschel
District in 1910-1916, transferred to the Cape Town Native
Mission, 1916-1921, and appointed to the superintendency of
the Vrede (Native) Circuit in 1921, where he remained for six
years. He was elected President of the Cape Provincial Branch
of the African National Congress in 1919, and promoted to
the office of President-General in 1924, which position he still
holds. He was one of the delegates to the Government Native
Conference held at Bloemfontein in 1922, a member of the
South African General Missionary Conference at Durban, Natal,
in 1921, and at Johannesburg, Transvaal, in June, 1925. He was
a delegate to the Conference on Native Affairs held under the
auspices of the Federal Council of the Dutch Reformed
Churches in September, 1923. He visited England, Belgium and
France to attend the international conference on the Christian
Mission in Africa held at Le Zoute, Belgium, 1926. He is the
author of a pamphlet, “The Color Bar,” published in 1923.

WALTER BENSON RUBUSANA, Pu.D., was born in 1858
at Mnandi, District of Somerset East, Cape Province, and edu-
cated at Peelton Mission Station and Lovedale Missionary In-
stitution, where he passed the Cape teachers’ examination with
honors. He studied for the Christian ministry under the aus-
pices of the London Missionary Society and was appointed head
teacher of the Peelton Independent School. In 1884 he was
ordained for the ministry and appointed a representative of the
Congregational Union of South Africa in the Board of Revisers
of the Xosa Bible, with five missionary colleagues. He was
engaged in this translation for twenty years, and at its comple-
tion was deputed by the board to proceed to England and see
the volume through the press. He was the first President of the
South Africa Native Convention after the Union in 1909. He
headed a native deputation to England in 1909 to protest
against the insertion of the color bar in the South Africanx BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

 

Constitution. He was also one of the South African delegates
to the Universal Races Congress held in London in 1911. He
was the first native in South Africa to be elected to the Cape
. Provincial Council as member for Tembuland in the Transkeian
Territories,

MAX YERGAN has been identified with five years of work
among South African students, and attention has been called to
. his name by the Harmon Award in 1926 for distinguished
religious service among Negroes. He specialized in sociology and
modern languages at Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C., where
he was graduated with honors in 1914. He took special studies
at the International Y.M.C.A. College at Springfield, and spent
two years as traveling secretary for colored students, In 1916
he decided to go to India to help with the work among native
troops. Later he was transferred to East Africa with a detach-
ment of Indian troops. Although he suffered repeated attacks
of African fever, he stayed for two years, until six young men
had been recruited in the United States to help him with the
work. During the latter part of the war he served as chaplain
at Camp Lee, and was later sent to France to finish up work
among the colored units of the expeditionary forces, On his
return he was instrumental in the initiation of Y.M.C.A. work
in South Africa, and went there as its first Secretary in 1921.POT oa: _ a : Semel tasT rs oeraccaek rat asides eemaidaeiechnnibaemeataemaandatmdiae ealeaicaie cake tame

II

Iil

IV

VI

Vil

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Ovr CuLTuRAL HERITAGE
C. T. Loram

Our CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT
I IN AFRICA AS A WHOLE
Thomas Jesse Jones
II IN SOUTH AFRICA
R. V. Selope Thema
J.D. Rheinallt Jones
III IN EAST AFRICA
W. E. Owen

RELIGION IN Native LIFE
Winifred Hoernlé

CHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU

D. D: T. Jabavu

PROBLEMS OF THE AFRICAN CHURCH
Zaccheus R. Mahabane

CoopERATION FROM THE WEST
Walter Benson Rubusana

Youtu’s CHALLENGE TO YOUTH
Max Yergan

a a oat on

Xill

24
2.4

65
84
IIo
135
147

157Pee agra eee Se eT aati -
AAT RS I SS I OT SR

   

! CHRISTIAN VOICES AROUND THE WORLD SERIES

THINKING WITH AFRICA
VOICES FROM THE NEAR EAST
CHINA HER OWN INTERPRETER
JAPAN SPEAKS FOR HERSELF

AN INDIAN APPROACH TO INDIA

AS PROTESTANT LATIN AMERICA
SEES ITP NT —_— oie Re eee

PREFACE

HE present student generation in North Amer-
ica is no longer willing to depend entirely on
the foreign missionary for its understanding of
Christian movements in so-called mission fields. For
practically the same reasons many missionaries are
beginning to feel that they have been speaking for
the Christian converts of other lands long enough.
In the judgment of both these groups the day for
the voice of nationals to be heard in our Western
churches is at hand. That there are Christian leaders
today in almost every land who are sufficiently able
to interpret the Christianity of their communities to
parent communities in the West, is living proof of
the prophetic insight of pioneer missionaries who
long ago by faith first caught the vision of this day.
To their faithful witness and early sowing, this series
entitled Christian Voices Around the World is af-
fectionately dedicated.

As never before, the young people of our North
American churches and colleges find themselves sym-
pathetic toward the national and racial aspirations of
other peoples. Their sympathy leads them to ques-
tion some of the aims and methods in the Christian

missionary enterprise which appear to ignore or run

counter to these aspirations. Many of them have
xili

Sexiv PREFACE

heard their own and foreign fellow-students counsel
immediate discontinuance of foreign missions as now
conducted, and even express doubt as to whether the
missionary enterprise can be longer justified. How-
ever able the missionaries may be to deal with per-
plexities like these, they cannot satisfy the desire of
those who are disturbed, to hear the opinion of na-
tionals as well. Not until the Christian youth of
North America are convinced that the foreign mis-
sionary enterprise is fulfilling, in the judgment of
indigenous Christian leaders, the largest needs of the
peoples it means to serve, will they be enthusiastically
behind it, at home or abroad.

This Christian Voices Around the World series
has been initiated and sponsored by the Student Vol-
unteer Movement for Foreign Missions. We have
been encouraged from the beginning by the Foreign
Missions Conference of North America, represent-
ing missionaries and foreign mission board secretaries,
by the Council of Christian Associations, representing
students and student leaders, and by the Missionary
Education Movement, representing the mission
boards in their cooperative educational work among
the churches. In order that the books might be just
as readily available to the young people of the
churches as to college students, the Missionary Edu-
cation Movement offered to publish the series, andPREFACE XV

has generously put all of its resources for editing and
circulation into the enterprise.

In view of the purpose of this series and of the
character of the manuscripts a statement of editorial
policy is due both authors and readers. Some chapters
were written in English, and others came to us as
rough translations, manifesting in both cases varying
stages of knowledge of the language. Many chapters
were in uncertain stages so far as arrangement of
material and literary quality are concerned. But
more of them than the average reader might sup-
pose were submitted in such form as to require
surprisingly few editorial changes. Wherever the
grammatical construction in the original was obvi-
ously wrong or obscured or impaired the thought, I
have not hesitated to change, even drastically, both
construction and phraseology. Verbal substitutions in
the interest of clarity have also been made. Fre-
quently the idiomatic terms which seemed to have
been intended have been supplied. Wherever the
meaning could not be determined, rather than risk
misrepresenting the author the part was deleted.
There have also been the usual editorial exigencies
relating to space. Having said this, let me hasten to
add that scrupulous effort has been made to preserve
the integrity of thought and the individuality of each
manuscript. The constant endeavor has been to safe-ae ee ace ee

XVi PREFACE

guard both the intention of the writer and the under-
lying spirit of the series.

Annotations by way of directing the reader to
supplementary material, or defining the terms used,
or suggesting other points of view in the interests
of a more balanced presentation, have been omitted.
For so many years the missionary’s point of view has
been presented without annotations from nationals
that it now seems only fair to apply the same method
the other way around.

Readers will discover defects inevitable to a sym-
posium. There is repetition because of overlapping
ground and the inability of the writers to consult
together. The contributions are not of equal literary
quality, and wide differences of intellectual content
exist between chapters. The material is not always
what missionaries themselves would have presented,
nor is it always the most significant with reference to
present phases of missionary interest in North Amer-
ica. On the other hand it is exactly what we have
asked for, an honest revelation of what Christian
nationals are thinking and saying among themselves.
No attempts have been made to reconcile conflicting
opinions. Wherever possible the edited manuscripts
have been submitted with the originals to consultants
from the country concerned for scrutiny of changes
made. Obviously the author of each chapter is alone
responsible for the facts and the opinions stated.

 

ee

enti an alemeeeeeeneeneiaes poten, eee :PREFACE XVii

In this volume, Thinking with Africa, a policy of
joint African and European authorship was agreed
upon, first because the limits of time within which
the chapters had to be written imposed too severe
a condition on African writers of limited experience,
and second because it seemed good to symbolize the
cooperation between races which must come to be
increasingly the working policy in every department
of life. Accordingly, three of the chapters are the
contribution of American and European authors.

Dr. S. M. Molema of British Bechuanaland, South
Africa, who we had hoped would supply the chap-
ter on “Our Cultural Heritage,” found it impos-
sible to do so, and we were obliged to appeal to
Dr. C. T. Loram, who, though a European, has
spent most of his life in South Africa, is Commis-
sioner of Native Affairs, and is notably qualified
to cover all phases of this field. Most Africans
reading Mrs. Winifred Hoernlé’s scholarly and
sympathetic chapter will agree that even though she
also is a European the chapter might appropri-
ately have been entitled, “The Bantu Religion
Through the Bantu’s Eyes.” Fortunately the Ven-
erable Archdeacon W. E. Owen generously con-
sented to supply a brief study of “Our Changing
Life and Thought in East Africa” when it seemed
impossible to find an African author to undertake
this task. Repeated efforts were made to secure aXViil PREFACE

parallel statement on West Africa from the late
J. E. K. Aggrey, Vice-Principal of Achimota Col-
lege, Accra, Gold Coast. The unexpected death of
this gifted educational leader and radiant Christian
in the summer of 1927 robbed us of this contribu-
tion. Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, Secretary of the
Phelps-Stokes Fund, has granted us permission to
print extracts from his address on “New Forces in
Africa,” delivered at the Conference on the Chris-
tian Mission in Africa, Le Zoute, Belgium, in Sep-
tember 1926. The editor acknowledges gratefully
the help of the Rev. James Henderson, Principal of
Lovedale Missionary Institution, South Africa, in
editing and expanding the Rev. Mr. Mahabane’s
article, and of Mr. J. D. Rheinallt Jones, who col-
laborated with Mr. Selope Thema on Chapter VI.
It is interesting to note, in connection with this inter-
racial cooperation in authorship, that Mr. Thema
and Mr. Jones are joint secretaries of the Johannes-
burg Joint Council of Europeans and Natives.
MILTon STAUFFER

New York
October, 1927

aoc Se ee eee —erick a eon Se eee ey ee ree —
z i a ea aaa aaa

THINKING WITH AFRICABE acetal as eee ene eee cr oe
=

I
OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE

OT so many years ago there was told a story
to the effect that a journalist, on being sent
to investigate the manners and customs of a certain
“primitive” people, reported briefly: “Manners
none; customs beastly.” This story has lost much of
its point today as a result of the wonderful advance
made in the sciences of social anthropology and eth-
nology. Every year a stream of ethnographical books
written by missionaries, officials, explorers, and even
globe-trotters reveals the customs of primitive peo-
ple, and every year scientists and philosophers are
examining, collating and synthesizing these facts
into an ordered system of knowledge. It soon be-
comes apparent that customs have a real meaning to
those who practise them; that many practices are pil-
lars of political, social and religious institutions; and
that to uproot them or even to tamper with them

may cause serious damage.

To illustrate: From time immemorial the South
African natives have practised the wkulobola custom,
whereby a bridegroom hands over to the bride’s
father or family a number of cattle before he takes
the woman as his wife. This practice has been2 THINKING WITH AFRICA

wrongly interpreted by some missionaries as the
“sale” of the woman, and has accordingly been for-
bidden to their Christian converts. This rule has,
however, been disregarded by the great majority
of Christian natives, and the Jobola cattle are passed
openly or in secret. Where there has been difficulty
in providing the price, as where the natives are liv-
ing town lives in South Africa’s urban locations, and
where consequently the Jobola custom has fallen into
desuetude, irregular unions of men and women have
resulted, with considerable deterioration to the moral
life of the people.

To tamper with native custom may produce dele-
terious effects. Many years ago the government of
the province of Natal, in a laudable endeavor to check
litigation with regard to the payment of lobola, lim-
ited the number of cattle for which a legal claim
could be made to ten. This had the altogether unex-
pected result that the notion of the “sale” of the
woman at the fixed price of ten head of cattle has
been engendered, an idea which has grown in recent
years, since the loss of stock by plague has led to the
replacement of Jodola cattle by gold and silver coin-
age. Primitive native life is so closely articulated
that even a slight change in one respect may result in
marked changes elsewhere. :

With regard to the recognition of native custom
the pendulum is, however, swinging today in the
other direction, and governments are striving to re-OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 3

tain native law and custom, as the Native Administra-
tion Bill now before the Parliament of the Union of
South Africa bears witness. Missionaries of the older
school complain that the Christian church today is
too willing to compromise on this question, and that
evils of heathen life are being condoned and even
encouraged. As usual, wisdom lies midway. There is
much of native law and custom which is altogether
immoral in Christian eyes and antagonistic to the
spread of the Christian religion. The missionary can-
not of course accept this sort of practice or even com-
promise with it. There is, however, much more in
native custom which is either good in itself or can
be made good with a little skilful effort on the part
of the missionaries. Such customs should be sought
out and cherished by the missionary, for not only
are they perhaps cornerstones of African morality,
but they are almost always sure foundations for the
superstructure of an effective Christianity. It is the
purpose of this paper to draw attention to some as-
pects of Africa’s cultural heritage which should
be retained as the basis for the development of a
Christian personality.

§

The social organization of African life is very
different from that of the Western races. The Afri-
can as an individual counts for little or nothing. His
whole life is bound up with that of his family, clan4 THINKING WITH AFRICA

or tribe, and more remotely with that of his race or
nation. His most inescapable ties are those which
bind him to his sib or tribe. As a tribesman he is under
a hereditary chief who is often also chief priest, and
who, with the help of his council of headmen or sub-
ordinate chiefs, acts as leader and judge.

The loyalty of the African to his chief is re-
markable. No matter how drunken or demoralized,
no matter how capricious or unjust the chief may be,
the African believes in him and will follow him.
Among the million and a half natives in the Cape
province of the Union of South Africa, the political
and judicial powers of the chiefs have been abro-
gated by the European government for many years,
and yet the power wielded by the chiefs is very
great, except of course in those instances where the
natives are thoroughly detribalized. Those chiefs
who are members of the democratically constituted
Transkeian Native Council wield enormous influ-
ence. When a native political or economic organiza-
tion in South Africa wants to grow in numbers or in
power it says, “Let us win the chiefs to our side.”
For every case that is decided in the court of the
magistrate, two are settled in the court of the chief,
although the chief exacts a substantial court fee and
has no power to enforce his judgment.

The native courts are very different from those
of the white man. They are held in public, any fully
grown male member of the tribe may take part inOUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 5

questioning the witnesses, hearsay evidence is admit-
ted, and the accused is generally presumed to be
guilty and required to prove himself innocent. In
many parts of Africa ordeals are applied, and in some
cases, particularly those involving a charge of witch-
craft, injustice is undoubtedly done. On the whole,
however, the system achieves substantial justice. A
guilty party is not permitted to escape punishment
through a legal technicality. The sufferer in a crim-
inal action receives damages from the guilty party,
who must compensate him as well as pay his fine to
the chief. As has been well said, “In cases tried in
native courts there is more justice and less law than
in European courts.” In the division of property the
heir inherits responsibilities towards the members of
the family as well as inheriting the deceased’s prop-
erty, and these responsibilities are cheerfully shoul-
dered. The legal system of the African is one of the
most valuable aspects of his surviving cultural heri-
tage, and as such is worthy of the close study of the
Christian helper of Africa.

The attitudes of European governments and mis-
sionaries towards the tribal system have varied con-
siderably. In the Union of South Africa, wherever
the European government has been most liberal
towards natives, as in the old Cape Colony, the
strongest attempt to break down tribalism has been
made. The explanation is not far to seek. There the
native has been regarded as a potential white man.6 THINKING WITH AFRICA

As such he must be given all the freedom, commer-
cial opportunity and individual initiative which were
characteristic of the political philosophy of the nine-
teenth century. Thus the black man was given the
vote. If he was a voter he was permitted to buy white
man’s liquor; his lands were divided into individual
holdings; in his schools the vernacular was sup-
pressed, and English became the sole medium of in-
struction. It must be borne in mind that these acts
were not those of a tyrant but of a friend, and that
they were readily acquiesced in by the black man
himself.

On the other hand, where repression followed by
differentiation was the policy of the European con-
queror, and where it was desired to “keep the native
in his place,” there the black man’s separateness and
tribalism were permitted and even bolstered up. In
the courts of law the chiefs’ judgments were made
enforceable by the government police. In education
the vernacular was the chief and almost the sole
medium of instruction. In some parts of South Africa
even today a black man is regarded as impertinent
if he addresses a white man in English instead of in
the mongrel “kitchen Kafir,? which is the medium
of communication between the races; the better the
English the greater the offence. In the British pro-
tectorates such as Uganda, Basutoland, and Bechu-
analand, tribalism has been fostered ; and where de-
liberate attempts have been made to educate theOUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 7

chiefs, as has long been the case in Uganda and is
today the case in Zululand, the results have been
very satisfactory.

Missionary teaching has for the most part run
counter to the tribal system. In the first place Chris-
tianity has been presented, especially by the Protes-
tant missionaries, as a personal and not a community
religion. To the missionary the individual soul has
been all important, hence we have the emphasis in
the school curriculum on reading, so that individual
appreciation of Bible truths may be easy. In the sec-
ond place the native chief has generally regarded
Christianity as a disruptive force which tends to
preach equality and to break down tribal customs on
which his authority and indeed part of his income
depend, so that the missionary was often forced to
work, as it were, against the chief and the tribal
system. In the third place the missionary has
found many tribal customs incompatible with Chris-
tianity, and since all native custom was inextricably
bound up with tribalism, it seemed necessary for him
to oppose the whole system.

An increasing number of missionaries, however,
especially in recent years when anthropological
knowledge has been spread among them, have real-
ized the wisdom of allowing and even of encourag-
ing the Africans to keep their tribal organization.
Experience in Bechuanaland under the great Khama,
and in Uganda and elsewhere, shows that with edu-

LL ES IT ST AES ST. SIT aT8 THINKING WITH AFRICA

cated and Christian chiefs the tribal system suits the
African admirably at his present stage of develop-
ment. Along with this there is the slow but steady
growth of African nationalism. Among the African
natives there is the growing desire to be really
African and not imitation European. Already the
black man is claiming the monopoly of the appella-
tion African. It seems certain that an effort will be
made to maintain all that is good in the tribal system.
The Africans themselves are in favor of it, the gov-
ernments are supporting this view, and the mission-
aries will no doubt follow the lead given to them by
the Christian Mission in Africa conference of 1926,
which declared strongly against denationalization.

A striking quality which is clearly part of the
African’s cultural heritage is his concept of the dig-
nity of human nature. It is not easy to translate the
Xosa word ubuntu into English, but a few illustra-
tions will show its nature. “Ubuntu,” says Father
Callaway in his wise and charming treatment of the
subject in The Fellowship of the Veld, “implies
a certain respect for the dignity of human nature
itself, apart from the extraneous advantages of edu-
cation, wealth, position, etc. A man is a person
(umntu) and ought to be encouraged to realize the
dignity of human nature. A man cannot despise an-
other without harming himself, without doing despite
to the human nature possessed with all other men.”OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 9

Because a man is a member of the human race he has
the qualities of humanity and should act as such and
in turn be treated as such, no matter whether he be
rich or poor, captive or free, chief or peasant. He is
a man and as such must be treated with respect, and
a person who does not so treat him forfeits his own
quality of humanity.

Because the African lives his life in the open and
because he shares things so readily with his fellows
he is often regarded as a communist or socialist. In-
deed one author has gone so far as to write an inter-
esting book on the customs of the Xosa people of
South Africa and to entitle it Kafir Socialism. It
seems to the present writer that native custom is not
socialistic in our Western sense of the term. The
black man shows strong individualistic traits in deal-
ing with his land, his cattle, and his rights generally.
This so-called socialism is his humanity exhibiting
itself in practice. A native who has food will ordi-
narily share it with one who has no food, not because
of Christian charity and not because he himself ex-
pects repayment at some future time, but because this
is what a human being would naturally do. Sim-
ilarly no native need sleep on the veld or in the
jungle. The village or hut is sure to give him shel-
ter, even though he belongs to a different tribe.
Nay, more, if he does not come up and ask for
food or shelter there must be something wrong

PE a FRO sana ond AS a se tnt10 THINSING WITH AFRICA

with him. It is only the wizard or witch who lives
alone, walks alone, and does not indulge in gossip,
the chief delight of the African.

Of all the wild flowers in the garden where the
missionary sets out to plant the word of God, it seems
to me that this whuntu is the most beautiful and most
precious. How dangerous to uproot it and attempt
to plant an exotic which, flourishing easily in Europe
or America, finds it hard to acclimatize itself to the
African soil. How foolish of the white man gener-
ally, and how wrong of the missionary, to deny his
own humanity by despising the natives as a race, and
so refusing to respect the whuntu or human nature
shared by us all. Consciously or unconsciously the
missionary in Africa is doing this every day. “Sir,”
said an old native minister to me when I was making
a study of the separatist movement among native
churches (International Review of Missions, July,
1926), “in the old days the white missionary took
me into his study for a cup of tea and a talk when
I called upon him. Today I am told to wait in the
kitchen.” The complaint that the color bar has en-
tered into the domain of religion is heard on all sides
in South Africa today. If there is one thing the white
man in Africa has yet to learn and when he has
learned, to practise, it is to respect his black neighbor.
This does not necessitate social equality, with its at-
tendant bugbear of intermarriage, but a recognition
of the common humanity of black and white.

 

lia aa ae ee =
J aad ——Seoeereete iste ee ane es enol

OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE II

“Ubuntu is really nothing else than the image of
God stamped upon man, and by failing to respect
that image we fail to respect God.”

One can see at a glance the richness of this field
for the planting of the Christian message and the
Christian virtues of service, humility, loving kind-
ness and charity. The African lives more nearly than
most other races up to the teaching of the eleventh
commandment, and the African Christian should
find the Sermon on the Mount more easy of appli-
cation than does the modern white man with his ;
individualistic outlook on life.

How easy it should be for the Christian mission-

ary to engraft the teaching of Christianity on to this
sturdy native stock, to show the convert that this
ubuntu which he practises is the brotherhood of man
which follows on the acceptance of the Fatherhood
of God. As Callaway finely puts it, “The priest and
the Levite of the parable are clearly shown to have
cast away the dignity of manhood. The Samaritan is
arrayed for all time in that dignity. Our Lord him-
self is seen to be the neighbor in a double capacity.
He both stoops down to relieve the needs of a
wounded humanity and identifies himself with every
suppliant: ‘Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these,
ye did it unto me.’ ”

A characteristic of the social organization of most
African tribes is the relationship system. Claiming
descent from a common ancestor, the tribesmen live12 THINKING WITH AFRICA

in very definite relationship to one another and have
a “behavior pattern,” or stereotyped method of re-
action towards every other member of the tribe.
For example, a young man may be informal with
his grandparents but not with his parents or uncles.
The mother-in-law is even a far more terrifying per-
son in Bantu life than she is among Europeans. More
important to the young man are the mother’s broth-
ers, who can pull many strings for him or against
him. On the side of the woman there are also tradi-
tional ways of behaving. So much must she respect
her husband’s father that she must never use his
name; but she can be friendly and even familiar with
his mother and his mother’s relatives. There are
again the hundred and one points of etiquette which
each member of the sib must observe. There is one
side of the hut for women, another for the men;
there is one way of sitting for the women and an-
other for the men. The cattle must not be dealt with
by the woman, and the man must not prepare his
food.

Native social life is thus a bewildering mosaic of
behavior patterns. To the uninitiated a custom may
appear “silly,” yet the wise missionary will refrain
from breaking it down, for he believes that it would
not have survived so long if it had not held some-
thing of good, and he knows that if one custom is
altered, a change not necessarily for good will be
effective on others also.

 

ene aati eat ain aaa a
3 edOUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 13

In uncontaminated African society, as it exists in
some parts of the continent today, a most beautiful
and complete altruism is practised. Widows are pro-
vided for. No orphanages or almshouses are needed,
and best of all, perhaps, there are no old maids.
Children are an asset and not a liability, and there
would be competition among kinsmen for a deceased
relative’s children, did not their social organization
indicate clearly who was to be the guardian of the
orphans. Similarly the care of one’s own old folks, of
the aged generally, and of the half-witted, is laid
down clearly by traditional laws.

§

It is a debatable point how far the Christian mis-
sionary must in loyalty to his faith interfere with the
expressions of the African’s social relationships. In
the past, as we have seen, he for the most part
flouted them; but the new missionary agrees with
Dr. Donald Fraser, who, at the International Con-
ference on the Christian Mission in Africa of 1926,
said, “I fear the evangel which denationalizes,” and
pleaded for forms of Christianity which were Afri-
can as well as Christian. And yet the Christian
worker must also give heed to Dr. Zwemer, who at
the same conference, taking the degraded African
forms of Islamism as his example, warned us against
opening the door to a trickling stream of animism
which might after all engulf the church.14 THINKING WITH AFRICA

It has been suggested that the difficulty arises be-
cause the missionary fails to distinguish between what
is customary and what is wrong, and that in his zeal
he sometimes creates artificial sins. The writer knows
of several instances where positive harm has come
because a missionary has refused to allow the practice
of customs which, though good on the whole, con-
tained some reprehensible element. Several of these
are mentioned in the paragraphs dealing with initia-
tion and marriage. What is good and what is bad js
so much a point of view. Africans are shocked to see
white men and women dancing together, and it is
said that they regarded as morally wrong Living-
stone’s act of traveling in the same wagon with his
wife immediately after the birth of their son. The
Le Zoute conference, after enunciating the principle
that everything that is good in the African’s heritage
should be conserved, enriched, and ennobled by con-
tact with the spirit of Christianity, divided customs
into three categories:

(1) Customs which are evil—these could not be
sanctioned by the Christian Church; (2) customs
which are not incompatible with Christian life—these
should not be condemned; (3) customs some of
whose features may be evil but whose substance is
valuable—these may be purified and used.

It also expressed the opinion that in all matters of
Christian custom the advice of African Christians
should be sought. It was mentioned that when thea ——~ oes . ee eee ee

OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 15

Christian ruler of Uganda was to be installed, the
elders of the church were asked to say which of the
customary ceremonies could be consistently per-
formed by a Christian ruler. The writer’s experience,
however, would suggest the warning that the Afri-
cans consulted be representative of all sections of the
community. A body of African pastors who have the
well-known zeal of young reformers is quite likely to
be more severe on African custom than a group of
European ministers themselves.

The more the African customs are studied the
more intelligible and significant seem to be the rea-
sons behind them. Something has already been said
in this paper about the common custom of ukulodola,
but it is only now that we seem to be on the verge of
discovering its real meaning. It is quite certain that

it is not the sale of the woman, though it has the —

appearance of sale at times, especially in its debased
forms. It seems equally certain that it is not merely
compensation to parents for the loss of their daugh-
ter, though that element does certainly enter into
the case. It seems more true to say with Mrs. Hoernlé
that “we are dealing in these marriage rites not with
individual actions but with age-old ritual customs,
which when analyzed take us to the very heart of the
deep human sentiments on which social life is based.”
The most probable explanation is that the custom is
intended to preserve the relationship of friendship
and stability between the man’s group and the

ae caesar
716 THINKING WITH AFRICA

woman’s group, and that it marks a very definite
change in the status of the woman and gives the man
power over the children of the union.

