chidester - preface chapter 6

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- WALTER CAPPS

PREFACE

All kinds of reasoning consist inno thing but a comparison.-OAVIDHUME

All higher knowledge i s acquired by compari son , and rest s

on comparison.- F. MAx MULLER

The study of religion cannot pretend to find its way until it

can rel ate to it s past innarrative form.

There is a complex relat ionship between the meaning and na-

ture of re ligion as a subjec t of academic s tudy and the real it y

of people and cultures who were conquered and colonized

during the same period.- CHARLES LONG

If there is one story-l ine that runs through the various figures

and stratagems briefly passed in review, i t is that this has been

by no means an innocent endeavour.

- JONATHAN Z. SMITH

My EPIGRAPHS hint at a new kind of history for the academic

study of religion. By invoking David Hume and Friedrich Max

Muller, I recall individuals who have been identified in previous

histories as founders of the study of religion. The philosopher

David Hume held that comparison was a basic feature ofhuman

thought. When applied to religion, comparison could support a

rational explanation ofits origin and persistence as a human phe-

nomenon. Rationality, in Hume's sense, required a conceptual re-

duction of the diversity of religion to two interrelated causes, ig-

norance and fear of the unknown. According to J . Samuel Preu I

who placed David Hume at the center ofhis history, Explaining

Religion: Criticism and Theory from Bodin to Freud, Hume's



xiiPREFACE xiiiREFACE

rational explanation marked a crucial turning point in the historyofthe study ofreligion. Although anticipated byprevious natural-

~Sticexplanations of religion, Hume's rationalism was developedinto a SCIenceby subsequent thinkers, especially by Auguste

Comte, Edward B. Tylor, Emile Durkheim, and Sigmund Freud.

B! the twentieth century, therefore, the academic study of reli-g.IOncould find its roots in the rationalism, naturalism, and skep-ucism of the European Enlightenmem.t

In contrast, the linguist Friedrich Max Miil ler who was cel-

ebrated by Eric Sharpe in his Comparative Reli~on: A History

as the founder of comparative religion, drew more directly on the

~eso~ces of early-nineteenth-century German romanticism andId:.ahsm in developing his "science of religion." As a result,Miiller showed a greater interest in the poetic flights, emotional

depths, and mor~ ~peratives of religion. Nevertheless, he alsoinsisted that specialized knowledge about religion depended upon

c~m~;rison. Borrowing from Goethe, Muller applied the apho-

nsm H~W~lO kno~s one, knows none" to the study ofreligion inorder to ~SlSt that ItSfoundation and extensions were thoroughly

c~mparatIve. Kno~ledge about religion only began and developed

~th th~ e~l?rat1on oft"~"Or more religions. Through the prac-tlC~ ofdisciplined companson, Muller promised that a higher sci-entific knowledg- of religion could be attained. Inspite of his

romannc rrnp~lses, t~~refore, Max MUller was also the progenitorof a comparatIve religion attuned to an Enlightenment ideal ofreason.2

.Is the Er:ughtenment, therefore, the historical heritage of Reli-~ous ~tudies? The question is important. Walter Capps proposedt r at t . e s:Udy of religion must find ways to relate to its past innarrat1v~ ~r~ ~ It IS to develop any self-understandin as an

aca~mIc ~SCIp1ine.Religious Studies needs a shared pers;ectiveon ose errorts that have been made in the past t fl dm k f " 0 re ect on ana e sense out 0 relIgIon as a human product a h. .

or a h bl ' uman projectuman pro em. Unavoidably; any disci 1 " hi 'academic study of religion will be inv t dPmthar

yhstoryof the

di d en e ra er t an merelyhscovere . Its narrative seq.u~nces inevitably will be deVised int e present to serve present mtellectual . '. .Neverthele s, a Ca s s or.mStltutlOnal mterests.tory of th . d ?P uggested, the project of r ecovering a his-

e aca ernie study of relizi . f '. .to the ident.ity and future of the fi.c~o~ ~~u~.C~tlcal ~mportancethe academic tudy of relicrio . Y past ISprologue,fr 04 n requires a past th twillarne ofreference for charting a futur A 1a serve as a

of an international, intercultural aIlde.. t

Swdie~ol~to the future

, iner SClPmary study of

religion, the invention of a new his tory of comparative reli .onshould be a priority for 'storic researc and critica re . n.'

As noted, recent histories have been provided. They have iden-tified founders, successors, and intellectual heroes who pioneeredthe general trends of thought and movements of ideas that haveled to the modern study of religion. But what kind of historiesare these? What kind of a narrative leaves out all the dramatic

tension, human conflict, orhuman comedy that makes for a goodstory? Obviously, these are "internal" histories. They might rec-ognize that the very category of religion, in its modern sense,emerged out of a specific historical situation, the European strug-gle with religious pluralism that was intensi fied by increasedexposure to an expanding range ofhuman evidence from the "ex-

otic" or "primitive" societies encompassed under colonial rule.However , in spite of this recognit ion, ~andard histories of the

study of religion have been almost exclu~iveJ.ypreocc~pied withthe questions

tissues, or modes of analYSISthat were !Otema) to

the development of a set of European academic discipline&. As aresult, the real story remains untold. As Charles Long observed,

the history of the study of religion is the dramatic sto of the

com lex relationship etween uropean Enlightenment conc sabout t e nature of reli 'on an t' . erienced

by eople and cultures all over t world who were con uered

and co onize y uropeans."The discipline of comparative religion emerged, therefore, not

only out of the Enl ightenment her itage but also out of a violenthis tory of colonial conquest and domination. Accordingly, thehisto of comparative religion is a story not onl about knowl-

edge but also about power. T re .di~ci~inary hist0I?' of the ~tudyof religion is also a history of discipline, a dramatic narrative of

the discourses and practices of comparison that shaped subjectiv-

ities on colonized peripheries and at European centers. To borrowa phrase from Jonathan Z. Smith, the discipline of comparativereligion was by no means an innocent endeavor," Whether prac-

t iced on the colonized per iphery or at the colonizing center, thestudy of religion was entangled in the power relations offrontierconfl ict mili tary conquest and resistance, and imperial expan-

sion. TWs book tel ls that story; thereby retel ling the story of the

academic study of religion from the vantage point of one colo-nized periphery; southern Africa. On southern African frontiers,

as in other colonized regions all over the globe, a comparat ive

religion was born.From a southern African perspect ive, previous his torie of the



xiv PREFACEPREFACE xv

study of religion might be useful, but they are ultimately inade-

quate as representat ions of the actual historical conditio~s under

which comparative religion emerged. In one respect, their Euro-

centric bias has inhibited any considera tion of the importance of

a peripheral region such as southern Afr ica in the development of

theory and method in the study of religion. Although it was on

the front lines of the human encounter out of which the modem

categories of religion and religions originated, southern Afr ica,l ike other per ipheral regions, has been relegated to a subordinate

status that is dependent upon the productions of European in-

tel lectual centers. Standard disciplinary histor ies create the im-

press ion that a place like southern Afr ica was an "undeveloped"

region from which raw religious materials could be extracted, ex-

ported, and eventually transformed into intellectual manufac-

tured goods in the metropolitan capitals of theory production in

Europe. Certainly, such a process occurred. However, relat ions be-

tween center and periphery in the his tory of comparative rel igion

were much more complex and revealing than this model of raw

materials and theory manufacture might suggest. A colonized

periphery, such as southern Africa, was also an arena of theory

production, with the conquering and colonizing center itselfcolonized by reports about rel igion from missionanes , t ravelers ,

colonial administrators, and others on the per iphery.

Since conventional his tor ies of comparative religion have con-

centrated upon what their authors perceived as enduring ques-

tions of category formation, interpretation, and explanat ion, they

have tended to foreclose the exploration of issues that are re-

garded as no longer relevant in the modern academic study of reli-

gion. As a result , these histories run the risk of ignoring aspects

of the story of compara tive religion tha t might be of greatest his-

t~r ical interest . In southern Afr ica, for example, comparat ive rel i-

gion was practiced, not by intellectuals aloof from the world but

by. h~man beings en?aged in religious conflicts on the gro~d.

Principles of companson were hammered out on frontier battle-

fi.elds. Inte~ret.ive and explanat~ry strategies of comparative reli-

~~n were ~evltably entangled m the social, economic, and po-

litical conflicts of colonial situations. On the southern African

p~riphery, a frontier comparative religion emerged that was cru-

cial t? the d~velopment of the academic study of religion. There-

~ore, if the hlstory. com. ara~ve religion is trul to be a history,

l~must be a narr~t ca ituated discourses and rae-

nces of companson t is sensitive to their Tactical im li-

• I. • • . • • •• • •• • .. •

• • • • • . . • I. .. . It •.•I • • •• l-' • • •

• • • . . • . - • • I • • I III I:'

- l-' I! ·. • • • • • • • • • • -. . .. • . .. . • I .'.

.. :.

. •I

•

·. • • •

...'•I

• •. . .. . . • I. .I I-II . :. . . . . • .. • • • . . .

I I • • , . . • • .

• .. · • • · .. II •• .., • • • .. • • .• •• •

, • ... :. . . . :. I • • • •..! • •

,.' ,, . . • • · . I. . .. I•I

ture.?" In IS ormu ation, Bhabha implicitly mvo~es the fron-

~the cutting edge, the in-between sp~ce. ~once, ~owe~er,

the mixture of metaphor. Is the frontier a I cutting edge ? Is. I t a

line to be advanced or a border to be crossed? Or is the frontier a

spatial zone to be entered, an "in-between space" of une~ect.edcontacts , exchanges , and interchanges? That inher~nt a]]]blgJ))~

in the governing metaphor of this b~ok-the frontier=-recurs m

the specific case studies that Ixan:me.When I started this project, Idid not expect to find what I

found. As everyone knows, European observers entered sO_ll :hern

Africa and declared that the indigenous people had no religion, I

wanted to investigate that denial as a point .0 £ dep.a~tur~ for a lo-

calized contextualized history of comparative religion ill south-

Afri I did not know however, what it took for Europeansern ca. , lizi th Afto recognize the existence of indigenous :e . g lon~ msou ,~rn -

rica. It required systems of colonial adffilllist~atlO~-the savage

" f the commando system the magisterial system, thesystems 0 U~ , • h f .

location system, and the reserve system-to d.Iscover t at A n-cans had a religious system. Furthermore, I did not know that

. lizi in the nine teenth century provided termscomparative re gion bfor distinguishing among local people-the Xhosa w~reAra s,

the Zulu were Jews, and the Sotho-Tswana .were ancient Egyp-

. . that both transposed the Middle East onto thetrans-e-m ways . . d h . d'southern African landscape and conceptu~ly displace t e ill ig-

1 of southern Africa to the Middle East . In these con-enous peop e . . . £ dtainments and displacements, a comparative religion was orge



on frontiers. Although I suspected that tr I " .traders, settlers, and colonial agents woul~v;r~r~d mls~~onanesf

a history of comparative religion I did not f u l t e evi .ence hO

contrib ti f i di ' Y appreciate t e1 ~ons 0 in genous comparativists. Acting as more than

mere y ormants or ass istants Afr ican comparaf 1' "also advanced .' lye re igiorusts. th ~omparisons in frontier situations. Certainly; thereIS more at I did n ot expect to find. How could I h . '.the importance to the hi t f . ave anticipated

fr 1 d " IS ory 0 comparative religion of a forgeram Po an ,a pissmg ceremony; a shipwrecked ancho '1 fstones, a cattle killing, a grou of . . . r, a pl e a

wooden crocodile, a goat, a w:gon,p~~s:-:~~~errusslOn station, a 7t~ reverberating through the interplay of com rc~rren7tof l~a n a more are recounted in thi hi panson. All these

" . s IStory of frontie .religion III outhem Africa. I comparatlVe

Charles Long. NguZanengxald! NguZanengxaK' elibizwa yim-

bongi.

Bringer of Problems! Bringer ofProblems he is called by the Singer

of Praises.

XVllVI PREFACE PREFACE

T I QoMx > < •

have not exactly been in a frontier situation, Ihave encounteredthe kinds of conflict and cooperation that characterize an openfrontier zone. As a result, this has been an exciting, challengingplace to work. In1991it became a better place with the foundingof the Institute for Comparative Religion in Southern Africa.

ICRSA was launched with an inaugural lecture delivered by Profes-sor Ninian Smart. During 1993 ICRSA hosted a six-week visit byProfessor Charles Long. Inmany respects, these two friends oftheinst itute represent its dual focus. With Ninian Smart's inspira-tion, we have embarked on constructive work in the fields ofcom-parative religion and religion education in southern Africa. While

Smart encourages us to imagine that anything is possible, CharlesLong reminds us that everything is much more problematic thanwe imagined. During a crucial point in writing this book, myex-tended conversations with Long helped clarify the questions Iwas

addressing. Long observed that he does not solve problems-hemakes problems. The problems he created for me made this abetter book. Indedicating this book to Ninian Smart and CharlesLong, a traditional Xhosa praise poet might put it something

like this:

( a p e o f G o o d H o p e

Southern Africa

Ninian Smart. Seknkokuka=Stnartt Uyinkosi yeenkosi eyazi

tikonke itsbo irnbongi.

Smart Knows! He is the Supreme Chief among those who Know

says the Poet.

Ov~r the past twelve years, I have found m self " .Africa and working at the University feY living ill South

o ape Town. Although I

Growing out of a long-term ICRSA research project, this book

has benefi ted from the aid and support provided by a team of ta l-

ented research assis tants. Fi rst and foremost, in fr iendship andgratitude, I acknowledge my debt to Senior Researcher Darrel

Wratten. Over the course offive years,l have become increasinglydependent upon his research and editor ial skil ls. I can honestly

say that this book would not exist if it were not for our collab-

oration. As we collected materia l for what I thought would be achapter in a book, he found so much rich, excit ing evidence for ahistory of comparative rel igion that the chapter turned into this

book. Inthis project, therefore, Darrel Wratten has been as much

a coauthor as a research assistant.



XVlll

Researchers working on this project have also included Ann-

Marie Leatt, Sibusiso Masondo, Michael Mbokazi, Robert Petty,

Sa'diyya Shaikh, and Judy Tobler. Although they ~ave been work-ing out ofa different wing of ICRSA, I would also like t~ acknowl-edge the assistance of Nokuzola Mndende, A. Rashied Om.ar,Isabel Apawo Phiri, and Janet Stonier. They have all made the m-

stitute a reality. . .Among the many debts I have incurred in producmg this book,

I acknowledge the following: Gene Klaaren provided a carefulreading and proveda congenial conversation partner; Karel Schoe-

man and JackieLaos graciously opened the resources of the So.uthAfrican Library; Susan Sayercreated a map; Cathie Brettschnelde~guided the manuscript into and out of the press ; Ivan Strenski

almost convinced me that the crimes I have recounted in thisbook are not ours; Edward Linenthal maintained a reality checkon the entire proceedings; Deborah Sills provided an opportunityto tes t some of these crazy ideas in front of an American audi-ence; and James McNamara supported this project by ensuring

that academic standards were maintained. There are some debts,however, about which I cannot speak. How could I tell those sto-

ries? Wehave a "New South Africa." The reality of that changing,transforming society must speak for itself.

Now,a word for our sponsors. AsJames Frazer observed in1904in a letter to his donor, Edmund Gosse ofthe Royal Literary Fund,"few people care to give their money for such a very unpracticalsubject as comparative religion, which puts nothing inanybody'spocket and only makes people uncomfortable by unsettling their

beliefs,"? Remarkably, however, the Centre for Science Develop-

ment and the University Research Committee of the Universityof Cape Town have generously supported this unpractical projecton comparative religion. I extend my thanks, but I also acknowl-

edge that the opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at inthis book are those of the author and are not necessarily to be

attributed to the Centre for Science Development or the Univer-sity ofCape ~own. Of course, I also absolve all donors, assistants,colleagues, friends, and family of any responsibility for whatever

un ettling effects this book might produce. However since Ithink that unsettling bel iefs can have practical benefi ts I am

willing to assume that responsibility. Finally,I pay tribute'to theBoard ofDirectors for existing, and to my wife Careen for shar-ing a life together. ' ,

PREFACE

SAVAGE SYSTEMS

Colonialism and Comparative Religion

in Southern Africa



218 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

history of any tribe could be discove red by refe rring to its sacred

animal emblems. Sacred animals, therefore, provided evidence for

reconstructing the organic uni ty ofAfrican t ribes insouthern Ai ·

r ica. As Robert s suggested, each sacred animal represented a par-

ticular tribal specification of the generic Bantu religion. "The

Bagananoa, like othe r Bantu tribes," he repor ted, "r ega rd them-

selves asa dis tinct species of the genus Bantu, and the conception

of a Specific or Tribal Spirit or Soul, uniting all members of the

tribe is strongly developed+= On the closed f rontie r of the ear ly

twentieth centu ry, the refore, a s Roberts's work indicated, com-parative religion in southern Africa assumed a dual mandate: it

could reconstruc t "tribal" re ligions on the premise tha t each had

its own "Specific or Tribal Spirit or Soul," but it could also ab-

str ac t the outlines of a gene ric Bantu religion that supposedly en -

compassed all Afr icans l iv ing in southern Africa.