If this is so it would seem to be a social heritage
of the African which actually contributes to the
achievement of Christian personality; and since the
custom can be divested of the evils which have at-
tached themselves to it, there seems to be no reason
why Christian Africans should be barred from it.
One is strengthened in this view when one sees how
native society can be demoralized by the absence of
the custom in the urban areas of South Africa. It has
been stated that 50% of the births in the urban
locations are the result of unions not legalized by
Christian or civil marriage nor sanctioned by native
custom. There has been no Jobola, and a state almost
approaching to promiscuity in some cases has resulted.

Another social heritage of the African is the in-
itiation ceremony, both for young men and young
women. The general practice is that as the boy ap-
proaches the period of puberty he and his fellows are
secluded from the rest of the group and are in-
structed in tribal history and law and the duties of
manhood. A similar ceremony takes place with girls.
It is quite certain that a good deal of the instruction,
and some of this of a revolting nature, is related to
matters of sex, but there is generally much more
than this in the usual initiation school. Sacrifices to
the ancestral spirits are carried out by the chief. AOUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 17

useful ideal of physical endurance is inculcated, and
instruction given in the history of the people and in
the virtues of obedience, courage, loyalty. The cir-
cumcision ceremony which generally takes place has
the symbolical experience of cutting off the boy from
his boyhood life now that he has become a man.
How important the ceremony is in the eyes of the
natives may be seen from the fact that the chief’s
sons and daughters undergo the rite along with the
children of the ordinary tribesmen. If it is omitted
they think that trouble will surely result. At the in-
sistence of a strong missionary, the son of a certain
chief in Pondoland did not go through the ceremony,
and so did not get the very rough and ready introduc-
tion to his future subjects afforded by the initiation
school. The result, so say the Pondos, was that he was
weak and arbitrary, headstrong and a failure as a
chief. In another instance a missionary persuaded a
group of his converts to refrain from sending their
sons to the initiation school. The result was that the
young men had difficulty in getting wives, for the
people of the tribe did not regard them as grown up..
This plan of separating a section of the people
from the rest of the community for purposes of
Christian instruction is common in mission work.
Many mission stations have their Christian villages,
almost all maintain boarding schools for the purpose
of edifying the children in the new faith, and con-
firmation and communion classes are part of mis-18 THINKING WITH AFRICA

sionary technique. The idea of initiation schools is
thus common to both Christian and “heathen”; the
root principle is much the same though the methods
of procedure are different. The question naturally
follows, why does not the white missionary make use
of the African initiation school and Christianize it?
There may be cases where the ceremony is so debased
that this cannot be done with safety, but there are
cases on record where the missionary has been able
to Christianize initiation schools. The young men
were withdrawn from the general society, went into
seclusion with their missionary, who was also a medi-
cal man, received Christian teaching, and were duly
circumcised.

After the initiation ceremony the young man be-
comes a new being and as such needs and receives a
new name. Here we can surely make use of an Afri-
can name instead of having to use a Biblical name in
a Europeanized form. If there is no suitable African
name we can create one without much difficulty.

§

Much could be written of the language, art, music,
and literature of the Africans. Here it will be suffi-
cient to say that these have been developed to become
a real part of their life and a possible contribution to
humanity in general. Through these arts the African
people have been expressing themselves, and it wouldOUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 19

be a thousand pities if well-meaning missionaries
were not to make use of them.

Take the case of the language first. To know the
African you must know his language, and when you
know his language you generally end by wishing to
preserve it. Of course there are many Europeans—
some of them missionaries—who either cannot or
more often will not learn the African tongues. Dr.
Westermann caused much heart-searching when at
the great missionary conference at Le Zoute in 1926
he asked bluntly, “How many missionaries in Africa
are able to preach to a rural community without an
interpreter??? People who were present at that con-
ference will never forget the startling effect of the
Zulu prayer offered by the Rev. John Dube of Natal,
with its simplicity and its music. Yet it will require
effort on the part of the missionary to preserve the
African languages. The cost of publication and the
multiplicity of tongues make the creation of an
African literature a matter of the greatest difficulty.
The wise policy of finding main languages and of re-
lating the other tongues to them is being only par-
tially successful, and the practice of some govern-
ment officials in forcing a trade language, such as
Hausa or Swahili, is not helping matters. Yet when
the languages have been carefully reduced to writing
for some years, as is the case with some of the South
African native tongues, an indigenous literature can20 THINKING WITH AFRICA

be created and enjoyed. African folk tales, whether
in their original form or in American Negro dressing,
are full of charm and homely wisdom, while their
proverbs, riddles and guessing games abound in prac-
tical philosophy. How true it is all over the world
that “Distant firewood is good firewood,” and “Full-

elly child says to Empty-belly child, ‘Be of good
cheer.?” The world would be poorer without this
wisdom and humor and the flexible and developing
language in which it is clothed.

It is agreed on all sides that one of the great con-
tributions which the African has made and is yet to
make to the world is his music. Extensive samples of
African music have been given to the world by the
American Negroes in their spirituals and in their
jazz. The work of at least one contemporary native
African is cited in the records of significant modern
music, Ballanta Taylor, present holder of a Guggen-
heim fellowship. It is only now that researchers are
willing to throw off their traditional musical theories
and to attend to what may be a new system of mu-
sical notation. Miss Earthy in her illuminating paper
in the International Review of Missions for October
1926 quotes Professor Raymond Dart as saying:

“Are we to replace with the zither, mouth organ,
Jew’s-harp and ragtime, the impressive war chants,
songs of victory and pzans of praise and the soul-
stirring war and ritual dances of the natives? These
forms of expression of tribal emotion . . . if gath-OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 21

ered and developed by sympathetic and understand-
ing musicians and dancers, may serve as a basis of a
national musical and rhythmical art unconceived
hitherto. What does not European musical and
rhythmical art itself owe to the wandering gipsy, to
the peasant folk songs and dances of the European
continent, to the dirges and chants of India, and to
the love songs of the Orient? It is not too much to
anticipate that Africa has a contribution yet to make
to these highest international expressions of human
emotion.” With reference to the use of music in the
service of religion, the article adds, “What a service
of praise could be rendered by a band of Chopi
pianos, drums, and Shangaan harps, accompanying
the singing of hymns to a native rhythm.”

§

Our brief account has shown us that African cul-
ture abounds in material which, from the point of
creating a Christian personality, 1s either good in it-
self or can be made good without much difficulty. In
particular does this apply to the charming family and
tribal life. It is safe to say that African social life in
the family and the tribe is not a whit inferior to our
own. The love of parents, the obedience of children,
the respect for age, the charity towards all, are just
the elementary virtues which our Lord tried to teach
both by precept and example. To this we can add the
wonderful feeling of brotherhood and the recogni-

 

ae22 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tion of a common humanity. These feelings express
themselves in a closely articulated tribal life and
through primitive art, music, and literature. Surely
all these are worth preserving, and yet the mission-
ary has often consciously or unconsciously been their
destroyer. How much easier and how much more
lasting would have been his work if he could have
made use of the cultural heritage of the African,
stressing what was good and sublimating what was
bad. How much more successful he would have been
if he had interpreted his Christianity into social life,
as 1s done by Miss Earthy in the article referred to:

“The conception of the Fatherhood of God, the
all-wise and all-powerful Creator, and of our Lord
as the Elder Brother of all Christians, is also one
which appeals to the African mind. For the terms
father and elder brother connote a great deal to the
Bantu mind. They are held in great respect and have
great authority over the rest of the family.

“Some simple teaching such as the following ap-
peals to the women and seems to be understood:
“You were born a member of God’s own great hu-
man family, of an African race, of the tribe of Va-
Chopi, of the clan of Muyanga [this rivets their at-
tention, as they are very proud of their clans and
their praise-names]. At your second birth in holy
baptism you become a member of God’s own great
Christian family. God is your Father in a special way,
because you are united in baptism to our Lord Jesus= aa laa

OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE 23

Christ, the Son of God, who is himself God and our
great Elder Brother. And as children inherit their
father’s property, so do you become an inheritor of
the Kingdom of Heaven, because you are now the
children of God and united to our blessed Lord. At
your baptism the Holy Spirit comes to you to give
you new life. But the seed of eternal life sown in
your hearts in baptism will grow and be strength-
ened by the gifts of the Holy Spirit at confirmation.’
A simile of the seed growing in the field, to illus-
trate growth in the spiritual life, appeals to women
who do so much sowing, planting and reaping. The
fact that the spiritual life is also a keen contest can
be illustrated by references to tribal wars or to their
own great annual dancing contest.”

The need for a deliberate and persistent attempt to
retain the best elements of Africa’s cultural heritage
is the more pressing because of the rapidity with
which the continent is being Europeanized. There is
a real danger that the African may develop an open
or latent inferiority attitude with regard to past
achievements of his race. In the past the Christian
missionary has more than once saved the African
from danger. Is it too much to hope that he will help
him to save his cultural heritage from impairment
or loss?

C. T. Loram

Rondebosch, Cape Town44
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II
OUR CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT

I. IN AFRICA AS A WHOLE

FRICA is above all others the continent of new
forces. There are the economic resources of
soil, minerals and water-power, toward which the
economic agencies of the world are turning with an
eager interest, full of promise or of threat. There are
the awakenings of the African people, seemingly for
the first time conscious of the great world in which
they live. Colonial governments throughout the
great continent are actively reorganizing their poli-
cies for good or for ill. The mandate responsibilities
of nations have become the object of international
concern. The mission societies of Europe and Amer-
ica and their devoted workers in every corner of the
continent have felt the pull and the push of the
strange forces about them, and are entering more
deeply than ever into the warp and woof of African
life.
> Africa is no longer the great dark continent; nine-
~ tenths of its area and its people have been parti-
tioned among the European Powers. Its plains and
valleys are threaded by 35,000 miles of railways and
many more miles of highways. The forces of civili-
zation are everywhere on hand for the weal or

24Siti — aS ee ee

CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 25

woe of Africa and Africans. The world now looks
upon a great continent of misunderstandings, per-
plexities and anxieties. We shall know Africa gradu-
ally as the continent of opportunities, until finally it
shall be revealed to us as the continent of respon-
sibilities.

As Dr. Aggrey has told us in picturesque language,
even the form of the continent presents to us one
great question mark among the continents of the
earth. Questions of vital and international signifi-
cance press upon us for answer. Have European in-
fluences improved or oppressed the African people?
Is African self-consciousness real or artificial? What
is the meaning of primitive life? Why should colonial
governments continue? Have the independent na-
tions of Liberia and Abyssinia succeeded? What are
the possibilities of mandate governments and the
authority of the League of Nations as regards the fu-
ture of Africa? Are the economic agencies of Europe
and America necessary to the well-being of the con-
tinent? Will their activities be exploitation or devel-
opment? Most vital to all of us 1s the question: Why
missionaries in Africa?

These are no questions of mere curiosity. Each
inquiry bears directly on the new forces in Africa.
They transfer the research from the realm of the
descriptive and the static to the realm of the dy-
namic, the vital and the real. There is an imperative
quality in each question that should arrest the atten-26 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tion of all who are concerned in human welfare and
the peace of the world.

Let us proceed to an analysis of the new forces. I
realize fully that there are exceptions to what I shall
state. We desire here an accurate picture with no
danger of overlooking any important conditions
which exist. Do not mistake my optimism for blind-
ness or indifference to the misfortunes, injustices and
even oppressions in some parts of the continent. In-
justices and oppressions there are, and most of all
there are indifferences and misunderstandings. The
justification for my optimism, however, is that I be-
lieve in Africa and Africans, that I believe in the
basic justice of other parts of the world, and that I
have faith to believe that the spirit of cooperation
will unite all elements for the full and comprehen-
sive development of Africa and Africans.

There are manifest in Africa today three main
forms in which new forces find embodiment: (1) eco-
nomic exploitation of material resources and native
peoples; (2) recently formulated policies of govern-
ments, economic agencies and missions; and (3) new
attitudes, which ultimately govern both policies and
developmental action, and which are evident to a
remarkable extent among governments, economic
agencies, missions, native peoples and international
Powers.

Much time and space could be devoted to a de-
scriptive statement of these new forces. The amaz-CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 27

ing wealth of Africa is beginning to be known by
the students of raw materials. Africa is more and
more heralded as the one remaining continent for
raw material to which all the overpopulated con-
tinents must turn. Even the casual reader is wearied
with references to Johannesburg mines producing
one-third of the gold output of the world; to
Kimberley providing four-fifths of the diamonds
of the present day; to the immense coal fields still
in the infancy of their production; the platinum
reefs; the radium-bearing ores; the iron-stone
plateaus; and the wonderful copper fields of the
Katanga and neighboring regions. Note is being
taken of the potentialities of the soil. Articles on the
production of cocoa, coffee, cotton and rubber appear
not only in geographical magazines but in daily news-
papers. The geographical proximity of these great re-
sources to Europe and America thrills the imagination
of commerce and industry and impels to definite
plans of action. Significant as these potentialities are
to the world they are not the forces that most matter.

Policies of governments and other agencies are
far more significant and vital. The study of colonial
policies, both at the seat of home governments in
Europe and at the colonial capitals, reveals an eager
interest sometimes almost hectic in character. Time
does not permit even an enumeration of new poli-
cies that have been adopted since the Great War.

The forces that are really vital for the future of28 THINKING WITH AFRICA

Africa are, as we have said, the new attitudes now
taking form with increasing definiteness on the part
of governments, economic agencies, missions, natives
and international Powers. Through them we can bet-
ter understand the meaning of economic exploitations,
the significance of policies, and the probable trend of
affairs for Africa and Africans. Herein we shall as-
certain the extent of selfishness and the sincerity of
altruism in all plans for Africa. What, then, are the
attitudes of the five agencies concerned in the devel-
opment of the “great continent of opportunities and
responsibilities”?

And first the attitude of governments. Never be-
fore have colonial governments shown so many evi-
dences of a genuine altruistic concern in the colonial
people who have come under their authority. While
there are most unfortunate exceptions to the rule, the
general trend seems to be strongly in the direction
of a real interest in the welfare of the people. Pos-
sibly the most general of the many influences which
have contributed to this trend is the worldwide recog-
nition of that much misunderstood and much misused
idea of self-determination. Whatever we may think
of its successes and failures, the thought has played
a real part in the affairs of colonial governments.

The mandate conception of government is another
influence on behalf of the welfare of the native peo-
ple. Ideals of government control and direction con-

ceived under international auspices seem to be moreCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 29

directly based upon the conception of the general
good of the people. Special privileges to the con-
trolling Powers are not so readily granted. Provi-
sions for trusteeship are more effective. There is real
hope that the ideals and methods of trusteeship as
realized in the mandated areas will be extended to
other areas through the power of good example.

An attitude of equal importance is the increasing
recognition of the right of the native people to par-
ticipate in government. Among the forms of this
recognition the notable examples are the Transkeian
Native Council in South Africa, elected membership
to the Legislative Councils in British West Africa,
and recent arrangements for the larger authority of
native chiefs and the recognition of tribal customs in
native affairs.

_. Furthermore, government campaigns for health,
hygiene and sanitation are now based on a larger con-
ception of human welfare. The object is not merely
the protection of Europeans nor even the elimination
of disease. The purpose is the healthful increase of
native population and the building up of a virile
citizenship.

Possibly more important than all else, as an indica-
tion of sound governmental attitude, is the determi-
nation to adopt British standards in the selection of |
government servants. It can be confidently asserted
that the British administrators are, as a class, among
the finest men in the world. The attainment of these

 

sets AP SEED30 THINKING WITH AFRICA

standards of service by other governments would be
the best possible guarantee for the future of Africa.
Illustrations of government attitudes are unhap-
pily not universally favorable. We cannot be indiffer-
ent to the recent action to establish the color bar in
South Africa; nor to the willingness of certain gov-
ernments to be indifferent to various forms of forced
labor; nor to the discouragement of the native lan-
guages in government schools; nor to the failure of
certain governments to make adequate appropriations
for the education of the native people. While the
number of governments against which these injustices
and failures may be charged is not large, it is suffi-
cient to mar government record. Civilization cannot
afford to be indifferent to such injustices. There must
be a determined protest until justice prevails.
Besides the attitude of governments there is, sec-
ond, the attitude of economic agencies. We can no
longer class the agents of commerce, industry and
agriculture as the “despised traders” of pioneer days.
President Lowell of Harvard University has re-
cently said that “business is the oldest of the arts
and the newest of the professions.” Those who go
to Africa to carry on commercial industry and agri-
culture are our neighbors in the homelands. They
partake of the morals and the morale of the busi-
ness men of London, Paris, Brussels and New York,
as well as of the farmers of rural Europe and Amer-
ica. Who shall say that their transfer to foreignCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 31

countries transforms them from useful citizens into
selfish exploiters? Unfortunately there are notable
instances of such transformations, but they must be
classed with similar offenders of all classes in all
countries.

The standards of economic activities have made
notable improvement within the last few years.
There is a new statesmanship in business which recog-
nizes the essential importance of all that relates to
the country and the people. The trader who was for-
merly interested only in the importation of goods of
little value now understands that exports are equally
important, if not more so. Commerce is learning that
the power to purchase depends on the ability to pro-
duce; that the power to produce is rooted in the gen-
eral welfare of the people as a whole. Thus are the
methods of foreign economic exchange being trans-
formed from the artificial and superficial draining of
resources and people to the policy of full develop-
ment that makes for permanent welfare.

These new and happier attitudes of business are
by no means as general as they should be. Evidences
of selfish exploitation are still too numerous. A no-
table example seems to be that of the alliance of the
Labor party in South Africa with the reactionary
forces to impose a color bar against the native work-
ers. It is to be hoped that such ebbs in the tide of
progress will soon be turned by a more real democ-
racy that will not tolerate class based merely on

 

Bp a eae eC ee

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ana neet ee Aton str
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Ss J
fe32 THINKING WITH AFRICA

color. But a new day has undoubtedly dawned. Better
standards of labor and economic exchange in the
homelands are gradually asserting themselves on be-
half of the African.

Among the significant illustrations of helpful eco-
nomic provisions and attitudes the following should
be enumerated:

Settlers’ schools for natives in Kenya; recreation
centers maintained at a large cost in the Johannes-
burg native compounds; hygienic provisions for the
housing of natives in the Katanga copper works; and
workers’ schools on the Congo railways. Probably
more important than all other contributions of eco-
nomic agents are the months and years spent in the
training of native workers in commerce, industry and
agriculture. Much credit is due to Europeans and
Asiatics under whose direction natives have been
“learning by doing” many important lessons of
civilization.

We cannot close our consideration of new economic
influences in Africa without referring to the tremen-
dous potentialities of the great East African plateaus,
extending with their rift valleys, lakes and magnifi-
cent mountains from the Red Sea down to the Cape
of Good Hope. Such areas, capable of habitation and
cultivation by people from the temperate zones, will
inevitably attract a migration of varied populations
that may change the whole character of Africa and
Africans. Already there are more than a million andee es

CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 3;

a half of Europeans in South Africa, over 30,000 in
the Rhodesias, and upwards of 10,000 in Kenya.
Well may we ask whether these are the forerunners
of Europeanized plains and plateaus that shall ex-
tend the whole length of East Africa and transform
the future of the continent for good or for ill.
There are signs that this may soon be the central
problem. Its ramifications for Africa and for the
world surpass the powers of imagination.

The attitude of missions is the third great factor
with governments and economic agencies. Mission
policies reflect new attitudes of missionaries in every
part of Africa. With genuine appreciation of mission-
ary endeavors in the past, we can confidently assert
that recent years have witnessed striking improve-
ments. The reality of spiritual power and willing-
ness to sacrifice remain, but a new and richer meaning
is now given to the message which they spread. For
lack of space and because others can present the
changes more effectively, I can here only mention
some of the more significant of these newer attitudes
of missions that are increasing in strength.

First of all is the clearer understanding and ap-
preciation of native capacity and customs. There is
less of pity and more of respect for the Africans and
for their past. There is a greater willingness to work
with rather than for the people. Recognition of these
changes in mission policies must not be understood as
lack of appreciation of the missionaries of the past;34 THINKING WITH AFRICA

all who know missions must testify that missionaries
were the first to share their lives with the primitive
peoples of Africa. They dwelt among them, they
learned their languages, they felt their sorrows, and
were happy in their joys. But today there is evident
a scientific quality, manifested by researches into
native agriculture, native traditions and native life.

Another change of importance in missionary atti-
tude is the widened conception of the gospel. Services
formerly rendered merely as incidents to the mis-
sion program are now regarded as central and vital.
The ministry of health is no longer merely a bait
to attract the heathen people to hear the gospel of
love. The body as the temple of the Holy Spirit is
God’s gift, worthy of the most sacred services. Cul-
tivation of the soil is not merely the source of food,
but cooperation with God in his universe. Education
is not limited to the three R’s. It is life and religion
for all. To bring life and to bring it more abun-
dantly is now more truly than ever the desire and
purpose of every missionary who really understands
the Christian command.

As a natural and inevitable consequence a third
attitude has followed, namely, the determination to
cooperate with God’s children wherever they are,
whatever their color and their language, whatever
their form of service, so long as the service is ren-
dered in the spirit of Christian love. In this deter-
mination we have the harbinger of a new day, theCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 4s

promise of a unity that guarantees the coming of the
Kingdom of Love in Africa.

Then there is the attitude of the native people,
in a sense the most arresting and vital change of all.
The all-controlling sense of fear, so characteristic of
primitive life, is passing. There is a new racial con-
sciousness in every part of Africa, a new longing, an
eager expectation, a desire and a determination to
participate in local and in world affairs. The doctrine
of self-determination has penetrated into unexpected
places, whether for good or for ill. The natives of
Africa will hereafter insist on giving voice to their
despairs, their grievances, their hopes and their de-
terminations. The day of passive servility is rapidly
passing and we shall do well to note the change.

Finally there are international attitudes. A rapidly
developing world consciousness of the African con-
tinent is coming to pass. Dense populations of Asia,
of Europe, and even of the Americas are looking
abroad for raw materials to feed, clothe, house and
give pleasure to the ever increasing masses. Inevi-
tably they turn to the rich storehouse of Africa with
its scant populations and its great potentialities. Afri-
can cocoa, African rubber, and African cotton are
doubtless the forerunners of other African resources
that will lure Asia, Europe and America into the
heart of Africa.

But world interest is by no means limited to the
thought of selfish exploitation. The power of interna-

 

iSe cea ea

36 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tional altruism must of necessity include Africa
within its scope. The ideals of civilization cannot tol-
erate the continued neglect of any considerable part
of the world. This conviction is not based on mere
sentiment or what has been called “wishful think-
ing,” for we have recently witnessed concrete evi-
dences of international concern for Africa. Possibly
the most significant of these evidences is the genuine
interest manifested in the mandated government of
Africa. There is a watchful waiting and an anxious
care as to the results of the mandated form of gov-
ernment that may well give courage to all of us. The
imperialistic designs and desires of European govern-
ments in relation to Abyssinia have been noted
throughout the civilized world. Woe be unto them
whose designs are based upon the principle of selfish
exploitation rather than upon standards of jus-
tice and altruism. Internationally the dark continent
is surely passing into the continent of great oppor-
tunities and greater responsibilities, national and in-
ternational.
Tuomas JeEssE JONES
New York City

Il. IN SOUTH AFRICA

Tue honor of opening up the southern end of
the African continent to Europeans is due to
the Portuguese nation, through the discovery of theas ag et ee oe sieaieeenieentaie oe oe seiauincisiaateistada cenit

CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 37

Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomew Diaz and
Vasco da Gama; but it was the Dutch who subse-
quently conceived the idea of colonizing the Cape.
This idea had its origin in the tragic event which
took place in 1648 when a Dutch ship was wrecked
at Table Bay, thus forcing the crew to land and live
on shore for five months. During the time while
they were waiting to be picked up by other ships,
“they sowed and reaped wheat and obtained plenty
of beef and mutton from an aboriginal race known
as the Hottentots.”

These people maintained friendly relations with
the newcomers, who, on their return to Holland,
gave such favorable reports of the Cape and its peo-
ple that the Dutch East India Company, which was
formed for the purpose of trading with India, de-
cided to take possession of Table Bay. For this pur-
pose the Company sent out an expedition under Jan
Van Riebeek, a ship’s surgeon who had previously
visited the Cape. His ships reached the Cape on
April 6, 1652, and established a refreshment station
on the shores of Table Bay. There was no intention at
the time to found a Dutch colony in South Africa.
“The object,” we are told, “was merely to build a
small fort for protection against the natives, to cul-
tivate a large garden by means of servants of the
Company, to breed hogs and poultry, to purchase cat-
tle from the Hottentots to be kept till the arrival of
the fleets, and to construct a hospital where sick men‘

3
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18
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38 THINKING WITH AFRICA

could be left to recover and join the next ships that
called.” But this was the beginning of a settlement
which was destined to revolutionize the whole of the
southern part of the African continent.

The settlers pushed ever outwards from the Cape
peninsula and came into conflict with the Hottentot
pastoralists, who gradually lost all their lands, be-
coming the serfs of the settlers, who by this time
had been strengthened by the immigration of Hu-
euenot refugees from France. Expansion of the
white settlements northwards and eastwards re-
sulted in shortage of labor, followed by the im-
portation of slaves from Java and the Indian islands,
Mozambique and Madagascar. For over a hundred
years the white settlers at the Cape relied upon slave
labor. Even though slavery was abolished in 1834
the tradition of slavery remains strong in South
‘Africa, and there are sections of the white popula-
tion which still regard the black people as destined
by Providence to be the white man’s burden bearers.
More than this, slavery has left a legacy of mulat-
toes, the descendants for the most part of the white
slave-owners and their slaves. The place which these
people, numbering nearly half a million today,
should hold in the political, social or economic life
of the country is one of the problems confronting
the whites in South Africa.

As the settlers moved eastwards they came into
contact with another dark-skinned race, the Bantu,CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 39

who were spreading southwards and westwards. The
Great Fish River, distant about four hundred miles
from Cape Town, was the meeting place of Euro-
pean and Bantu, and for many years this area wit-
nessed bloody struggles which ended inevitably in
the dominance of the European.

But others than Africans tried the white settlers.
They quarrelled with their rulers, who at the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century were the British
government in England and its representatives at
Cape Town. The abolition of slavery proved to be
the last straw for many of the Dutch farmers, who
then moved northwards into the wide plains of the
areas known today as the Orange Free State and
the Transvaal. Here they fought and conquered
other Bantu tribes, and formed their own independ-
ent governments under which equality between
black and white was specifically denied both in church
and state. Some entered the land now known as
Natal, where before long the British successfully
disputed with them for the overlordship.

The middle of the nineteenth century saw the
white man (whose numbers did not exceed 400,000
all told) in control of South Africa, with four mil-
lion Bantu under his sway. We thus find a mixed
population of English, Dutch, Bantu, Malays, Hot-
tentots and mulattoes. To these were added in the
*sixties of the last century indentured laborers from
India, brought into the Natal tea and sugar plan-oT: TE en RS TE SETI

Ssh t pone benesgNS Aner Morante ae

40 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tations. These Indians number 170,000 today and in
themselves present another difficult problem in racial
adjustment.

About 1870, diamonds were found at a place
where now stands the town of Kimberley. This
brought a great change in the life of the country.
Labor was wanted at once and the Bantu were
wheedled out of their lands by tempting offers of
rifles, money and other attractions. Soon there were
many thousands of Bantu working as laborers at Kim-
berley, and more thousands feverishly helping in the
provision of railway communication between Cape
Town and the diamond fields. In the early ’eighties
gold was found in the Transvaal, and in 1886 Jo-
hannesburg was founded as a mining center.

From the ’seventies, then, South Africa rapidly be-
came an industrial country, population increased by
leaps and bounds, pastoral farming had to give way
in many places to agriculture. The Bantu people
were brought out in increasing numbers to serve
European mines, factories, railways and farms, while
their own lands became less extensive and their cattle
more numerous. Today there are about 600,000
Bantu men, women and children to be found at any
one time in the towns of South Africa. About thirty-
five per cent of the urban population of the Union
of South Africa are Bantu.

These changes were not brought about without
great effects upon Bantu life. To appreciate the im-rig ge a nt ern noe

CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 1

mensity of the problem of racial relationships in
South Africa today it is necessary to realize something
of the nature of these effects.

It is a great mistake to think of Bantu life as
primitive, simple and uneventful. The history of the
Bantu has still to be pieced together, but we know
enough to be able to say that they are not a people
without a history. Their racial origin is still a sub-
ject of debate among anthropologists, but their tribal
lore, as well as much other evidence, shows them
to have emigrated originally from Central and East-
ern Africa. Even as no race is “pure” to the extent of
never having been infused with foreign blood, so the
Bantu appear to have in their veins the blood of
Indians, Arabs, and possibly of other races. The
tribes vary considerably, but throughout Eastern,
Central and South Africa the Bantu are sufficiently
well related physically, and their social organizations
closely enough identified, to reveal themselves as
one race, virile, intelligent and energetic.

Their social organizations are highly developed
and have well served their purpose in maintaining
tribal entity. But the vitality of the race is shown not
only by its warlike spirit but also by the frequency
with which new groups were formed, so that today
we have in Africa a remarkable number of tribal
groups, each with its own well developed political and
social organizations.

While these organizations are based upon animis-

a ee

ee Ain aaa42 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tic conceptions, and their sanctions are largely ritual
in their significance, the Bantu religious ideas have
not been as debased as many observers have thought.
One cannot here enter into a comparison of their
cosmic concepts with those of primitive people like
the Bushmen and the Australian “black fellows.”
One may, however, assert that they show considerable
development of thought. Despite their superstitious
belief in the power of ancestor spirits, the Bantu
had a definite conception of one Supreme Being
whom the Zula-Xosa speaking Bantu call Unkulun-
kulu (the Great Great One), and whom the South
Chuana tribes speak of as Modimo. Their tribal sanc-
tions, notwithstanding their dependence upon ani-
mism and witchcraft, showed advanced ethical ideas
and gave a certain moral basis to personal conduct.
Like the Nordic tribe of northern Europe, the Bantu
have shown a ready response to the religious and
ethical conceptions of the Christian religion. And
curiously enough there is such a striking resemblance
between Jewish laws, traditions and customs and
those of the Bantu as to cause much speculation as to
the possibility of there having been some direct con-
tact between the two systems.

The activities of the Bantu people were not merely
those of a primitive people. Some of them were well
versed in the art of smelting iron, and there are evi-
dences of their having run tin, copper and gold
mines. In the Transvaal are old copper mines whichCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 43

were worked long before the white man came ; and
it is considered by some that the mines and “ruined
cities” of Rhodesia were the work of Bantu peoples.
Other natives were skilled in pottery, and in the
manufacture of copper bracelets and other similar
articles of use and adornment, while others again
were traders.

The political organizations were also well de-
veloped, and these have been found most useful to
the European ruler as a means of controlling the peo-
ple. Among the southern Bantu the chief was not an
absolute autocrat. The tribal council always discussed
tribal matters, and rarely except in the case of an
occasional tyrant did the chief overrule its findings.
Even when the council had deliberated and come to
a decision, the people as a whole were called together
to hear the decision, and even their objections were
heard.

The chief was the father of all the people. He
was also the head of a hierarchy, every part of which
was defined in terms of privileges and responsibilities.
Again, the legal system of the Bantu was clearly
defined and organic. Responsibility before the whole
life of the tribe was embraced.

Bantu life, then, was like a delicately patterned
and intricate organism, sensitive to every touch and
responding to the social need. Every section of the
mosaic—the individual, the family, and the clan,
the head of the family and the chief—had an ap-SE EET.

44. THINKING WITH AFRICA

pointed place; every part of the pattern, whether
religious, political, military, social, or legal, fitted
into the whole.

Into all this there overflowed the manifold influ-
ences of European civilization, destroying the con-
necting filaments, tearing away portions of the pat-
tern, and breaking up the tribal entity. The old tribal
restraints were no longer sufficient to control the in-
dividual as part of the tribe, for the individual no
longer belonged to the tribe.

There are many who deplore the break-up of the
tribal life, but it was inevitable. The clash between
European civilization and Bantu life was a clash be-
tween the idea of progress and the power of custom
and tradition; between a civilization based upon the
emancipation of the individual and a civilization in
which the individual was lost in the tribe.

Perhaps the most powerful of the forces of Euro-
pean civilization were the Christian religion, educa-
tion, industry and town life; and the most devastat-
ing in its effect upon tribal control was the last.
Before the work of the missionaries and educators
had done more than set up a ferment in Bantu life,
modern industry came to drag Bantu men by the
thousands out of their accustomed life. If the church
and the school had had a couple of hundred years
more to leaven the whole, it would probably have
been possible to transmute Bantu organizations, with
their animistic associations, into Christian institutionsCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 45

which would have allowed their tribal power to re-
main intact while the individual was liberated. But
it is vain to imagine that Christianity and education
could make the individual anything but a rebel
against institutions based upon animism and witch-
craft. Fortunately for Europe, the native institutions
there were taken over by the Christian church. In
South Africa this was rendered impossible by the
rapidity with which industry entered in the wake of
the missionary and the teacher and disrupted Bantu
life.

The wholesale transfer of the Bantu males, fol-
lowed naturally by their womenfolk, brought them
into the most intimate contact with other peoples, and
their education proceeded swiftly. Many never re-
turned to their homes, while those who did return
found they had outgrown the old traditional ways.

Tribal life is fast decaying. While the white gov-
ernment is now trying to retain something of the
power of the chiefs by specific legislation, the old
tribal control, the influence of the chief, his coun-
cillors and tribal opinion, is giving way to the per-
sonal influence of strong leaders. Meanwhile the
Bantu people are struggling in a whirlpool. The old
religious ideas are crumbling, social ties have been
severed, economic arrangements have broken down.
The people find the rock of Christian teaching diff-
cult to grip, European social sanctions difficult to ob-
serve, and no definite place fixed for them in the|
;

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46 THINKING WITH AFRICA

new economic system. Is it any wonder they sink
back in despair? If ever a people needed a message
of hope, leaders they could trust, and a sight of the
Promised Land, the Bantu need these today.

When the Bantu met the European settlers near
the Great Fish River, their southern migration came
practically to an end. For many years the Bantu had
suffered severely from the tyranny of a few of their
kings, whose military powers enabled them to sweep
vast areas bare of people. Chaka, the Zulu king, in
the southeast, and Umsilikatse in the central northern
plains, destroyed hundreds of thousands of persons,
and there were constant flights, to and fro, of whole
tribes. As the whites pushed outwards there were
frequent wars with them. It was not until about sixty
years ago—and much less than that in many cases—
that the Bantu people were able to settle down to the
ways of peace and to the permanent occupation of
their lands.

British rule in the Cape succeeded in fixing fairly
well the limits of white expansion in that colony, so
that we have today a considerable area on the eastern
side, predominantly Bantu and known as the Transkei
(the Kei being the dividing river), which is admin-
istered under a special form of government that
includes a council representative of the people. On
the western side of the Kei the European and Bantu
farmers are intermingled, and here also there is a
fairly large Bantu population.CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 47

The Dutch settlers as they trekked northwards oc-
cupied the lands for themselves. They either pushed
the Bantu occupiers into Reserves—narrowly defined
areas—or they allowed them to remain as squatters,
rendering service to the European farmer in return
for the “right” to live on the farm. Thus we find in
the Orange Free State and the Transvaal that the
Bantu people are living either in well-defined areas
as communal occupiers, or else on European farms as
squatters. A small number are employed as paid la-
borers on the farms, earning about twenty shillings
per month, about five dollars. In Natal a similar
process of occupation took place; but the British
government undertook to maintain the integrity of
a considerable territory, known as Zululand, for the
sole ownership of the Zulu people. It is unfortu-
nately true that even of this “guaranteed” area Eu-
ropean farmers have secured considerable slices.

There are approximately four and a half million
Bantu distributed over the Union of South Africa
today. Seven out of every eight still live in rural
areas. Europeans own four-fifths of the land. Al-~
most half of these four and a half million Bantu
are to be found on farms which are mostly Euro-
pean-owned.

The story of the land in South Africa is neither a
short one nor a pleasant one, and we must here be
content with a plain tale. The Bantu are a land-
hungry people. Their cattle have increased since theF
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48 THINKING WITH AFRICA

cessation of wars, but the restriction of their land
during the nineteenth century came so suddenly that
they were unprepared, and even yet they have not
become an agricultural people beyond what the barest
of necessities requires. Until 1913 they were free
to purchase and lease land as they wished, or at least
as they could persuade Europeans to let them have
it. They were, until then, in increasing numbers going
on European lands on the share basis; that is, they
would farm their piece of a farm and give the owner
half of the crops.

But for years there had grown up among the white
farmers a fear lest the Bantu should procure the best
lands by purchase, or lest the practice of the share
plan should make the white folk more than ever dis-
inclined to do their own farming. They still wished
to have the “Kafir labor,” but it must be dependent
and servile. The tradition of slavery made it un-
thinkable that the Bantu should be permitted to be-
come an independent, prosperous peasantry.

And so in 1913 a law was passed, known as the
Natives’ Land Act, to prevent European and Bantu
entering into mutual contracts of sale or of leased
land, and making provision for the setting aside later
of areas in which the Bantu could purchase or lease
land. One of the immediate effects of the law was
the ejection of hundreds of Bantu families from
European lands, and most of them lost cattle and
many of them lost children in their search for homes.CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 49

The vast majority of the families finally settled in
the towns.

Every attempt so far made to set aside further
areas for Bantu occupation has failed because the
European farmers are determined that the Bantu
shall not have more land, and the present Prime
Minister’s Land Bill, which is a pale-faced effort to
find land which the Bantu may buy in competition
with the Europeans, is also likely to fail. And so,
since there is little prospect of the Bantu finding more
land, it will be necessary to turn to the consideration
of other means of providing for the future of the
Bantu people.

The findings of commissions and other investigat-
ing bodies go to prove that the land at present avail-
able to the Bantu for ownership is not adequate, for
those living in the Reserves and their descendants,
even for the next two or three generations. What
about the three-sevenths of the Bantu on European
lands? Today few of these have any legal or eco-
nomic status. They occupy their lands at the whim
of the owner, and may at any time on ninety days”
notice be turned off. What progress is possibie where:
there is no security? These landworkers are as neat
as can be to serfdom, and the greatest task before
the friends of the Bantu is to secure for them the
right to become tenant farmers or paid workers on
European lands. Not until they are free to contract
for their own labor will it be possible to raise theseoI

rae sali emremsiynitm soem

50 THINKING WITH AFRICA

unfortunate people to the status of a self-respecting,
industrious, progressive and prosperous peasantry. It
may be necessary to acquiesce for the time being in
the separation of European and Bantu as landowners,
but there is no justification for the prohibition of
leasing rights to these landworkers. They must be
given a ladder of hope the rungs of which shall be
adequate wages for labor, facilities for renting land
with legal protection during the tenancy and with
compensation for improvements, and opportunities
for the purchase of land.

The restriction of Bantu land ownership and the
consequent congestion of population into areas in
which pastoral farming has scarcely emerged into
agricultural development, have resulted in the ne-
cessity for large numbers to find means of subsistence
outside the Reserves. Fortunately, until very recently
industry both in mining and manufacture was able to
offer employment to those who sought work. In some
Reserves fully half of the able-bodied men were
always away in the European towns augmenting the
family income. The economic expansion of South
Africa has been made possible by the help of Bantu
laborers, who are noted for their willingness, cheer-
ful obedience and good humor. Nowhere in the
world are to be found more docile workers if they
are treated justly. Their wage is not large, about two
shillings a day, while the wage of the white skilled
worker is from ten to fifteen times as large.CHANGING EIFE AND THOUGHT «5x

But even in this sphere the path of progress is
being blocked, as will be seen in a further section of
this article. s

Nothing has reflected more honor upon European
civilization than the eagerness and enthusiasm with
which European nations have sought to share with
less favored races the beneficent influences of the
Christian religion and the civilizing agencies of edu-
cation. Neither the nobility of his Christian ideals
nor his remarkable achievements in the conquest of
fresh fields of knowledge and of the unknown forces
of nature, throws as much credit upon the white man
as his self-sacrificing determination that others shall
share these benefits. The history of South Africa is
strewn with noble records of missionary and educa-
tional endeavor in behalf of Hottentot and Bantu.
Missionary zeal has often brought the standard bear-
ers of Christianity into conflict with those who sought
only the political and economic dominance of the
white man, and perhaps at times this zeal gave out
more heat than light. But it is a truism to say that
without the elevating influence of the missionary
upon the Bantu, South Africa could not have ex-
perienced peace and quietness enough to progress as
she has done. For a generation now all the strife, with
one or two exceptions, has been among members of
the white race.

The Bantu people are being Christianized, al-il
4
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52 THINKING WITH AFRICA

though not as swiftly as many would wish. About
one-third of the people are professing Christians,
and these form the progressive element in the popu-
lation. As mentioned earlier, the Bantu quickly as-
similated the doctrines of the Christian religion and
are appreciative of Christian ethical values. Mission~
ary records are full of instances of Bantu men and
women whose lives have witnessed to their Christian
ideals; who have sacrificed themselves in the cause
of truth; who have shown all the attributes of char-
acter—honesty of purpose, loyalty in adversity,
purity of life, and personal integrity—which we as-
sociate with members of the civilized races.

Out of missionary efforts there are now emerging
native Bantu churches. Some of these churches have
been established as part of the missionary policy—
the encouragement of self-development and inde-
pendence; others are the products of revolt against
European ecclesiastical control; others again, as
amongst Europeans themselves, have been founded
as commercial ventures. But there can be no question
that the Bantu, like the Indians and Chinese, are not
going to be content much longer to accept the inferior
positions in European ecclesiastical hierarchies. The
refusal of white church-folk to allow non-Europeans
to worship with them, and to accept the rule and ad-
ministration of non-European clergy, is driving the
Bantu and their colored brethren to demand theirCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 353

own religious organizations free of European con-
trol.

The history of the establishment and development
of Bantu education requires more space than can be
given in this article; and all that one can hope to do
is to indicate the extent to which the educational net
has been spread over the juvenile Bantu population
and the direction which educational policy is taking.

The burden of Bantu education has always fallen
upon the missionary bodies and upon the parents of
students, but in recent years the government has as-
sumed more and more financial responsibility, so that
today practically the whole of the teaching force in
Bantu schools is paid by the government. But the
Bantu people contribute their full share of the taxa-
tion from which the necessary funds are obtained;
and in 1926 a new law, consolidating Bantu taxation,
definitely established the principle of applying some
of the proceeds to the development of education.
Today there are 250,000 Bantu children receiving
education and the number is increasing steadily.

In recent years Bantu education has been organ-
ized as a separate part of the educational system, and
attempts have been made to bring the curriculum into
closer relation with the conditions of Bantu life.
Differences in language, in habits of life, and the big
gulf which exists between uncivilized life in the
kraals (homes) and the atmosphere in the classroom,BE
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54 THINKING WITH AFRICA

make difficult this very necessary adjustment. But
progress is being made; the standard of the work ig
steadily rising; the character and training of Bantu
teachers are being improved; more and more of the
students come from civilized homes where the
parents are themselves the products of church and
school. Altogether the educational outlook is more
hopeful than it has ever been.

While there is progress in both church and school,
there is confusion and strife outside. The restrictions
of the Natives’ Land Act; the increasing population
in the Reserves; the growing necessity of finding em-
ployment outside these areas; the increase in the
number of the civilized and educated Bantu, with
consequent growing social needs—all these and other
causes are driving the Bantu into the towns where
perforce he must find employment. Originally wel-
comed as an excellent unskilled worker, he has proved
himself capable of greater things, particularly when
he has received adequate preliminary training. Dur-
ing the past ten years or so employers have found
that the Bantu has a special flair for mechanical oc-
cupations. On the docks of our harbors he has no
equal as a winch-winder, while in the mines he has
shown himself as skilful as and more. industrious
than the “poor whites,” who have in recent years
come in from the rural areas to seek employment as
miners. As a messenger and general handy-man he

has proved himself trustworthy and obedient. AndCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 5;

so one might go through many other occupations and
find witness that he has become a serious competitor
of the semi-skilled white worker. '

It is just here that the Bantu has, for the moment,
met his Waterloo. So long as he was content to be a
mine-boy, pastore, teacher in the schools, kitchen-
boy, and even a lawyer or doctor practising among his
own people, the white worker took little notice of
him and cared less what he earned, being himself
content to “ride on the back” of the Bantu unskilled
worker by drawing at least ten times the burden-bear-
er’s low wages. But with the depression which fol-
lowed the recent peace there came a scramble for
jobs, and when it was realized how considerably the
Bantu people had penetrated into other occupations,
there arose a cry about protecting the whites. From
the uproar came a desperate strike and revolt in the
gold-mining areas, in 1922, to compel the mines to
employ fewer Bantu and more Europeans. Neither
the strike nor the revolt was successful, but in 1924
the general parliamentary election brought to power
the Dutch nationalists, pledged, among other things,
to fight for the Dutch “poor whites,” and the Eng-
lish Labor Party, pledged to protect “civilized,”
1.€., white labor. About this time a judgment of the
Supreme Court of South Africa declared as ultra
vires mining safety regulations which prevented
Bantu and Indians from obtaining competency cer-
tificates. The fat was in the fire and the govern-

 

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56 THINKING WITH AFRICA

ment determined not merely to legalize the regula-
tions but also to secure powers to introduce a color
bar into all skilled occupations. The measure was op-
posed by Bantu organizations and by many Euro-
peans, including the opposition party in Parliament.
After dramatic debates the measure became law in
1926, but so far the government has not ventured to
make use of the powers it secured.

At the same time the government has been dis-
placing non-European labor on the state railways and
in other state departments on the specious plea that
only “civilized” labor should be employed. In every
case the term civilized has been interpreted as syn-
onymous with white or colored—.e., mulatto—
labor; for because of their number, their voting
strength, their habits of life and their Dutch na-
tionality, the present government has driven a wedge
between black and colored and awarded the mulatto
section the dignity of being civilized for political and.
industrial purposes.

But there are signs that even the white trade unions
are becoming conscious of the iniquity of a color bar
in industry. It is more than likely that in the coming
years they will realize that economic laws know no
color bar, and that the wisest way of protecting white
civilization in South Africa is to bring all non-Euro-
peans within the influence of that civilization, giving
them facilities for education, training, and economic
progress as workers, thus putting the bar below, toCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT ¢

protect the bottom dog, and not above to thwart him
in his upward struggle.

The principle which protects the political and legal
status of the Negro in the United States is enshrined
in the American Constitution, and it is the rock upon
which all efforts to deny him political, legal and
economic rights must in the end break. The Bantu
in the old Cape Colony used to think that their status
as citizens was protected by the Letters Patent under
which the late Queen Victoria gave a constitution to
the Cape Colony. In 1854 the law which established
the franchise there made no distinction between
European and non-European, and so long as the Cape
Colony remained a separate colony in South Africa
there was no likelihood of the citizen right being
withdrawn. No part of South Africa was so contented
and law abiding as the Cape Colony, and the Bantu
people were proud of their citizenship, loud in their
praise of British rule, and revered the name of
Queen Victoria.

Over the borders in the other territories—the two
Dutch republics and the colony of Natal—the Euro-
peans alone had citizen rights, although in Natal
franchise rights had been extended to the Bantu but
under such prohibitive conditions that not more than
two natives were ever enrolled on the voters’ register.

When all these territories were united in 1910 and
became the Union of South Africa, there was a great
struggle over franchise rights; but the Cape ColonyNy:
pills Saar SRE pare ner ans et i

salen Senay

 

58 THINKING WITH AFRICA

representatives succeeded in maintaining the com-
mon franchise in that area, on the understanding that
they would not press for its extension beyond their
own province. To induce the incorporation of the
Cape Colony into the Union, clauses were inserted
in the constitution especially protecting these fran-
chise rights, but introducing for the first time, in so
far as the Cape was concerned, a bar against non-
Europeans becoming members of the legislature.

The significance of the franchise rights of the
Bantu in the Cape was made clear when the repres-
sive Natives’? Land Act of 1913 was declared by the
Supreme Court to be inoperative in the Cape because
it would have prevented the Bantu people from
acquiring citizenship through the property qualifica-
tions. Is it any wonder that any proposal to with-
draw the franchise from the Bantu is regarded as a
threatened loss, not only of political citizenship but
also of legal and economic status?

And so South Africa is faced with a racial issue
of the first magnitude by the bill which the Prime
Minister has presented to Parliament to disenfran-
chise the Cape Bantu, and to provide that the Bantu
people as a whole (four and a half million as against
one and a half million whites) shall be represented in
Parliament by seven European members, in a legisla-
ture of a hundred and thirty members, to be elected
by voters “designated” by the government of the day.
The proposals are so outrageous that a large number

 

ai tah sia meen are
oe a ee ae a eae
i Pee esCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 59

of European as well as non-European organizations
are prepared to oppose them to the bitter end. What
that end will be no one dares to prophesy now, but if
the measure is passed it will create great racial
bitterness.

There exist two conflicting policies in South Africa
in regard to the Bantu. The one, probably the more
popular at the moment, is the policy of differentia-
tion. This policy regards the Bantu as a people apart,
to be legislated for separately and specifically, to be
kept within their Reserves except in so far as white
people need their services, and to be given consider-
able powers of self-government. The slogan of this
policy is, “Let the Bantu develop in their own areas
and along their own lines.”

Opposed to this is the policy of identity, which
holds that the state is one whose security depends
upon the extent to which the various elements in the
population can be welded into a common citizenship,
however different and unequal may be their peculiar
contribution to the common weal. To separate these
sections from the common life, to encourage them,
through separate franchise arrangements and color
bars, to regard their interests as distinct from, and
perhaps opposed to, those of the other sections, is
held to be the gravest injury that can threaten the
unity of the state as a whole. To think that there
can be two or more civilizations within one demo-
cratic nation without conflict is to ignore political his-

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60 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tory; while to turn the Bantu people out of the privi-
leges of modern civilization on the specious plea of
helping them “to develop along their own lines,” is
to turn them into the outer darkness of animism and
witchcraft and to drive them into that desperation
which gives birth to anarchy and bloodshed.

§

The spread of knowledge has created a class of ed-
ucated men and women who are becoming more and
more divorced from tribal conditions. Some of these
men and'women live in the urban areas, while others
still live among the people. We have ministers of
religion, schoolmasters, a few men in the medical and
legal professions; but a large number are found in
our industrial cities, employed in every department
of life. There is a small but increasing number of
men who are striving for an independent existence.
Some of them have started businesses of their own.
Others are editors and proprietors of weekly news-
papers whose columns are devoted to the furtherance
of the cause of their race. They are all struggling
against great odds to secure a respectable place for
the Bantu people in the national life of South Africa.
Realizing that to secure such a place united action was
necessary, they organized political associations all
over the country. But soon after the consummation of
union the need for a single organization, composed
of the existing ones, was keenly felt. The insertionm Ductile sage seiniiiiiatined a _

CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 61

of the color-bar clause in the Act of Union opened
their eyes and awakened them to the fact that white
South Africa was determined to keep the Bantu peo-
ple in a state of perpetual serfdom. Consequently in
1912, immediately before the enactment of the Na-
tives’? Land Act, a convention of representative men
and chiefs was held in Bloemfontein to consider the
question of Bantu unity. The outcome of the con-
vention was the formation of what is known today
as the African National Congress. Some of the ob-
jects of this organization are:

(1) To effect unity among the various tribes of
the Bantu race by breaking down tribal barriers; (2)
to educate public opinion on matters affecting the po-
litical, land and economic conditions of the people;
(3) to encourage the spread of knowledge among
the people by means of education; (4) to be the
channel of communication between the government
and the people; and (5) to cooperate with all socie-
ties and individuals interested in the welfare of the
Bantu people.

This association is the most powerful of Bantu
political organizations. It has branches all over the
Union. Although most of the chiefs are not active
members and appear to be indifferent, nevertheless
they are in sympathy with its objects and the efforts
of its leaders to ameliorate the condition of their peo-
ples. Whether they like it or not, the chiefs are bound
to acknowledge sooner or later the leadership of the

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62 THINKING WITH AFRICA

intellectuals. For this leadership is slowly but surely
gaining ground. Its stronghold is in the towns, where
it wields an influence among both the progressive and
the tribal members of the race. Unlike that of the
chiefs, it is a power able to voice the feelings of the
people, to present their case before the authorities,
and to point the way of salvation. True, it has not
succeeded in securing the support of all the peoples,
but it has made the intelligent black man think in
terms of the race as a whole and not of separate
tribes.

It is often alleged by many Europeans, including
some of the best friends of the natives, that the ed-
ucated natives are out of touch with their uneducated
brethren, and that their views and actions are not
representative of the views of the masses. This state-
ment is misleading. The educated men of the Bantu
race have not lost touch with the people. Like the
educated of any race, they have certainly constituted
themselves as leaders. It is true that they are a mi-
nority, but they are a minority with which white
South Africa has to reckon. They are the spokes-
men of their inarticulate people. They have their
faults, no doubt, but these faults cannot overshadow
their efforts to bring about Bantu unity, to foster the
spirit of race-consciousness, and to educate public
opinion on the needs and aspirations of their race.
Their sins of omission and commission are due to
their lack of proper training for leadership. If atCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 63

times they appear violent and bitter against the white
man’s rule it is not because they have any inherent
hatred of the white race, but because they feel that
their people are not given a square deal and are
treated like aliens in the land of their forefathers.
What native Africans want is not social mixture
with the whites but equal opportunities in the fields
of industry and commerce. When they see their peo-
ple economically losing ground and gradually coming
to the border-line of starvation, they often lose the
power of self-control and use violent language in an
endeavor to force the attention of the authorities. In
consequence they have been stigmatized as dema-
gogues and agitators. That there are firebrands and
radicals among Bantu leaders no sane man can deny.
But what is surprising is that in view of the disabili-
ties under which the Bantu people labor, we have so
far produced only agitators and not out-and-out Bol-
sheviks. True, there are men who preach the doctrine
of “Africa for the Africans” in response to the cry
of “A White South Africa,” whereby it will be seen
that Bantu leaders are being driven to radicalism by
the extremism of white demagogues, among whom
there are men of standing. For if it is extreme on the
part of natives to claim Africa for the Africans, it is
certainly extreme on the part of the white man to
claim it for the white men. These radical leaders have
at present a large following, because a program of

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64 THINKING WITH AFRICA

non-cooperation with the whites and of “Africa for
the Africans” appeals to the ignorant masses.