6

BEYOND THE FRONTIER

IN SOUTHERN AFRICA, comparative religion was conducted on

front ierbat tlefields . Comparisons were not merely in tellectual

exercises. T hey were entangled in the European conquest and

subjugation of Afr icans. Ini ti al ly , European observers denied the

existenceof any indigenous Af rican religion. The enemy had no

rel ig ion.Under colonial control, however , Afr icans were recog-

nizedas having a re ligion tha t could be inventoried and analyzed.

In the Cape, the Hottentots ga ined, lost, and regained that recog-

nitionwith the f luc tuations of an advancing colonial border . On

otherfront iers , European recogni tion of an indigenous Afr ican re-

U~on l ikewise depended upon colonial domination. The r u : n ex-ation of Zulus in Nata l in 1843, the destruction of Xhosa inde-

pendencefollOWing the Cattle-Kill ing in 1857, and the.co~quest

of t he last independent polities on the nor the rn frontier inthe

1890sall produced new discoveries of rel ig ion. S ince the advance

ofcolOnial control was uneven, so was European acknowledg-

mentofthe exis tence of indigenous Afr ican rel ig ions . By the t~rn

of t~e century, however, all Africans were credited ~o t only wl~h

havmg indigenous religious systems but with sharing a gen~nc

B a n t u rel ig ion that supposedly defined the bel iefs . and ~r. act1~es

ofall Africans in southe rn Africa . Having lost then political ill-

dependence, Afr icans acquired thi s smal l compensat ion: they hada religion.

On the closed frontier of the twentieth century, European corn-

?arativists were able to fix Africans in place, and to freeze them

~ tim e, by reconstructing the contours of their traditional r.e-Ug lif . i l l ' d M n" illIOU 1e. In providing an inventory of "UnelV s~ a

SOuthernAfrica for a scienti fic handbook pubUshed ill 1905, W .

l-iarnmond Tooke who was se rving as assistant under secretary

for the Departme~t of Agriculture of the Cape Colony, fixed and



22 0 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

froze the Bantu in a timeless past. Tooke explained that he in -

tended to descr ibe Afr icans only 1/ as they were before they were

influenced in their character and habits by intercourse with the

white man." Religion played an important role in that redescrip-

tion. Hottentots and Bushmen worshiped nature, whether astral

or animal, while the Bantu worshiped their ancestors. Terms for

a god, a chief spirit, or an ancestral progenitor appeared in Bantu

vocabularies, but their meanings were uncertain. Ina systematic,

purely factual manner, Tooke described the traditional beliefs,

d isposi tions, and customs of the "uncivi lised" as they supposed ly

had lived in a distant, precolonial past. As Tooke advised, "To

describe them as they now are-in Reserves Locations or Com-,pounds-is fo re ign to the wri ter 's presen t purpose." Neverthe less,

in all his descriptions of the Bantu, Tooke employed the present

tense . "Thieving is with them a laudable achievement ," he sta ted,

for example, "and lying an elegant accomplishment," As Johan-

nes Fabian has argued, the rhetoric of the ethnographic present

has generally operated in anthropological discourse as an impli-

cit strategy for denying the coeval temporality of the Other. On

the closed frontier in southern Africa, however, the ethnographic

presen t was a discursive strategy that a lso dupl icated the reserves,

locations, and compounds in the systematic containment of A f r i -

~ans. Confined in space, frozen in time, Africans were enclosedillthe present tense of a new kind of comparative religion.'

South Africa's preeminent historian of the closed frontier was

~h e ~anadian emigrant , George McCall Theal. Avoiding the min-

isterial career that his father had intended for him, Theal came

to t~e ~ape and established himself as a diligent archivist. His

publications were prodigious. Often characterized as a "settler

his~orian ll because he adopted a colonial perspect ive on everyh is-

toncal conflict in the region, Theal also tried to produce an au-

thor~tative historical ethnography of precolonial southern Africa.

In his Ethnography and Condi tion of South A/rica before A.D.

1?05, Theal inventoried the "native races" of the region, with spe-

cial attention to religious beliefs and practices , as they suppos -

ed ly had existed before European contac t. Theal 's work embo(~ed

both the containments and the contradictions of comparatIve

religion on the closed frontier. On the one hand, all the indige'

nous people of the region-the Bushmen, the Hottentots, and the

Ba~tu-~~uld be contained within the ethnographic terms ol

~h~lIrehglOuS systems. In other words, their human character-

istics could be defined and del imited by their religions . On the

BEYOND THE FRO TIER 22.1

otherhand, however, Theal affirmed the existence ofAfrican reli-

gionsby using the same evidence with which they had previously

beendenied. For most of the nineteenth century European f ind-

ings about Afr ican fear or ignorance, chi ld ishness or degenera-

t ion ,had const ituted proof of an absence of re ligion. In Theals

t reatment , these were the basic ingred ients of African rel ig ious

systems.

According to Theal, the Bushmen had a religion. They believed

in a powerful being, known as 'Kaang or 'Cagn, and had so~e

expectation of immortality that was demonstrated by their bunal

practices. They performed ritual dances and offered prayers to the

moonand stars. However, Theal observed, "everything connected

with their religion-that is their dread of something outside of

and more powerful than th~mselves-was vague and uncertain."

This unclarity inBushman religion, Theal exp la ined, resul ted

from their endemic ignorance. The Bushmen were /Ias credulous

insuch matters as infants could be." Comparing Bushmen to Eu-

ropean chi ldren Theal observed that the ir "power of thought on, . . not

sub jects of any nature ou tside their ordinary occcpanons IS

greater than that of a European child of s ix or seven years ~f ~ge,

and they have all the credulity of such a child." T?elI religion,

therefore was a product of childish credulity and Ignorance. I~. ' d .' f their

this conclUSion, Theal proposed not only a escnptlon 0 TheIUental ity bu t a lso a h istor ical genealogy of the Bushmen. y

. 1 i l l " And a -had much in common he noted WIth the P 1 ppine, d

' ' . 1 They sharemanese, and Semang people of the Malay Peninsu a. . 1 1 hi

. , . / 1 M ntal lyespeCla y t 1Scommon physical and lingUlstlC traits. eisthe case," Theal concluded , tha t the Bushmen could be~own

to b e of the "same stock" as the indigenous people ofM Yhs1ala.

O h . . . t lity; therefore T en t e baSIS of their shared religious men a, '

ith the "pagan racescould conceptually relocate the Bushmen w . a 1 h 112

of the Malay Peninsula" in their "common pnmev n Ire. thS · ifi 1 f the Bushmen rom e. IgDl cant ly, this conceptual remova 0 . Theal's settler

?lStant past of southern Africa resonated WIth Th 1 the

Ulterpretation of their historical destiny According to Af rea., in

B lu d fr outhem rca Ius nen were destined to be remove om s " Underthe present in order "to sat isfy God 's law of pro~eshs.. 11'-G d d on a bi g ennte 1

od's law, e ntitlement to the land depen e ~p h li ion of t hege ident in " e reugnee a nd greater strength than was eVI e d' 1 . ''A strug-

BUshmen. As Theal declared the demands of Go s a~~ok place,

gle f or the possession of the fairest tracts of c~~:t:onger races

and the more intelligent and consequently



222 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

were the victors. It was for the good ofall the world that it shouldbe so. I t seems to be God's law that man must raise himself con-stantly higher, and he who cannot as well as he who will not

conform to that law must pass out ofexistence." Like the ancientpaleolithic cavedwellers of Europe, the Bushmen of southern Ai -

rica were destined to disappear. As Theal insisted, their removalfrom the land in southern Africa was according to divine law andfor the greater good of the entire world. In his comparative reli-

gion, however, Theal had already conceptually removed the Bush-

men from southern Africa not only by tracing them back toMalaysia but also by diminishing them as people with a religionbased on a childish mentality.'

Similarly, Theal described the religion of the Hottentots asa system of childish morphology and foreign genealogical origin.As Theal recounted, the Hottentots venerated the mantis, wor-shiped the moon with singing and dancing, and revered the

"mythical hero" Heitsi-eibib by building stone cairns around theCape. They told a myth about a Supreme Being, Tsui-\\Goab, who

had engaged in bat tle with an evil being, \ \Gaunab. Theal wasaware that the missionary ethnographer Theophilus Hahn had in -

terpreted this story, under the influence of F. Max Muller , asa

solar myth about the conflict between light and darkness at

dawn. If that interpretation was correct, Theal remarked, then theHottentot myth would have "had an origin as lofty in ideal as

that ofmany of the Aryans." However, Theal found that such an

exalted origin was impossible because "the credulity of the Hot-tentots was that of children," With their "childlike simplicitYi

J

the Hottentots displayed an inveterate ignorance in their religion,

an ignorance so pervasive that "the system ofreligion ofthe Hot-tentots could not be explained by themselves.?"If the Hottentots could not understand their own religious sys-

tem, how could European comparativists explain it? As Theal

proposed, the ancient origin ofHottentot myth and religion couldbe found, not by comparison with Aryan solar mythology, but

through the analysis oflanguage. In 185 I, Theal recalled, the Rev-erend Dr. James R. Adamson the first minister of the Presbyte-

rian Church in Cape Town and professor of mathematics at.theSouth African College, had reported to the Syro-Egyptian SOcletythat a close affinity could be established between the Hotten-

tot language and "Old Egyptian," Perhaps influenced by t?e r~-searches of W . H. 1. BIeek who made a similar finding in his

do~t~ral dissertation, Ada~son identified the Hottentots on lin-guisnc grounds with ancient Egypt. Following this lead, Thea!

BEYOND THE FRONTIER 223

concludedthat the Hottentots had "descended from men who

onceresided on or near the other extremity of the continent," InT h e a l s comparative account of language and religion, therefore,

theHottentots could also be conceptually displaced to a remote

regionof the world."Tu r n i n g to the Bantu, Theal assumed, along with other Euro-

pean comparativists on the closed frontier, that Airicans had agenericindigenous religion. "The religion of the Bantu," Theal

observed,"was based upon the supposition of the existence of

spirits that could interfere with the affairs ofthe world." Inotherwords,Bantu religion was based on ancestor worship. Theal p~o-

videda thorough detailed inventory of Bantu religion, alongWIth

a n account of th~ "Superstitions and Customs ofthe Bantu" and"Specimensof Bantu Folklore." Although he placed less stress onth e childishness of Bantu mentality, Theal framed his entire dis-

cussionof this religious system in terms of a historical recon-structionof African migrations from an ancient cultural. center.

A s noted,frontier comparativists had also traced gen~aloglesthatplacedindigenous southern Africans in ancient Arabia, Israel, _or

egypt. Likewise, Theal supposed that the Bantu we~erecent arn~~als inSouthern Africa. "At some time not exceedingly remote,

heobserved, "a band of people speaking the parent language of

thevarious dialects now inuse and having ancestor worship .astheirreligion must have entered North-Eastern Africa."Surpns-.' f .' in them g l y , however Theal opted for none ofthe points 0 origin

ancientNear East that had been sopopular in the theories offro~-ti d h' nalysis of theirer comparative religion. Instead, base on IS a .religion,Theallocated the primordial home ofthe southern ~r~~canBantunot inthe Near but in the Far East. As Theal explame .

In deli . b ak . to considerationa tion to language religion must e t en ill . fh deali . ' . f h le Itconsists 0 aw en ea li ng WIththe past history 0 t ese peop .. d f . hi in differentpro-

nuxture o f ance st or spi ri t wor sh ip an ens srn,. . th 1 ents must have

portlons IIIdifferent tribes. The first of ese e em . .b b . l I t t here and It ISeen rought from Asia for it is wide y preva en , .'. ' .., . Central Afnca.mconcelvablehat it could have had Its ongm ill .

F ti hi . l i h i cont inen t paruc-e IS Is m was developed after the ir arnva illt IS ,

ularly by the tribes that mixed their blood with that of the more

degraded negroes who were here before them.

A s hi f . Theal's reconstrUc-. t s ormulation suggests, the key term ~ Th 1 BantutlO~ of Bantu religion was mixture. According to f eba

I,the

reli' h .al ixture 0 00,glon ad been constituted by the raci m



22 4 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

geographical mixture of separate peoples, and the illicit mixture

of the two distinct forms of religion identified as ancestor wor-ship and fetish worship. Lacking any inherent integrity orauthen-

ticity Bantu religion was an aberration that had been producedbymixing race, region, and religion. As a result, its historical for-mation, according to Theal, had been a process of degeneration,as the ancestor worship ofAsia became mixed with the degradedfetishism ofAfrica.6

Theal was well aware that European Christians in southernAfrica at the beginning of the twentieth century were alarmed

by recent African initiatives in forming independent Christianchurches. The Ethiopian movement, which had started in the

1890s in Johannesburg and Pretoria, represented an innovation in

African Christian leadership and theology that was outside thecontrol of the European mission churches or colonial administra-

tion. In response, white church leaders accused this movement ofengaging in an illicit mixture of Christian and African religion.

Eventually scholars applied the term syncretism to this phenom-enon, ostensibly in explanation but also as a modulation of the

same accusation. AddreSSing this issue directly; Theal proposedthat syncret ism, the il licit mixture of African and Christ ian

forms ofreligion, appeared not only in the Ethiopian movement

but also among the African converts of Christian missions be-cause, he argued, their minds were" shackled by hereditary super-stition."? In the context of this controversy about illicit religious

mixtures, however, Theal had already established that African re-ligion was itself a mixture, an inauthentic, degraded by-productofBantu historical migrations.

Like the missionary and settler comparativists of the first halfofthe nineteenth century; Theal adopted a theory of degenerat~onto aCcount for African religion in southern Africa. LikeWIse,

he conjectured that Africans could be traced back to some dis-

tant geographical point of origin, thereby conceptually displac~gthem from southern Africa. Under the terms of the new Umon

government 's Land Act of 1913, the displacement of Africans

from most of the terri tory of the region carried the force ofl~~.

Alt~ough government land policy did not depend upon his legItl-~at~on, Theal nevertheless practiced a comparative religion thatlustified this dispossession. Bantu religion, as reconstructed b y

Theal, d~fined Africans as people with no historical entitlement

to land ill southern Africa since the syncretist ic character ? fBantu religion revealed that their original homeland was in ASIa

BEYO D THE FRONT1ER 22 5

a n d that they had degenerated during the course of their racialmixture and recent migrations into Africa. As both distant anddegraded,Africans insouthern Africa were represented in Theals

comparativereligion as barbarians with no legal or polit icalrights.Hemade this conclusion explicit. Invoking the law ofGod

andhistory,Theal asserted the "right ofcivilisedmen to take pos-sessionofland occupied by such a race." Unfortunately he added,

"to the present no-one has devised a plan by which this can

bedone without violence,"! As a strategic exercise of covertviolence,however, the comparative religion advanced by .GeorgeMcCallTheal on the closed frontier of a new South Africa wasalreadya violation of Africans. Without legal rights or political

representation Africans had to suffer Theal's historical represen-

tationof them and the effects of that representation. Clearly, if

Thealset the standard for the practice ofcomparative re~gion on

theclosedfrontier, no one had yet devised a plan bywhich com-parativereligion could be done without violence.

LAUGHTER AND PAIN

Althoughthey were subjected to this process of colonial ~on-quest,c1assilication, and representation, Africans were c~~ta~ynot passive victims. As noted, independent Afric~ initiatives

alsoshaped the contours of frontier comparative religion. ~nre-. .. . tion AfricansSlstance accommodation and creatrve unproVlsa, .conduct~dcountennaneu~ers on the battlefield of comparatlve

religionill southern Africa. As Jean and John Comaroff havep~o-

Posed,the nineteenth-century colonization of southern A!nc~C b h "I ng conversation,an e seen as an intercultural exc ange, a 0

in which both African and European subjectivitie~ ~ere reneglo-ti t d . . rehtrlon was a soa e In relation. Inthis regard, comparative e- .

ne . .. 1 . I hanges Partners IIIgQtlatedand renegotiated in dia ogrca exc .' d Wconversation have been preserved in the histoncal. reCOI. eha h

1Cree illconversa-

ve eardthe voice of the Hottentot trave er 0 li dt' . b We have steneIOnWIth the British traveler Thomas Her ert. .di dtointerChanges between Ngqika and Van der Kemp, N~l ~C IdS art the "WI Yrain-o enso,Mbande and Callaway, Mxaba an tu , . to workmaker" and Moffat among many others, all struggling 1OU t 1··' A h work of Mpengu a

re 19lOuscomparisons in dialogue: s t e .on were con-Mbandesuggests, the most vital, crucial conversatl



226 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

ducted among Africans, as people debated, argued, and recon-

figured their identities innew rel igious idioms. Although most of

these conversations have been lost or submerged inthe historical

record, they must have engaged comparisons that profoundly af-

fected African self-understanding. As elsewhere in the nineteenth

century, African religious understanding increasingly depended

upon a comparative religion, and the character of comparative

religion depended upon ongoing cross-cultural conversations.

A compara tive rel igion, therefore, was forged in those COllver-

sat ions. They were ser ious conversat ions. Lives and l ife-ways de-

pended upon their outcome. Why, then, was laughter a recurring

feature? Frequently; the historical record captures the sudden

smile, the loud laugh, the peal of mirth, the general merriment,

and even the ludicrous mimicry th rough which Afr icans com -

pared the religion of the Christian mission with their own reli-

gious way of life. Robert Moffat was by no means the first Euro-

pean compara tive rel igionist to inspire laughter by confusing the

categories of local cul ture . As ment ioned prev iously; Francois Le

Vaillant testified that when he read Peter Kolb 's account ofHot-

tentot customs to Khoikhoi people, "They laughed in my face."

Inturn, however, Le Vaillant himself was a target fo r Xhosa jokes.

According to Van der Kemp, lilt was only to deceive Mr. Vail l an t

and to amuse themselves at his expense, if the Caffrees whom hemet with, offered him milk in a basket washed out with their

urine, to make him believe that this was customary among

them." In the context of intercultural contact, laughter echoed.

What did laughter signify in the frontier comparative religion ofsouthern Africaj?

Laughter

O~ s .ome occasions, laughter cer tainly signified a re jection of the

rel igious claims of the Christ ian mission. On his journey through

Natal and Zululand in the 1830s Allen Gardiner recalled that

Mfengu refugees patiently listenedto his lecture on the Chr is tian

doctrines of God, immortal ity ; the resurrec tion and the last judg-

ment, "but an audible laugh'instantly proce:ded from a~ w~o

were present, on my telling them that God had declared inhIS

Word that man's heart was full of sin." In this case, laughter

served a cr it ical funct ion in reject ing a theological assert ion that

the Mfengu perceived as absurd. Sometimes, this rejection of


Christ ian claims was amplified and modulated by sat irizing the

religious notions or practices of the Christian mission. For ex-

ample,Archdeacon Nathaniel J. Merriman, on a tour of the east-

ern Cape in 1849, recorded a conversation with a Xhosa chief,

Umhala . When Merriman refused the chief's request for a blan-

ket ,Umhala launched in to a theological sati re tha t mocked the

rel igious assumptions of the Chr is tian mission. As Umhala pro-

claimed, "he knew God was good; He gave them water; He gave

themgrass, He gave them gum; and would I ive him a blanket?"

AsMerriman still refused to give him a blanket, Chief Umhala

laughed and changed the subject. Merriman was left at a loss to

make sense out of Umhala's sense of humor inthis exchange.

Foranother example, African imita tions of the prac tices of the

mission on the northern f ront ier f requent ly produced laughter .

A s James Chapman observed, people in one Bechu~n~ to~

"laugh at Livingstone telling them about God, .IIUIDlC him

preaching and singing, and the chief and his counci llors fill theairw ith shouts and yells." During his mission to the N~ebele of

C h i e f Mzilikazi, John Mackenzie learned "that the chief, .after

we left his presence, proceeded, amid the merriment of hIS at-

tendants to draw a ludicrous picture of the state of Matabele

[Ndebe le ] society were the Christ ian views adopted." 10 . ili

At the very least such jokes and mimes revealed the possib irythat frontier comp:u.ative religion could actually be ~y. In the

playof difference people smiled. In the recognition of uicongru-. ' S i paranvel t y , they laughed and shouted at the absurdity. mce c~~li . al . ealities somere g io n required people to reflect upon ternanve r ' ..

of the alternat ives provoked laughter. Humor played a cnn~alf

reflect ive role in intercul tura l contac t. From the .s~dden pea °d

mirth to the satir ical mimicry; African comparatlVls.ts advance1.

" 1 al f different re 1-Cntlca responses to the intercultur encounter 0 .

ei Am' f u s i f ul tural ca tegones,o·ons. idsr the widespread can usion 0 c li fI . 1 " be ie saUghter at tended the comparison of different re 19lOuSAfri 'P . .' southern lcanractlces, and forms of social orgaruzatlon on&~~n. .

H . b t this practice, as IIIowever in their frequent complamts a ou . .

.L ' .' les mter-Ulecase of Rober t Moffat nineteenth-century mISS10nar .P d . ' . .bbom resistancerete Afncan laughter only as an Ignorant, stu .' .t hei th . 't the missionaneo t eir gospel. While maintaining elf gravi y, . dw f h they ll1terprete aerea ten met with humorous responses t at ff al

ridi ul Afri I hter Mo at 0c e. Not only worrying about ican aug, 1looked back over his shoulder to those scoffers in Europe W 10



228 S AVA GE S YS TE MS

have "laughed to scorn every article of our creed, and have died

martyrs to a theism!" Clear ly, the missionaries d isplayed a strong

apprehension about being mocked by laughter. As a result, they

could only experience laughter as mockery. Moffat seemed partie-

ularly sensitive about Africans laughing at his religious concepts,

his proposals for rearranging gender roles, and even his foreign

notions about hygiene. Moffat's insistence that people should

wash their bodies with soap and water, instead of lubricating

them with animal fat and red ocher, IIcontributed to their amuse-

ment in no small degree." On one occasion, Moffat told hi s

Tswana cook to turn the meat on the fire with a stick or fork

instead of his greasy hands. "This suggestions made him and hi s

companions laugh extravagantly," Moffat recalled, "and they were

wont to repeat it as an interesting joke wherever they carne."!'

Although Moffat also repeated this joke by publishing it, he

took no delight in the interplay of its humor. He followed amuch

more serious agenda. Inthe face of Afr ican laughter , the mission-

aries could draw some consolation from contemplating the ulti-

mate revenge that would be exacted on anyone who laughed at

their religion and culture. When the missionary Thomas Hodg-

son warned the Tswana chief Sefunelo that God would pun i sh

people who presumed that they could affect the rains through

ritual acts, Sefunelo responded with laughter. "He laughed,"Hodgson reported, /Iat the idea of the Almighty being angry with

him for attempting such a presumptuous act." The African chief

might respond with laughter, but the missionary ant ic ipated that

in ~he end he would have the last laugh, as Hodgson informed

Chief Sefunelo 1/ that he would see things in a different light when

he died,"!? Obviously, therefore, f rom the Chr istian missionary

perspect ive , comparat ive re ligion was no laughing matter.

?nly rarely did a European observer suspect that laughter :vas

evidence of comparative religion. At the beginning of the JUne-

teenth cen tury , the t raveler Henry Lichtenstein observed that the

"Beetjuana" people were always in a good mood, laughing easily

and loudly at anything that surprised them, especially if they

wanted to show their appreciat ion. As Lichtenste in observed, th e

missi~n~ries were distressed by African laughter. He not~d that

the ffilSSlOnaries "maintained that they could achieve nothlIlg b e -

cause the Beetjuanas ridiculed divine service and laughed about

th~ teach ings of Christ iani ty." However, instead of in~erpre tin!

~his laughter as a symptom of stubborn res is tance or lOveterat

Ignorance, Lichtenstein proposed that people laughed because

B EY ON D T HE FRO TIER 2 29

theywere comparing Christianity to their own beliefs. If that was

the case, their laughter indicated that Africans might after all

hold /I a kind of religious conviction." 13 Inraising this possibility,

therefore, Lichtenstein suggested that laughter might be un-

derstood as evidence of an African practice of comparison. In the

jux taposi tion of different bel iefs and practices on the front ier,

laughter migh t be a reflex that registered the ex istence of a k ind

ofcomparat ive re ligion . This interpretat ion of laughter as an in-

dexo f comparison was one of the lost opportunities of frontier

comparative religion in southern Africa.Why do people laugh? Inhis book-length analysis of laughter,

theFrench philosopher Henri Bergson proposed that people laugh

when they observe human beings behaving like machines. The

fundamental basis of laughter, Bergson argued, is the sudden, sur-

p rising percept ion of incongrui ty tha t occurs whenever human

beings are observed acting with the inflexibility or absent-

mindedness of a mechanical object. In this analysis, Bergson

located the source of humor in the contradiction that anses

whenever humans behave in unconscious, au tomatic , or inflex-

ibleways l ike machines. When a human acts l ike an automaton,

peoplelaugh. We can find evidence of this phenom~n~n 011 south-

ern African frontiers. For example, the LMS illlSSlOnaI! John

Campbell complained in 1815 that Bechuana boys.and gir ls fol -lowed him, asked him questions , and laughed at him as he con-

tinued walking without answering. "I was grieved I could ~ot un-

derstand a single word 1/ Campbell recalled, "but tills ~ery. , . t /I InfleXlbly,ClIcUmstance afforded them much entertammen. . .'absent-mindedly, the missionary produced laugher by actmg like

a machine. 14

As already noted however this ident if ica tion of the Europeanhri . ' '. . tant feature

C osnen missionaries with machines was an ~por M f-

of African comparat ive rel igion in southern Africa . Rober tb

a

fa t's adversary: the "wily ra inmaker," del ighted the crowd y. a -

ser ting that the sacred emblem of the Europeans was a:~chm:.

In the beginning Europeans had emerged from the be 0 rcehs

d ' . 1 d e vi the wagon or t eun er the sacred sign of a mecharuca evice, .. hpI Th . b I f the machme. In t eow. ey were accordingl y , t e peop e 0 k d. I r , f E opeans provo eInterp ayof intercu ltura l re lat ions there ore, u r ibl d1 gh 'h infleXl e anau ter because they behaved in ways t at were as ful dautomatic as any machine Although they might be pOWder and a ' . the di not actngerous Europeans were also funny because y hi

lik ' d d by laug mg.ehuman beings. Africans noticed and respon e



230 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

In the sound of their laughter, significant questions about what

it might mean to be a human being were put into play in the

practice of frontier comparative religion.

Pain

While Henr i Bergson' s phi losophical analysis of laughter was be-

ing serialized in the Revue de Paris , his compatrio t, the anthro-

pologist and philosopher Lucien Levy-Bruhl, was pursuing reosearch that culminated in 1910 in the publ ica tion of his f irs t book

on "primitive mentality," Les Fonctions mentales dans les so-cietes inietieures. Analyzing "how natives think," Levy-Bruhl

proposed that "primitive" people "do not seem to us to rise to the

level of what we properly term ' thought .' II Instead, they display a

"prelogical" or "mystical" mentali ty. Lacking any trace of scien-

tific rationality, that primitive mentality, according to Levy-

Bruhl, followed its own "law of participation," which assumed

that the wor ld was permeated with unseen forces. Basica lly , pr im-

i tive mental ity confused thoughts and th ings, so "primitives," as

a result, were unable to make rational distinctions. Although

he collected evidence from all over the world, Levy-Bruhl made

considerable use of southern African data in building his model

of "primitive mentality." As a result, he reinscribed the reports

of nineteen th-century travelers missionaries and colon ia l agents

into his scientific theory of P;imitive religi~n and thought. For

example, as proof of the existence of a prelogical mentality in

Africa, Levy-Bruhl repeated the assertion by LMS official John

Philip that southern Africans lived in a complete "state of igno-ranee," 15

Acc~rding to Levv-Bruhl, African ignorance was demonstra~ed

by their propensity for laughter. In arguing that Africans, like

other ."prirnitives/' were incapable of abstract thought, Levy-

Bruhl i nvoked the testimony of the missionary Thomas Arbous -

set. "In the midst of the laughter and applause of the populace,"

;-rbousset had reported, lithe heathen inquirer is heard sayin~:

Can. the God of the white men be seen by our eyes? ... and ifMonn:o (God) is absolutely invisible, how can a reasonab le bemg

worship a h~dden thing!" Certainly, the laughter in this case

could be subjected to various interpretations. Was it inspired by

a s.h:ued perception of incongruity in the context of an inter-

relIgIOUSargument? Was it a reasonable response to the perceived

BEYOND THE FRO T1ER 2 3 1

irrationality of the mission? Was it a psychological defense

against the encroachments of a Chr is tian mission that was con-

fusingand disrup ting indigenous cu ltural ca tegor ies? Or was i t

s implya popular response to a playful joke at the expense of the

missionary? Taking sides with the missionary , however, Levy-

Bruhl froze African laughter by concluding that it was only evi-

denceofa "lack of serious thought and an absence of reflec tion."

Insteadof recognizing laughter as a significant compara tive im-

pulse}and therefore as an act of ra tional reflect ion on cul tura l

andreligious difference, Levy-Bruhl perpetuated the seriousnesso f the missionaries. Like Robert Moffat, Levy-Bruhl maintained

hi s intellectual gravity by r efus ing to hear any rationality in the

soundofAfrican laughter. Ironically, therefore, while B.ergsonwas

argu ing that people laugh at human beings who act l ike absent-

mindedmachines Levy-Bruhl insisted that primitives only laughb ' . d d 16ecause they are themselves essentially absent-nun e. .

However, Africans did not only laugh; they also expen~n.ced

pain in their encounters with Europeans. The natural is t WIl liam

J.Burchel l reported about his African companion that "abstract

questions ofthe plainest kind soon exhausted all mental strength

and r educed him to the state of a child whose reason was yet

dorman t . He would then complain that his head began to ache."

Similar ly, the missionary and ethnographer H.A. Juno.d re-

counted that abstract thought caused pain among Afncans."Wh' d b d II"tis a painful occu-en requiring reasoning," Juno 0 serve, I .pation." Inciting and repeating these claims by trav~lers an.dnus-

sionaries, Levy-Bruhl coucluded that primitives avoided rhinking

an d reaSOning because it was painful. Although encoun~ers WI:;

Europeans actually caused real pain and suffering for A fric an s. . e

used their pa in as evidence of an absence of rat i?nal thought . ~a~

pr~vided further proof tha t Afr icans did not nse to the leve 0

ratIonality. I? .

African laughter and pain therefore, were taken by Lucle~

L e V Y - B r u h l as proof of a primitive mental ity . Like laughter an. t hnoloO"Ve pe-

pam, African bafflement before new European ec bl t dciall h d f a.lso demonstra e ,

y t e technologies of literacy an war are, "Printed

aCCordingto Levy-Bruhl an absence of rational thought. .b ' . bing to pnm-ooks and writing" he observed "are no less astonlS .if h ' 'Af . he noted lIte racyrves t an are firearms." In southern rica, .' I RobertWasconfusing. "My books puzzled them," the mISSIOnary Afri-

MOffathad reported However Levy-Bruhl was aw~e th~t 1 alCan ". 1 I the BIble 111 oc

s conSistently explained books, partlcu ar Y ,



232 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

idiom, as "instruments of divination." By compar ing books to di-

vin ing bones, which was a percep tive analogy , Africans cer tainly

evidenced skills in analogical reasoning. According to Levy -

Bruhl , however , fo llowing the interpretat ion of the missionaries

once again, this analogy was evidence of anAfr ican inab il ity to

understand literacy or any other form of European technology.

"The primitive no more tries to explain it," he concluded , " than

he does to find out why the rifle and cannon carry death to so

great a distance," As a sub text inhis analysis of primitive mental-

i ty, therefore , Levy-Bruhl dismissed the useful analogy betweenbooks and divining bones by drawing his own analogy between

books and guns, two technologies that Signified and demon-

strated European power in Africa."

Finally, he concluded that Africans had no appreciation for de-

tached or disinterested scient ific rat ional ity. Missionar ies com-

plained that Africans were suspicious about modern science and,

in particular, about scientific medical practice. In 1908 , as Levy -

Bruhl reca lled , the missionary Henr i Dieter len repor ted that li the

blacks think the whites wish to injure them, or wish them no

good. They do not bel ieve in their disinterestedness. They are dis-

t rust ful , for fear of being deceived , despo iled, injured , and led into

misfortune. These feelings are innate and quite natural to rhem,

they are i rresist ible and inerad icable." African mist rust o f Euro-pean medical practice was abstracted by the miss ionary from its

historical context. It was characterized as an "innate" feelwg, as

"natural ," and, in terms that Levy-Bruhl repeated, as an "ineradi-

cable" feature of a primitive mentality. However, inhistorical

context, African disbelief in European "disinterestedness" was

understandable because people had in fact been "deceived, de-

spoi led, injured, and led into misfortune." Nevertheless, Levy -

Bruhl persisted inreading justifiable suspicion as primitive super-

sti tion. It was an "innate" primitive mental ity tha t was / lna tur~! I

among the indigenous people of southern Africa and elsewhere 11 1

the colonized world. 19

~or whatever reasons this caricature of "primitive menta li ty"

might have been attractive in Europe, it was produced and repro-

duced on the southern African periphery in stereotypes of the"Essent ia l Kaffi r" or the "Bantu mind."20 These stereotypes gave

the. m?del of primitive mentality its local significance as a sym-

~Olic ~s~ment of social segregation, economic exploi~au~n:

n~ pol it ica l con trol tha t cou ld easily be transposed from )usti li

cat lOns of n ineteenth-century co lonial domination to the jmple-

BEYOND THE FRONTIER 2 3 3

mentation of twentieth-century apartheid. The roots of these

notions,however, run deep in the frontier comparative religion of

nineteenth-century southern Africa. Inmany respects, the idea of

aprimitive mental ity was bui lt on the foundations laid by travel-

e r s , missionaries, and colonial agents. I t might be useful , there-

fore,to review the compara tive strategies tha t they developed in

pursuing a comparative religion on the frontier battlefields of

southern Africa.