There is, however, another school of thought
which has recently come into existence. This school
believes that the path of Bantu progress lies along the
lines of cooperation between white and black. Among
its leaders are such men as Professor D. D. Tengo
Jabavu, Rev. John L. Dube, Dr. S. M. Molema,
Messrs. M. Pelem, Sol. T. Plaatje, H. Selby-
Msimang and others. These men have no organized
following, but their influence is being felt among the
people. Some of them are associated with such inter-
racial organizations as the Joint Councils of Euro-
peans and Natives and Native Welfare Societies.
For preaching the gospel of interracial understanding
and harmony they have incurred the stigma of being
called “good boys” by the radical leaders. In spite of
the attacks upon them these men are doing noble
work for South Africa. Their program is to build a
bridge across the color line, to create an atmosphere
of good will so that the two races may work together
harmoniously for the peace and prosperity of the
country. They feel also that at this stage of their de-
velopment the Bantu people need the guidance and
leadership of the white race.

The political and economic outlook of the Bantu
is admittedly dark at the present time, but what is
encouraging is that in this darkest hour many white
men and women have proved themselves championsCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 65

of human liberty and freedom. It is as if the anti-
Bantu legislation which has disgraced the statute
books of this country since the consummation of
union, has stirred the hearts of men to the depths.
Our opinion is that the conscience of white South
Africa is awakening, and that no longer can injus-
tice be perpetrated upon any section of our popula-
tion without vigorous protest being aroused. Grad-
ually it is dawning on the whites that their civiliza-
tion cannot flourish in the midst of an overwhelming
barbarism.

Today South Africa is at the crossroads of de-
cision. Upon the ultimate issue of the present political
and economic struggles depend racial peace and the
mutual advancement of all sections of the people.
Much depends upon the faith and courage of those
European and Bantu who are laboring for justice,
good will and racial cooperation, believing that vic-
tory has always attended those who have endured to
the end.

R. V. S—Lopr THEMA
J. D. Rueratir Jongs
Johannesburg

Ill. IN EAST AFRICA

THE area with which this section deals is under
British control, with the exception of Portuguese
East Africa. The territories are as follows:

aea Oa

 

 

 

 

66 THINKING WITH AFRICA

F Name Sq. Miles Europeans Asiatics Africans
Hs Northern Rhodesia 290,000 3,634 os 980,000
Te Nyasaland 40,000 _—_1,486 563 1,200,000
Kenya 245,060 12,500 26,729 2,495,065
Zanzibar 1,020 270 13,855 186,187
Uganda 94,000 1,269 5,600 3,000,000
i ‘Tanganyika $65,000. 2,447 15,000 4,107,000
f Totals 1,035,080 21,606 61,747 11,968,252
3 All these territories were brought under the rule
; of England and Germany between the years 1880

and 1900, Tanganyika passing to Britain under the
mandate system after the Great War. Since 1900 the
various governments have been able to strengthen
their positions and make administration more effec-
tive, the only areas where control is weak being along
the northern frontier of Kenya and Uganda. Before
the advent of the Western nations conditions of Afri-
can life in these territories were such as to fill David
Livingstone with the most profound pity, called
out mainly by the terrible iniquities of the slave
trade. Commerce in the modern sense of that term
was practically unknown. Tribe was divided against
tribe, roads were non-existent, diseases were rampant
and were unalleviated save by the feeble efforts of
the medicine men, or by the incantations and sug-
gestions of the faith-healing, sacrificial system asso-
ciated with the cult of ancestor propitiation. Witch-
a craft held whole populations in thrall. Justice,
4 owing to the bribery which was rampant, was not im-
A partially administered. When a chief died the tribe

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shaban tegen

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Ee a

SP ganas eresCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 67

was as likely as not to become the scene of partisan
strife, until the strongest claimant defeated all others.
Cooperation was confined to interests within the
tribal area, each tribe being suspicious of its neigh-
bor. There were none of those larger operations
which are the features of later civilizations.

As the discoveries of Livingstone and Stanley
opened up fresh trails to the interior, Western mis-
sionaries, in response to their appeals, entered the
newly opened territories. Following hard upon their
heels went commerce in the form of chartered com-
panies, of which the African Lakes Company and the
Imperial British East Africa Company were out-
standing examples. These companies did not last
long, and the areas which they held were ultimately
taken over by the Crown and administered as pro-
tectorates. One of these, the East Africa protectorate,
is now the colony of Kenya.

As can be imagined, there were very many prob-
lems to be faced by the administrations, all very
closely interrelated, and needing to be tackled with-
out delay. Roads had to be cut through, railways
built, taxes imposed, revenues collected, departments
on lands set up, justice administered, diseases con-
trolled, police brought into being, commerce initiated
and developed, and the many tribes welded into one
system of administration. While each nation, Ger-
man or British, was free to develop its own institu-
tions, certain general rules had been laid down for

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68 THINKING WITH AFRICA

application to all territories. One of these forbade the
importation of intoxicants for the consumption of na-
tives, thus averting from the East Coast a nefarious
traffic with which the West Coast is cursed.

§

The condition of affairs in East Africa today is
largely the result of the impact of a highly civilized
people upon primitive races. There are, of course,
some aspects of native life which have hardly begun
to yield to this influence, such as conceptions of
witchcraft, polygamy, the clan system of tribal life,
and ideas of land tenure. In other directions, how-
ever, the effects of the white man’s presence are
marked. Within each separate protectorate tribes once
isolated from each other now have free communica-
tion, and there is intercourse even from one pro-
he tectorate to another. People who, before the advent
of the European, never grew more crops than were
necessary to feed themselves are now cultivating ad-
ditional crops for export, coming into the world mar-
kets and buying the products of the West with the
proceeds. To care for imports and exports railways
and harbors have been built. In order that exports
may be graded up, agricultural departments have
i distributed better seed, and have given the instruc-
Ee tion needed when crops new to the native were in-
i, troduced. Motors from America now convey African
| chiefs on their journeyings, and hands across the seas
are making the cloth, the lamps, the boots and other

 

 

 

 

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© resin cig A oO ot AtCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 69

products which the African is beginning to demand.
In opening up East Africa to trade the white men
also opened it up to disease. Old diseases once iso-
lated in separate tribes have now clear lines of com-
munication. Thus did sleeping sickness gain access to
Uganda, destroying between two and three hundred
thousand human beings before it was brought under
control. Thus too have those pests, the jiggers, spread
across the continent. Governments have been alive to
the need for all that medical skill can do to combat
disease, and in all areas the various medical depart-
ments are doing notable work. It is the medical pro-
fession which will rid East Africa, as it rid Europe,
of the scourge of witchcraft. In training Africans in
medical work the government and missions also train
them in the development of that personal character
without which the best work cannot be done.
Equally notable has been the contribution made
through education. This has been the peculiar contri-
bution of missions, for there was so much to be done
by governments on other essential lines that they
were glad to leave to missions this self-appointed
task. The first thing to be done was to reduce the lan-
guages to writing, for outside of the Arabic or Swahili
of the dominions of Zanzibar none of the tribes were
civilized enough to have a written language. This was
not an altogether bad thing, for we were able to give
to all the tribes the blessing of a common character-
letter. Compare the character of the Chinese with
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70 THINKING WITH AFRICA

time, trouble and expense are saved by use of the
Roman character.

All that education has meant for the West we in-
tend to make it mean for East Africa. Naturally it
will take time, but the feet of many are already set
on the rungs of the ladder. In village schools and
on the farms of settlers the process is being initiated
or developed, whilst in the recently founded (1926)
high school at Kikuyu, and in the Budu School and
the Government College at Makerere, Uganda, as
high an education is given as most of those able to
attend are ready for. A few former students are sons
of chiefs, who have gone on to Ceylon, England, or
America for advanced work.

§

Thus far only the benefits which have come to
East Africa from the missionary’s occupation have
been touched upon. Any treatment of East Africa
would not be adequate which failed to note the re-
verse side of the shield.

In the kingdom of Uganda the peasants allege
that under the Treaty of 1900 made with Great
Britain, the chiefs have filched their lands for the last
twenty years. In Tore and Ankle, kingdoms in the
Uganda protectorate, the land settlements under the
treaties have been challenged by the native rulers
as unjust. In Kenya Colony there has been the
gravest unrest amongst certain of the tribes whoCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 7:

maintain that much of their land has been taken
from them and given to Europeans. The effect of
the Crown Land Ordinance of 1915 of Kenya Col-
ony has been to make all Africans living on their
own tribal lands “tenants at will of the Crown.” It
is highly likely that fresh legislation will be intro-
duced to ease the present situation for the Africans.
Without this, indeed, there can be no peace.

With regard to the rights of native labor, contro-
versy has waged long and stubbornly. Formerly the
only way to get labor was to persuade or force the
tribal chief to order out the tribesmen. Labor for
wages was a new thing in many of the tribes, and the
man who engaged himself for wages always first ob-
tained the approval of his chief. Little by little this
system, which was imposed upon the would-be em-
ployer of labor by the very constitution of tribal
society, grew into an abuse, for as new Europeans
came into the country and inquired of the old resi-
dents how to secure a labor supply, they were at once
advised to apply to authority, and the men they
wanted were sure to be available.

Happily, forced labor for private employers is
now a thing of the past, but a new form of compul-
sion is arising, this time not by direct order of au-
thority, African or European, but by pressure of
opinion. If a European goes to East Africa unin-
vited by Africans, gets land, but not from Africans,
and engages in coffee planting or maize growing,

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94 THINKING WITH AFRICA

does this impose upon Africans a moral duty to sup-
ply him with the labor he needs? The white man
thinks it does. One of the most disturbing elements
of life in East Africa as reflected in the local press
is the marked exasperation of those who want Afri-
can laborers and cannot get them. And yet to attempt
to persuade an ignorant African that there lies upon
him the moral duty to supply all and sundry with
laborers in the cause of private enterprise is on the
face of it a subversion of his liberty and rights.

The wages paid to laborers in Africa are altogether
out of keeping with those paid in civilized countries.
This is partly accounted for by the fact that the
quality of labor is below Western standards. When,
however, allowance has been made for this, it still
remains a fact that labor in East Africa is under-
paid. Throughout large areas two and a half to three
shillings a week, plus food, constitutes the average
wage of the manual worker. Employers say they
cannot pay more. It would seem that someone is ex-
ploiting native labor, and that the responsibility for
this must lie somewhere between the consumer over-
seas and the employer in East Africa.

In the days of the early travelers through tropical
‘Africa it was Africans who taxed the Europeans.
Every white man had to pay Aongo, or tax, and it was
a most vexatious business, for it was done according
to no rule except such as the rapacity of the chief
might lay down. Now it is the African who pays taxCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 373

to the European. Just as in civilized countries, in
Africa every tax year is bound to produce a certain
number of people with grievances, whatever the rate
of tax may be. Quite apart from questions of oppres-
sion in methods of collection, there is the much
graver question of whether or not the African re-
ceives adequate return for the taxes he pays. In
Uganda it is alleged that cotton-growing areas are
developed partly by proceeds from taxable areas
where cotton is not grown. In Kenya it is said by
many that native Reserves have been neglected in
order that European areas might have more money
spent on improving them. Owing to the difficulty
of sorting out revenue from customs, it is not easy
to arrive at a judgment supported by figures as to
the amount of indirect revenue contributed by white
and black respectively. On the other hand, it is pos-
sible to take certain administrative units, find out
the revenue received from direct taxation, compare
this with the expenditure on services, and so learn
with a fair degree of accuracy how apportionments
have been made. There obviously has been great
inequality of treatment, not only as between native
areas and European areas but as between one native
area and another.

Thirty years ago all the tribes throughout Kenya
and Uganda were free people, under subjection to
no foreigner, though some of them were often raided
by their more powerful neighbors. For example,74 THINKING WITH AFRICA

the Nasai and Baganda spread the terror of their
name far and wide. Along the line of the slave
trade the Arabs also have spread fear and hate, but
their control was sporadic and they were at all times
liable to be met with a resistance which testified
to the spirit of freedom. Today the dominant fact
that burdens the consciousness of every native in
Fast Africa is that of his subjection. Within the life-
time of many, these people have passed from the
position of a free race to that of a subject race. And
they do not like it. Possibly the feeling is less in
Uganda than in other places. There the old native
rulers were able to make better terms with the on-
coming Europeans, though even in Uganda, where
subjection to their own despotic rulers had prepared
the people for subjection to European rule, one still
finds the majority of the people laboring under a
grievous subjection complex. While the rising gener-
ation of Africans appreciates the many benefits which
Europeans have brought to them, it is all too true
that they are and will remain profoundly dissatisfied
until they have the consciousness that they are free
people, working out their own salvation, in the full-
est cooperation with but not in subjection to those who
are now their rulers.

Africans are finding out that Western religious
sects make for a new intolerance in tribal life which
is destructive of unity at a time when unity is more
to be desired than ever before. Some religious leaders

 

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unhesitatingly endeavor to isolate their converts from
activities in which Africans of another sect take part.
Such religious bigotry cuts clean across many coop-
erative movements for the common good. The policy
whereby each mission stakes out an area for its evan-
gelistic activities, resulting in what are often called
spheres of ecclesiastical influence, is fraught with ill
as well as good. Like their forerunners in the politi-
cal world, these spheres were assigned to the various
denominations without any consultation with Afri-
cans. They constitute barriers to religious Africans
of one denomination in seeking to evangelize those of
their own tribe over the border. There are many
Africans whose spirit is in rebellion against these
spheres of influence. They are challenging the moral
right of missionaries to parcel out among themselves
a country not their own, when such action automat-
ically restricts the religious freedom of the natives
in both thought and activity.

The attitude of superiority, which shows itself in
many forms, is especially galling to many natives
who, by the power of education, have lifted them-
selves above the common herd. They realize that
they are qualified in many ways to lead and help their
fellow tribesmen, but do not find that the white man
is prepared to take them at their own evaluation.
An offhand disregard by the foreigner of opinions
expressed by any native is one of the most potent
factors in bringing about that estrangement of spirita eAR SE

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76 THINKING WITH AFRICA

which leads to open cleavage. The appeal of Afri-
cans today is that the treatment accorded to them as
a people, by church or state, be Christianized. Noth-
ing less than that will ever satisfy them. If we are
to hold the esteem and good will of Africa, that
must be our aim. Behind the desire for education
which is one of the most remarkable features of
African life today are three aspirations: to attain
the standard required for baptism, to insure eco-
nomic advancement, and to make possible a more
effective independence from Europeans. It is difficult
for us, perhaps, to enter into the feelings of a re-
cently free people now held under strict subjec-
tion. We may be sure that the change has not taken
place without many a palaver on the part of the vil-
lage elders. They have analyzed causes and their own
shortcomings. In many cases they have come to the
conclusion that only by “sucking the white man’s
brains” can they remove the causes and remedy the
defects. One African told me in simple language
how the village elders took counsel together and
came to the decision to send him to school, the idea
being that he should report to them what he learned.
As time goes on this motive gathers intensity, for the
more Africans have to do with white men the more
they realize their need for all that education can
give.

Since the Great War there has been an interesting
movement in East Africa, initiated and sustained byCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 77

the rapidly growing race consciousness. Associations
of Africans have been formed and are now to be
found throughout South and East Africa. Of these
the British Government East Africa Commission
writes:

“These native associations are largely the out-
come of missionary effort, and their main support
comes from the younger men who have received
missionary education. So far these associations are,
with one or two exceptions, in no way hostile to
tribal authority or tribal organization; in fact, in
many cases the chiefs are members of the associa-
tion and give the association their active support. The
missionaries, who have great influence with these as-
sociations, are anxious that they should not become
merely political in their activities, and undoubtedly
they can be used for the general benefit of the native
population if they are sympathetically encouraged to
take up practical work in the advancement of native
industries, sanitation, child welfare, and economic
activities.”

One word of qualification is required with regard
to the attitude of many missionaries towards these as-
sociations. These missionaries share the view held by
many Europeans in East Africa, that these societies
are a great potential danger and in time may develop
sufficiently to challenge the existing political order.
Accordingly they hold aloof from much which Afri-
cans regard as vital. But the time may come when—

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78 THINKING WITH AFRICA

the African will have little use for the missionary
who confines his activities to matters solely of a re-
ligious nature; I use the word religious here in its

§

The problem of popular education today presents
a wide field for activity. One important step is to
extend and increase cultural interchange among the
people. Many of the social and educational and there-
fore progressive activities of missions and govern-
ments in East Africa are seriously hampered for lack
of newspapers and magazines. Unlike the languages
of India or China, the language of these tribes had
never, until the advent of the missionaries, been re-
duced to writing. Coinage was non-existent, and the
chief form of wealth was cattle. This meant that
until recently the native population had been with-
out the means necessary to finance any operations
where capital is necessary. One or two small month-
lies are published by missionary societies, and the
governments of Kenya and Tanganyika issue occa-
sional official papers in Swahili. Naturally it is im-
possible in these papers, edited by Europeans for
Africans, to enjoy that freedom of expression com-
mon to a free press amongst a free people. The
Baganda are the most progressive of our East Afri-
cans, and have now four papers of their own. In
these one finds a freedom of expression almost as
great as exists in England.

narrow sense.CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 79

Meanwhile migrations of laborers contribute
greatly to the dissemination of news and ideas. Thou-
sands of men were conscripted during the late war.
Those who survived came back to their tribes with
a mental horizon incomparably wider than that of
those who remained at home. Since the war develop-
ments in East Africa have taken many others away
from their homes to work for settlers or on various
public improvements. These movements of large
bodies of men are having a profound effect on the
old tribal order. The community life is rapidly being
broken up. Formerly the tribesmen spent their lives
within the tribal area, now many of the men, accom-
panied in some cases by their women, roam far afield
as Wage-earners,

On farms and plantations, in workshops and in do-
mestic service, new ideas are impinging upon the erst-
while tribesmen, and their thoughts have been turned
into channels unknown to their fathers. When these
men return to their homes the old allegiance to
tribal authority is not as it was before. Even the time-
honored fear of witch or wizard may have weakened.
The traveled African is less inclined to take his opin-
ions from the tribal authorities. Rather he gets them
from any one of the local leaders who are springing
up with astonishing rapidity throughout the whole of
East Africa.

The extraordinary thing about native life today is
the number of meetings that are being held all overSpe

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80 THINKING WITH AFRICA

the country. The emerging leader is a great walker,
or, it may be, cyclist; he meets a group of from half
a dozen to a hundred followers here today, and to-
morrow, ten, twenty or even fifty miles away he
meets another group. Young Africa is beginning to
produce its own leaders. Already men are emerging
who are exerting an influence far beyond their own
tribal boundaries. They have their policies, which
chiefly concern land, labor, and taxation grievances,
although thus far the policies have not met with
much success. The most notable of these leaders was
called Harry Thuku, of the Kikuyu tribe. His views
and the character of his leadership brought him into
conflict with the government, and he was exiled as
a dangerous character.

As an illustration of the new independence of
thought in Africa let me quote from the letter of a
native African dated October 17, 1926, referring
to the acute question of “spheres of missionary influ-
ence.” I translate: “There was a hot discussion, some
of the missionaries refusing to agree to any annulling
of the spheres. But we, the people of the country,
would not have it so, and when they reminded us how

Peter and Paul had divided the land for the pur-

pose of preaching, we replied that they, like us, were
but human beings, and Jesus never ordered his dis-
ciples to set up spheres.?? This independence of
thought is bound to assert itself more and more asa i eee

CHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 81

the years pass. It can only be met by reason, not by
suppression,

So far we have not touched upon Arab or Indian
influence in East Africa. The Arab influence, apart
from the slave trade, has not been very great. Along
the slave routes there are a certain number of con-
verts to Islam, but where Christianity competes with
it in a virgin field, Islam is routed. The religion of
the Prophet cannot give Africa the education it wants,
although it has secured to its people in the Dominion
of the Sultan of Zanzibar the title to their lands—no
mean contribution. In commerce the Arabs have de-
veloped the clove industry and the cocoanut planta-
tions. As a creative force in modern Africa, however,
the Arab influence has little contribution to make.

Not so the Indian. Both indirectly and directly the
Indians have left their mark. For many years they
have held undisputed sway as artisans, earning high
wages as carpenters, masons, smiths, and engineers
on the railway. Recently employers looked round for
cheaper craftsmen, and saw in the African a possible
substitute for the Indian. Accordingly they de-
manded that the educational policy of Kenya be di-
rected towards the production of African artisans.
This has given the schools great practical value, since
they fit the African to serve not only Europeans but
his own people.

In Uganda, as in Kenya, Indians have developed
trade and transport. It is difficult to know what the82 THINKING WITH AFRICA

country could have done without them. Unfortu-
nately racial antipathies have been aroused, resulting
in one of the sharpest constitutional controversies in
the short history of East Africa over the claims of
Indians and of Europeans. The importance of this
controversy for the African lay in the fact that the
Europeans put forward the doctrine of their trus-
teeship for the backward tribes with such force that
future policies of exploitation, whether on the part
of individuals or on the part of government, cannot
openly lift up their heads.

The relationship existing between the African and
the Indian is wholly commercial, the latter seldom
showing any philanthropic spirit toward the former.
Today relationships are becoming more and more
competitive, Africans seeking to oust Indians from
such posts as they themselves are able to fill. Not
only so, but the Indian, who for the past twenty-
five years has been the petty trader in native Re-
serves, is now being challenged by the African, who
wants to develop as a trader amongst his own folk.
In spite of this rivalry, Africans do not regard In-
dians as having any responsibility for their subjection.
The one bond between them is that they both are
subject races.

It is fitting that this brief sketch of things East
African should close with some notice of the move-
ment among native women. Upon them as the
mothers of Africa attention is being directed moreCHANGING LIFE AND THOUGHT 33

and more. It is part of the British policy to reduce
as rapidly as possible the high infant mortality,
which ranges, as far as can be ascertained in the
absence of vital statistics, between 450 and 650 per
1000. One immediate need of Africa is a greater
population, to the end that the maximum of produc-
tion may be obtained. In Uganda there is a very suc-
cessful training school in child welfare and mid- .
wifery, made possible by cooperation between the
missions, the government and native Africans. Simi- |
lar efforts are being initiated in all the territories.

African girls are now coming under the influence
of the educational movement. Formerly their fathers
refused to send them to school. Now the young men
who have been to school are no longer contented with f
wives who are uneducated, and they are supplying
the impetus which formerly was lacking. Uganda
and Nyasaland are furthest advanced in the matter of
girls’ education, leaving Kenya and Tanganyika far
behind.

The future of East Africa lies in cooperation be-
tween whites and blacks. Any other spirit or method
will defeat its own end. This the black must realize
equally with the white. Each needs the other, and if
only the right spirit can be created and maintained,
there is every reason why future relationships should
be of the happiest for all.

W. E. Owen

Maseno, Kenya Colonyi
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—— nace

Ill
RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE

OR popular culture to exist at all, there must

exist something more among a people than the
mere means of gaining physical sustenance; there
must be common beliefs and common loyalties.
Every culture, then, however primitive, must pro-
vide means for developing in its members the in-
herent values of that culture, be these values eco-
nomic, social or spiritual. This can only be done by
gradually moulding each successive generation so
that individuals become adapted to the needs of so-
ciety as a whole, for man is not fully adapted by
birth to the society in which he has to live.

In primitive societies this moulding is largely done
by means of ceremonial or ritual exercises, the pur-
pose of which is to develop and maintain the values
on which the life of the society is thought to depend.
By constant reiteration and exercise a number of sen-
timents are developed in the individual with regard
to fundamental values in the society. It is obvious

that these values differ from society to society, and

that they are very closely correlated with the type of
structure which obtains in the society. The values in

a hunting community will be different from those in
84.ci eee

RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 85

an agricultural community, and the structure of the
society of nomadic hunters is bound to differ from the
structure of a sedentary society. In spite of these dif-
ferences among groups, we find that in all of
them great value is attached (a) to the society as a
whole, so that deep loyalty to the group is devel-
oped; (b) to the individual members, so that each
progressive advance of the individual into the heart
of the society is marked by ritual; (c) to the food
supply, so that all the most important sources of sub-
sistence have ritual value; and (d) to the great en-
vironment, so that all peoples provide in some way
for linking the society with the universe so far as
they are able to understand it.

The links binding human beings together in so-
ciety, then, are largely developed by the society itself.
They are not mechanical links but spiritual links, that
is, the power holding them together is a spiritual
power developed and controlled in each member of
the society. In other words, the real bond which holds
people together and maintains the society in which
they live is spiritual, and the worst offence we can
commit against uncivilized peoples is to ignore their
spiritual values simply because they are different
from our own.

In the case of Africa, vast as is its expanse, varied
as are its peoples and its cultures, it is still possible
to speak of the country as one whole, for two funda-
mental principles determine the type of ritual prac-

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86 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tised by the people. This is true of all the peoples
living south of the Sahara, but is more particularly
true of the great number of peoples speaking lan-
guages associated with the Bantu family of lan-
guages, and it is of these peoples and these cultures
that I am especially thinking in this chapter.

§

The two principles which I believe lie at the base
of the whole religion of African peoples are very
different from each other and are being affected in
different ways by the increasing contact of Africa
with Western civilization. Without a thorough grasp
of the significance of each for the culture of Africa
as a whole, it is impossible for Western civilization
or Christian teaching to make real headway in Africa.
The first principle we may call the principle of kin-
ship, which is the basis on which the social cohesion
of African peoples rests. The second principle we
may call the principle of ritual forces, which deter-
mines the attitude.of the African peoples to the world
around them. I do not wish it to be thought that there
are no other principles of social organization or of
spiritual influence, but in a general survey such as
this, only fundamental principles can be dealt with,
and I think it will be shown that these are indeed
basic. I shall deal first with the principle of kinship.

In spite of the fact that Africa as a continent
abounds with great game, few African people are
pure hunters and almost all Bantu populations prac-RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 87

tise either hoe culture or a pastoral life or the two
combined. Over a large part of the Congo area cattle
and sheep cannot be reared, and it is here that we find
people practising pure hoe culture with a background
of hunting, and rearing a few domestic animals such
as pigs, fowls and goats. In the northern parts of
this area varieties of sorghum can be cultivated. In
the west and south the populations depend on banana,
palm oil, and, nowadays, manioc.

Around the great lakes we have a number of
peoples who are purely pastoral. They have large
herds of cattle and sheep to which they are devoted,
and their whole lives center around these animals.
They despise agriculture and tend to lord it over the
purely agricultural populations, who live in the deep
valleys below the grassy plateaus on which the herd-
ers make their homes.

Further south, and especially in southern Rhodesia
and in the Union of South Africa, there are tribes
which combine hoe culture and this pastoral life, but
in such a way that the cattle are tended almost exclu-
sively by the men, while the bulk of the work in con-
nection with the fields is done by the women. In
both areas, whether the pastoral people are dominat-
ing the hoe culture people or whether the two types
of subsistence are merged in one, the predominant
feature is the cattle, and we therefore talk of this as
the cattle-complex area. Cattle play a very impor-
tant part in the lives of all these people, as we shall
see later.

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88 THINKING WITH AFRICA

Whatever be the basis of subsistence, however, the
important thing to note is that among all these people
the economic unit is the same: the individual family,
the little group centering round a married woman,
is the economic unit throughout this part of Africa.
This is true in spite of the polygamy which is wide-
spread, for among all these people each married
woman has her own home, and with her husband—
who is the connecting link with other such houses—
and her children forms an independent economic
community. Each such little group feeds itself,
clothes itself, houses itself, and makes all such im-
plements and utensils as it may require. This is a
fact of great significance, for it means that each such
group is self-contained, with few economic links
binding it to other groups.

In modern civilized society practically no individ-
ual or family is self-sufficient; each is or should be
contributing something to the needs of the whole.
But in return each one depends on the labor of others
for many of the necessaries of life. This means that
in civilized society all the individuals of a culture
are dependent on one another and form an interde-
pendent whole. Quite apart from any other bonds
there are these economic ties forcing us, one and all,
to fulfil obligations to others lest their services be
withheld if we fail. Such ties are largely lacking in
African societies. On what basis, then, are people to
be held together in a social community in Africa?m Didi aa cpa eee

RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 89

What is to prevent each little group from slipping
away on its own? There are two universal bases of
social grouping which are used, one the habitation
of a common territory and the other kinship; both
must obviously be present wherever human beings
congregate.

The family is the fundamental group in every
society, and it is of unique importance where there
are so few groups not based on kinship. In the
family there are three principal types of relation-
ship set up, accompanied by three types of behavior
patterns. All three are of importance in controlling
the relations of people to one another, but it is more
especially the third that is the subject of this paper.
The three primary relationships are that of the
spouses, that of parent and child, and that between
the siblings, that is, between the brothers and sisters
born of one set of parents. The behavior of these
people to one another differs in different societies,
but there are certain principles which are fundamen-
tal. The parent generation is responsible for the
safety of the child generation, and for bringing it up
to conform to the pattern of the society; thus it is
invested with authority and responsibility. The child
generation has to obey the parent generation and look
to it for support; that is, it is dependent and should
be obedient.

Siblings in a family are replicas one of the other,
so far as the type of behavior towards them by the

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parents and the society is concerned, and so far as
their behavior to one another is concerned. The be-
havior pattern between two brothers or two sisters is
reciprocal, with due attention paid to age; that is, my
behavior to a brother and his behavior to me (a man)
are of the same type, and my behavior to a sister
and her behavior to me (a woman) are of the same
type. So far as society is concerned there are differ-
ences, of course, for sex and age; but basically sib-
lings are social multiples of one personality, the near-
est things to identity that we can get in social rela-
tions. Their standing in the society and their value to
the society are practically the same, so far as these
depend on membership in a particular family. Thus
brothers or sisters have the same type of behavior pat-
tern towards almost everybody in their society, and
can very easily be substituted for one another. We
find, then, that in African societies the best substitute
for a man is his brother, the best substitute for a
woman is her sister, because by this substitution the
social relations of all concerned are least disturbed.
This is the basis of the levirate, where a brother is
substituted for a brother as husband and father, thus
upsetting the relationships established between the
husband’s group and the wife’s group in the least
possible way. Similarly it is the basis of the sororate,
where a sister is substituted for a sister as wife and
mother.

In practically all African societies it is this principleLETT em gg eT

RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE oI

of the identity of siblings that is used to bind a larger
number of people together in social bonds, since if I
stand in a certain relation to a man I stand in that
same relation to all his brothers, and if I stand in a
certain relation to a woman I stand in that same rela-
tion to all her sisters. If a man is my father, so also
are his brothers my fathers; I call them so, and I be-
have to them in the same general way that I do to my
own father. If a woman is my mother her sisters are
also my mothers; I call them so and behave in the
same general way to them as to my own mother.
The children of these men and of these women are
my brothers and sisters, as my own parents’ children
are my brothers and sisters. This is the classificatory
principle which is the basis of the social organization
of the African peoples we are dealing with.

At once we see that the little economic units of
which we spoke are no longer as independent as they
seemed; they are linked with numerous others on this
principle of kinship. By using the same terms of ad-
dress and the same type of behavior we would use
within the family, to a large number of people out-
side the family, we get something of the same strong
bonds established in the society. The kindred, as the
people so linked are called, is a body of people held
together by very real and by very intimate ties, and
it is a grouping which in Africa is found north and
south, east and west.

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92 THINKING WITH AFRICA

through the mother, and it is well to remember that
this is a deep-rooted principle in African societies. ‘The
influence of this principle is sometimes forgotten, so
that one set of kin comes to be emphasized at the ex-
pense of the other. The clan or sib is a strong group
of people claiming to be intimately related either on
the father’s side or on the mother’s but not on both;
that is to say, stress is laid on one type of relationship
to the exclusion of others, so that we get preference
given in the clan either to the mother’s people or to
the father’s. The clan never entirely obliterates the
kinship principle which underlies it, but it is un-
doubtedly the most self-conscious group in Africa and
also the primary religious group.

Since kinship, through descent from a common an-
cestor, is the basis of grouping in Africa, it is ob-
vious that the group will be stronger the longer the
line of ancestors it can count, the further it can grope
back into the past for its beginnings. Indeed since
people are linked together through their ancestors,
it is obvious that the dead cannot be allowed to be
lost to the society. They represent the past life of
the clan and belong to the clan as much as do the
living. All that the clan has and is, it owes to those
who established it in the past. But the dead need the
living, too, for they live on in the memories of those
on earth, so that the life of the clan depends on
holding on to the past and making secure provision
for the future. It is here that we find the real princi-RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 93

ple of worship of ancestors. The cult of ancestors
gives life to the kindred which it would not other-
wise possess, and insures the continuity of society.
This makes for social strength, for no group can be
strong which does not believe in its own im-
mortality in spite of the passing of the genera-
tions. The dead, then, are not lost to the society,
they are merely initiated into another part of
the society, the spiritual, unseen part; and it is a
large concern of the people to maintain a perpetual
relationship with this unseen world, for the well-be-
ing of the whole kindred depends on harmony being
maintained between the two worlds. Here again
we have the reason for the strong conservatism of
the African peoples, for the clan was established far
away in the past, and has been maintained in its
integrity and power through faithful observation of
inherited manners and customs. The ancestors do not
know the new, and to inaugurate new ways is a sure
method of estranging and alienating them.

The group that worships the same ancestors may
be large or small. Where we find a nation like the
Baganda we find a national cult of deceased kings
who are considered gods of the whole people. More
often we find a lesser group, the tribe, in which a
number of clans recognize the seniority of one clan
in which chieftainship is hereditary. In such tribes
the ancestors of the chiefs are the most powerful
spirits for the whole tribe, but they can only be ap-Catan ZT

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94 THINKING WITH AFRICA

proached through immediate descendants, so that the
dependence of the African native on his chief is a
very real one; it is a religious dependence, not
merely a political one. Many peoples in Africa have
no strong tribal unity, and there is no doubt that the
really important structure is a smaller kinship group
which may be the clan, or, more often, the immediate
descendants of some man not long deceased, the
patriarchal family, or the kin claiming a common
lineage through the mother.

Day in and day out the ancestors take part in
the lives of the people. There is always some spot
specially set apart for them. It may be simply a bit
of broken pot or a forked stick inside the hut, it
may be a little shrine, as we might say, a set of
stones carefully selected, with a tree growing from
the center. There may be a special sacred tree or a
grove of trees, or finally there may be a true tomb
temple. The variations are innumerable, but always
there is remembrance. And again the manner of re-
membrance is infinitely various. There are libations
of beer and of palm wine; there are gifts of part of
all that man himself acquires and uses for food;
there are prayers and appeals from those in trouble;
but undoubtedly the most important ritual is the full
ritual of sacrifice, and it is necessary to look a little
deeper into the culture to understand just what the
nature of the contact obtained by means of sacrifice is.

I have already said that the foods on which a

SS
ae BeRELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 95

people depend for subsistence tend to be invested
with ritual value as primary sources of life. We find
that cattle among pastoral people, and, among hoe
culture people, corn or other foods in the form some-
times of beer or wine which are thought to contain
the spiritual essence of the food, are used as a means
of gaining contact with the world of the ancestral
spirits. I shall illustrate the process from the cattle
area. In this area we find that cattle occupy a central
place in the culture; they are the chief object of
man’s thoughts, his chief form of wealth, and his
most treasured possessions. They are wealth of a
kind, it is true, but they are not to be sold, nor are
they to be killed for everyday purposes. They are
indeed ritual animals, which stand in intimate rela-
tionship with the human group to which they belong,
so that any influence affecting the human group is
liable to affect them too. The milk of the cattle of the
clan is a special ritual food and must not be drunk by
strangers. There is a tendency to view it in much the
same light as the blood of the clan, so that by partak-
ing of the milk one shares in the blood of the clan
too. A woman coming into the clan by marriage may
not partake of the milk until she is firmly established
in her new home, and persons polluted by death or in
some other way must not drink until they have been
purified.

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96 THINKING WITH AFRICA

these animals play a very special part. Indeed no cere-
mony of this kind would be complete without a cere-
monial meal of the meat of one of these animals. The
cattle form a very intimate bond between the living
members of the group and the spirit members, for
the cattle have come to the living by inheritance
from the dead, or are acquired by the living with the
spiritual aid of the dead. This is why in all commu-
nions between the world of the living and the world
of the dead the cattle and the produce of the fields
form the sacrificial medium.

To sacrifice means literally “to make sacred,” and
the French scholars Hubert and Mauss have shown
us that the ritual of sacrifice the world over has
common elements. There must always be a victim,
which must be sacred in its own right or must be
made sacred by consecration. In Africa this is effected
in a variety of ways: by finding out through the
diviner which animal the ancestors desire; by pouring
libations on the animal; by spitting on it; by dedicat-
ing it to the ancestors, telling them that their ox is
being given them; in one way or other the divine
principle is brought down into the animal itself, and
the spirits manifest their acceptance of the sacrifice
through the behavior of the animal, the appearance
of its organs when killed, or in some other way. The
animal must be killed in order that the divine princi-
ple contained in it may be conveyed to all the kindred.RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 97

The most common method of achieving this is by
eating of its flesh, though there are many other ways.
This communal meal is a method used throughout
Africa for obtaining spiritual renewal for the people.
The whole kindred should be present, and if any
cannot come a part must be taken to him. Here we
have collective action in which the kindred is made to
realize its solidarity and the source of its solidarity.

These sacrifices may be private, or they may be
public and involve the chief and the whole people;
they may in either case be occasional or regular. Thus
an occasional public sacrifice takes place when a new
chief is installed, when an army is prepared for
battle, when a propitiation for rain is sought. A regu-
lar sacrifice for the country takes place at the feast
of the first fruits when thanksgiving for the harvest
is made. Following the national sacrifice each family
has a ritual offering of first fruits in honor of its de-
ceased members. Every important event in the family
life is marked by some kind of sacrifice. Indeed the
ancestors are remembered in all the crises of life
when man is in need of spiritual aid.

I have been trying to show that the ancestor wor-
ship of the African people is most intimately bound
up with their whole social structure, and is an es-
sential part of the faith by which they live. Before
dealing with the present position of these beliefs and
the influence of Christian teaching on them, it will
be as well if we turn to the second principle which Ia a
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98 THINKING WITH AFRICA

enunciated, for this principle, too, has a profound in-
fluence on the beliefs of African peoples.

§

The scientific attitude of mind, which is one of in-
terest in all the phenomena of the natural world for
their own sake, quite apart from their possible bear-
ing on human life and human interests, is not charac-
teristically present in African societies. Events in the
world of nature are interpreted entirely from the
point of view of their influence on the life of the so-
ciety; the world of nature and the world of man are
one, changes in the world of man are inevitably ac-
companied by changes in the world of nature, and
vice versa, and the laws governing the one world are
conceived of as being the same in the other. Man in
Africa has not formed a notion of the universe obey-
ing what we call natural laws, he does not conceive a
natural order. He knows only of the moral order
established in the past. He does not distinguish be-
tween human tradition and natural forces—he unites
them together as mystic forces, as Levy Bruhl calls
them, or ritual forces, as Radcliffe Brown calls
them. He behaves in the same way towards the nat-
ural order as towards the social order. He believes
he has to form the seasons as he has to form a youth
into a man; he believes that the coming of the rain
depends on the right behavior of human beings in so-
ciety, and on a series of ceremonies performed by

 

Sanat a anette a aa aaa -ana gg

RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 99

king or chief. If the rain does not come it is because
the proper rites have not been performed, or because
all is not well in the world of man. Sin, wrong
actions are somewhere somehow preventing things
from taking their proper course.

No proper understanding of the African can be
gained until this principle has been grasped, and no
attempts to change his outlook on the world will suc-
ceed until the far-reaching significance of this at-
titude of mind is perceived. It cannot be repeated too
often that for the African, as for so many other “un-
civilized” peoples, the moral order and the natural
order are bound up together, and ritual, or socially
established rules of behavior, control his life from
beginning to end.

As in social life the individual feels himself exert-
ing a power on those around him, and is conscious of
such an influence controlling and guidipg-hts-ewn a
so too he conceives of the world ic hi as)
sating with such a power, a s SSIES
thought of as impersonal but
ways to personification. In all\\Agrican societie we
find the belief in a great spirit apo ety, ha pery
sonal, half impersonal, which longs 70 > established All
things in the world of man and in the-worldof na-
ture. This power is hardly conceived of as a personal
god, and it can hardly be said that African peoples
have a worship of a high god, for among almost all
African peoples this power is conceived of as some-

  
 
 
  
  

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100 THINKING WITH AFRICA

thing remote from man. Nevertheless in times of dire
distress a tribe or an individual will appeal to Ngai,
to Leza, to Nyambe, or however else this supreme
power may be called.

Apart from this belief in a first cause, as it were,
there is a tendency to personify those natural phe-
nomena that obviously influence the life of man.
Phenomena of the weather, for example, are con-
ceived of as a manifestation of a great power, vaguely
personal, a power sensitive to human conduct, so that
irregularities in the world of man are bound to re-
act immediately on the world of nature and will
call forth such signs as droughts, storms or pesti-
lences.

This attitude has other deep-rooted influences,
Since all causes are social causes, nothing happens
that is merely “natural”; that is, nothing happens un-
influenced by the world of man or by experiences sim-
ilar to those sustained by man. Death itself is hardly
natural, sickness is not the result of some organism at-
tacking the body or of some physical maladjust-
ment, but both are the result of some sin of omission
or commission on the part of the sufferer, or worse
still, the result of some evil wish against him on the
part of another.

Since the ancestors first lived according to the exist-
ing order and are the guardians of the moral code, it
is they in the first instance who are thought of as
visiting on their descendants punishment for somen a ag er en es

RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 101

omission or commission. The sick man has neglected
some customary ritual or some duty to the ancestors;
he is ailing because he is ritually impure; his sickness
is in a sense a sin, an impurity. No human help will
avail him until this impurity is removed, hence the
first step to take in the case of sickness is to discover
the ritual impurity or the ancestor who has been neg-
lected and set these irregularities right; then and
then only can healing processes be set to work on
the body. Purificatory sacrifices are thus a necessary
part of the treatment of all sickness, and the ancestors
are thought of as exacting penalties for breaches of
the code. But the ancestors are, after all, one’s own
spirits, kindly and forgiving; if all is ritually pure
they will no longer cause suffering. With evilly dis-
posed enemies it is far otherwise, their machinations
will never cease until their victim is completely done
for. Most unfortunate, therefore, is the man whose
sickness or other trouble is caused by malevolent be-
ings on earth. For since the spiritual power in the
universe is akin to the power displayed by human
beings, it is possible to tamper with this power and
use it for evil purposes. This is the basis of the belief
in witchcraft that we find among all African peoples.

By long training and an abnormal mode of living,
persons can concentrate this power in themselves and
can use it to make others suffer. Not only can they
lay their enemies low, they can bring disaster on the
whole tribe for their own ends. No wonder that the102 THINKING WITH AFRICA

wizard is thought of as the worst criminal in African
society, no wonder that he is stamped out with such
cruelty when he is believed to have been found.
Tampering with the unseen forces of the universe
for anti-social ends is the worst crime in Africa; the
offender is always cruelly punished, and this whether
he has worked intentionally or is an innocent inter-
mediary. For power can be concentrated quite unin-
tentionally; some people indeed are born with an
“evil eye”; but so long as they are alive, so long as
their baneful influence is at work in the community,
nothing can succeed, and innocent as they are in in-
tention they must be stamped out.

It is needless to point out that the unscrupulous
persons and the influential persons in a tribe can use
these beliefs to their own ends. The important thing
that should be grasped is that these are the beliefs
of a whole race, and it is useless to rail at them,
useless to hope for stoppage of what seem to us sense-
less customs, so long as the racial mind is unchanged.
The haunting fear of witchcraft, the ever present
feeling of unseen powers working around one, can
never be eradicated until some conception of the
working of natural laws is made clear to African
people. The curse of witchcraft is the penalty these
people are paying for their failure to understand
the working of natural laws, their failure to perceive
that the natural world is not man-centered. It is
not because they love their children less that AfricanRELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 103

people kill off the child who has cut its upper teeth
first, or crush in a pot unfortunate little twins, but
because it is their belief that these abnormalities,
these breaches of an established uniformity, a social
ritual, are revelations of something radically wrong,
of something impure in the family structure, and that
unless the evil be got rid of dire calamity may befall
not only the family but the community. One might
risk the evil to oneself, but any sign of misfortune in
the community at large will bring down the wrath
of all affected.

These mysterious forces need not always operate
for evil. It is possible to control them in such a way
that they work for the well-being of the people. The
old man will have more control than the youth, the
district headman than the family head, but the really
powerful person is the chief. He is the intermediary
between the people and their most powerful spirits,
he is indeed the representative of the people, the em-
bodiment of their laws and customs. It is he who can
control the spiritual forces of the universe, who can
set in train a series of ceremonies which will concen-
trate, in the most efficacious way for his people, the
powers in the universe. For this to be possible his
whole life must be a ritual, for on him depends the
setting of the environment; he must produce the
rain, he must bless the seed, he must control the
harvesting. If the chief dies and no successor has been
appointed, no public action can be taken, no circumci-Betanicnorretiae

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104 THINKING WITH AFRICA

sion school can be held, no war started, no crops
planted, for all virtue is lacking, all motive power is
withdrawn.

As the chief draws influence and power from his
contact with the spirits through birth, other men
may obtain it through special circumstance, through
special mental ability, through contact with the spir-
its and the unseen forces of the universe, in dreams,
in trance, in visions. These men are the specialists, the
“medicine men.” They are supposed to protect the
people and to aid the chief in controlling the universe
for the good of all; they too, some of them, are the
sole help of the people against the wizard, they alone
can “smell out” the evildoers and nullify their mach-
inations. Little wonder that the African clings to his
witch doctors and his medicine men and leans on his
chief. It is belief in this power that gives rise to
the use of amulet and charm, to the making of
fetishes, and to the wonderful array of “concentra-
tions” or “receptacles” of this power throughout

Africa.
§

What is the present position in Africa with re-
gard to all these beliefs and practices? How are they
being affected by the opening up of the country and
by changes in the life and thought of the people?

There is no doubt that the basis of the social or-
ganization of the African peoples is being rudely
shaken. A process of change from the closely knita cam
al td

RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 105

kinship group, with its dependence on ritual obedi-
ences, to one of economic interdependence of pro-
fessional and trade groups, was in process of devel-
opment in many cultures when white men first came
into Africa; but now this process has been acceler-
ated beyond the power of peaceful adjustment by
the people themselves, with the result that a feeling
of insecurity, of doubt, of want of self-confidence, is
widespread. The missionary disapproves of the wor-
ship of ancestors, and has confused the spirits of the
dead with evil spirits all too often. The economic de-
mands of the white man have drawn the youths from
the kraal and its obediences. The youths have become
economically independent, and moreover the laws of
the land, and the taxation to which the native is now
subject, largely recognize this independence. The
whole basis of authority in the tribe is being under-
mined by the European influences that are brought
to bear upon Africa.

Added to this, these people are brought face to
face with a civilization which has a totally differ-
ent attitude toward the things Africans value most.
For example, to the European, cattle and other stock
constitute so much property. To the African these
same animals are part of himself, of his well-being,
of his position in the world. His ritual over wide
areas is based on them, yet here they are, being
passed from hand to hand and valued for so much
gold. Little wonder that the ritual value which at-<

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106 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tached in the old days to the African’s exchange of
cattle for wives, for ceremonial purifications, is as-
suming more and more the character of pure sales,
while the African wonders that the old spiritual
peace no longer seems to bless his doings, however
carefully he may perform the old ceremonies.

No one who has studied carefully the social or-
ganization of the African people can doubt that its
foundations are good. The strong position of the
home has largely helped to preserve the people
through the period of stress and strain. It should be
the aim of all who are interested in their future to
preserve as much as possible of the traditional re-
spect for age, of obedience in the family. And surely
something can be done to preserve the reverence for
the spirits of the dead. It is true that the ancestors
cause trouble, and that they must be propitiated.
But this should not prevent us from recognizing that
for these people these spirits are their own spirits,
whom they love. Would it not be possible to alter
their belief in such a way that they can retain their
respect and love for the spirits, and lose the fear
which they have now?

The solid rank of the kindred will not be able to
withstand the changed economic conditions in Africa.
All too rapidly the African people are being drawn
into the economic circle established by Western civi-
lization, and sooner or later economic interdepend-et a ns mei encima
eat sa

RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 107

ence rather than kinship loyalties will come to bind
them together. Nevertheless, as we know in our own
civilization, the basis of that kinship organization, the
family, is the foundation of any stable civilization,
and the African peoples should be helped to put aside
the superstructure while preserving the loyalties
established within the family itself. This task is per-
haps easier than the other.

To help the African peoples to reverence God is
not difficult, to introduce a worship of God is easy,
for they already have, as I have stated, a belief in a
supreme power, which so far has had little contact
with the daily run of men’s lives but which never-
theless is fully real to them. To teach them to rever-
ence a Christian God and to live a Christian life will
be neither more nor less difficult than it is to teach
the rest of humanity, once the great stumbling-block
is removed. The African peoples must be rid of the
horrors and fears and superstitions which have come
to them from their lack of understanding of the
forces of nature.

To wean Africans from the belief that there is
only one kind of force in the world, and this one the
kind they experience in human behavior, will be a
long and arduous task. Nothing less will do than the
gradual revelation of the complexity of the universe.
Christian teachers, at any rate, will believe that the
manifestations of law and order in the world reveal"

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108 THINKING WITH AFRICA

an intelligible spiritual direction; that the revolu-
tions of the heavens, the successions of the seasons,
and all the complexities of the natural world are con-
trolled by something infinitely greater than the spas-
modic doings of each little group of men upon earth.
This teaching is bound to be slow and difficult, as all
teaching of science is difficult, but it will have a won-
derful influence on the outlook of African peoples.
Tt will relieve them of the enormous burden of
ritual which today bears them down. Today the Afri-
can carries his world on his shoulders, and considers
himself responsible for all that occurs therein. He is
tied to a meticulous method of performing every-
thing, for this method is not his to experiment with,
it is part of the constitution of the universe. Let him
once realize that the universe runs its course by 1m-
mutable laws which he cannot alter, and he will be
relieved of an incalculable burden of the spirit. The
joy of discovery, the freedom to experiment and con-
trol, will be his. Above all he will be relieved of the
atmosphere of fear in which he now lives, and will be
enabled to help in the conquest of his environment
and in the control of his own destiny in a way which
has never been possible hitherto.

Meantime it behooves us to have sympathy with
the efforts these people are making. They are doing
all they know how to gain health and physical and
spiritual blessing for the communities in which they
live. The least we can do is to try with sympathy toae

RELIGION IN NATIVE LIFE 109

understand the processes of their thought, in order
that we may bring such enlightenment as we have
ourselves attained.
Winirrep Horrnié
Milner Park, Johannesburg|

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IV
CHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU

HE old order changeth; and so we behold to-

day in the drama of the life of the South
African Bantu a slow but sure metamorphosis from
a primitive conservatism to an aggressive modernism
in both political and religious affairs. The leaders
in the movement are the younger educated men, who
owe their training to the elementary and secondary
schools founded by European and American mission-
aries. It is therefore natural that the youth in Amer-
ican churches and colleges, to whom this paper is ad-
dressed, should desire to know directly from the
aborigines what is agitating the minds of their con-
fréres in African churches and colleges in regard to
Western Christianity.

When the first white missionaries arrived in South
Africa over a hundred years ago, the aborigines lived
in manifest darkness under the haunting spectre of
superstition. The hinterland bush was infested by
man-hunting savages. The reign of the witch-doctor
was everywhere supreme; he stood above correction
even by the chief, virtually wielding powers of life
and death over any individual suspected, rightly or

wrongly, of mischief. The Bantu, though boasting an
IIoCHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU ii

efficient system of communistic tribalism, led a life
devoid of spiritual outlook, enslaved by tyrannical
witchcraft, and harassed by the constant dread of
malevolent spirits. Departed spirits controlled the af-
fairs and destinies of living men, whom they were
able to behold from some mysterious point of
vantage.

Such were the circumstances and people among
whom the first missionaries came to labor. They
brought words of hope to the hopeless, and of
knowledge to the ignorant, substituting the sure sal-
vation by Christ Jesus for the erstwhile blind fatal-
ism. From all accounts they were fervent Christians,
sincere in their love for the people whose spiritual
redemption was their concern, and deeply genuine
in their social relations with them. They did not hesi-
tate to live in the often verminous huts of wattle and
daub in which dwelt their converts, eating and travel-~
ling with them, and conducting themselves as if they
were spiritually, socially and politically their guides,
philosophers and friends.

During wars, whether with Europeans or between
tribes, the lives of missionaries were held sacred even
by the most bitter foes of the white invaders. This
phenomenon alone is extraordinary testimony to their
friendly relationship with indigenous people. A sin-
gle quotation from Professor du Plessis will illus-
trate this:

“Missionaries were the counsellors of the chiefs112 THINKING WITH AFRICA

under whom they dwelt and labored. In many cases
the missionary was the uncrowned king of the com-
munity, able by his personal influence to persuade a
whole tribe to move to more suitable sites and richer
pasture-lands. The repeopling of what is now the
Eastern Free State is in great part due to the mis-
sionaries, who induced wandering tribes to cease their
fugitive existence or their predatory career and to
adopt the settled life of agriculturists.”

The value of their work, the good they have ren-
dered to the Bantu, the foundations they laid for the
modernization of the African, not to mention the
supreme gift of the gospel, cannot be reckoned. They
have placed generations of Africans in a position of
being their grateful debtors. For the missionaries
sacrificed home, relatives and comfort for our sake,
and for the service of God and humanity. But for
them and their self-denial we would never have been
in a position to express ourselves through any me-
dium such as this article. They were the first whites
to establish friendly contacts with native Africans,
in contrast with their commercial fellow-men, who
brought the sword and dispossessed us of our beloved
territory. They were the only friends among the
white race whom we could count upon for better or
for worse. A mission station was always a bright
beacon and a lighted window in darkness. Of the
three agencies of civilization, the missionary enter-
prise constitutes the most important, the other twoCHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 113

being conquest and commerce. Missionaries in Africa
transformed the lives of the blacks and inculcated the
principles of humility, love, obedience, peacefulness,
of work and honesty, of cleanliness and sanitation.
They founded schools, beginning with Sunday
schools and elementary schools in the ’twenties, fol-
lowing in the ’fifties with secondary educational insti-
tutions of the type of Lovedale and Healdtown, of
which there are now about thirty in South Africa.
These are capped by the Native University College
at Fort Hare, now ten years old, which trains for
degrees in arts, science, pedagogy, theology and med-
icine. In a word, the missionaries were beneficent
pioneers in the humanities and peaceful arts of civili-
zation.