COMPARATIVE STRATEGIES

Europeancomparative religion developed a repertoire of com~ara-

t iveprocedures to account for re ligious resemblance and diver-

sity.21On southern African frontiers, however, these procedures

were exercised in specific social , economic, an~ pol it ical con-

texts.As previously noted, the earliest comparative strategy was

denial.From 1610 to 1654, from 1685 to 1700 , and from 1770 to

1800, European comparativists denied that Hottentots had any

religion. Of ten the lack of religion was ident ified as only one as-

pecto f a more general absence of basic human features such as

language law: or marriage . Increasing ly however, European ob-servers~oint~d to the absence of specific re ligious doctrines or

practices. As the traveler Thomas Herbert insisted, the Hot-

tentots had no God heaven hell temples, worship, ceremorues,, " d every

sabbath shame or truth. Such denials were repeate onr, . " . Alb' ted thatuontler. Van der Kemp Lichtenstein and ern repor

, ' . h Shaka~the Xhosa had no religion. Isaacs claimed that t e hZ 1 I ff . . d that the Sot 0-U U acked religion. Casalis and Mo at insiste f reliTswanawere IIendemical a the ists" f rom whom every trace 0 d -g. h d . 1 were frame asIon ad been erased Sometimes these ema s .'a '. al lizion MisslOnaryn argument against the notion of natur re 10" fc . . 1 Afr ican data to re ureamparaUVlsts, in particular, used sout lern. uld b

thehypothesis that innate religious ideas or sent1~ents ~~ had

found among all human beings. In southern Afnc~,. t y

tnadethe remarkable discovery of people with no religion 7 Cer-What did th denial ignify in the frontier context.. ese ern s SI . . t were op-

tainly, they indicated that European comparatlvl~ s ligion

eratingw ith a single set of criteria for what counte as rde trin ~ctit· h fi d b Protestant oc

ena t at in most cases were de ne y. d th powerand hi d . I reinforce ewors ip. In performative terms, erua



234 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

and scope ofthat single construction of religion. However, denials

of African religion also implied that Africans were not fully hu-

man since they al legedly lacked such a crucial defining fea ture of

humanity. Inthe 1870s Henry Callaway came to recognize that

these earl iest denials had in fact suggested that Africans were

"not human beings, but a lower class of animal with the form,

but without the mental characteristics of man." Through the de-

nial of religion, European observers represented Africans as an

empty space. "What a blank is the life of man," Allen Gardiner

had exclaimed, "without a knowledge of God! 1122

Lacking a knowledge of God, or any other feature of religion,

Africans appeared as precisely such a blank, empty space. But

then so did their land. The European "myth of the vacant land"

depicted the frontier as an empty territory waiting for colonial

settlement. As that "vacant" space was filled with European set-

t ler s and control led by colonial administ rat ions, i t was also fi lled

and control led concep tual ly by European comparat ive re ligion-

ists. As Henry Methuen declared in 1846, "There is a blank on

the maps to be filled up: there are numerous tribes whose names,

probably, have never been heard, and whose customs can only be

imperfectly imagined by the analogy of kindred races: there is

fallow ground for the naturalist and the philosopher.'?' That

blank space was eventually filled with religions not merely by

exploring, collecting data, and gaining familiarity but through

procedures of comparison and genera liza tion. As noted, however ,

t~e "discovery" of religions depended upon the closing of f ron -

tiers. As European hegemony was established denial lost its stra-

tegic value and was replaced by the production of knowledge

about religion and religions that was suited to the interests o f

colonial management and control. Although missionaries, phi-

losophers , and natural is ts contributed to the production of useful

knowled~e about African religion, the supreme authorities on

comparatIve rel igion were colonial agents and agencies , fro ro J O ·seph Cox Warner to the British War Office, who could put that

knowledge to use in "native" administration.

As a ~~mparat ive strategy, the dist inct ion between rel igion and

superstl tlon also served the interests of denial . Inancient Romanusage, as Emile Benveniste noted, the piety of religio was defined

a~ the contrary of the fear and ignorance of superstitio. The "no-

tion ?f. ' religion' requires, so to speak, by opposition, that of ' su -

per~t~tlOn. '" Only rarely did Europeans notice the inherentl.y.op-

POSltIonal charac ter of their not ions of rel igion and superstitlOlL


As Thomas Hobbes observed , the "fear of things invisible is the

natural seed of tha t, which everyone in himself calleth re ligion;

andinthem that worship or fear that power otherwise than they

do,superstition." Having a long history in European comparative

rel igion, this opposit ion between re ligion and supersti tion was

consistently deployed on contested southern African frontiers.

Prancers LeVai llant was alone in suggest ing that supersti tion was

aninevitable by-product of religion. Every other observer insiste~

onthe categorical opposition between genuine religion and spur~-

oussuperstition. Identifying superstition, therefore, was the equi-valento f d enying the existence of reli~on. Not merely an a:; of

denial,however, the designation of beliefs and practices as s~-

perstition" resonated with key terms in Protestant anti-Cath.olic

polemic.From the perspective of the London Missionary Society

superstition reigned inCatholic France as it did in heathen, Af -

rica,Like pagano-papism, African superstition was ~haractenzed

as an ignorant, fearful, and magical regard for objects and the

dead.Eventually, during the nineteenth century, these same cate-

goriescame to consti tute the basic ingredients for scholarly rep-

resentations of African religion."

Representations of African ReligionD . . f h ry,'comparativists int awing on a long hen tage 0 European t eo, .southern Africa could explain African religion as Ignorance, f~~,

imposture, the elevat ion of the dead to divine status, or th~del -

cation of natural objects. All these explanations, at one tune or

another, were deployed on southern African frontiers. Ignor~nceand f f nlv i ked as explanatIOnSear, or example, were commo Y invo .. d a llfor the origin of African superstition. As John philip prop~se, fs . . . . . /I onfused Ideas 0uperstltlOllS had originated 111 IgnoranCe, ill c. h t ofan invisible agency." John Barrow held that "fear ISt e pare~

sUperstition." Having venerable ancient Greek ant~cedentd ese

eXplanations for the origin of religion had been revlved an POPtlhl~I'd . E light nment. On souanze .durlllg the eighteenth-century n e ecific localized

~rnAfncan f ront iers , however, they had ~more sph f ~ntier ste-Import. Explanations of superstition reinforced t e r h werer e o r f hild en Because t ey

vp e 0 Africans as permanent c I r: Africans hadsupposedly as stupid and frightened as children, d f ar Asd I d . ranee an e .Ieveoped s~persti tions th~t were bas~ ?n Ign~efs and practices,O n g as Afncans persisted ill such childIsh beli



23 6 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

they had no adul t righ ts to land, l ivestock , or po li tica l au tonomy

that had to be respected by Europeans. Inthis regard, comparative

religion was complicit inthe Afr icans ' displacement and dispos-

session."

In addi tion, these explanations supported the impression that

the heart of African religion was "savage /I terror. As williamHolden described an African ritual conducted by a Zulu sacred

specialist, "The spectacle is one of terror and dismay, differing

from those of Greece and Rome, where the priests or vestals per-

formed their sacred rites amidst the most profound awe, and themysterious solemnities of the ir hal lowed temples; whi ls t the vu l-

gar, common horde were not permitted to enter the god-honoured

enclosures, on ly the privi leged few being admitted there." Unlike

the solemn dignity of ancient Greek ritual, a dignity ensured by

r igid class dist inc tions, Afr ican ri tua l evoked only mass hysteria

and wild fear, with "the multi tude looking on with aston ishment

and terror, whilst the frenzied being professes to hold audience

with the spirits of the departed." If Afr ican rel igion was based

on mass terror, some comparativists concluded that it had to be

combated by a greater terror in the frontier campaign to estab-

lish "Christian civilization." As the British settler John Mitford

Bowker put it, the colonial government had to use military force

to ~ause the "savages" to "fear and respect, to stand in awe of a

n~tlon whose manners and customs, whose religion, it is benefi-

cial and desirable for them to adopt" (emphas is in original). In

this frontier calculus of terror, the "fear theory" of the origin and

persistence ofreligion assumed a specific local significance. Since

Afr ican supersti tion was supposedly based on terror, the mili ta ry

exercise of terror against them by a Christian government could

be justified as an appropriate means for replacing superstitionwith religion. 26

If ignorance and fear were the roots of African superstition, its

branches were found inthe deification of the dead and of natural

objects. The identification of these two aspects of superstition

also could rely upon ancient Greek theories. Around 300 s.c.t.,

Euhe~erus lent his name to a theory of the origin of religion by

proposrng that the Greek gods and goddesses had once been men~d women. As benevolent rulers, they had been held in such

high est~em that they continued to be worshiped as divine beings

after theu.deaths.27 This euhemerist explanat ion was adopted b y

such front ler comparat ivists as Stephen Kay, Thomas Pring le, .and

Rober t Moffat to explain African divine beings as deified anClent

BEYOND THE FRONTIER 23 7

heroes.While pursuing this demythificarion of African divine

beings,however, frontier comparativists often referred to the an-

cestorswho were venera ted in r itua l as Afr ican gods. I ronica lly,

therefore,African divine being were interpre ted as ancient he-

roeswhi le the ir ancient heroes were ident if ied as gods who wereI

propitiated by gifts and sacrifices. In either case, however, African

supersti tion was reduced to the deifica tion of the dead .

Concern ing the deifica tion of natura l ob jects, most European

compara tivists entered the front ier with the assumption, as the

magis trate Ludwig Alberti put it, that there were people in theworldwho worshiped the sun or other natural objects ..Here ~s

wellanancient Greek theory could be invoked. The SOphistProdi-

cu s of Ceos found the origin of re ligion in the l inguist .ic process

thatturned words for objects into proper names, persoru~ed t~ose

propernames, and then transformed those personificatlons into

gods.As the Greeks had substi tuted the proper name Haphaestos

for{ b : e and then worshiped that personificat ion of f ire under tha t

propername, so had all the gods and goddesses been cre~ted ~y

thedeificat ion of objects. A version of this theory was revived mM M"ll and ItEuropeduring the nineteenth century by F . a x. u er,.

a lsoappeared in southern Afr ica in the comparauve phil?l?gy

pursued by W . H. 1. Bleek. However, most frontie~ comparatlvlsts

didnot require the linguistic sophistication of this theory t°affind

h . . ." In report . telt e deificatIOn of objects in African superstltlon. .. d h di covered that Afr i-report, European observers claime to ave s

Cansworshiped the moon insects, birds, animals, trees, bo:es,

piles of stones and even ~ anchor that had been washed a~ o~e

On the eastern' Cape coast. Along with the worship of the e~,

therefore this propensity to deify natural objects bec~~ :;

othermajor def ining feature of Afr ican supersti tion or re gion.

Global Comparison

F . t only engaged inrontler comparative religion however, was no d d k wldej:!-,-- I d d d repro uce no --uung African religion. Italso pro uce an d .i cover one

edgeabout a ll the rel igions of the world. In order to S. s be-new lizi h d t blish companson

re gion, frontier theorists a to es a. ld the strangetween the one and the many, the new and the ~ , t d all the

an d the familiar. Inthe process, they effectively remve~owledge

World 'sreligions. At the end of the eighteenth centllIY.h' ligions of

about JUdaism Islam Roman Catholicism, and t e re, ,



23 8 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

ancient Israel, Greece, and Rome all had to be reproduced in the

Cape in order to make sense out of the invented religion of the

forger Stephanos the Pole. A similar body of knowledge had to

be reproduced inorder to d iscover the rel igion of the Hotten tots.

Although they might not have been idolaters like the Hindus and

Buddhists of Asia, Africans did have beliefs and practices that

seemed to resemble those of other religions, especially if the

Xhosa could be ident ified as "Ishmaelitish sons of Abraham," the

Zulu as lost tr ibes of Israel , or the Sotho-Tswana as ancient Egyp -

tians. In these "learned speculations," with their play of similar-i ty and difference, a front ier comparat ive religion in sou thern Af-

rica developed global stra teg ies for the comparison of rel igions.

Three basic kinds of global comparison-taxonomy, genealogy;

and morphology-can be isolated for review.

In natura l history, the Swedish scien tis t Linnaeus establ ished

taxonomy as the basic compara tive pr inciple for the organizat ion

ofp lants, animals , and humans into genus and species differentia.

As noted, his students Anders Sparrmann and C. P.Thunberg vis-

ited the Cape to collect data that could be fitted into the Linnaean

taxonomy. Although the differentia of the species Homo Afri-

canus had prepared them to find people who were phlegmatic,

relaxed, and governed by irrat ional capr ice, the natura l scien tists

reproduced frontier prejudices agains t Hottentots who were re-

garded as lazy because they resisted work ing for the colonists and

stupid because they did not appreciate the trade value of cattle.

In the global taxonomy of natural history, however, these local

realities were erased as Africans were abstracted and incorporated

as a distinctive species of human being. .

.Similarly, during the eighteen th century, European compara~l-

vists regarded re ligion as a genus divisible by species di!ferentw,

part icular ly into the species of Christ ian ity, Judaism, Islam, and

Paganism. On southern African frontiers, however, a different

taxonomy began to emerge by the middle of the nineteenth cen-

tury. The incorporation of an African religious system required

the reconfiguration of the global taxonomy of the religions of the

wor ld. Using "worship" as the genus, frontier theorists identified

three bas ic types of religion in the world: God, idol, and ancestorworshi~. As a result, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam were col-

lapsed into one species of re ligion , God worship. While searching

for the "unknown God" in Africa , f ront ier comparat iv is ts discOV-

ered that three different re ligions actually belonged to the same

monotheist ic species of re ligion. The category of Paganism, how-

BEYOND THE FRONTIER 23 9

everwas divided into Asian and African religions. Inmany cases,

African religion was further divided into the fetish worship of

WestAfr ica , the sidereal worship of the Hottentots, and the an-

cestorworship of the sou thern Afr ican Bantu. We have seen how

th e distinction between sidereal and ancestor worship was crucial

to Bleek's linguistic theory of the origin of religion. Frequently,

however missionaries and magistra tes used this taxonomy to lo-

cate the Africans under their jurisdiction between two evil ex-

t remes, the fet ish worship of West Afr ica. and the idol worship

ofAsia. Southern African ancestor worshipers might be pagans,theysuggested, but they were not as degraded, nor as !esis tant

tocolonial management and control, S lS were fetish a~d Ido~wo:-

sh ipe r s . With some variation, this taxonomy remained lln~li-

c it in the discourse of compara tive re ligion in southern Africa

throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and well

into the twentieth century. .

Front ier comparativists were also interested in tracing the . r~-

l igious genealogy of the indigenous people of southern Africa.

Many favored a theory of h isto rical degenera tion fr .omsome an-

cient,original religion. Missionary theorists, includmg the p~om-

inent comparative religionist Henry Callaway, were. e~peclaU.y

fondofa three-stage theory of the history ofAfrican rehgl~l1h'ThIS. . d .' 1 elation whic was

nllSslOnaryexplanation posite an ongllla rev '. butforgotten during a long historical process of degen~ratlon, f

whichwas gradually being recal led under the re~ent inf luence ~

the Christian mission. On the contested frontier, however, t hed h d us Settlers sueegenerate was also a synonym for t e angero '. . I

a s Robert Godlonton and John Bowker repeated the !llstoncala f a r -. . then appe s or

gument about African religious degeneratlOn in . hB . . h " . .' C pe Accus i ng t entIS military mtervention in the eastern a .. . h d ded and dangerous

UUSSlOnf failure they insisted that t e egra l' d' . lit' a m epen-

Africans had to be civilized by destroying their po IC twasd '. d Thi argumenence , before they could be Chr istian lZe. IS. f drewr d d . ionanes 0 tenepeate on other frontiers as settlers an .miss . . 1 theory

< l i f f . . . . f h arne hlstonCa .erent practlcallffiphcauons rom t e s f African de-

As a genealottlcal hypothesis therefore, the theory old m·. C >~ , liei was entang egenera~lOn f rom an original revealed reog lOn s of advancing

stra tegIC debates about the most effectJve mean

Christian ~ivi1ization ~ southern Africa. on different Iron-

. A s prevlOusly descnbed, however, Africans om s eciflc an-tiers were often thought to have degenerated fr p. the. d .diosyncratlc,Clent religions. Although undiscipline or 1



240 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

intensive study of languages, customs, and religions supported

h istorica l reconstruc tions that t raced Afr icans back to some or ig-

inal horne. Peter Kolb self-consciously employed comparat ive re-

ligion to establish that the Hottentots had originated in ancient

Israel, by way of the Troglodytes, as children of Abraham. Ment-

zel speculated that their original home must have been in Car-

thage, Phoenicia, Tyre, Sidon, or, perhaps, ancient Israel. Years

later , Moffa t, Colenso, and Bleek, a lso employing compara tive

methods, argued that Egypt was the ancient home of the Hotten-

tots. Likewise, frontier theorists retraced the genealogy of theXhosa to ancient Arabia, the Zulu to ancient Israel, and the

Sotho-Tswana to ancient Egypt . In the comparative religion of

colonial frontiers, what was the Significance of such genealogies?