The Dutch farmers who first settled in the Cape
bitterly resented the fraternal attitude of the mis-
sionaries towards the natives, as they held that the
Bantu should not be regarded or treated as Christian
brothers but rather “be kept in their place with the
lower order of animals.” The final result of these
differences, about which there was much to say on:
both sides, was that the missionaries who insisted on
the human rights of the Bantu commanded supreme
influence with Exeter Hall and the imperial govern-
ment. The Boers, disgusted at the political interfer-
ence of the missionaries, quitted the Cape Colony,
migrating to what is now known as the Transvaal,
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II4 THINKING WITH AFRICA

handle the black man according to their own notions,
unhampered by the officious interference of mission-
aries. Whatever be the merits of this controversy,
whatever the mistakes committed by the missionaries
against the Boers, or the injustice perpetrated on the
natives by the Boer farmers, this fact stands out in
bold relief today, namely, that the Cape Colony is
the one province in all South Africa where the black
man has been treated with sympathy and justice, and
where he has attained to happiness; whilst in the
three northern provinces he has always suffered an
unhappy life, groaning under the yoke of contempt
and injustice.

Serious as were these hindrances from European
neighbors, the missionaries further encountered diffi-
culties arising from the nature of the Bantu pre-
Christian conditions and environment. The Bantu
social system and customs, the rigid authority of their
chiefs and counsellors, their legacy of sensualism due
to the system of polygamy and the consequent degra-
dation of women, their love of strong drink, and
the absence of any true sense of responsibility be-
fore God and therefore of conscious need of a Sa-
vior—all these constituted real hindrances to suc-
cessful effort in Christian missionary work.

As one looks back over the history of Christian
missions in Africa, there are apparent now some seri-
ous mistakes both of omission and commission on
the part of the earlier Western missionaries. TheyCHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU u15

omitted to supply their converts with organized lei-
sure activities, individual and social, as substitutes for
the native pastimes which they condemned as de-
moralizing. In primitive life the youth of Bantu
Africa were accustomed to indulge in organized
dances and vigorous gymnastics performed under
the auspices and regulation of the parents, particu-
larly during the harvest season. As these were insep-
arable from superstitious customs and often accom-
panied by suggestive postures and movements of
the body, there was no alternative for the missionary
but to condemn them. The consequence was that the
children of Christian converts lost this natural safety-
valve for their exuberant energy, and were deprived
of many harmless amusements which legitimately be-
long to all adolescents regardless of race or place.

In the case of Christian African boys and girls
employed in urban areas, this casting off of native
social activities before Christian substitutes could be
provided frequently ended in disaster. Their eve-
ning hours from seven till nine o’clock after the
day’s work and their spare time on Saturdays and
Sundays being blank, they were quickly seized upon
by the devil who gives idle hands things mischievous
to do. This neglect to build up necessary substitutes
for what has been thrown down, conserving elements
of social good, partly accounts for the gangs of ruf-
fians so notorious today in city and village that they

 

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116 THINKING WITH AFRICA

have become a problem for both government and
missions.

A second mistake is suggested by the dissolution
of the ancient customs connected with puberty. All
the Bantu observed rites of circumcision which offi-
cially transferred boys into the dignity of manhood,
and puberty ceremonies which changed girls into
women. Attached to these customs was repulsive
revelry. It is unjust to take the missionaries to task
for abolishing such debasing orgies, but in eradicat-
ing them they went to the other extreme and threw
away with the evil many elements of good. These
festivals were occasions for pointed exhortation by
the elders, for the inculcation of noble principles
governing the duties of adult age. Nothing has been
supplied of a Christian character to replace these age-
long opportunities of youth to receive authoritative
precepts on the code of adult conduct in a manner
compatible with national tradition.

Another mistake concerns the perpetuation of de-
nominationalism. It is regrettable that the old tribal
divisions should be further broken into by an extran-
eous sectarianism with the genesis of which the
Africans had nothing to do. One outcome of this
religious separatism from the West is that many
Africans have taken these divisions more seriously
than did their Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic authors; and
the unnecessary emphasis laid on them by some mis-
sionaries has produced lively antagonism among theCHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 117

newly born Christians. This has made it harder to
make converts, because when the Africans are visited
by rival mission bands they inevitably ask, “How
many gods are there? Which god are we asked to
believe?”

The overlapping of missionary work due to de-
nominationalism produces some absurdities. For in-
stance, in a village like Nancefield, near Johannes-
burg, containing only about five thousand natives,
there are as many as thirty-four different gospel bells
or wagon-hoops ringing at eleven o’clock of a Sun-
day morning, and in the Pretoria Location there are
sixty-five places of worship.

While missionaries have taken tender care of the
souls of their converts they have not shown similar
concern for their land-rights; in certain cases today
the natives actually believe they have lost their land
to the mission station. This gives color to the accusa-
tion that the missionary is the sweet-tongued prede-
cessor of his land-grabbing brother. It is quite com-
mon now to hear a native tub-thumper addressing a
crowd of his fellow-men and decrying Western mis-
sions on the ground that “they told you to close your
eyes and pray, and the other whites came and took
away the land from behind your back while you kept
your eyes closed.” And this: “At first we had the land
and the white man had the Bible; now we have the
Bible and the white man has the land.” In one of our
native Reserves an obstinate native, on being asked by

 

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the missionary why he would not surrender to Christ,
replied sardonically, “If I take this religion, you
whites will take my name down in your book, and a
government magistrate will follow and take my land
in your absence.”

In educational policy many missionaries have made
the mistake of organizing the curricula as though all
students were to become teachers or ministers,
whereas the majority have always entered the ordi-
nary pursuits of life. Frequently those students who
were educated in mission schools for industries or
trades were not trained to develop the initiative or
diligence necessary for success. Agriculture, the live-
lihood of nine-tenths of the aborigines, has, until
recently, been conspicuous by its absence from the
missionary school curriculum.

The attitude of Christian missions towards war
has always struck the African thinker as one of enig-
matic inconsistency. While the New Testament ex-
horts, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” the mission-
aries pray to the God of peace for victory in war. Is
war Christian or unchristian, and ought not Christian
missionaries to be examples, in attitude of mind as
well as in deed, of the ideal standard of Jesus?

While natives in town and country are enjoined
to observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, they
see many Europeans in cities like Pretoria going out
on Sunday to play tennis, cricket, golf, and to disport
themselves in the public swimming baths. Then theCHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 119

Africans naively ask, “Why do the white ministers
allow their white congregations to desecrate the Sab-
bath?” Obviously the missionary’s table of don’ts
for the native is not that of the white minister for the
white parishioner, though the two workers often live
side by side.

Despite all these criticisms, we do not lose sight of
the inestimable good done for the aboriginal Africans
through the advent of Western missionaries. The
good certainly far outweighs the mistakes. We have
already acknowledged the benefits they have brought
to the Bantu in politics and education. They have
trained native successors, of whom they may well be
proud, to preach the gospel and carry forward re-
ligious activities in connection with every church. All
our native leaders today in every sphere of life are
men who owe their education and training to some
missionary school or college. Some missionaries, like
the late Andrew Smith of Lovedale, have endowed
scholarships for the higher education of native youth.
Certain missions have given the natives a generous
chance to develop their own indigenous church under
the auspices and encouragement of the mother
churches in the West. Such is the Order of Ethiopia,
instituted by the Church of England and placed un-
der the control of an African clergyman. Such also
is the Bantu Presbyterian Church founded by the
missionaries of Scotland but now placed entirely in
the hands of the natives.120 THINKING WITH AFRICA

Infinite is our debt to the missionaries for reducing
our languages to writing, for permanently conserving
our folklore and history, for establishing a consider-
able African literature, as well as for directing the
pursuit of African philology, sociology, anthropol-
ogy, and ethnology on scientific lines.

§

We shall now consider the present position of
Christian missions, keeping in mind such questions as:
What do the young Christian native leaders really
think of Western missions? What is the relation
of the missionary to the unhampered development
of indigenous Christianity in Africa and to the gen-
eral future well-being of the African race? What do
the Christian and non-Christian Africans think of
the character and status of organized Christianity in
their midst?
| In order to correct half truths and be fair to both
Tl sides, we shall begin with the criticisms of not all
but some of the young native leaders who have re-
ceived a modern education, and shall consider how
far these criticisms are based on facts.

 

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: i The most energetic native organization in the
| | country and the one which receives the loudest adver-
ip tisement in the white press is the Industrial and Com-
i | mercial Workers? Union, commonly called the I.C.U.
. : Its leader, Clements Kadalie, is a native of Nyasa-
i if land who formerly attended school under white mis-

sionaries at Livingstonia. The spokesmen of this or-

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CHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 13

ganization represent the left-wing group among
intelligent natives; that is to say, they are the most
outspoken critics of Western missions, and of white ex-
ploitation, rapacity, materialism and economic stran-
gulation. Being in intimate touch with the suffering
of the depressed proletariat, and being acquainted
with godless and unscrupulous employers of labor,
they poignantly feel the brunt of the inexorable
present struggle for existence in South Africa. In
their meetings they often deliver vigorous tirades
against Western Christianity and missionaries. Their
charges are usually based on the exceptional lapses
of individual missionaries. It is impossible to disagree
with them on the failure of Western organizations to
live up to the ideals of Christianity. They attack the
social snobbery of some modern missionaries. They
unfavorably contrast the apparently luxurious life
of some white missionaries who travel about in auto-
mobiles, with the humbleness of the earliest mis-
sionaries who lived the lowly life of Africans. They
affirm that Christianity outside missionary circles fails
to mollify the essential cruelty, coarseness and sel-
fishness of the ordinary white man. All this cannot
easily be dismissed as being the rancorous vaporings
of disgruntled agitators injured by exclusion from
church communion, as indeed these speakers are
mostly non-church members.

In a concise pamphlet entitled “The Bantu and
Christianity” a young African clergyman, the Rev.

‘eora ea

122 THINKING WITH AFRICA

H. M. Maimane of Transvaal, makes some striking
animadversions that are typical of the opinion of
critical Christian workers throughout Africa:

Most natives have rejected the Christian life because of
the white men who are non-communicants, non-service-
attenders, non-prayer-sayers. They find these whites play-
ing tennis, working, or strolling about the streets, watering
gardens, and what not, on Sundays while church services are
going on, and they wonder. They see and hear of so much
unfairness done by individual whites here and there, and then
by the state officials towards the black men, that they naturally
wonder why people who preach to them of a loving good
God who has no respect for color should commit such wicked-
ness towards other human beings; so they conclude that the
whole thing, Christianity, is a deceit. . . . All through South
Africa natives talk of Christianity as a “white man’s religion.”
I personally do not think it a white man’s religion. The very
failure of the whites, failure to observe religious laws, should
be an indication to us that this is not naturally a white man’s
religion,

It is a question whether the now prevailing idea that Chris-
tianity is a white man’s religion is not the direct fruit of the
European presentation of the gospel to the aborigines. The
missionaries being keen not only to spread the good news, but
also to win the Bantu to pay allegiance to European power,
preached and taught blunderingly at the expense of the
Bantu’s accurate grasp of the principles of Christianity. It
seems they did not present this religion in such a way that
their Bantu converts could associate it with their own religion.
They did not start from the known and proceed to the un-
known. They went hurry-skurry in condemning all that was
Bantu. In fact, some did not preach Christianity as such,
but rather. the destruction of Bantu customs, and used Chris-
tianity as an effective means towards that end, threatening
people with hell-fire.

Speaking from a close acquaintance of the Bantu Christian’s
regard for and attitude towards Christianity, one may assert
that they, as a whole, were not and are not converted from
heathenism into Christianity, but from the “isms” of Bantu-P

CHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 123

dom into those of Europe. They were led to plunge head-
long into the unknown Western civilization, leaving all they :
knew, and vitally depended on, behind to rot. They em-
braced Christianity not for itself but because it was an essential
element of Western civilization. Their moral standards and
their moral teachings were condemned without anything sub-
stantial being put in their place. Bantu inventions, handi-
crafts, songs, etc., were discouraged as not compatible with a
real Christianity. Beads were cut off from the bodies of 4
converts as not becoming to Christians. Now that the natives,
upon awakening from their sleep of ignorance, find they have
been made to lose their initiative, to lose their inventive powers,
which were starved to death by men who today scornfully s
censure them as “of non-inventive powers,” though they know
truly that they found the Bantu with their inventions; now
that the Bantu have to buy these utensils dearly from a Euro-
pean store, now that they see clearly how their land, with its
ancient iron and tin mines, has been cunningly taken from
them in order to render them uninventive and to enrich the
white man by making him the sole possessor of all the material
resources and necessities of this life and of the best arable i
land; I say, when the natives observe all this they feel dizzy u
and find themselves resenting everything that is European
and Western. So, without fairly testing Christianity and com- Ny
paring it with their own religion in essence, they condemn it
chiefly because it was introduced by Europeans, in whom they
are fast losing confidence if confidence is not already ir-
revocably lost.

Though some destruction of Bantu customs and deprivation
of their rights to the land was and is done by the state and
not by the actual preachers of Christianity, and though the
Bantu themselves have been to a certain extent the direct agents
of the downfall of some of their customs, they are not edu- i
cated enough to see all this. They blame the missionary most ay
because he is the nearest white man whose mode of living '
they can study and be brought into direct contact with. They ‘|
hear him preaching Christ Jesus, but do not see him or his
state acting like Christ Jesus. They say that the state is Chris-
tian; it has sent this man to blindfold and hoodwink us with
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and the politician are brothers working in collusion for the
same end,

For space reasons we forbear to quote further
from many other native writers,such as Moses Mpah-
lele, Gabriel Mabeta, John Mavelle, Miles Mzili,
who write in similar strain.

The whole trend of government legislation during
the last seventeen years has undermined the influence
of the missionary enterprise. Its fundamental laws
bearing on land tenure, political rights, passes, farm
servants, poll taxes, industrial labor, culminating in
the notorious Color Bar Act of 1926, have been both
oppressive and insulting to the susceptibilities of the
Bantu. The color bar in the Transvaal tram cars, race
discrimination in law-courts and public offices, not to
mention innumerable other unpleasant points of con-
tact, are injurious to the tender feelings of black
men. “No square deal for the black man until the
white man is served” seems to be the tacit governing
principle; and the position between Christianity in
the ideal and Christianity in practice becomes ar-
restingly paradoxical. Nevertheless it is only fair to
say that vigorous efforts have been made by clergy
of the English Church and the Dutch Reformed
body to protest against the more outrageous anti-
native government measures. However, the activity
of a few years can hardly exonerate older mission-
aries from the lethargy and reticence of many previ-
ous years, when the natives underwent unspeakableCHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 125

sufferings from the tortures of the 1913 Natives’
Land Act.

The biggest racial stumbling-block to the whites
of South Africa is the word equality. The fons et
origo malt of all our legislative troubles and native
church separatism is the denial of equal treatment for
those natives who have advanced enough in educa-
tion, civilization, character and ambition to claim and
deserve an equal opportunity to satisfy their reason-
able ambitions and to secure the ordinary advantages
and requirements of life for themselves and their
children. Many of the white race seem to be deter-
mined to deny the black race the chance of getting
land, an education, adequate labor wages, official bil-
lets, and landed property rights in urban areas on
equal terms with the white. Social intermixture and
miscegenation the black man does not beg nor want.
But we do believe that the spirit of the New Testa-
ment gives us the justification to expect from mission-
aries at least, if not from the rest, an acknowledg-
ment of the principle that in the eyes of God all men
are equally precious, and are by inference entitled to
equality of treatment in the ordinary affairs of life,
even where local prejudice otherwise forbids social
admixture and intermarriage. We claim equality of
opportunity, nothing more nor less. This is the vexed
question of the color bar by virtue of which the con-
stitution of the South Africa Act of 1909 lays down
in clause 26 a racial bar or stigma against the eligi-

pram Ais aT RE

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ee126 THINKING WITH AFRICA

bility of all non-Europeans to membership in Parlia-
ment—a bar always quoted as a precedent to exclude
black men from the legitimate fruits of their labor
in industry and public service. It would appear to be
the duty of the missionaries, from the very nature of
their calling, to be outspoken in their repudiation of
such an unchristian principle; but the young educated
Africans observe that many missionaries show inde-
cision, and sometimes approval of what we otherwise
look upon as unjust. Professor du Plessis lays it down
thus: “A century of Christian missions in South
Africa has since proved the fallacy of the opinions
held by van der Kemp as to the . . . natural equal-
ity of all men.”

Upholding racial exclusiveness in church organiza-
tion, the same author proceeds to say that the equal
status and other elements of fraternity between na-
tive and European workers as illustrated by the
South African Wesleyan Methodists have been “al-
ways open to question.” On the other hand he admits
the advantage of such coalescence when he says,
“The Anglican and Wesleyan churches, affirming as
they do the principle that no distinction should be
made between European and native clergy, between
white and black congregations, are easily first among
the missionary agencies in South Africa in the num-
ber of their native ministers and helpers.”

Evidently the particular kind of equality dreaded
by the whites of South Africa is the social intermix-" a ei ee _ermmnenee

Pd

CHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 127

ture that goes hand in hand with intermarriage, pre-
sumably ending in the economic submersion and po-
litical domination of white by black. If this be the
case, why apply it to other relations and confuse it
with the rightful claim to equality of opportunity
apart from race mixture? The African needs equality
of opportunity for his own existence and service to his
compatriots and to the world in which he was placed
equally with other races by the inscrutable dispen-
sation of God. It is this failure of the missionaries to
rise above the ground-level of an unchristian world
that has called forth censure from young Africa.
To gather up our argument, we may affirm that
young native Africans gratefully acknowledge all the
benefits that are being provided for them by the
modern missionary; that some of our extremists
have, for their own reasons, found it profitable to
denounce the missionaries without restraint; that the
criticisms of the type submitted by the young African
preacher quoted above are not the angry ravings of
an injured man but the valid, considered, and con-
structive views of an earnest worker who has main-
tained his church status with integrity, working in
cooperation with white missionary associates; that
with regard to the government, the missionaries and
the whole of organized Western Christianity have
been remiss and should exert greater effort in the
future to influence governmental policy along lines
consistent with Christian policy; that the time has

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PaO RIOT Ae ia EE A
pag ot128 THINKING WITH AFRICA

come for organized Christianity to revise and define
its attitude on the principle of equality among white
and black Christians.

§

We conclude with a few constructive suggestions
of missionary policy which we believe will save
Africa in the future from the mistakes of the past,
accelerate its evangelization, remove the conditions
that make for retardation and stagnation, and fur-
ther the legitimate aspirations of younger educated
Africans.

Our strongest critics do not go the length of con-
demning Christianity per se as being a discredited re-
ligious system, nor do they advocate any other alter-
native. What they feel is that the professors of
Christianity have dismally failed to live up to the
standard commanded them by their Master. They
readily confess that Christianity is the best religious
system they know. As the author of another chapter
in their book has said, “Of all the religions of the
earth, the Christian religion is the most uplifting and
civilizing agency the world has ever produced. It is
puerile to discard the religion of Christ simply be-
cause other peoples have failed to grasp its
meaning.”

We want Christianity because it is the only re-
ligion which has proved adequate for all our life and
spiritual ideals. It suits our psychology, and is readilyCHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 129

assimilated with our former spiritualism and cus-
toms if only the right methods are used.

The ancient Bantu believed in the “Great Great
One,” whom they vaguely reverenced along with the
spirits of their departed ancestors. The Rev. Mai-
mane rightly declares that the Bantu invariably show
lively interest whenever one preaches to them about
the Pauline “unknown God”; for Christianity is “a
fuller revelation of God and fuller details of him,
and of man’s concern with him and his concern with
man. These ideas cannot fail to bear good fruits if
they are carefully fostered in the minds of the
Bantu.”

Concerning native customs (quoting from a paper
written two years ago by the present author), Dr.
Aggrey with characteristic wisdom once said that he
wished all missionaries had learnt algebra, for then
they would have known how to eliminate by substi-
tution. Take the abolition of amusements and musi-
cal dances with nothing else put in their place. The
non-convert natives taunt the Christians with being a
lugubrious, long-faced, and unamused community
devoid of the fun-making entertainments of the good
old times. This lack of gayety in native Christian
communities has led to the other extreme and uncon-
sciously abetted the evils of gambling, drunkenness,
and immorality. Until adequate substitution of inno-
cent pleasures is made, the gospel will not thrive.
The Bantu have always possessed a firm solidarity

ot

EI aD130 THINKING WITH AFRICA

founded upon their common traditions. This de-
mands that the preaching of the gospel and the prac-
tice of Christian living shall be adapted to natural
conditions rather than superimposed upon a de-
stroyed social system.

The problem of amusements has been solved in a
practical manner by the American Board missionary
in Johannesburg, the Rev. Ray Phillips, who de-
votes his whole time and attention to the provision
of healthy recreation for natives. Instead of one mis-
sionary, however, there ought to be over a hundred
distributed over the whole of South Africa to coun-
teract the evils that beset our young generation in
the modern city and countryside.

At this point we would venture a recommendation
that mission societies broaden their policies to permit
of the setting aside of specially trained workers for
the adapting of Christian social service methods to
the needs of our native people. Such activities and in-
stitutions as playgrounds, boy-scout and girl-scout
troops, athletic leagues, community centers, women’s
clubs for domestic science and child welfare study,
men’s clubs where discussions and debates under
Christian guidance may be held, community bands
and choirs—all these are badly needed.

We would urge, too, that missionary leaders make
it their business to see that commercialized amuse-
ments such as the roadside carnival and the moving
picture shows, which are exercising an increasing in-od

CHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 131

fluence on the young, be subject to rigid censorship.
Our people should have the best, not the worst,
that Western civilization has to offer.

We rejoice that the Y. M. C. A. is moving to ex-
tend its activities to Bantu youth, and that the boy-
scout movement is sanctioning the extension of that
organization to native boys. Missionaries have been
influential in bringing about these developments.
May they continue to extend their influence in all
those activities making for the growth of Christian
character.

Among the special social evils confronting mis-
sionary work and requiring an intensive and concen-
trated attack from Western home bases is the prob-
lem of alcoholism in its various forms: intemperance,
illicit liquor traffic, shebeens, local option, vested
drink interests, municipal saloons or canteens, and so _
on. It is no exaggeration to say that most of the best
educated Bantu leaders, past and present, have been
lost to Africa through drink. No foreign missionary
program will ever be complete without a special de-
partment established to protect Christian natives
from this evil.

Sexual immorality, another serious evil confront-
ing the Christian church, is rather waxing than wan-
ing. It has derived fresh impetus from Western in-
dustrialism, the craze for modern civilization, and
the fatal transition period resulting from the col-
lapse of the ancient Bantu social system, which for-132 THINKING WITH AFRICA

merly kept this evil within limits notwithstanding
crude methods. Its spread is closely associated with
the lack of organized and supervised recreation for
adolescents to occupy especially the idle evening
hours and week-ends. One solution is suggested by
the activities of the Rev. Mr. Phillips in establishing
in Johannesburg the Bantu Men’s Social Center. This
does for the African progressive men just what the
great Y. M. and Y. W. centers in the United States
do for colored men and women. Every South Afri-
can town and native country village sorely needs such
an institution, especially for the women. The pres-
ent writer and his wife have attempted this in their
village church, but only with limited success, owing
to lack of friends and outside help.

Another development causing deep concern 1s the
breakdown of family discipline among Christian na-
tives, also traceable to the fatal transition away from
old Bantu customs. This has been accentuated by the
increased poverty in agricultural districts, where in
many a family the real breadwinner is the boy or girl
who goes out from home to work in the industrial
centers, and who in consequence acquires exaggerated
ideas of self-rule and independence. This is a serious
problem which has assumed alarming proportions.

For full information on the subject of education
there are abundant records. Let it suffice to add here
that we need a reinforcement of funds, endowments
and scholarships to enable the more promising menCHRISTIANITY AND THE BANTU 1333

and women in our secondary schools to proceed to
higher education at the Fort Hare University Col-
lege. It is heart-rending to see so many potential
leaders lost to Africa each year through lack of funds
or scholarships founded on the lines of the Andrew
Smith bursary at Lovedale, or by the English So-
ciety of Friends at Fort Hare.

Africa offers an infinite scope for the interracial
cooperative movement which has achieved such con-
spicuous success in the adjustment of race relations
in the United States. We need more traveling secre-
taries like the Rev. Max Yergan, provided by the
Negro Y. M.C. A. of the United States, to work in
South Africa, not only to give Christian direction to
future leaders through the Students’ Christian
Movement in the native colleges, but also to serve
as a racial link between white and black in a general
effort to increase cooperation and good will. We need
also some association which will bring together the
missionaries working among natives and the ministers
of white congregations, again for the purpose of mu-
tual education in interracial questions, and for the
effect on public opinion and government circles.

We need white immigrants of Christian character
who will migrate to South Africa as school teachers
and ordinary citizens to live the Christlike life, work-
ing as missionaries among the white races, taking the
lead in local native welfare societies, and helping
forward in every way possible better racial relation-een

 

 

 

 

 

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134. THINKING WITH AFRICA

ship. Such a class of white Christians can be of im-
mense service in interracial conferences such as have
been held periodically in Johannesburg since 1923,
and may do much to restore the loss of confidence in
Western institutions, religious and political.

Our concluding word to the present and future
Western missionaries is this:

Young educated Africa appeals for sympathy with
her legitimate aspirations towards religious auton-
omy; for the dissemination of liberal views in press,
pulpit and platform on the right of the Bantu to a
happy future in the land of their birth; for protec-
tion in the settlement of land questions so insep-
arably bound up with the principles of religion; for
the inculcation of Christian principles on native af-
fairs in white homes, schools, farms, towns or clubs;
for the kind of life that Jesus would have led had he
lived as a white man today in South Africa.

To our fellow students in the colleges of North
America we appeal for more intelligent understand-
ing and cooperation, that we may be enabled to grow
in the brotherhood of Christ Jesus and in the ser-
vice of our fellow-men, and to achieve our national
destiny under the providence of Almighty God.

D. D. T. Japavu

Alice, Cape ProvinceV

PROBLEMS OF THE AFRICAN
CHURCH

REGRET that it is not possible for me to discuss
I the problems of the Christian church in the conti-
nent of Africa as a whole. My knowledge of condi-
tions is restricted to Africa south of the Zambezi
River. This part of Africa has been called “the land
of problems,” and not least of these are the problems
of the Christian church in relation to the people of
African descent, who are variously referred to as the
Bantu, the Africans, or the natives.

From the time of their arrival in the country
the missionaries have been confronted with the prob-
lem of evangelization in its many phases; how to
approach the African, and how to present or preach
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ so as to pene-
trate his mind, appeal to his judgment, and win his
heart. We Africans rejoice to give our testimony to
the fact that the efforts of the earlier missionaries
have to a great extent been crowned with success.
Although Europeans were settled in South Africa for
nearly three centuries, serious evangelization of the
native people began only a little over a hundred
years ago, and it is gratifying to record that accord-
ing to the 1921 census of the Union of South Africa

135136 THINKING WITH AFRICA

there were then 1,605,927 native Africans who re-
turned themselves or were returned by those acting
for them, as professing Christians, as against
3,091,886 outside the pale of the Christian church.
The grim problem now is how to reach this remain-
ing mass, over sixty per cent of the population.