IfAfricans could be traced back to some original homeland, then

southern Africa was not their real home. The indigenous people

were not indigenous. Africans, like the colonizers, could be u n-

ders tood as relatively recent intruders in the region, with no an-

cient genealogical claim to the land. The frontier genealogy of

religions, therefore, contributed to the production, as Sir Bartle

Frere observed at the first meeting of the South African Philo-

sophica l Society, of "the wel l-ascertained fact tha t the Kafu races

are recent comers into this part of South Africa."29

A very different land of genealogy emerged in the work of

W. H. I. Bleek. Against the general trend of finding African evi-

dence for rel igious degenerat ion or histor ica l d if fusion, B le ek a r-

gued that Africans represented a preservation of the origin of re-

ligion. In southern Africa, the Bantu and Khoisan had preserved

religion's dual origin. By analyzing the different grammatical

s tructures of their languages, Bleek was able to propose that they

exemplified the or iginal ancesto r worship and sidereal worship of

humanity. Bleek introduced an evolutionary scheme that traced

th~ genealogy of all religion back to a primordial ances tor WO!-

ship. From that origin, re ligion had evolved through the worshIP

ofheaven ly bodies, the prol iferat ion of sky gods, and the gradual

emergence of monotheism. In sou thern Afr ica , therefore , Blee~

f~und the raw materials for reconstructing the evolution of reli-

gion. Bleek's work on evolution was intended to reconstruct thereligious genealogy, not of Africans, but of humanity in general

and, more specifically, of "civilized" Europe. He tried to demon-

s~rate "how essential is a comparison of the branches of human-

kmd spread over Afr ica , to an invest igat ion of the earl ie r develop-

ments of our race." Therefore, Bleek' s compara tive phi lo logy and


comparative rel igion were techniques that ul timately revealed a

Europeangenealogy. 30

In conversation with international scholarship, Bleek was

awareof the genera l shift f rom taxonomy to genealogy inEuro-

peancompara tive rel ig ion. The earlier inven tory of four world

religions had been replaced by the Comtean developmental se-

quence of fetishism, polytheism, and monotheism. However,

Bleek's evolutionism was extremely rare in southern African

comparative religion until the beginning ofthe twentieth century.

Insouthern Africa evolution was a theory ofcomparative religionbestsuited to the conditions of the closed frontier. Displaced and

dispossessed under colonial control, Africans suddenly appeared

aslivingfossils for an evolutionary theory of religion. However,

fromthe perspective of evolutionists, Africans also seemed to be

disappearing. By the turn of the century, salvage ethnography un-

dertookthe task of recording traditional beliefs and customs that

appeared to be rapidly vanishing under the impact of modern s~-

cial transformations. Accordingly, at ~e beg~g?£ the twe~~~

eth century, an evolutionary comparative rehgion tried to provi

a newreligious genealogy for Africans. Inits du~ :nand~te, evolu-

tionary comparative religion reified tribal religious differenc~s

and abstracted a "primitive mentality" that define~ a ge~~nc

Bantureligion. However this evolutionary comparatIve rAfrehg~on1 . 'Af . . them ica.a soreinforced the d isplacement of n c a n s inSOli AfriPut bluntly: if the earlier frontier genealogies, which trace~ d l-

eansback to the ancient Near East, implied that Afr icans di Afri -belonghere, this new evolutionary genealogy s~ggested that n-

cans,as fossi ls of the triba l and the pr imitive, did not belo~g local

Onceagain, therefore, comparative religion was entangled 1ll oca

Conflictsover land in southern Africa. al'P · d h logic compan-lnally;, frontier theorists develope morp 0

. . b . f rms stTI lC-sons ill SOuthern Africa that identIfied the aSIC 0 ,

t . 1 morphology wasUtes, or functions of religion. LIke genea ogy; . ta l . . 1 . 11 d compansons 0so a global comparison. In princip e, It a owe r the world that

be drawn between religious forms from all ove.. hi tor-W h hi 1 roxuDlty or s. ere at erwise unconnected by geograp ca. p uld establish

.calprocess. Through morphology, comparatIVIS~sC:e have seen,

formal, structural or functional resemblances. 1 " was theth·' . re igion1/ e prunary archetype in frontier comparatIve k £Acts (17:23-

unknown God." One biblical text from the Boo 0 parative24) f .ssionary com. ,:as ~ufficient to provide a charter or ffil. Although Robert

religlOnIn nineteenth-century southern Afnca.



242 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

Moffat bemoaned the absence of any unknown God among indig-

enous people, Colenso found i t among the Zulu, Cal laway among

the Xhosa, and Ellenberger among the Sotho-Tswana. However ,

even when they found the unknown God, comparativists decided

that the pure archetype had been so mixed with other religious

forms, especially with ancestor worship, that African religion

could not be identified as a monotheism.

If the unknown God was the primary archetype, then Satan was

the secondary form of religion identified in the morphological

analysis of frontier comparative religion. In the Satanic struc-turalism of Robert Moffat, the basic forms of the religions of the

world had been authored by Satan as obstacles to the Christian

mission. The explanation of religions as products of evil forces

was popular with early Church Fathers, who often identified

pagan gods as demons. Moffa t entrenched a similar comparat ive

strategy insouthern Africa not only by insisting on Satan's evil

agency in the production of religions but also by trans lating the

Sotho-Tswana term baiiino as "demons ." But Moffat's morpho-

log ical compar ison also ident if ied the crucia l s tructura l posit ion

of local African sacred specialists, who, like the angekoks, paw-

paws, or greegrees that missionaries had encountered elsewhere ,

were the formal "pi llar s of Satan's k ingdom" ofrel igions. Inarchi-

tectura l terms, Moffa t compared basic forms of religion as struc-

tu ra l barriers . Rel igious forms were comparab le to the ex tent tha t

they assumed similar ro les inblocking the advance of the mis-

sion. On this basis, for example , missionary compara tivists could

equate African cus tom with Hindu caste. They were equivalent,

in structural terms, as religious obstacles to the gospel."

As a supplement to this Satanic structuralism, a Satanic func-

tionalism appeared on the eastern Cape frontier during the 1850s

in ~he work of Joseph Cox Warner. Although he was the first to

deslgnate Xhosa supersti tion as a "rel igious system," Warner nev-

ertheless assumed that it was a false religion "under Satanic in -

f luence ./ I Even a false rel igion , however met basic human needs.

In ~atisfying the needs for psychological comfort and social s ta-

b .i li ty, Xhosa re ligion opera ted as a functional system. In fUD:-

tional terms, Warner could also draw a morphological compan-Son between African custom and Hindu caste. They were not

equivalen t struc tures, however , but insti tut ions that per fo rmed

the same psychologica l and socia l funct ions. Like Moffat , Warner

also concluded that Afr ican religious systems represented strUC-

rura l obstacles to the advance of "Chr is tian civi liza tion." He pro-

posed that on ly military force would eventually succeed inbreak-

243EYOND THE FRO TIER

in g them up. In the meantime, however, it was essential that the

magistrate should know how African religious systems worked.

Toenforce more efficient management and control, colonial

agentshad to understand African religions as functional systems.

At the highest degree of formal abst raction, theorists eventu-

a llyinven ted a generic Bantu rel ig ion that was sui ted to the con-

di tionsof the closed f ront ier a t the end of the nineteen th century .

Onceall independent African polities had beeu broken, compara-

tivereligion provided the resources for defining the religion that

wascornmon to al l Africans under colonial con trol . I ron ical lytherefore,indigenous religion, which was allegedly absent a.t the

beginning of the century, was declared universal amon? ~c~s

bythe end of the century. Inmany respects, this gener~c.religion

wassimilar to ear lier construct ions of African supersti tion . The

Bantureligion was supposedly based on ignorance, .fear, magic,

the worship of the dead, and the deification of objects. In ab-

stracting that generic religion, however, theorists could draw ~-

spira tion from the new procedures that had been developed ill

European comparative religion. In that comparative m~thod, the

notionof superstition had been redefined. Not merely ignorance. . 1 1 /I din over"

or fear, superstition was a survival, litera y a stan g . ;2fromthe prehistoric origin and early development ? f hurnaruty.

Comparativists could identify the superstitious beliefs ofmo~ernchildren, women, peasants, the urba~ Ul1.derclass,and col.o~~~~SUbjectsas "survivals" from the prehistonc past ofhumaruty

what had survived? What original trace lingered in the super-ti . . d le that had been

S t iou s beliefs and practices of coloroze peop allre d db" . d I nial agents fromcor e y travelers, missionanes. an co 0 wn Godover the world? It was neither the presence of the u n k n o f

h id of a process 0no r t e authorship of Satan. It was not evi ence. d frhistOrical diffusion through which religions had migrate om

. h b ic forms struc-anCIent cultural centers. It was not even teas .' I li .t . di rirrutlve re gionures, orfunctions of religion. What survive m p

wasa mentality.

THE UNANCHORED MENTALITY

U C at the beginningWereturn for a moment to the eastern ape. u h hich a

of then ineteenth centurv we recall the fascina~lO? W1 Va n der8 h i ~ r h SlOnaryK Pwtecked anchor was disc?vered by t e I n l : :

1magistrate AI-

erop, the t raveler Lichtenste in, and the colom



2 4 4 SAVA GE SYSTEMS

berti. They reported that the anchor stood at the mouth of a r iver

that had been named Keis si, or Keiskamma, by the Hottentots .

When the Xhosa chief Rharhabe, the grandfather of the contem-

porary chief Ngqika, had a piece of the anchor broken off, the

person who removed i t died shor tly afterwards. Perce iving the an -

chor as an enchanter, who had power or dominion over the sea,

the Xhosa apparently concluded that the anchor was angry at the

of fense. Confer ring a specia l name upon the anchor , they saluted

it whenever they passed. As we recall, the missionary, traveler,

and magistrate used this anchor as evidence for the absence ofrel igion among Xhosa-speak ing people in the eastern Cape. They

used the anchor to punctuate the theoretical oppos ition between

religion and superstition. If the Xhosa displayed such supersti-

tious behavior as they seemed to do before the anchor, European

observers insis ted that they could not possibly have any rel igion .

Whatever the anchor might have meant to the people of Ngq i k a ,

European compara tive rel ig ion ists in the eastern Cape concluded

that it stood as a monument to their lack of religion."

The Anchor's Return

Remarkab ly, however, the anchor resurfaced many years later inEurope as a classic piece of evidence for the origin of religion. In

the 1870s the anchor reappeared far away in London in one of the

most popular accounts of the evolutionary rise of humanity, John

Lubbock's Origin o f Civilization and the Primitive Condition ofMan . Drawing on Auguste Comte for inspiration, Charles Dar-

win for conversation, and Edward B. Tylor for corroboration, Lub-

bock outlined success ive stages in the evolution of religion,

beginning with Atheism "the absence of any definite ideas on. I . u ;

the subject," moving to Fetishism, the deification of objects ~n

which man supposes he can force the deities to comply with hi s

desires, " and proceed ing through Nature Worship (or TotemiS~) ,

Shamanism, Ido la try (or Anthropomorphism) , un ti l culminatmg

in "the gradual evolution of more correct ideas and of nobler

creeds." Relying on Lichtenstein's report, Lubbock invoked

Xhosa-speaking people of the eastern Cape to exemplify the first

two stages of this evolut ionary scheme. I ron ical ly , they served to

illustrate both an original absence of religion and the origin of

religion in the emergence of fetishism.

'~ong the Koossa Kaffus," Lubbock noted, "Lichtenstein a f-

BEYOND THE FRONTIER 2 4 5

f irmsthat 'there is no appearance of any rel igious worship what-

ever.:" Although repeat ing Lich tenstein's denial , Lubbock obvi-

ouslydrew a different conclusion in holding that Xhosa-speakers

in the eastern Cape represented a survival of the original stage of

Atheism in the evolution of human civilization. Where Lich-

tenstein like Van der Kemp and Alberti, had found merely an

absence,'Lubbock found an origin, the primordial point ofdepar-

turefor the process of human evolution. The anchor .at ~e. mouth

of the Keiskamma River marked the next s tage, signifying not

merely superstition but the crucial transition, acc~r~g to L~b-

bock'sevolutionary scheme, from Atheism to Fet:s~lsm. While

theabsence of religion represented the primitive ongin ofhuman-

i t y , the anchor marked the origin of re ligion. InLubbock~s analy-

sis, the anchor illustrated the origin of "the savage notl?n of a

deity,"which he insisted was "different from that entert~ned .by

higher races" because , ra ther than being supernatura: , this deiryI,. 1 A· . ID · L·chtensteill LubbockISmere y a part of nature!' gam, Cl g 1 '. .

pointed to the anchor as an example of the primordial ~nd~nm~-

t ive tendency to deify natural objects. "Agood i llustra tIOn, Lu -il d .. are ere-

bockreported, /I and one which shows how eas y el~es .

a tedby men in this f rame of mind, is ment ioned byLlch .tenste;n.

The king of the Koussa Kaffirs having broken off a plecKe°ffira

hich all the a sstranded a nchor died soon afterwards, upon w full h nI, al d . eet y w e -coked upon the anchor as alive, and s ute It r esp

eVerhey passed near i t."34 .1 I 1 engaged ill some

Whether consciously or no t L ubboc c c ear Y .. L· hb . ' dif i . in tranSIDltung Ie -

su stantial subtractions and mo catIOns ~t..:_

• . . t I D · g reveals someullugtenstem's account of the anchor. His rewn . I· . en -b .. f h hanges ill us Ia out his interest in the story. Some 0 t e c k 1. eddi . .d tal Lubboe rep action are curious but perhaps acci en . an d

1. ' . f ce to anger,encuantment with alive omitted any re eren . of

' h r the practlcecompletely removed the naming of the anc orbbo 1· xplicablys a l· . d r . all L u o c { in eu n n g It by its name. More amatlc Y, h he person

k i l l d 1 . ther t an te the king, recounting that the cmg , ra ki off a piece

Commanded by the king, died as a result of brkea illh

gremoval of

of h . . al mis t a e t e. t e anchor. Perhaps an. unmtentlOD ill of the storythe king nevertheless worked in Lubbock's r~t:f ~~tical author-

~odIvorce the anchor from its role as a Sy~b~ c/ They separatedt t y . Most of Lubbock's alterations had this e e .

the anchor from its political ground. di ctly decootex-

Accordingly, other changes inthe stoI?' more ~~d him to cleartuahzed the anchor. Lubbock's subtractlOnS ena



246 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

the geograph ica l, historica l, and social space around the anchor

so that he could use it as evidence for his theory of religious evo-

lut ion. Fir st , Lubbock removed the prec ise location of the anchor,

d ivorc ing i t f rom its specific, geographical habi ta t by the mouth

of the Keiskamma River. Second, by erasing the name of King

Chachabe [Rharhabe], as well as that king's relation to his grand-

son, Ngqika, reigning at the time of Lichtenstein's report, Lub-

bock divorced the anchor from its temporal, historical location

in the period from the 1780s to the early 1800s. Third, Lubbock

elided the Khoikhoi, along with their naming of the river, thusobscuring the plural, diverse social field in which the anchor

stood. Finally, Lubbock subtracted what must have been the an-

chor's primary symbolic significance for the local Xhosa-speaking

people, or at least for Ngqika, who claimed ownership of the an-

chor, by removing any reference to the anchor's "power over the

sea." Like killing the king, this modification in Lubbock's ac-

count eliminated the political context in which the anchor op -

erate~ as a ritual object. By these textual omissions , therefore,

any hint of a con tex tual , relat ional, or political significance for

the anchor was entirely erased. Tom from its context, the anchor

could be employed as a free-floating emblem of the origin ofreligion.