Study of the membership of the Christian church
in South Africa reveals the fact that the gospel ap-
peal has found its best response in the soul of the
female population. While the active opposition of
the first half of the century has died down, a large
proportion of the male population remains cold and
apathetic. The leaders of the church are asking if
the right approach to the male African is to him as
an individual, or as a member of a group, social
system, tribe, or nation.

In my humble opinion the individual method has
the effect of producing what one might call a femi-
nine type of Christianity. The appeal to the con-
science of the individual touches the conscience of the
woman but largely fails to move that of the man. The
present writer has tried the group system, making re-
quest of the head of a tribe or clan to arrange for
meetings of men only. At these meetings he would
speak to his male audience as a group, pointing out to
them that it is religion, like righteousness, that exalt-
eth a nation. He would remind them of the gropings
of their ancestors after the light, and their progress in
religion as revealed in their tribal customs, and inTHE AFRICAN CHURCH 137

their ceremonial rites as practised in connection with
such events as the recognition of puberty and the in-
itiation into manhood. He would refer to the prac-
tice of healing by the washing of persons suffering
from maladies believed to be inflicted by the family
spirits as a mark of displeasure at the neglect of fam-
ily tribal duties, and to their customs and beliefs in
connection with prayer for rain. He would thus,
without affronting their respect for themselves and
for their ancestors, present religion as a gradual
growth, the universal Father revealing himself in
one way or another to all his children, and seeking
them that they may come into fellowship with him.

The Bantu people are of a socialistic or communis-
tic turn of mind. The Bantu man habitually thinks of
himself as a member of a family, a group, or a so-
cial system, and in consequence is deeply influenced
by a sense of responsibility. Because of his conscious-
ness of group responsibility he hesitates to make a
decision in matters religious, as in matters social or
political, that would affect his relationship to any of
these groups. He feels it necessary to consult with
the principal members of his family, tribe, or so-
ciety in order that his solidarity with them may be
maintained. I am of the opinion that both individual
and group methods of approach and appeal to the
Bantu are necessary, and that the group method of
first approach should be more carefully studied and
more widely used.Gee

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138 THINKING WITH AFRICA

Another problem of exceptional difficulty con-
fronting African churches is connected with the
Christian nurture of converts. A new life introduced
into the world requires the best nourishment as well
as the closest attention and care. So new converts
need the constant support and guidance of leaders
who have not only been converted but also possess
a clear and deep apprehension of the implications of
the Christian faith.

The Wesleyan Methodist Church in the mission
field organizes its converts into societies, each so-
ciety being subdivided into classes of about twelve
members each. These classes meet once a week, under
the guidance of a leader, for fellowship, exchange of
Christian experience, instruction in Christian doc-
trine, prayer, spiritual nurture and admonition, and
mutual edification. But the difficulty is leadership.
The native church in Africa is hindered in its growth
for lack of good leaders, men and women with ade-
quate knowledge of the tenets of the faith, who
enjoy the experience of true salvation, and who have
disciplined themselves in applied Christianity. This
difficulty must be studied and a solution found, if
fruits of the arduous years spent in winning the con-
verts are to be conserved.

The African peoples have, from time immemorial,
been under the spiritual guidance of an order of re-
ligious leaders of their own whose influence has
rested on fear, and whose authority derives in mostTHE AFRICAN CHURCH 139

part from what we might call popular superstitions,
which are to them assured beliefs, a root part of
their thought and actions. Their emancipation from
this reign of terror, and their adjustment to a world
ruled by a fatherly God, can be effected only by an
indigenous African ministry which has been well
trained. Its studies should include not only the Scrip-
tures, homiletics and theology, but should take a
wider sweep to embrace psychology, sociology, an-
thropology, ethnology, and the elements of compara-
tive religion. It must also concern itself with world
history. The great task of the Bantu ministry is not
the preaching of the gospel and the winning of con-
verts to Christianity. It must also teach the people to
understand and interpret themselves, and to under-
stand God as revealed in Jesus Christ, and to inter-
pret him in the light of both their past and present.
The ministry must have a healthy and informed out-
look upon God’s world, and must be well fitted to
instruct its converts in the privileges, duties and re-
sponsibilities of citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
A step in the direction of a well-equipped ministry
has been taken already by two of the principal native
churches in placing their theological seminaries at
Fort Hare, where candidates for the ministry of the
Wesleyan and the Presbyterian churches can now
receive their ministerial training under the wing of
the South African Native College. There the future
minister is introduced to branches of higher general140 THINKING WITH AFRICA

education which will be of great usefulness to him in
the discharge of his ministerial duties when he goes
out.

In the different churches there is diversity of atti-
tude towards indigenous customs and rites, such as
lobola, whereby a young man before marriage is re-
quired to hand over a certain number of cattle to
his future father-in-law. Similarly there is diversity
of attitude toward the rites, including circumcision,
connected with puberty. These rites and customs are
deeply rooted in the life of the people, although it
is doubtful if the modern African himself nowadays
understands their implications. The problem is
whether or not a clean cut should be made away
from these practices, as relics and embodiments of
heathenism and barbarism, or whether they should,
as far as possible in consistency with the Christian
religion, be retained and made to serve Christian
ends. Consideration of these customs reveals their
national character, their importance in maintaining
the self-respect of the people. It would be disastrous
to the Bantu were they to feel that there was nothing
in the past of their race that they could carry forward
with them into Christianity. And a practice which
guards against levity in contracting marriage, and
rites which signalize the entrance upon manhood and
womanhood and direct attention to the new obliga-
tions and responsibilities arising therefrom, shouldTHE AFRICAN CHURCH 141

not be regarded as valueless and incapable of Chris-
tian adaptation and utilization.

One of the problems that baffle the collective wis-
dom of the church in its relation to the Africans is
the drink problem. Whether total abstinence should
be made a condition of church membership is a ques-
tion still to be answered. While one church makes
total abstinence an obligation of membership, an-
other approves moderate drinking, and a third de-
clares no definite policy in the matter at all. Uncer-
tainty prevails as to what the attitude should be. This
uncertainty and wide difference make it difficult if
not impossible for a church with stringent laws to
enforce them, and the result is a policy of drift. The
European church is observed to make no different
laws as regards liquor for its members from those
imposed by the state. In her fanaticism for the lib-
erty of the subject, the liberty of the individual con-
science to decide for itself, in her belief in the doc-
trine of man as the master of his own fate, South
Africa does not interfere with the freedom of the
white man to use liquor, so long as he does not be-
come so drunk as to be not himself, or to become a
danger or disgrace to the community. The native
church, seeing this liberty and detesting whatever
has the semblance of racial discrimination, is inclined
to oppose total prohibition, and to take a stand
against making total abstinence a condition of mem-

bership.

diel th tin ie iach sain ita142 THINKING WITH AFRICA

The outcome of this division is the invasion of the
churches by the mighty forces of the drink evil. The
policy of one law for the whites and another for the
blacks is failing, though the authorities are not pre-
pared to confess it. The new liquor bill of the pres-
ent government, although a serious attempt to bring
about a more satisfactory state of affairs and to mini-
mize the evil, is doomed to failure. In my opinion
nothing will do more to produce a healthy, vigorous
national life than the adoption of the policy of total
prohibition for all.

The problem of hindrances to the progress of
Christianity, which has been the subject of repeated
investigations and conferences, was dealt with at the
South African Missionary Conference held at Jo-
hannesburg in June, 1925, in two able papers read
by the Bishop of Pretoria and the Rev. John L.
Dube, Principal of Ohlange Institute, Natal. Bishop
Talbot remarked, “I am bound to say that I think
that European Christianity, so called, operates
mainly to hinder the evangelization of the native
men. in this country”; and Mr. Dube said, “Certain
sections of the European population are too often
another obstacle to the spread of the gospel among
native people.” What he referred to was the wrong
example set by so many white people.

Another hindrance lies in the attitude of govern-
ments and Parliament towards the civil and other
rights of the Africans. Their policies of exclusion orTHE AFRICAN CHURCH 143

segregation of the black man, and the series of op-
pressive legislative measures from 1911 to 1926
directed against the native, have created in the bosom
of the black man a hardened heart, and have moved
him to call a halt in his march towards a civilized
life.

Now the “civilized” labor policy of the present
government, which operates to the dismissing of the
Africans from all skilled or semi-skilled employ-
ment to make room for “poor whites,” still further
intensifies the bitterness. This policy has been im-
bedded in legislation in the Color Bar Act of 1926,
which was passed in the teeth of the strongest oppo-
sition, put up not only by the Africans but by an
influential section of the European population sec-
onded by the English-speaking churches of the land.
In addition to this legislative action, the differential
treatment of native laborers by their individual em-
ployers or by corporate employing bodies in respect
to wages, awakens and constantly fosters deep re-
sentment. The black laborer, who receives wages at
the rate of two, three or four pounds sterling a
month, sees his white fellow-laborer receiving that
same amount for a week, or it may be even for a day.

Last but not least to be mentioned of these griev-
ances which are alienating the blacks from the whites
and from the white man’s religion and civilization
are the legislative proposals embodied in the quartet
of bills laid upon the table of the House of Parlia-

hi eee iain nit aestintas aah iia144 THINKING WITH AFRICA

ment on May 6, 1926, by the Prime Minister. Of
these the most obnoxious is that which deprives the
Bantu people of the Cape province of the franchise
rights conferred upon them by the Parliament of
Great Britain during the benign reign of Queen Vic-
toria of revered memory.

The net result of these discriminating actions and
measures 1s that now we are faced with a condition
of affairs wherein the African mind is in revolt
against Western Christianity, against Christianity as
taught by the white man. Discontent and disappoint-
ment with the white man, and bitterness at his dis-
criminations, have raised what has come to be called
the problem of the separatist churches. This concerns
a movement that first became significant on the se-
cession of the Rev. James M. Dwane from the Wes-
leyan Methodist Church in 1892. The movement is
in the first place the expression of a desire on the
part of the African churches for independence in
ecclesiastical affairs, the desire for freedom from
European control to worship God in their own
fashion and in accordance with their own religious
genius. It is also a direct outcome of the race con-
sciousness which has gripped the African peoples as
it has the peoples of Europe and Asia, a religious
expression of the growing spirit of nationalism. The
black man looks at the ecclesiastical system of the
white man. He notices that the Jew has a religion of
his own, that the Italian is generally a Roman Cath-Psd

THE AFRICAN CHURCH 145

olic, the German a Lutheran, the Hollander a mem-
ber of the Dutch Reformed church, the Englishman
an Anglican, and the Scot a Presbyterian, and he
draws the conclusion that the African, if he is true to
his race, will also and should develop a church sys-
tem typically his own. At first the separatists called
their body the Ethiopian Church, but when they
heard that their brethren in the United States of
America, who were far more advanced in civilization
than themselves, had already seceded from the white
church and organized a church known as the African
Methodist Episcopal Church, and that they might
affiliate themselves with that body, they did so affil-
iate. Though there are several other small denomina-
tions which from time to time have seceded from the
parent stock, the African Methodist Episcopal
Church is today the strongest purely African church
in the sub-continent.

But the more deeply thinking section of the peo-
ple, and the more nationally minded, feel that final-
ity in respect to indigenous independent church or-
ganizations has not yet been reached. For the space
of the last five years or thereabouts a movement has
set in for the formation, out of all the multitudinous
denominational entities, of one great African church
under one ecclesiastical rule. In the innermost mind
of patriotic Africans broods a yearning for the birth
of such a church, one which is not antagonistic or
hostile to the parent church, but which, while enjoy-P
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146 THINKING WITH AFRICA

ing separate independent existence on a footing of
equality with any other religious body, still owns
filial allegiance to the mother church, and labors with
her on a basis of cooperation. A growing body of
Bantu opinion is now strongly in favor of forming
this united African church, which shall be self-gov-
erning in the fullest sense of the term, self-support-
ing, and self-propagating. This is a circumstance of
which the mother churches must take cognizance if
their African daughter is to assume her status of in-
dependence within the ecclesiastical commonwealth
of the world.
ZaccHEus R. MAHaBANE

Vreda, Orange Free StateVI
COOPERATION FROM THE WEST

N aggressive zeal has always been a prominent
feature of a prosperous church, and every great
period of spiritual revival develops that zeal in its
most intense form. In the church of the Apostles the
longing to save others carried men far and lasted
long. It was this zeal that fired the churches of
Europe to evangelize Africa and bring the gospel to
the Bantu races of this continent. From the time of
the early Portuguese explorers until today there has
been light in this country from the West. It is there-
fore the desire of the Africans that this cooperation
should continue, and that friendly relations should
exist between the East and the West in everything
which appertains to the Christian and economic life
of the people of this country.

It is natural for native Africans to cry “Africa
first.” By this they do not mean “Africa only.” For
they value cooperation from the West, because its
influence leavens the lump, it appeals to all that is
noble in our nature, and it introduces new blood and
stimulates new activities in Africa which, however,
demand a form that will suit native conditions.

In the early days of mission work in this coun-
147148 THINKING WITH AFRICA

try, missionaries were devoted men and women
whom natives followed blindly, as they considered
them to be exemplary in regard to moral character,
personal piety, devoutness, inner purity of heart,
kindness, and benevolence. These traits in their per-
sonality, coupled with the fact that they were the only
white men they saw, made them become the wonder
of the natives. They were not only respected and
adored, but were looked upon as true messengers
of peace and good-will. They were called abelungu,
from their long hair, which resembled the udulunga,
a necklace of hair worn by native women as a charm.
These necklaces were supposed to protect the wear-
ers from the ills of married life, real or imaginary,
and ensure to them plenty of healthy children. The
missionary was thus looked upon as a sacred pledge
that the interests of natives would be protected and
safeguarded.

Conditions are changed with the advent of the
modern missionary. He is looked upon, rightly or
wrongly, with some amount of suspicion by the na-
tives as another representative of the aggressive sys-
tem of the West. Pioneer missionaries were sim-
ple, earnest people with the love of God in their
hearts and with a burning desire to spread his King-
dom. They were teachers of sound morality, builders
of a true civilization, able instructors in mechanical
arts, and healers of the sick. They offered no mean
contribution to our knowledge of languages and toCOOPERATION FROM THE WEST 149

literature. They helped to found universities and sys-
tems of education. They fought hard battles with
oppression and wrong. They gave to the world a
hundred translations of the word of God, and in-
scribed many languages for the first time. They were
in fact messengers of mercy and benefactors of the
world. There is now a danger of the modern mis-
sionary being grouped in the eyes of the natives with
the whole company of exploiting Europeans.

Nowadays the more successful missionary is the
man who brings along with his Christianity some
practical or technical skill, like Dr. Laws of Living-
stonia with his medical and engineering skill; Dr.
Stewart of Lovedale with his teaching and organ-
izing ability; Bishops Colenso and Callaway with
their knowledge of literature and folklore; John
McKenzie with his administrative capacity; Dr.
Moffat of Kuruman fame with his literary and
organizing talents; Dr. Philip, the champion of reli-
gious liberty and the defender of the rights of the
weak; and Mackay of Uganda, the Christian engi-
neer who sacrificed his life carrying the gospel into
the dense darkness of Africa. Africa needs more
medical missionaries and more men and women to
teach her sons and daughters such trades as agricul-
ture and the domestic sciences.

An Englishman once emphasized the fact thatthe
ordinary African is not half such a fool as he looks.
He appreciates as much as anyone the advantages of150 THINKING WITH AFRICA

a warm blanket on chilly nights, or of an iron hoe to
replace his wooden spud in digging his little field,
and the man who can teach him how to earn these
luxuries will obtain a proportionate influence over
him.” It is true that an African native is a curious
compound of suspicion, superstition, childlike sim-
plicity, and mulish obstinacy. If he knows and trusts
his leader he may be guided gently towards civiliza-
tion, may be made a useful member of society and
even a Christian; but he will resist with the whole
force of his nature any attempt to kick him from
behind into comfort or into heaven.

The natives of Africa are bound closely to their
chiefs. In the past missionaries have erred in not at-
tempting to convert these chiefs, although in Mada-
gascar, where the missionaries flung aside all hesita-
tion and made every effort to convert the queen, the
policy proved notably successful. Idols and diviners
were quickly put away from the palace, public works
were stopped on the Sabbath, and Sunday mar-
kets were exchanged to another convenient day. The
effect on the people of this island was marvelous,
said the late Dr. Mullens in his treatise on Modern
Missions and Their Results: “Nowhere, since the
Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost, has the work of
the gospel been more thorough, the victories of the
gospel more rapid and more complete, than in Mada-
gascar.” This change in the character of the people
was undoubtedly due to the Christianizing influencePd

COOPERATION FROM THE WEST 151

of the queen. The same result would have followed
in Africa had native chiefs first been won to Chris-
tianity by the missionaries.

The growth of a race consciousness, with its
natural outcome of social and political aspirations,
is plainly apparent among the natives of South
Africa. Expressions of this feeling cannot be sup-
pressed. The Native Churches Commission ap-
pointed by the government in 1925 refers in its re-
port to this race consciousness in the following words:

“Among the expressions of race consciousness the
church furnishes the most striking example. In the
course of our investigation we received numerous
complaints from natives regarding the attitude of the
present-day European missionary towards them, with
touching references, enhanced no doubt by the lapse
of time, to the patience, energy, brotherliness, and
absence of color feeling of the old-time European
missionary. It is quite certain that one of the causes
of the separatist activity of the natives has been the
conviction that the color-bar feeling has entered the
domain of religion. The fact that today the mission-
ary has, quite naturally and quite rightly, become the
superintendent of a group of native evangelists
rather than an evangelist himself, has altered the
natives’ conception of him and his duty. Mission-
aries and the natives themselves gave as the first and
chief cause of the movement the desire among na-
tives for independence in church matters, with which152 THINKING WLiEH AFRICA

desire there is almost always connected a growing
race consciousness. They point out that in every di-
rection native activity is restricted by the rules and
regulations made by the white man. Such simple mat-
ters as the kind of sticks they shall carry, places
where they may meet, the districts in which they may
live, have become the subject of regulations made
by Europeans.” The Commission adds: “After
nearly a century of work among the natives of South
Africa the native feels that it is time he should do
his bit in propagating the gospel of Christ. This as-
piration has induced some natives, who felt there was
not sufficient outlet for their activities within the
European-controlled bodies, to establish what are
known as Native Separatist churches.”

There are other features which have somewhat
ageravated this feeling of race consciousness among
natives. One of these is the feeling that the Euro-
pean ministers of the present day are not sufficiently
sympathetic towards their aspirations and have there-
fore become infected with the color-bar prejudice.
This is noticeable in the case of some European min-
isters who, when baptizing native children, do not
carry them in their bosom as they do white children,
but baptize them when carried in the arms of their
mothers. Another is lack of fellowship on the part of
the European minister towards his brother native
minister, as evidenced by his adopting the attitude of
a master towards him rather than of a servant ofCOOPERATION FROM THE WEST 153

God or a shepherd. The present-day supervising mis-
sionary ignores the recommendations of his native
colleague in matters of church administration, and
also ignores the intelligent advice of educated lay-
men in matters pertaining to church government,
and relies upon uncouth laymen whom he can easily
persuade to agree with him.

The suppression of native customs which are not
sinful if rightly understood, and the control of
church properties and funds by European ministers
without representatives from the native church on
their committees, are two more thorny points be-
tween natives and Europeans.

In spite of these complaints of the natives, no evi-
dence has been adduced to show that they are anti-
European. The finding of the Native Churches
Commission of 1925 clearly proves this. It runs as
follows:

“The conclusion we arrive at after a careful peru-
sal of all documents, after an examination of promi-
nent protagonists for and against the legitimate
pretensions of secession bodies, after some experience
with and knowledge of these bodies, is that their
vitality is not drawn from an anti-European source,
that such aims as the subversion of the European
political control lie usually outside their thoughts.”

WatterR Benson RuBuSANA

East London, Cape Province154 THINKING WITH AFRICA

NOTE on Arrican-American Necro Cooprration.—
(From the Proceedings of the International Conference on
the Christian Mission in Africa held at Le Zoute, Belgium,
September 13-21, 1926.)

Findings as to Facts

THERE ARE NO LEGISLATIVE RESTRICTIONS SPECIFICALLY DI-
RECTED AGAINST THE AMERICAN NEGRO, BUT MosT AFRICAN
GOVERNMENTS ARE OPPOSED TO, OR PLACE DIFFICULTIES IN THE
WAY OF, THE SENDING OF AMERICAN NEGROES To AFRICA.

Opposition to the sending of American Negroes to Africa is
due mainly to three factors:

(a) The unrest caused by certain movements believed to be
dangerous to order and goverment and to be encouraged from
America.

(b) The antagonism to government in past years of certain
American Negroes in Africa, resulting in serious disturbances in
some cases.

(c) The failure of certain American Negroes in Africa in
past years,

Owing to the effect of one or more of the reasons above
named, most African missionaries consulted do not think the
present time auspicious for pressing upon government such a
general change in policy as would mean the sending of a large
number of American Negroes to Africa in the immediate future,
although strongly believing that efforts should be made to increase
gradually the number of such missionaries,

There are at present working in various parts of Africa Amer-
ican Negroes of the highest character and great usefulness, whose
fine spirit and devoted work will in the course of a few years
greatly increase the respect in which American Negro mission-
aries are held, and make easier the securing of permission for the
entrance of additional missionaries.

There is a natural and laudable desire on the part of a large
number of American missionary societies, both white and Negro,
to send additional American Negroes as missionaries to Africa,
thereby giving the educated Negro an outlet for his zeal to
render unselfish service, and aiding in a natural and important
way the cause of African evangelization, education, and general
welfare.Sa ee Ee ee
ed

COOPERATION FROM THE WEST 155

Recommendations

IN VIEW OF THE ABOVE FINDINGS THE CoNFERENCE ADOPTS THE
FOLLOWING RESOLUTIONS:

1. That the Negroes of America should be permitted by gov-
ernments, and encouraged by missionary societies, to play an
important part in the evangelization, medical service, and educa-
tion of Africa, and that the number of their missionaries should
be increased as qualified candidates are available for needed
work, and as their representatives already in the field still fur-
ther succeed in gaining for their people and their societies that
public confidence which is essential.

2. That every practicable form of assistance should be given
in the spirit of Christian fellowship, as to colleagues of the same
missionary status, by white missionaries to qualified American
Negroes working in Africa, and that the same spirit of coopera-
tion should be expected by white missionaries from American
Negro missionaries.

3. That governments should be supported in requiring that
American Negroes wishing to enter Africa for missionary pur-
poses should go out under the auspices of responsible societies
of recognized and well established standing; and that owing to
the difficult and delicate interracial situation in Africa, excep-
tional care should be used in the selection of men and women
of strength of character and a fine spirit of cooperation, able to
meet the same tests as white missionaries.

4. That in the interest of comity and cooperation American
Negro missionary societies not now represented in Africa should
work as far as possible through well established societies already
in Africa, and that, in accordance with the general rules of
missionary procedure, they should give special attention to un-
evangelized districts.

5. That when missionary societies of established reputation are
unable to secure the admission to Africa of American Negroes
needed for important work and qualified to perform it, the
matter may properly be taken up with the International Mis-
sionary Council for the use of its friendly offices.

6. In adopting these resolutions the Conference recognizes that
the above recommendations are not an ideal or a complete solu-

Se eee

i
i156 THINKING WITH AFRICA

tion of the problem under consideration, but believes that they
represent the “next steps” which may be wisely taken, and that
they should, in the providence of God, gradually bring about
a highly significant and important contribution by the Negroes
of America to their distant kindred in Africa.VII
YOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH

T would be an interesting, helpful, and no doubt
amusing undertaking to try to obtain from an
average group of Western students an honest opin-
ion or picture of contemporary Christian young men
and women in Africa. In preparation for this chap-
ter the present writer undertook this task. Following
are extracts from some of the replies received. One
young man wrote: “I have always thought of boys
and girls and older people too in Africa, especially
those who have come under the influence of mis-
sionaries, as people who were so happy to be sep-
arated from their heathen beliefs that they believe
implicitly all that they are told about the Christian
life and spend their lives in ease and singing.” An-
other wrote: “Having no past which is worth while,
no art, no science, no language, no religion, the
present-day Christian African is but Christian in
name. I think it a pity to spoil his hitherto unen-
cumbered mind with any of our ideas of the West.”
Another replied to my question by asking me one:
“Ts it true that Africans still eat one another?” And
the following is typical of three or four replies: “1
am surprised that Christian Africans have joined

157

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158 THINKING WITH AFRICA

with the nations of Europe that are exploiting the
black man and his land. Why do they not join with
the heathen who wish to free their land from alien
control?” Here is a comment found in not a few:
“The African Christian is my brother in Christ; he
is passing through difficult times; if the faith that is
mine and all that it teaches can help the African,
he should have it, and so far as I am concerned shall
have it.”

If the above is a fair reflection of the knowledge
that Western students have of Africans today, we
are justified in an effort towards a better interpreta-
tion of contemporary Christian African students.

§

This brief sketch of African Christian youth and
their thoughts of today may be based on an exam-
ination of the following: First, the effect upon them
of Christian teachings; second, the effect upon them
of Western economic and political penetration; third,
the new Africa.

The effect of Christian teaching upon Africa and
Africans has been and is of far-reaching significance:
it was at once diametrically opposed to many of the
former beliefs and practices of the people; it greatly
altered the African’s conception of God; it brought
to bear the spirit and teaching of Christ upon the life
of many a village and tribe; it injected a new method
and practice of education into the life of the Chris-™ yay See ae ee ee
y a

YOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH isg

tian community; and it made available for all Afri-
cans who chose it a new and wider idea of and out-
look upon life.

This new idea of and outlook upon life is the very
essence of Jesus’ teaching about the more abundant
life. And this is the new spirit which is animating
young African Christians today. They have inherited
all the accumulated influence of the more or less for-
mal religious teachings of the past, but in addition
they have been attracted by the new note of the so-
cial significance of the gospel.

This opportunity for more abundant life which
Christian teaching has given has also led young
African Christians to the point where they freely
compare existing conditions with those which consti-
tute their ideal, an ideal which they believe to be
practically obtainable. There is therefore dissatisfac-
tion, questioning, and a degree of unrest. In other
words there is that “divine discontent” which is not
an altogether unhealthy attribute of any men or
group of men who have seen the face and caught
something of the spirit of our Lord. Religion among
young Africans has not served as an opiate; rather
there has resulted among them a condition which
church history through the past four hundred years,
indeed in many respects throughout the Christian
era, reveals as an inevitable result of evangelistic
preaching and living.

One does not believe that in the Africa of today

See Tt

ETE tO eS160 THINKING WITH AFRICA

the whole explanation of the unrest is an anti-gov-
ernment, anti-European or anti-anything spirit; so
far as the Christian element is concerned, it is the
more positive conviction that what is wanted by the
people is more of the good life of which Jesus ap-
proves.

There is another effect of Christian teaching which
must be referred to in this sketch. Young Christian
Africa has not only had stirred within it a con-
sciousness of a great lack and want, but it has devel-
oped among some of its members, at least, such a
keen desire to have their needs met that they are
realizing a healthy patriotism under the slogan
“Africa for the Africans.” They are demonstrating
qualities of individual service and sacrifice for the
larger whole, and are vigorously maintaining the
right of all Africans to the enjoyment of the fullest
life obtainable.