After a ll these subtract ions and modificat ions what remained?According to Lubbock, the anchor remained as evidence of a

"frame of mind" and a "tendency to deif icat ion" that represented

~e primordial origin of religion. Divorced from any geographical,

histoncal, or political context this "frame of mind" could be

imagined as an explanatory constant. Inthis respect , according to

~ubboc~, t~e anchor was evidence of a mentality that attributed

life to manunate objects. Primitives savages and not inciden-

tally, animals shared this mental frdmework' s inc~ as Lubbock

observed in a footnote, "Dogs appear to do the same/?" According

to Lubbock, ~ot only did Xhosa-speaking people in the eastern

Ca.pehave this "frame of mind" that attributed life to inanimate

obJect~, but . they also demonstrated the evolutionary leap, f rom

regarding objects as alive to deifying them that was necessary for

~~e origin o! re~gio~. Having perceived the anchor as al ive , theygan ~alutlllg It WIth the kind of respect due to a deity. Thus,

according to Lubbock, religion was born.

BEYOND THE FRO TIER

The Floating Anchor

Following Lubbock , subsequent commentators on the anchor

persisted indivorcing it from its geographical, historical, or poli-

tical context. InEuropean reflect ions on the or igin of rel igion at

theturn of the century the anchor con tinued to stand, or , more

accura tely, to float , as a symbol of a mentali ty . That mentali ty

couldbe found at the origin of religion, but it also persisted in

the"child-like" thought processes attributed to colonized people

all over the wor ld. The primitive mental ity cou ld be found in col-onized people abroad but also among children, women, rural

peasants, the working class, criminals, the insane, and, following

Lubbock,even animals in Europe.

In his 1885 book, Myths and Dreams, Edward Clodd used ~he

anchoras evidence of lithe confusion inherent in the savage mind

between things l iving and not l iv ing, ar is ing fr~m supe~fl .c i~~

analogies and i ts a tt ribut ion of l ife and power to lifeless things.

LikeLubbock Clodd killed the king, while adding the notion

th a t the Xhosa regarded the anchor as "a vindictive being." .N~v~r-

theless,Clodd cited the anchor to illustrate a confused pnr~lltlve

mentality that was incapable of distinguishing between ammat.e

and inanimate objects. More significant ly for the study a ! reli-

gion,the anchor reappeared in the 1896 Gifford lectures. deliveredbythe Dutch histor ian of religions, C . P . Tiele. Along with F . M ax

MUller ,Tiele has often been ident if ied as a founder of ~h~Euro-

pean science of comparative religion. Although he spe~laliz~d~s

an Egyptolog ist, Tiele provided a more genera l overview o. ~

fieldin his lec ture ser ies "Elements of the Science of Rel ig I~n.

In outlining the element~ of the "lowest Nature-Religions," T~~e

reinforced the frontier stereotype of "savages" as permanent hild-d . . d of "the c -renoTheir religion corresponded to the baSICnee s .

hood of humanity" Their animistic worship of natural objects. d b hildish sell interest

Wasa "childish philosophy" motivate. Y c . - II •

Under what condi tions Tide asked, would "pr imitives" or sav-a /I 'ge s worship an object?

001 . ... ained child-onlyY-£or pnmiuvc man IS as selfish as an untr. . fi d thatWhenhe has an in terest in doing so , only when he IS saus e hth bi ful th h a nd th at he ase 0 jeer inquestion is more power an e, d

h .s wa he up onsomething to hope or to fear from it. An a l lC or 1 h b foreth Afr: h b e en s ee n t ere e .e lean coast. Such an object as never . d hurt

Th . 1 b 1 nit lies quiet anenatIves approach it cautious Yi ut w re

2 47



248 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

nobody, they suspend their judgment and go away. But some free-

thinker in the kraal has observed tha t it ismade of i ron, andashe

is just inwant of a bi t of i ron, he ventures to break offa fluke of

the anchor. Just ashe is busy forging it, an accident happens tohim

and he dies.And now the matter is clear . In the unknown object

dwells a spirit, which has thus avenged the insult offered to it, and

henceforth the spirit is propitiated with gifts and sacrifices.

Inthis fanciful retelling of the tale of the anchor, Tiele replacedthe king with a childish freethinker ofthe kraal who desired abitofiron. He also invented the ritual propitiation of the anchor with

gifts and sacrifices. InTieles account, the anchor demonstratedthe childish hopes and fears that caused primitives to perform

ritual acts of worship before unknown and mysterious objects.

However, although he also divorced the anchor from its historical

context, Tiele was more sensitive than most theorists to the polit-

ical significance of the primitive worship of natural objects thatwas exemplified by the anchor on the African coast. Addressing

the imperial patriotism of his British audience, the Dutch com-parative religiOnist observed that "Your Union-Jack and our Tri-

colour are looked upon by the Negroes as sacred fetishes." Like

the anchor, these flags were sacred objects , but, Tiele insisted,

they were fetishes "in the noblest sense." They were emblems ofEuropean national identity and power. It was only natural, hecon-

cluded, that the adherents ofAfrican "Nature-Religions" shouldworship such powerful imperial objects."

In a general int roduction to the history of religion that firstappeared the same year as Tieles Gifford lectures of 1896andthat

had gone through eight editions by 1921, comparative religionist

Frank Byron Ievons also invoked the anchor as a crucial piece ofevidence. He referred to the anchor inthe context of a theoretical

~scussion of the difference between primitive magic and scien-

tific explanations of the relation between cause and effect. Like

Lubbock and Tiele, Ievons invoked the anchor to illustrate a men-

~alitYi in this case, a kind of magical thinking in which a single

mstance, rather than a body of evidence was sufficient to imputeca~lsalpowers to an object. "Thus," Jev~ns observed, quoting, inthis case, n?t Lichtenstein but Lubbock, Ilithe king of the Koussa

Kaffirshaving broken off a piece of a stranded anchor died soon

af~erwards,upon which all the Kafflrs looked upon the anchor ~salIve, and saluted itrespectfully whenever they passed it." jroni-

BEYOND THE FRO TIER

call~ in an introduction to religion, Jevons concluded that theanchorhad nothing to do with religion as such. It was evidenceof neither the absence o f religion nor the origin of religion.

Ratherthe anchor was evidence of the kind oflogical error thatJevons attributed to the practice ofsympathetic magic,which, in

hisscheme, was a prereligious, nonreligious, or anti-religious way

of thinking and acting. Therefore, the anchor was evidence of

nothingmore than mistaken reasoning. "Here the Kaffirs'error,"levons argued, "consisted in jumping to the conclusion that the

molestation of the anchor was the cause ofthe king's death." Ac-cording to Ievons, that error-the magical mentality that mis-

understoodempirical, scientific relations between ca~se and ef-fect-could only be corrected by proper logical induction. Inthe

handsofFrank Byron I e von s , therefore, the anchor assume? ~newsignificance.For Van der Kemp, Lichtenstein, and Alber t i It hadrepresentedthe absence of religion. Now it represented the ab-

sence of science." .

I n 1 90 6 anthropologist Alfred C. Haddon publi~he? a brief a~al-

ysis of the origin of religion, M a gi c a nd F etI Sh is m. Argu i ng

againstthe theory of /Ianimism" associated with Edwar~~. Tylor,

Haddonrelied on a more recent German theory ofprimitive psy-

chologyto build an account ofthe evolution offetishism, the s~p-

posed origin of relizion. Following the psychology that Fntdzb~ • N "iker Ha -Schultzehad elaborated inbis Psycbologie del atiuvo 1

donoutlined what he regarded as the basic develop111~ntalatternof primitive psychology. First "uncultured man" attnbuted exag-

. ': h he ere "consplCUOUS,geratedvalue to objects especially w ent eyw· . . h' 'I • ., "attnbuted urnan

unusual or mysterious," Second pnrninves b i, ". . ted 0 [ect

characteristics to natural objects. Third, they aSSOClab .. h . . . . . thereby attn utmg a

Wit auspICIOUSor inauspicious events, d f 1 1al . bi t Fourth an na y ,caus mfluence over those events to0 je c s. J dill

b Ii -. . £ obJ'ectsle unciu-a e et inthe causal influencmg power 0 h

, . d pt to engage t eturedman" to revere specific objects an to attem .P· . hr h cts of worshipoWerattnbuted to those objects t oug. ~ . h 1 y , Had-Adopting this four-stage outline ofpmTIltlvepsyc ~ og'h ._

d f "N t rvolker WIt eviOn matched a German psychology 0 a u C f south-dencefrom Xhosa-speaking people inthe easter~ ha~~hor casternAfrica liAsan example /I Haddon observed, t C h H d

. , ., . d /I Althoug a-upon the beach of the river Keissi may ?e CIteon Lichtenstein'don bypassed Lubbock to rely more directlyif hom its geogra-ac~ount, his analysis also cast the anchor adr t . the anchorphical, histOrical, or political moonngs. Once agaJll,

249



250SAVAGE SYSTEMS

became shipwrecked evidence of a free-floating, primitive men.

tality Mechanically, Haddon drew upon the anchor to illustrateSchultze 's four psychological stages of a primitive "frame ofmind."

1. The anchor was an unusual object, and was therefore credited

with an exaggerated value and regarded with great interest.

2. It was believed to possess a life of its own, a soul or spirit,somewhat analogous to man's.

3. A Kaffirbroke offa piece ofthe anchor, and he soon afterwardsd ied . The two events were associa ted with one another and the,breaking ofthe anchor was believed to have caused the death.

4. The power ofthe anchor-spjrit was thus established, and thenatives worshipped it in fear and hope.

"Thus," Haddon declared decisively and triumphantly, "the fetish

was evolved."InHaddon's analysis, therefore, Xhosa regard for theanchor represented evidence of the origin of religion. Like Lub-

bock, he placed the anchor at the beginning of an evolutionary

sequence beginning with fetishism. More emphatically, however,

Haddon made this fetishism the basis ofa "primitive psychology"a mentali ty characterized not merely by beliefs in spirits but,

most deCiSively,by the "low grade of consciousness" demon-strated in the inability to value or evaluate objects. Therefore, likeI evon s , Haddon used the anchor to mark a line that distinguished

primitive magic from modern science. The anchor stood as a sign

of a ~,sel~bodied mentali ty , a primitive psychology incapableof logical mduction and, accordingly, not anchored in the realworld.38

Imperial and Apartheid Comparative Religion

Obviou~ly,comparative religionists in European centers of theory

pr?d~ctIon found their raw materials in the reports of travelers ,mlsslOnane~, and government agents from colonized peripheries

all .over the world. As a result, people on the southern Africanpenphery became incorporated into their theories ofreligion. The

~osa, who supposedly worshiped an anchor became a classicIllustration f f . hi . '. Z 1

o ens ists illEuropean comparative religion. u usf~atured even more prominently in nineteenth-century compara:tive religion asHell .., ul ied, enry a away's collection IIIpartie ar earn

BEYOND THE FRONTIER

authority because it seemed to present authentic Zulu "natives"

speakingin their own voices. Zulus, however,were animists. Asthe prominent folklorist, anthropologist, and comparative reli-

gionistAndrew Lang observed, "The Zulus are the great standingtypeof an animistic or ghost-worshipping race without a God,"

And, as we might expect, the Sotho-Tswana were distinguishedfromXhosas and Zulus by being designated as a classic example

oftotemist . In his 1905 presidential address before the Anthro-

pologysection of the British Association, which was meeting that

yearin Cape Town, Alfred C. Haddon observed that "the Be-Chuan a must have crossed the Zambesi from the north at a veryearlydate because of all the south Bantu groups they alone havepreservedIthe totemic system." In the frontier comparative reli-

gionofsouthern Africa, these same people had supposedlydegen-

erated,respectively, from ancient Arabia, ancient Isra~l, and an-cient Egypt. Now, however, they were incorporated into what

might be called an imperial comparative religion, ~hich found

that they had preserved the original religious menta!ltl! whether

thatprimitive mentality was identified as Xhosa fetishism, Zulu. . . 39

anumsm, or Sotho-Tswana totermsm. 1Moreresearch and reflection needs to be done on the comp ex

relations between European centers of theory.prod~c~ionand col-

onizedperipheries in the history of comparative religion The fateofthe shipwrecked anchor recalls one trajectory in those rel~-tionsbetween center and periphery. Cited as evidenceforthe a .-

senceofreligion on the frontier periphery, the anchorbecame eVI-

dencefor the origin of religion at the European cen~er.At thee-stagein its history, however the anchor marked slgni£ca~t.t rllv• r . l izi Perhaps ongma Yretlcal oppositions in comparative re gion. dd . . disti ti n between sea anUSe toSIgnal an indigenous Afncan stIDCio

1 d 1 d by European com-an , the anchor was subsequently emp oye .... li.n and superstltlOn,

parativlsts to mark oppositions between re gI. 1 bbetween the civilized and the primitive, and,.ult1madt~Y,d'et;~ee~a . ifi b t d disembo ie I ans.cienn c rationality and an a strac e , f h ith

. h s out 0 roue WIContextualized primitive mentality t at wathereal world

. . tl ese theoret-Whateverimpact they might have had 111Europe, 1 e un-. 1 Afri ith a vengeanclea OPpositionsreturned to southern .lcaWI h idcom-d· . h .d In apart eiert~ereign of oppression knoWI_ls apart e~. battlefie ld for

parative religion, the land remamed the P~~eve1opment of

the study of religion. Although a more det sion its basic con-thISargument will have to await another occaSl ,

251



252 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

tours can be suggested by a brief look at the work of W . M. Eise-

len, Afrikaner anthropologist, apartheid theorist, and, eventually,

administrator with the Bantu Affairs Department in the 1950s

during the implementat ion of "Grand Apartheid," Inthe 1920s

Eiselen established a reputation as the leading academic expert

on the indigenous rel igion of South Afr ica . In 1932 social anthro-

pologist Isaac Schapera noted that "Eiselen is now engaged in

writing a book on the religious life of the Southern Bantu which,

if i t includes an equally au thor ita tive analysis of magic and witch-

craft, should make this aspect of Bantu life one of the bestknown." Although that book was never written, Eiselerrs work

exerted considerable influence on the development of an apart-

heid compara tive re ligion , which, in i ts analyt ical s tra tegies , reca-

pitulated the history of interpretations that we have reviewed

by focusing on the anchor. Recalling the treatment of the anchor

in f ront ier comparat ive re ligion, apartheid compara tive rel ig ion

den ied the authent ic ity of Afr ican rel igion , even occasionally reo

fusing to designate African beliefs and practices as religion.

However, l ike the analysis of the anchor in imperial compara tive

religion, it presumed that Africans were evidence for the origin

and evolut ion of re lig ion. Likewise, it a tt ributed to Afr icans a d is-

embodied pr imitive mental ity tha t had supposedly survived from

human prehistory. These three themes-denial, evolution, and

pr imitive mental ity-were basic ingredients in aparthe id compar-

ative religion."

Fol lowing the lead of the missionary Van der Kemp, the traveler

Lichtenstein, and the magist rate Alber ti , apar the id ideologues of -

ten denied indigenous African beliefs and practices the designa-

tion religion. For example, Eise len argued that Africans through-

out the Continent did not have religion. In the 1920s he insisted

that the term religion should be reserved only for the beliefs of an

"elevated culture." Accordingly, since Africans supposedly lacked

such an "elevated culture," Eiselen ins is ted that they had "forms

?f belief" (geloofsvorme) but no rel ig ion (godsdiens). This lead-

l~g expert on Bantu religious life, therefore, recast the early-

nmeteenth-century ge.sture of dismissal as a sweeping denial of

African religion and Culture.Like Lubbock, however, Eiselen found among the Bantu not

merely an absence but also a point of origin for an evolutionary

devel~pment. "The Bantu is no longer a primitive in the rrue

meanmg of the word," Eiselen observed. "The level of develop-

ment thathe has reached we usually call the Totem-culture." pre-

BEYO D THE FRO TIE R 253

suming an evolutionary scheme similar to Lubbock's, therefore,

Eise len p laced Africans on a stage of development just above fe-

tishism. To evolve to the next level, the Bantu required, according

toEiselen, Christian civilization. "Christian education," Eise1en

proposed, " is the only way to make the Kaffera usefu l inhabi tan t

ofour Union," Clearly, evolution and exploitation, turning people

into "useful" subjec ts , went together in Eiselen's compara tive

religion.

Finally, Eiselen ab trac ted a primitive mentali ty that was suf -

fusedwith magic and superstition and attributed it to Africans insouthern Africa. The Bantu, according to Eiselen, was not "ratio-

nal," For evidence of this supposed lack of rationality, Eiselen

compared European and African agricultural methods. White

Afrikaans-spe.aking farmers, he held, made use of rational tech-

niques, such as i rr igat ion or storage, in add it ion to prayer. How-

ever ,according to Eise1en, Afr ican farmers, not being ra tional,

used only prayer or i ts equivalent , ra inmaking ri tual . Fro~ such

suspect , anecdotal evidence, Eise len concluded that the Bantu

mind" lacked "causal reasoning." By reifying this unanchored

mental ity, Eiselen and other apartheid ideo logues inscr ibed t_he

opposiuon between scientific rationality and primitive mentalirv

into the design of apartheid. Dispossession ~d ~~loitation. of

Africans could be justified by referring t~0is prlIDltlve ment~~

Asthe government's Tomlinson ComIDlSSlOn found 1111955,

adequate use of land and employment opportunities are ~ue to

the limited world-view of the Bantu." Therefore, the relegation of

80 p ercent of the population to 13 percent of the land could be

justified in terms of the compara tive find ings of the modern st~dy

ofreligion. Once again, comparative religion was entangled 111 a

battle over land."

NEW FRONTIERS

A .. has ertainly operatedS a strategic act the denial of religion as c d d

on other frontiers' even on frontiers that have been clos~ u~ e~a n estab lished h~gemony. Modified and modulate~ un £fer oC;n

circumstances this denial has registered performatlve ebectsA imodern Nortl:~ America as in .nineteenth-centurY s~ut erln -f. , gl d inthe mterp ay 0

nca, the very term religion has been enta~ . e nflict The his-strategic maneuvers on battlefields of rehglOus co .



254 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

tory ofthe U.S.government's suppression of American Indian be-

liefs and practices recalls one battlefield on which the recognition

ofan indigenous religion has been denied. Even after the passageofthe American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, legal con-

flicts over the ceremonial use of peyote, access to sacred sites,protection of burial grounds, and Indian land claims have con-

tinued to call into question government recognition of American

Indian religions. In response to the emergence of new religiousmovements in the 1960s and 1970s, anti-cult propaganda denied

their religious status by labeling them as entrepreneurial busi-nesses, as subversive political organizations, or as brainwashing

"cults." Anti-cult polemic along these lines even seemed to in-

fluence the academic analysis ofnew religions. During the 1980s,the religious character offundamentalism, especially in its Mus-

lim variety, was also dismissed, even in academic discourse, by

strategic reductions that explained it as a social reaction to mod-

ernization or a psychological aberration of fanaticism and mass

hysteria. In public and potent ways, therefore, the definit ion of

religion has been asintensely contested in modern American cul-ture as it has been as elsewhere in the world."

If religion has been a contested category, a term that has been

~storically produced and situationally deployed, then a single ,mcontestable definition of religion cannot simply be establishedby academic fiat. Inthe study ofreligion, a minimalist definition,

such as the definit ion of religion as relations with supernaturalagents, which was recently defended by E. Thomas Lawson and

Ro.bert N. MCCauley, might deny the religious status of Bud-dhism. A maximal definition, l ike the useful dimensional mapdeveloped by Ninian Smart, might include not only Buddhism

but also secular worldviews such as nationalism humanism, and

Marxism within the orbit of what counts as religion. Ineithercase, however, academic debates about the definition of religion

have usually ignored the real issues ofdenial and recognition that

are inevitably at stake in situations of intercultural contact and

conflict. Aswe have seen, the frontier has been an arena inwhich

definitions of religion have been produced and deployed, tested

and contested, in local struggles over power and position in theworld. In such power struggles, the term religion has been definedand redefined as a strategic instrument. Wecan only expect thosestruggles to continue.43

.In tracing the trajectory from the denial to the discovery ofin-

digenous religions on southern African frontiers , we have been

BEYOND THE FRO TIER

ableto correlate the crucial historical moment of recognition

withthe establishment of a local system ofcolonial control. Un-

derthe magisterial system, the location system, or the reserve

system,Africans were suddenly discovered to have an indigenousreligioussystem. This linkage between the discovery of a local

religionand the establishment of local control suggests that

knowledgeabout religion and religions has depended upon the

powerrelations reinforced by colonial enclosures. Well into the

twentiethcentury, the struggles we have observedin southern.A f -

ricaover denial and discovery, over inventory and interventlo~,overclosure and conversion, have continued to be replayed ill

othercolonial contexts. Here in conclusion I recall only two fur-

therillustrations of this process from recent colonial history.

Mau Mau and Cargo

In the early 1950s the breakdown ofcolonial order inKenyawa~identifiedwith the emergence of the "Mau Mau secret SOCIety.

A J, violent acts of resistance increased, the colonial governo~ofKenyadeclared a state of emergency in October 1952.Addressing

thisdisturbance of colonial rule, the anthropologist and archaeol-

ogistLouis Leakey published a book in December of.that y:~fM au M a u a nd th e K iku yu, that attempted to allay.white fe~aua Kikuyu uprising. In that volume Leakey explam.ed the .M . . Afri nationalIst orgaruza-au as a political movement-an lcan . .. ali d Ki k Central AssOCIatlOn,non igned with the undergroun uyu . U' onwhich had been banned in 1940, and the Kenya~ncanli n~/whichhad been formed after World WarII.Asa natrona st po . l-eal d h M Mau movement was ill-. movement, Leakey argue '. t. e au.. the Christianconsistent with both the traditional rehglOn and h dreligiousvalues that many Kikuyu had adopted. Inat ~rhw~rsoS£'th lizi but the antit esie Mau Mau movement was not a re gion d to drawlocalreligion. Therefore, since it could ~ot.be ~cte the ManSUPPOrt from either traditionalist or Chnstlan yu,

Maumovement was bound to fail." d account ofTwoyears later, however, Leakey published ~seco~ the remark-

themovement De/eating Mau Mau, that reglstere t i l l ' itble a : ,/, l izi movemena e diSCovery that it was actually a re gious li 'on LeakeyoWn . h d d . perverse re gl ,

ng t. Although he regar e It as a t had to be re-nevertheless insisted that the Mau Mau movef.en ork Leakeygardedas a religion. Looking back to his ear ier w ,

255



25 6SAVAGE SY STEMS

reflected upon this change of perspective. "What I did not real-

ize then, and in fact have only come to appreciate fully in the

past few months," he revealed, "was that Mau Mau was in fact a

rel igion and that it owed i ts successes to this fact more than

anything else at all" (emphasis inor ig inal). As a re lig ion, the Mau

Mau movement was a syncretism, "a very strange blend of

pseudo-Christianity and utter paganism," As we have seen in

southern Afr ica , this depict ion of a local re ligion as a syncret ism,

as an i ll ic it mixture , was a stra tegy for denying the authent ici ty

of a religion even in the act of discovering that it existed. Notonly deviant, this religion was also dangerous. It was the "force

that turned thousands of peace-lov ing Kikuyu into murderous fa-

natics"; it was the religious impetus that transformed Africans"into fanatical murdering maniacs=-s

In the midst of a war zone, therefore, Louis Leakey tried to re-

inforce a colonial conceptual closure around the Man Mau move-

ment by deSignating it as a religion. This conceptual containment

coincided with the literal containment of tens of thousands of

Kikuyu in pr isons and "rehabi li ta tion" camps. As in southern Ai -

~ica, a theory that explained a religion as based on fear could eas-

ily become part of a colonial calculus of terror. According to one

commandant, since "Mau Mau was built on fear we had to create

a greater fear of our camp." Defined as a mixture of pagan and

Christian elements, the Mau Mau movement could appear as ani lleg itimate bu t understandab le re lig ious movement . Al though

he represented it as an irrational aberration within the modern,

progressive, and normalized domain of colonial control, Louis

Leakey nevertheless tried to explain and contain the Mau Mau

mo~ement as a religious system. However, Kenya in the 19508,

unlike the eastern Cape of southern African a century earlier,

could not be so easily managed by imposing a colonial system,

whether b~ enforcing an administrative system or by conceptu-

ally mventmg a religions system. Nevertheless, although its ad-

herents escaped the immediate effects of colon ial enclosure when

Kenya achieved independence in 1963 the Mau Mau movement,

following they?lemic of Louis Leak~~ has continued to he de-

fin~~ as a relIgIOUSmovement in the literature of the study ofrehgion.«

Fo~ a second recent example of the discovery of religion in a

f ron tler zone, we might reflect br ief ly on the twent ieth-century

e.mergence of "cargo " movements in the Pacific. Under condi-

tions of intercultural contact, Melanesian islanders developed

BEYOND THE FRO TIER

complex belief and practices in relation to the material goods

brought by white merchants, missionaries, and colonizers. Refus-

ing to accep t the "rat ionali ty" of the economic rela tions and po-

lit ical admin istra tion imposed upon them, adherents of the cargo

movements ant icipa ted a dramat ic change in the immedia te fu -

turethat would bring material prosperity and political autonomy.

Expect ing the imminen t re turn of ancestors bearing the "cargo,"

these moments promised redemption from colonial domination.

In hi s classic analysis Road Belong Cargo, Peter Lawrence, like

JosephCox Warner on the eastern Cape f ront ier , insis ted that thecargomovement should be understood not as supersti tion but as

a rel igious system. Accord ing to Lawrence , "we are dealing not

with afarrago of super t it ion but with a coherent system:" Under

co lonial enclosure, tha t system could be analyzed and mv~nto-

ried, i ts psychologica l and social functions could be expla111e~.

The discovery that it was a religious system, rather than supersti-

t ion, meant tha t the cargo movement could be conceptually con-

tained. Furthermore, again like Warner, Lawrence prop~sed that

therecognition of this local rel igious system was essent ia l for ef-

fectiveintervention and conversion. Warner had argued that colo-

nial administration and Christian conversion had been frustrated

bya failure to recognize that the Xhosa had a religious system.

Once that system was acknowledged, however, magist ra te~ ~ndmiSSionaries could gain enough knowledge about Xhosa religion

todestroy i t. Likewise Lawrence asserted, once the cargo mhovle

d-

, li . t 1"we s oument was recognized as a coherent re IglOUSsys en ,k . f th arhead of our at-see out carefully its weakest point or e spe 1

t 1" N lonial tainm ent Lawrence a soce ot content with its co om can , hli . ystem ead-vocated the destruction of the coherent re glOUSs

had discovered. h C

Remarkablv therefore a century after the work of JOds~P oxW II , . d e n i al to lscovery,arner, comparative religion, moving from em 0 the

Waspursued on the battlefield of another fr?nner.z?n:·wa

: alsobeaches of Melanesia this frontier eomparanve religio t

' hi f land access 0entangled in local conf licts over the owo.ers ip 0 'd WAs note I a r-wealth freedom of labor and political autonomy. . d

I , C e frontier un erner had entered the battlefield of the eastern . ap . h th Xhosa

the banner of "Christian civilization." Indealing WIt .eb

a n dh . . lib k them up as tn e ,e InSIsted colonial power had to rea h et freed' hi h when t us sestroy their political existence, after we'd civilization andfroUl the shackles by which they are boun , th m"Christianity will no doubt make rapid progress among e.

2 5 7



25 8 SAVAGE SYSTEMS

While Warner procla imed the adven t ofChr is tian civi lizat ion , Pe-

ter Lawrence advanced his attack on the cargo movement in the

name ofa new global mission, economic development. "We must

so co-ordinate and introduce oUI programmes of development ,"

he advised, "that the mass of the people have no alternative but

to accept them as the only logical solution to the problems of

modern living." Although he did not advocate military force,

which Warner had invoked as God's "sword" in the work of con-

version, Lawrence did imply an element of coerc ion by assert ing

that pol ic ies of economic development should permit no alterna-t ive . However, even if this impl icat ion was unintended, Lawrence

seemed to share Warner's assumption that people with a recog-

nized re ligious system could be more ef fect ively contained, con-

trolled, and converted. Whether the mass of people was coerced

into Christ ian civi lizat ion or economic development, conversion

had to be guided by the knowledge gained through discoveringtheir local religious system."

As these two illustrations drawn from research 011 the Mau

Mau and cargo movements should suggest, f ron tier compara tive

rel igion continued into the twent ie th century to be advanced in

contested zones of intercultural conflict. Providing a measure of

local control, even if only conceptually, the study of religion in

front ier situa tions has repeated and re inforced stra tegies of colo-nial enclosure . Asbounded and contained systems, local re ligions

have been discoveredi their contours have been outlined and their

conten ts enumerated. Once del imited and defined, however , local

rel ig ious systems have been marked for colonizing intervent ion .

InSouth Africa they Cont inued to be targeted for dest ruct ion . In

the 1980s, fo r example, exper ts on Afr ican rel igion could ident ify

three coherent wor ldviews, or "cognitive systems," inSouth A f-

rica: the traditional African, the Christian, and the worldview of

international business. Inthe interest of economic development,

the traditional African worldview which could s till be invento-

Tied in the tenns-supersti tion, magic, fai lu re to evaluate objects,

and worship of the dead-that had been used to invent it in the

nineteenth century; had to give way to Christ ian conversion in

order to prepare Africans to enter the modern world of "interna-tional business culture."48 Inthis formula with its colonial con-

ceptual containment and missionary program for conversion, the

b.aslc terms and condit ions of a f ron tier comparat ive rel igion con-

tlJolued a t t~e end of the twentieth century to be reinstated andreinforced IIIsouthern Africa.

BEYOND THE FRO TTER25 9

New Horizons

Wh a t does the fu ture hold? Is there a postcolon ia l, postapar the id,

orpostmodern comparative religion on our horizon? Or are we

condemned to repeat the colonial encounters and reinforce the

colon ial enclosures that have been establ ished on the f ront iers of

ourhistory? Ifwe are to reopen what colonial ism has closed, then

the study of religion itself mus t be open to new possibilities.

After r eviewing the hi tory of their colonial production and re-production on conre ted frontiers, we might happily abandon reli-gion and religion a terms of analysis if we were not, as a result

o f that very history, stuck with them. They adhere to our at-

tempts to think about identity and difference in the worl~" Al -

though scholars in the human sciences might try to fix their ref-

erence, the terms religion and religions do not belong solely to

theacademy. They also belong to a history of encounter and con-

tact .Outside of the academic arena , these terms have been t"~en

up and mobilized in conflicts over legal recognition and PO~tIC~

empowerment. They have been entangled inthe kinds o~histon-" "" 1 n andcal struggles of pos ession and dispossesslOn, me USlO

exclUSion, dominat ion and resis tance, tha t we have tracked on

southern African frontiers. . t

ObViously, we would l ike to avoid the mistakes of the past , .0

diminish th~ violence that has been committed under the a~gls

o f these categories especially when they have been deploye to

re~ separate disp'ossess and exclude. Toward that endd,fintW?re-, , . , F ' st a re e lUon

I centconceptual innovations seem prorrusmg. y, "

ofdef ini tion i tsel f has led to ro osals for an open mult~l' h

o e nition of reIigion. Instea 0 t rying to esta IS .a. li . hether that essence IS. g e , monothet ic essence 0 re gIon,. w elations with the

stipulated as beliefs in supernatural beings or r. h depthsacred as ultimate concern symbolic orientatlon~ ?r t e .

d.imen~ionof human existe~ee a polythetic defimtlOn ~uPP~J.cths. . .' - bl /I throu w

?ngo~ng lllqUiry into the "family resem ances e A a clusterl~ltifiabl~ts Q f religIOn m)g t constell~t . ti al an d

- . di Sive prac c , < ' - 'concept, religion signifies an open set ot SCllI .~. In thisSOcialstrategies of symbolic and material negonat lOn. 'on for

al " it IS an occasirespe .c t, rel igion is no t the object of an ~SISi 1I. s Howeveranaly . fi ld f pOSSIble re anon.f SIS, an opening in a e 0 ult i alent or sub-.u zzy and blur red the term might be , however m de:va significant

Jectto contestation, religion neverthele~s pr~V1 and difference.fOCUSingens for reflect ing on human ident ity



260 BEYO D THE FRO TIER 261AVAGE SYSTEMS

Since, for better or worse, we are in fact stuck with the term reli-

gion, we should work to minimize the structural violence that

has inhered in the category of religion by being open to its open

redefinition."

Second, with respect to the notion of religions, Qpen redefini-

tions of religious traditions have als ntl been r . Re -

igions ave been reopened as invented traditions or as imagined

communities. In recent cultural analysis, the previously com-

fortable assumptions about pure cul tures , languages, peop les, or

religions have receded before the recognition that there are nopurities in the world. There are no pure, homogeneous cultm:al

~ms. It is not only in a postmodern world that "pure products

go crazy." Bricolage and creole, mixture and exchange, have al-

ways been the norms of cultural production. Not merely a post-

modern fashion, therefore, this rejection of the notion of the or-

ganically coherent or mechanically integrated cultural sys tem,

which was in any case a product of colonial containment, pre-

sents new opportunities for recovering the dynamics of cul~I

re la tions. Rather than bounded cul tu ra l systems, re ligions art ;. .i !l -

trareligious and interreli . ous networks of cultural relations . Re-

cent advances in the study of culture, as Renata os 0 has ob-

served, have encouraged analysts to "look less for homogeneous

communities than for the border zones within and between thelll''Such cultural border zones are always in motion, not frozen for

inspection ." Back on the open f ront ier, in multiple and contested

border zones , the study of religion will have to resituate itself as

a human science of contact. Whether cooperative or conflictive,

contacts on an open frontier, as Rosaldo has noted and as we have

~een repeatedly in southern Afr ica, are inevi tably "sa turated with

inequality power , and domination ." In any front ier zone, confl ic ts

of interpretation intersect with contests over domination and re-

sis tance. Discourse and force inevi tably overlap . Nevertheless,

beyond colon ial enclosures, int rarel igious and inter rel ig ious rela-

tions become occasions for analyzing the fluid, mobile dynamics

of the production of meaning and the contestation of power in

situations of cultural contacr.v '

How can an academic study of religion reconstitute itself ~

t~ese new fr.o~tiers? J b _ as Ihave suggested, the categori~~.b·

gLOP and relIgIOns are not ob'ects but occasions for analysis then

~e focus 0 inquiry shifts to their aspects, sue as sym 0, myth,

ntual, and trad it ion. Here, as wel l open det i:n1hollsarc possible,

redefinitions that might best be formulated in negative terms.