To be sure, young Christian Africa is feeling the
evils of its own pre-Christian past as well as the
failures of its Christian present. The demon world,
superstition born of ignorance, and that vast body
of social delinquency, as well as man’s propinquity to
what we call sin—all of this reaches its horny hand
from the dark past and thwarts young Africa of
today. In addition, forces and movements from with-
out are influencing Africans for better or for worse.
To the Christian youth of the West young Africa’s
response to the challenge of its past from within and
of its present from without should suggest both aYOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH ” i6s

responsibility and an opportunity. The great Father
is leading Africa’s youth into a new experience. He
who declared that he came into the world in order
that people might have life and have it more abun-
dantly, and who again made known to mankind
that he was the Way, the Truth and the Life
—this same Jesus, transcending time, space and race,
has, through the magnetism of his person, the at-
tractiveness of his teachings, and the life and service
of his followers, touched and inspired a portion
of the youth in Africa. This portion is now a part of
the Universal Christian Tribe and wishes to join
hands with all fellow members in achieving the

avowed aims of Jesus Christ in the life and spirit of
Africa and of the world.

§

Let us consider the effect of Western economic
and political penetration upon the thinking of Afri-
can Christian youth. The exploitation of Africa’s
natural products and possessions runs annually into
many millions of dollars, gold, diamonds, copper,
iron and coal being among the chief of these. Her
agricultural possibilities are being only a little less
assiduously developed, as witness the production of
cocoa, coffee, rubber and cotton.

Politically Africa is an appendage of Europe,
more than ninety per cent of her territory and pop-
ulation having fallen under the control of the Great
Powers of that Western continent. For weal or woe

a
ie
+a
th162 THINKING WITH AFRICA

the future of Africa and its large population is hav-
ing its mold set, not by the forces and ideals which
grow more or less out of her own past, but by those
which come out of the experiences and achievements
of another continent and body of civilization.

In this penetration we behold a force which is
undeniably formidable, almost inexorable. One
hardly has time to deplore it. It is overwhelmingly
real. For our purpose here let it suffice to state that
it is impossible for the Christian youth of Africa to
be anything but greatly affected by a situation
whereby such a large portion of its life is controlled
by forces from without. It is for us now to look into
the nature of the effect of this Western penetration.

We shall refer to the following specific effects of
it on Christian youth: first, their confusion, bewilder-
ment and disillusionment; second, the stimulation
and growth of nationalistic or racial thinking among
them; third, their effort to understand the present
situation and the desire and will to correct and
improve it.

That among the great body of Christian youth in
Africa today there is to be found much of confusion,
bewilderment and disillusionment is inevitable in
view of the rapid changes in the past. We have seen
in the preceding chapters how the family and tribal
life of the people has been radically disturbed, and
how the larger social and economic life has been
shifted into an altogether new and faster gear. New" cet eae Fe ee eee ee
a

YOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH 163

ideas and methods of government have been intro-
duced; the very raison d’étre of living has to a great
extent been altered. Even the educated Christian
youth of the continent cannot be expected, provided
it were desirable, to assimilate in so short a time the
ideas and methods of a civilization like that of the
West, differing so radically from that of Africa.
They find themselves living, so to speak, in a strange
land whose language they do not speak and whose
methods they do not understand.

Disillusionment is the tragedy growing out of
what we have just observed, for although many of
the church in Africa do not fully understand, they
see and think well enough to know that a large part
of what is taking place about them is not only con-
trary to their conception of their own best interests
but likewise far from being in accord with what they
believe to be the Christian teaching.

It cannot therefore come as a surprise to any-
body that as a result of what we have just pointed
out, Africans are joining together and taking coun-
sel among themselves and with their proved friends.
The very instinct of self-preservation leads them to
think in terms of national or racial significance.
Travel how, where, and when one may, in those
parts of Africa where the white man’s influence is
being felt one will always find people who will talk,
not altogether unintelligently, and very often not164. PFHINEING WITH AFRICA

without feeling, about the European or white man
and his dealings with Africans.

Nor are Christian Africans to be regarded as in
any respect separated from this development among
the people. Their approach to and participation in it
may be and often is tempered by their religion and
education, but their concern about and desire for a
larger, happier, and more useful life for all Africans
are none the less keen.

This attitude among Africans varies according to
the conditions prevailing in particular parts of the
continent. In West Africa it may be that what Afri-
cans want is a larger share in the government of the
land and in the positions and emoluments ensuing
therefrom. Or it may be that nationalistic and racial
thinking are stimulated by the consciousness of a
need for more state-provided facilities for health
and education. In South Africa racial and nationalis-
tic thinking among African Christians is stimulated
by acts of the European-controlled government,
which, it is claimed, handicap Africans in their de-
sire and necessity to adjust themselves to the rapidly
changing conditions there which touch every phase
of life. The matters that concern them are moral, so-
cial, political and industrial, including the right to
labor as one may be fitted, the right to the particular
sort of education which one desires and for which
one is able and willing to pay, and the right to con-
trol land and have a voice in legislative measuresVYOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH 16;

touching upon land and those who live upon it. In
East Africa it may be land and labor conditions which
largely account for nationalistic or racial thinking.

Too generally Europeans do not see African
welfare as compatible with a realization of their
own desires. As a result suspicion, distrust, national-
istic or racial thinking and acting, even opposition
to the presence in Africa of some Europeans, are
inevitable even among African Christians. To my
mind this is one of the most serious aspects of the
African situation. Certainly the growth of racial feel-
ing and the undesirable aspects of nationalistic feel-
ing and thinking will not become less until Africans
are convinced that their own welfare and growth in
every respect are a recognized and practised function
of government.

But in spite of this intensity of feeling, it 1s a re-
markable characteristic of the leaders of young
Africa today that they are putting forth a splendid
effort to understand this situation and to improve
it. That effort is characterized by a manifest desire
to be fair. No wholesale condemnation of everything
foreign has yet received any general response. There
have rather been expressions of the mind of the peo-
ple moderately stated and demonstrating a willing-
ness to cooperate. For instance, most Christian Afri-
cans are mindful of the great contribution the mis-
sionary enterprise has made to their land. And
although there are exceptions, most missionaries are

4
;166 THINKING WITH AFRICA

usually singled out as among the true friends of
Africa. Africans see outstanding mistakes in past and
present missionary policy; they likewise observe
what appear to them as unchristian practices on the
part of some missionaries; and African Christians
are becoming worthy critics of such actions. But for
the general missionary undertaking there is pro-
found respect, and genuine gratitude and coopera-
tion.

By the same token the youth of the church in
Africa are not unmindful of the good that has come
to them as a result of outside political and economic
advances. Nor do the developments in the policies
and attitudes of governments and commerce escape
their attention and appreciation. The plain fact is that
almost throughout the section of Africa covered by
the writers of this book, there is still the undoubted
disposition on the part of the people, Christian and
otherwise, to respond to forward steps on the part
of governments. Indeed, one dares to assert that to
the extent that those who govern in Africa give sin-
cere and progressive evidence of their good faith as
regards the present and future of Africans, they will
receive the cooperation of Africans to a correspond-
ing degree. There is abundant evidence of this in the
Transkeian parts of South Africa, in parts of the
west coast, and in the Congo, to say nothing of other
sections of the continent where improved policies are
being inaugurated." at ie eieeueneanmapenmnmannaaeniee

YOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH 167

Yes, Africans are still moderate, will and do coop-
erate, and are appreciative of the good coming to
them from outside. But, in their confusion and effort
to understand, they have a consciousness not only of
their own internal difficulties, due to forces which
come from their own past experiences, but of a vast
body of handicap from without. And surely in this
day it should not be the desire of any organized
eroups to further fasten handicaps upon a struggling
people. At any rate, one believes that this effort of
Africans to understand, and their willingness to coop-
erate, coupled with their sense of moderation, are
human qualities not too often found, and are worthy
therefore of encouragement by those who govern
Africa today. These qualities likewise make their
strong appeal to fellow members of the Universal
Christian Tribe; and we believe the appeal will be
heard.

It must be manifest that it is out of a new Africa
that we of the church of that land speak to you of the
church in the West. To be sure much of the old life
still exists. Witchcraft is still a force with us; ig-
norance and superstition hold high their ugly heads.
Millions yet have to get a glimpse of the face of a
God of Love and be assured that in Jesus Christ
have been manifested the promises a loving Father
has for them. And the winds which carry our mes-
sage across the seas to you to whom so much has
been given, cannot bear down upon you too swiftly

a MTT AS IT168 THINKING WITH AFRICA

with our urgent request that you share with us the
light and love and life of Jesus Christ.

But it is the New Africa which renders our situa~
tion so acute. You of the West are part of your pres-
ent; it has grown out of your past, and you have de-
veloped or are developing a means of controlling
more or less the systems of life you have built up.
ae But we in Africa are in a situation of which we are
| | not so fully a part. Your ideas, your methods, your
a beliefs and desires have steadily engulfed us. We
find ourselves compelled to drive a fiery steed or at
least be in the road where he is driven. We did not
have the steed as a colt; he has come upon us in the
strength and strangeness of his maturity. In order
that we may not be thrown off or trampled under the
feet of this steed which has been set loose among us,
we call upon you to join hands with us in a common
effort to understand and direct the forces he repre-
sents in Western civilization.

§

The youth of the church of Africa have given
good heed to that significant utterance made by Jesus,
“T have come that they may have life, and that
they may have it more abundantly.” And it is
nothing less than the full meaning of that state-
ment that African youth desire. In other words, the
youth of Africa wish, first, that Africa and our fellow
Africans may be won to the ranks of Christ’s follow-
ers; and second, that the present forces of Western

 

 

 

 

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\YOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH 65

life which have been released in Africa may be so
controlled and directed as to make for the happiness,
prosperity and usefulness of African lives as well
as the facility and success of government and trade.

Let us discuss the first aspect, the evangelization
of Africa. The missionary enterprise has behind it a
body of achievement of which it may well be proud.
There have of course been mistakes and failures.
Opportunities to represent Christ more fully have
been permitted to pass unused. Still one is thrilled
and amazed by the history of what has been accom-
plished as a result of the courage, the unconquerable
faith, and the full sacrifice of hundreds of men and
women who have come out to us in Africa from your
Western lands. The influence and results of mis-
sionary endeavor are written large and ineftaceably
in Africa and upon African hearts today.

Yet one makes bold to say that the missionary en-
terprise has the greater part of its task ahead. Either
by foreigners or Africans, preferably by both to-
gether, there are millions of Africans still to be won
to the great Tribe of God. I write of practical needs.
There are literally millions of Africans whose minds
have still to be freed of the fear of evil spirits and
given some knowledge of a Christ concerned with
every phase of their life. It is significant that our
people are receptive, that they give little or no seri-
ous resistance to missionary efforts provided such
efforts are supported by consistent Christian living.
Every one of these millions is eligible to member-

 

|
|
1Se eT San

Eee

 

170 THINKING WITH AFRICA

ship in the body of those who name Christ as Lord.
Young Christian Africans want them won to Christ.
They realize that there can be little progress so long
as the vast bulk of our people have about their necks
the millstone of heathenism with all of its religious
and social implications. One believes that when the
Christian forces of the West and of Africa are as
ready to do their work as the political and economic
forces are to do theirs, they will find in young Chris-
tian Africa a response, a willingness to cooperate,
and a readiness for sacrifice which will truly reveal
the Lord’s stamp upon them.

But let us make no mistake about it. It is going to
cost something to Christianize the new and future
Africa. That price will be one which must be paid
first in responding afresh to the insistent call of the
Good Shepherd for his sheep—for al his sheep. The
response to this call will take non-Christian Africa
to the loving heart of God. It will become a new
life that Africans will live then, and that life is what
young Christian Africans want.

The youth of the church of Africa believe that
this quickened zeal for the cause of Christ must also
help obtain for them their second desire, namely,
that the forces of Western life which have been re-
leased in Africa may be so led and directed by the
spirit of Christ as to make for the increased happi-
ness, prosperity, and usefulness of the African peo-
ple. This demand that the social order be Christian-YOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH 171

ized is no new thing to you. It has become such a
real part of your thinking and acting that no gather-
ing of Christian young people or students is ever
held where it is not in one respect or another the
main theme. Indeed, in your missionary zeal you are
beginning to see the impossibility of sending out
missionaries to us unsupported by a real and appre-
ciable body of Christians living in your home
countries.

There is another thing you have discovered, and
this is that there is no longer any such place as “far
away.” The world has become a neighborhood, and
you are beginning to see that it must by the same
token become a brotherhood. And there can be no
world brotherhood until in every land those condi-
tions necessary to brotherhood obtain. Christian
Africans desire to oppose every idea, institution, or
custom which tends to perpetuate the circumstances
which they think should be changed. What are some
of these? _

One of the first things the gospel of Christ does
for a man is to place upon him the stamp of indi-
viduality. He becomes a new person. And this new
person is the very essence of his being. One of the
saddest things this writer has seen in Africa has
been that of African manhood—Christian manhood
and womanhood—cut to the very heart because of
a violation of personality. Too many Europeans have
such an exalted conception of their own prestige that172 THINKING WITH AFRICA

the humanity of Africans is ignored. By law and by
foreign custom the African is often made a cheap
man. A stigma is placed upon him. He is too often
regarded as the material possessions of the country
are regarded, and as the climate is regarded when
it is good, as a means towards the happiness of the
European. He is too seldom regarded as an end
in himself, as a being possessing possibly unique gifts
and qualities, and as a potential contributor to the
social and spiritual welfare of the world.

Now Christian Africans want to see this changed.
They protest against the effort to nullify their per-
sonality. Manifestly their efforts may be weak and
ineffectual. Sometimes their very politeness is re-
garded as acquiescence in the attitudes against which
they protest; but it is a serious mistake so to con-
sider it. The African readily admits those differences
brought about by heritage or background. He like-
wise has no hesitancy in affirming that in many re-
spects he has not developed as has the European.
But as regards that indescribable something which
enters into the making of a man, and which becomes
greatly enhanced as a result of contact with the
spirit and personality of Christ, the African contends
for his essential humanity, his indisputable parity.

The first thing, then, that young Christian Africa
wants is the removal of this stigma which runs
through almost every phase of the new life that has
come from without. This change in attitude perhapsYOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH 173

more than any other single force will have the
effect of challenging millions of Africans to join the
forces of the Christian church and all that that
implies.

In the second place, Christian Africans desire that
the whole program of education be set forward, so
that as rapidly and thoroughly as possible the masses
of Africans may be lifted out of realms of intellec-
tual darkness. There is a growing awareness of the
fact that such education may with complete safety be
based on what we believe to be the Christian ideal in
life, and that that ideal must consider health, the
earning of a living, and the providing of that lead-
ership whereby the genius of a people may be drawn
out and expressed.

Young Christian Africa also desires and will never
be satisfied until it sees our people here in a fair way
of earning a decent livelihood. This certainly opens
up the question of the right to and occupation of
land. It likewise questions any measure, legislative,
social or otherwise, the object of which is to restrict
Africans in the pursuance of any work they may be
capable of doing. Christian Africans cannot place
any other interpretation upon Jesus’ doctrine of the
abundant life.

A final thing that Christian Africans want is a rea-
sonable freedom to achieve their belief in them-
selves and their desires for fellow Africans. They
realize their own temporary limitations in the light174 THINKING WITH AFRICA

of the new conditions, but they do not for one mo-
ment admit or recognize any inability, provided they
have proper guidance, to examine and adjust them-
selves to these new conditions. Manifestly this will
take a long time, but for this very reason Africans
maintain that to. the extent that individuals among
them demonstrate their capacity for responsibilities
they should also assume responsibilities.

To summarize, therefore, is but again to state that
the Christian youth of Africa want for the whole
African population a place in the great tribe of
Christ’s followers, and a social order of which they
can truly believe that it is of God. For this they are
determined to work in the light of the knowledge
that God gives them.

§

How can the youth of the church of the West
cooperate with the youth of the church of Africa?
Throughout this chapter the idea of cooperation has
been both stressed and implied. Our repeated refer-
ence to the missionary enterprise shows how strongly
we believe in it. We have also tried to show that
the youth of the church in Africa share a cooperative
spirit and attitude toward whatever is good in the
outside forces which have entered the continent. We
come now to a consideration of how the youth of the
church of the West may cooperate with us in Africa.
This is the grandest portion of our theme, for is itYOUTHS: CAALLENGE TO YOUTH 295

not the very life and spirit of the missionary under-
taking?

At first thought it might appear that the points
or opportunities for cooperation are very limited,
but such is by no means the case. 7

In his foreword to The Foreign Student in Amer-
ica, Dr. Robert E. Speer writes as follows:

“American life and the Christian church have
never met a more severe and searching test than they
are meeting today in the presence of the foreign stu-
dents in our schools. These young men and women
from many lands are testing the honesty of political
and social axioms which have constituted our Ameri-
can tradition. They are proving the reality of our
profession of Christian brotherhood and equality.
Almost all of them came here in full confidence and
hope; many of them are going back disillusioned,
some bitter, some sorrowful. Many of them received
their first shock at the port of entry as they came in.
Some of them went on and met with the very evils
which they had come to America to transcend. Some
found that the Christianity which they had acquired
from American missionaries was not confirmed by
the Christianity which they met in the land which
had sent the missionaries forth.”

It is hardly necessary to point out that all Dr.
Speer has said of foreign students in general is true
particularly of African students. They may not be
present in Western countries in large numbers, but

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:176 THINKING WITH AFRICA

many of those who have managed to come to you are
young men who have the ability to bring back to their
native land the very best that Europe and America
have to offer. It is therefore necessary for you to see
that by a kindly, friendly reception, some associates
of character, and the opportunity to see and to share
in some of your more worthy activities, the African
student may return with his essential religion
strengthened, his sense of fellowship real, and his
mind unembittered by a memory of experiences
which may not only disillusion him but may make
him question the reality of the Christian faith.

In the second place it is incumbent upon the Chris-
tian youth of the West to know something about
Africa and her peoples. It is all the more necessary
in view of the often exaggerated works of evil prop-
aganda which are being made available on so many
sides.

One knows of no opportunities which afford bet-
ter means of cooperating with Africans than those
offered to people who in one capacity or another go
out to that continent, or being born out there enter
sympathetically into the life of the African people.
The story of the relationships of outside govern-
ments and their representatives may not always be
creditable to them, but it is a fact capable of verifica-
tion on every hand that among many government
officers as well as business men there has been exer-
cised in their contact with Africans an influence bothYOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH 177

official and otherwise which has revealed some of
the finest qualities in Western life. To know, for
instance, that a foreigner in Africa has been a mem-
ber of the Student Christian Association in any part
of the world is almost at once to know that in such
a person one will find a response to the needs and
aspirations of Africans. The hope therefore is that
large numbers of the men who are daily turning their
faces towards Africa, particularly for business and
governmental purposes, may be men in whose minds
there has taken root some conception of Africans
sharing increasingly in the unfolding of what must
be God’s plans and purposes for that continent.

I have by design left until last the consideration
of the missionary enterprise and the new opportunity
for cooperation between Africans and Western Chris-
tian youth, in order that it may have the full weight
of all that has gone before in these pages. Our hopes
for Africa, our prayers for her growth under God,
and our belief in the possibilities of her sons even-
tually working out their own problem—all of these
are based on the conviction that the whole missionary
enterprise must go forward.

It is no narrow conception of missions that we
have in mind, nor is it a one-sided contribution that
is desired. What we want is nothing less than a coop-
erative effort to bring to bear upon Africa’s needs
the full power of God’s will for the world today.
Manifestly, that touches every phase of life and de-

co: atsih178 THINKING WITH AFRICA

mands much from Africans as well as from for-
elgners.

To rest our case with confidence in the final out-
come we must try here to answer the following
questions: (1) Is missionary work still required in
Africa? (2) What must be the content of this work?
(3) What must be the quality of missionaries?

Is missionary work still required in Africa? The
answer on the part of every African who has seri-
ously thought this question through is without doubt
in the affirmative. To be sure, all are not blind to the
mistakes and sometimes the failures of individual
missionaries; nor is every large policy of mission
societies necessarily so ordered and carried through
as to make for the best results. But the observation
of fair-minded Africans takes them to the very heart
of the witness which missionaries have borne, and
that is Christ himself. Those people who argue
against missions and say that the African should be
let alone and permitted to work out in his own time
his own new religion and life, forget that in no other
respect will Africans be let alone. The fact of out-
side influence upon almost every phase of African
life cannot be denied, nor are there any signs that
this influence will become less in the future; the evi-
dence is just the opposite. Therefore we Africans to-
day require all of the spiritual, moral, and social
strengthening possible for us to obtain. And we know
from what we see in Africa that the power of God,YOUTH?’S CHALLENGE FO YOUTH © 139

even as that power has been expressed through the

poor human channel, is a power unto our full and
free salvation. Without any hesitancy we register our
fullest support of the missionary undertaking, and
we express our great desire that this enterprise be
carried forward in the spirit and with the results
which we believe God desires of it.

What is to be the content of future missionary
activity? In trying to answer this very question Mr.
J. H. Oldham affirms: “Nothing is adequate to the
situation which the Christian church has to face in
Africa except a new birth. There must be an out-
burst of new forces comparable to the breaking forth
of fresh life in the church more than a century ago,
which led to the birth of the missionary societies
which we represent.”? What is needed is not some-
thing utterly different from the past, for, as Mr.
Oldham points out, “much that the new future will
hold has its beginnings and sproutings in the past.”
Let us make ourselves perfectly clear. African stu-
dents share fully the belief that the foundation of
missionary endeavor must be that of evangelization,
even as understood by missionaries of a past genera-
tion; that is to say, evangelization in the sense of
making known to men the word of Christ and thereby
making for the change in life which may follow.
But let us here quote Oldham’s fine statement, made
at the Christian Mission in Africa conference held at
Le Zoute, Belgium, in 1926.

een oo,180 THINKING WITH AFRICA

“It is not enough for the fulfillment of the mis-
sionary task that the missionary representatives of
the church should be im Africa, scattered throughout
the continent. It is possible to be in Africa in the
physical sense, to stand on African soil, and yet to
be outside the real life of the continent. Our atten-
tion has been directed in this conference to the pow-
erful new forces that are reshaping the life of the
African peoples. We are not discharging missionary
obligation if, while present physically in Africa, we
ignore these new forces and remain apart from them.
They are a vital part of the world in which our Chris-
tian witness has to be borne. To be truly missionary
we must be in among them, in living relations with
them, bringing to bear on them the living influence
of the Christian revelation. Not to rest content with
being in Africa and preaching on African soil but to
get as near as we can to the throbbing heart and cen-
ter of the movement of African life, is the further
call that comes to us as our understanding of the
missionary task expands and deepens.”

§

There is just one other consideration: who is sufhi-
cient for all of these things? This is addressed di-
rectly to you of the church of the West and leads
us to discuss the last division of this chapter. What
should be some of the qualities of the future mis-
sionary? “By their fruits ye shall know them.” TheYOU TH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH  -18:

point that I have tried to make clear in discussing the
content of future missionary activity in Africa is that
it is not an altogether new program that is required.
It is rather a program with the same underlying
basis of evangelization, the same spiritual dynamic,
which have characterized the missionary enterprise
from the days of St. Paul right down through the
ranks of those who have been used of God in making
his love known to men. What has been stressed, how-
ever, is the need for bringing this unique strength
of missionary work to bear upon every phase of the
new and complicated conditions which obtain wher-
ever such work is being carried on in Africa.

Now this same idea applies in regard to the quali-
ties of the future missionary. Expressed in simple
non-theological terms, one believes that the mission-
aries of today and tomorrow, like unto those of old,
must have in their life those qualities which place the
stamp of Christ upon them. They must indeed bear
witness to Christ in a very real way. But there is a
quality of witness-bearing which young Africans ex-
pect in present and future missionaries: that is the
witness of works, of fruit, and not only of words.
That old saying, “What you do speaks so loud I can-
not hear what you say,” is for many Africans the test
due to be applied to the sincerity of missionary ac-
tivity, and is one by which the whole missionary
enterprise is sometimes judged. By this it 1s not
meant that these qualities have been hitherto absent,

linia satan lia it182 THINKING WITH AFRICA

nor does one wish to underrate the past ministry of
works, for it has been of real and large content. What
one is trying to say is that the future missionary
must possess a spiritual foundation, must be a wit-
ness bearer, of such nature and quality that in every
phase of his relationship with Africans the fact of
Christ in his life will be evidenced.

It is not necessary to stress here another quality
required of the missionary, namely, that of prepara-
tion. While one does not go so far as to say that only
college or university trained people should go out
as missionaries, one may believe that exception to the
rule should be made only in recognition of other
outstanding personal gifts.

The present writer was one day discussing with a
very able fellow-African the racial question as it
bears upon missionary activity. Our conversation had
drifted to a discussion of the growth of Islam in
South Africa when my friend stopped somewhat sud-
denly and made the following significant observa-
tion. Said he: “If Mohammedanism were today as
well organized in this country as Christianity, and if
there were no political barriers placed in its way, it
would, I fear, be in a fair way of drawing hun-
dreds of thousands if not millions of Africans into
its fold.”? When I asked him why he thought so he
replied, “Because, I am told, in Mohammedanism
there is no color bar, no racial distinction.” This is a
strong and serious argument. It refers to a matterYOUTH’S CHALLENGE TO YOUTH 183

upon which well-nigh all Africans, Christians as well
as non-Christians, are thinking and upon which they
feel with keenness. The indictment which can be
more or less truthfully brought today, that in their
relationships with Africans all missionaries are not
free from manifestations of a sense of racial su-
periority contrary to what we Africans believe to be
the Christian ethic, is one of a most serious nature,
and one which has often been felt by African Chris-
tians to be a mighty barrier in the way of the realiza-
tion of the will of God in Africa.

One thinks of no more significant challenge to the
Christian youth of the West than that of living out
in their relationships the teachings and practices of
Christ. And in reference to racial relationships the
glorious fact is that such a life can be lived. This
writer can testify to numerous instances in South
Africa where, in spite of conditions which make the
Christian teaching on the attitude of race toward race
difficult to achieve, that teaching is nevertheless lived
out by men and women to whom truth and light and
God are more than inhibitory restrictions decreed
by custom or prejudice. And to this number of peo-
ple who are true to Christ in this respect there is due
much of the credit for the still existing possibility of
preaching an increasingly convincing and acceptable
gospel to Africans. As regards the contact of race
with race, the African Christian believes that a man
may either possess Christ, or possess ideas about184. THINKING WITH AFRICA

racial relations tinged with prejudice contrary to
Christ’s spirit; he may possess one of these attitudes
or the other; he cannot possess both.

There is one other quality necessary to the youth
of the church in the West as they look forward to
the privilege of being a co-worker with God in his
creative plans and purposes. We are all expected to
have for ourselves a theory of the universe. As ap-
plied to Africa and Africans such a theory assumes
an understanding of what must be the will of God
for so great a land and so large a population. And if
God is righteousness, justice, beauty, love, truth,
then he must will all of these for Africans. When,
therefore, you of the West come out to us, you owe
it to God as well as to yourselves to come out shar-
ing this will of the Father, and seeing the possibili-
ties of its realization in Africa and Africans.

This is the message that we of the church in
Africa send to you of the church in the West. This
Africa that we have been talking about is assuredly
in the hand of God, even as we all are in his hand.
And it is with the conviction that God will work his
will among us as well as among you that we join
with you to the end that his will may be realized
everywhere.

Max YERGAN

Alice, Cape ProvinceALDERMAN LIBRARY

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