First, a ymbol is not a ign with a fixed referent, What did the

Xhosaanchor sign ify? What d id the Zulu uNkulunkulu sign ify?

What d id Sotho-Tswana an imal emblems sign ify? Like any sym-

bol,they signified both an argument over definition and a contest

o v e r appropr ia tion. Although fron tier comparat iv is ts t ried to fix

their referents, symbols res isted their fixation and remained

availablefor reinterpretation. Not only made meaningful through

actsof interpre ta tion, however, symbols are a lso invested with

power through competing claims on their ownership. The sym-

bolicdynamics of rel igion appear in the cul tural process of steal -in g back and forth sacred symbols, symbols tha t are made sacred

bythe highly charged activity of appropriating and reappropriat-

in g them. Therefore, if we are attentive to both meaning and

poweron new frontiers, our definition of s mbolic ractices and

processesmust e reopened by recognizin~ that no rel ig i~u~ sym-

b . - a l has a fixed or stab le referent , Defying al l claims to pnvileged ,

exclusive ownership, symbols are always available for new appro-

priations and new interpretations."

Second, a myth is not a story with canonical closure. Rather

than being subject to timeless repetition, a myth is opened and

reopenedby interpretat ion . As a resu lt , myth is a type ofongoID.g

cultural work. In recalling the myths told on southern Afri -

c a n frontiers, we have observed how a Zulu creation myth or a

SothO-Tswana emergence myth could provide symbolic.terms and

narrative structures for making sense out of the runeteenth-

century colonial situation. Inthis respect , myth was not a c losed

canon for repetition but an open repertoire of cultur~ resources.

Not only open however these stor ies were also relat lOnal. Theyk ed i " , ..;+1 and also

evo ed mtrareligious arguments over their Slo~<cance .'

el~bodied interreligious and intercultural relatlODS.~e~OgDlz:,~

this re la tional character of myth, the Zulu compara tlv~st Mp

gulaMbande even prefaced h is version of a Zulu creatIOn nar:a-

tive b y noting that it was the IIaccount which bla~k men:~e

white men of their origin."52 Open to reinterpretatwn, myI ldsa l . of intercu ltura anso open to redeployment in frontier zones k f

cOnfl.etual human encounter. This open and situational ,,!or Old

III h h nfin d to the s tones tov t n , owever has certainly not been co e al t, d th ltur en er-

on s outhem African frontiers. It has define e cu f '

P 'f· .' A yth there ore, ISnse 0 myth in the history of rehglOns. m , ,

, 11' remterpreta-never a closed story It is always open to rete ing, I'ti . f . ltural re atlOns.i on , and redeployment inthe context 0 mtercu . ' orig-Third . f authentlcatmg

, a ntual is not the reenactment 0 an



262263AVAGE SYSTEMS BEYOND THE FRONTIER

inal. Rather, as a dynamic, embodied practice, every ritual a~t

is a new performance. Since ritual might invoke superhuman pow-

ers, signal a transit ion, reinforce polit ical authority, or express

emotion, its significance cannot be captured by regarding it onlyas a mechanical repetit ion of some original meaning. Frontier

comparative religion tried to contain ritual in terms ofboth originand meaning, especially if i ts original meaning, as in the caseof

circumcision, could be traced back to the ancient Near East .

However, European comparativists were particularly frustrated by

trying to elicit the Originating meaning of the widespread Africanpractice ofplacing stones or sticks on cairns. This ritual practicedefied interpretation because no one knew what it meant; i t de-

fied explanation because no one could give reasons for doing it.

People performed this ritual act for absolutely no reason. Beyond

interpretat ion or explanat ion, the analysis of ritl la1 must he -

'n recisel at this oint at the juncture of t hou t feelin andaction that coalesces inembo .ed ractices that mark ou e

world. In each act 0 p acing a stone on a cairn, people did not

reenact some original meaning. Rather, they marked a new cross-ing, a new transition, a new journey. Through embodied practice,

they redrew the map of their world. If the reality of southern Afri-

can cairns, instead of theological assumpt ions about ancient

N ear Eastern circumcision, can serve as our model, we can rec~-

nize that in ritual human beings do not repeat old patterns; t~y

move through the reorganized space ofnew worlds. Not are n-tion of an origin ,every ritua act ISa new act .53

Finally, ~eligious tradition is neither uniform in the present

nor continuous with the past. Comparativists on open frontiersoccasionally expressed frustration that not everyone within apar-

ticular African community shared the same religious beliefs andpractices. As Peter Kolb observed, "with the Africans, as with

ourselves, religious knowledge is not universal."54 Nevertheless,

as frontiers closed, comparative religionists invented religiOns,

even a generic Bantu religion, based on the presumption that

the~rbeliefs and practices were in fact universally shared by every

African man, woman, and child. In the invention of African reli-

gions, from Hotte~tot to Bantu religion, European comparativ~~tSpr~sumed that Africans manifested a uniformity that was not. asWIthourselves." Not only uniform in the present, African religIOD

was assumed to be continuous with a timeless past. Whether de-

gen~rated f:om ancient origins or perpetuated from time imme-

morial, African religion was defined as a continuity with the past.

Obviously,these assumptions of both uniformity and continuity

obscuredthe historical reality of African religious traditions. Notbandeddown unchanged from the past but alwaystaken up and

mobilized inthe present, a religiouS tradition. comprised ofopensynIb ths and rit;-als, is necessarily a shiftin . id 1-

sembleof cllltural resources. nothing else, a stud~ Qfreligiop~st come to terms wjth thjs reality of tradirion.

--Frontier comparative religion, however, tried to identify unifor-

mityand continuity through the comparative procedures ofmor-

phologyand genealogy. It assumed uniformity by tracking analo-gies,continuity by tracing descent. Through these comparative

procedures,it tried to fix religions in space and time as enc1ose~,

yetcomparable, systems. "When records are wanting, and tradi-

tionis grown a blind matter," Peter Kolbobserved, " a l l that ~anbedone is to compare that tradition, together with ~e.histon.es,institutions, and customs of other nations, and fix It, If nothing

sha l l hinder, where the parity most appears." Tomake the m~stofhis silent, s ightless evidence, Kolb proposed a comparatrve

method. However, even in relation to written records or or~ tra-ditions, comparison is unavoidable. Since the very categones of

analysis-religion and religions; symbol, myth, ritual, and tradi-

t ion-have emerged from comparison, all that can be don~, asK I ". id d ''All kindso b i nsi seed, is to compare. AsDaVI Hurne p ropose , .,ofreasOning consist in nothing but a comparison" [emphasis ill. . M "11 ec ifled

origina l ] , and with respect to religion, as F . M ax u er sp r

'Mhigher knowledge is acquired by comparison, and rests on

comparison." If we are to reason at a ll or know anything aboutfli . h e the problem 0re g i on therefore we must some ow engag

" ill k ow abso-comparison. Otherwise forsaking reason, we w n

lutelynothing about either religion or religions.55 . . thB . b /I t fix" religions on eut must the goal of comparison eo. d

b . f li . essarily devote toasis 0 Similarity? Is comparative re IgIOnnec hd ., 1 In P t r Kolb's c ase, t eemonstrating parity among religions! e eestablishment of parity between Jews and Hottentots was.nth°tb~d i . . J athan Z Sou .asen illItself. The logic of companson, as on. . al ysd f . things must wa

note, requires that the comparison 0 tWO d .b de i .d "In 1 ase of an aca erniee rna e Inrespect to some thir . tne c , . ostco . . /I h I ith respect to IS mmpanson" according to Smith t e WI .fr' '. d in a questlOn,equently the scholar 's interest, be this expresse . 1 questionsa theorv or a model.v= Certainly Kolb had theoretlca. n-h ~I, • . 1I f observatIOn,cot at anchored his methodolOgical procedures 0 . religionversation, and exchange. However, Kolb's comparatlve



264 llEYO D THE FRONTIER 265AVAGE SYSTEMS

was also a strategic and polemical imputation to Jewsand Hotten-tots not merely ofparity but of a shared difference in relation tothe Protestant Christians who had secured their early-eighteenth-

century colonial sett lement in the Cape. The colonists repre-

sented the implicit third term in Kolb's comparison between Hot-tentots and I ew s . During the nineteenth century, Protestant colo-

nists continued to represent the silent third term incomparisonsbetween Africans and Roman Catholics, Xhosa and Arabs, Zulu

and Jews, Sotho-Tswana and ancient Egyptians. In all these cases,parity was asserted on the basis that any two of these religionswere like each other because they differed in some respect from

Protestant Christianity. Therefore, Kolb and otber frontier com-parativists advanced a comparative religion not only in the ser-vice ofa "theoretical" project but also in support of the practical

interests of Protestant colonists in southern Africa.Kolb'sformula for comparative religion had a long afterlife. In

the 1870s it was quoted in the preface of the first British publi-

cation devoted to providing an overview of African religion,Hemy Rowley's The Religion of the Africans. Surprisingly; Rowley

used this comparative method to discover that Africans all over

the continent held indigenous beliefs in God. "'I believe in God/-an uncreated Supreme Spiritual Being," Rowley declared, "is

the creed which underlies all else that the Africans believe." Inthis respect, therefore, Africans were like Protestant Christian~.Where parity broke down, however, was on the basis, not ofreli-

gion, but of race. Reci ting Mbande's story about the origin of

black a~d white people, Rowley concluded that this creati.onmyth "ISvaluable only as showing the workings of the nanve

mind when brought into contact with the superiority ofEurope-~S."57 In this imperial comparative religion, therefore, the prin-

ciple of parity only served to reinforce a fundamental dispanty

between "primitives" and civilized Europeans. Africans tni~t

have a religion, like Protestants, but they were neverthel~s d i f -ferentiated in this imperial comparative religion by virtue ot their

supposedly inferior mentality.

Backin South Africa, Peter Kolb's formula for comparison wasquoted again in 1914by the mining magnate Sidney Mendelssohn

illa two-part essay titled "Judaic or Semitic Legends and CustoIDSAmongst South African Natives" that was published in the JoUI -

nal of the African Society Two centuries after Kolb had advanced

his polemical comparison between Hottentots and Jews,Mendels-sohn cited his authority to argue in considerable detail for both

formal analogies and common descent between Jews and all the

indigenouspeople of southern Africa. Ultimately, however,Men-delssohnsuggested that Africans were like Jews,not because theypresenteda similar obstacle to the advance ofProtestant Chris-

tianity,but becau e they had both been overwhelmed byits globalexpansion.Like Kolb, Mendelssohn found that indigenous evi-dencefor comparative religion in southern Africa was silent.

"WhenIirst went to South Africa, overa third ofa century ago,"herecalled, "it was already late in the day to make inquiries of

thenatives, even ifIcould have spoken their language, ofwhichIaveno knowledge." On the closed frontier of the 1890s,Men-

delssohndiscovered that Africans, who had only recently beencreditedwith having a Bantu religion, were already losingit under

theimpact ofmodernization, industrial capitalism, andChristianconversion.Although he could not hear their traditions, Mende~s-

sohn recalled that he could nevertheless see African faces.While

watchingthe laborers in the gold mines orin the diamond fields,hereported, "in the great sea of black faces Ihave seen men of

suchan unmistakably Jewish cast of features that Ihave alm?st

feltinclined to greet them as strangers in a strange laJ._1~.1Iavingdocumentedthe Jewish forms and roots ofAfrican re l igion , Men-

delssolmended his treatise on comparative religion on a not.eof

loss.Of the traditions once practiced by these "strangers ill a

strangeland," he concluded, "practically little is left today,andthatlittle will disappear with the probably gradual converSIOnto

Christianity of the whole of the South Africanraces."InM~ndels-

80hn'gcomparative religion the third term inthe companson ofJ 'eh' . ity Parity be-ewsand Africans remained Protestant nsnamrvtweenJews and Africans could be established, however,not ?e-

causethey were obstacles but on the basis that both wer~ah~nd . ' . hri SOCIetyman alienated with respect to the expanding C nstian

SouthAfrica ssD . he f h lparativists Kolb,SlUgt e same formula there are, t e con

ROWley,nd Mendelssohn ~rived at very differentr~sults. Nevelr-th 1 h b WIth a formu aeess, a common pat tern emerged. Eac egan A f .f· d b ting that ncansOr establishing similarity but ende y asser . . f .representedan unassimilable difference-an obstacle, anm en~r-. .' licit third term illI t Y , an estrangement-in relatIOn to the imp ICI b di ovth ' . . . " . Arguablv eac ISC -ell compansons Christian civilizatIOD. 1/ ia l . t If

ery ofdifference ~ different ways, served the coloni IPro.)elce·rath "' .' t a postco onia ,e practIce of comparative religion ISto en er f king

it r n u s i certainly abandon this third term asthe basis or rn a 1

meaningfulcomparisons between religions. hi book com-However, as I have tried to suggest throughout t s ,



arative religion does not necessaril com are li ions. Be 0 d

co oni containments it can com re the situational relational,an strategic practices of com arison that have roduced re . i n

an Ie gions as 0 jects of knowledge and instruments ofpowir.

Inthis work of comparing comparisons, comparative religion con-

fronts the play of similarity and difference as a historical problem

that can be situated within specific intercultural relations. Nei-

ther simi larit ies nor di fferences are s imply given in the world.

They are produced through the practices of comparison and gen-

eralization that we have surveyed in this history of comparativereligion in southern Africa.

Although this book has located a history of comparison within

the colonial conditions of southern Africa, I believe that i ts f ind-

ings have wider significance for the study of religion. As noted,

similar discourses of denial and discovery; similar gestures ofdis-

missal, policies of containment, and assertions of difference, can

be observed all over the world. These practices of comparison

carry colonial histories that need to be confronted. However,the

relevance of that historical confrontation will register only if it

enables us to move forward into a postcolonial comparative reli-

gion. The way forward, I would suggest, might be found bygoing

backwards. Wecan journey back through the historically situated

discourses and practices of comparison that have constitutedfrontier , imperial, and apartheid comparative religion and find

ourselves once again on the frontier . As we have seen, a frontler

is a zone of conflict; but it can also be a zone of reciprocal ex-

changes, creative interchanges, and unexpected possibil~ties. We

mighr very well be faced with a front ier future. By going back

through the history of situated comparisons to the frontier, it ispossible that we might clear a space-perhaps even a postcolo-

~al, postimperial, orpostapartheid space-where something new

illthe study ofreligion can happen.

NOTES

Preface

1 . Hume, T re at is e o f H um an N at ur e, 1:375; Preus, Explaining Relig io n. ,2. Mul ler, In tro du ctio n to th e Science of R e li gi on , 9 j Sharpe, Comparat ive

R e li g io n , 3 5 .3. Capps, "Evaluation of Previous Methods ," 180.

4. Long, Signi f ications, 3-4.5. Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine, 34.

6 . B ha bh a, L oc ati on o f Culture, 38-39.

7. Ackerman, t. G. Fr az er , 1 9 2 .

1. Frontiers of Comparison

1. Wallerstein, Modern World System, 66-129.

2. Foucault, O r de r o f T hi ng s; Said, Orieatolism-

3. Rosaldo, "Rhetor ic of Control ," 240-57. p ti e 66 H ind4 . Leopold, Culture in C omp a ra ti ve a n d Evolut ionary ei spec v , j ,

"'We Have No ColOnies,''' 3-35. CompaIa ti v e Re l i-S. Jordan, Comparative Religion, 377-84, 580-604; Shaff;}'·' s 1'583

gion, 35 j John Henry Barrow: World's Parliament of f IgIOI1, ie Knigh l

6. Leac~, '~ th ropo logy and Rel ig ion," 218 -19. See~ ° b r ~ ; = P d e 'taus 1~

lnqulIY in to the Sym bo lica l L an gua ge , 78 j Dc l i u~ , ds 259-70; a n d L u h-culies, Manuel, Eighteenth Century Confronts e uoas,

bock, O ri gi n o f Civilization, 217. Cam bell Wilnes an d7. On tr avel li te ra tur e and e thnography, se e ~, a~e fer t ~'Co il ec ti on o f th e

the Other World; Daston, "MaI'VeJous Facts j l' s p o s sess ion s ; Harb-Wor!dll; Frantz, English TI(Jvellel; Greenblatt, ~az;e Oll "Assimilating New

smerer , "Element ary St ructu res o f Ot he rne ss ~ Y~ ' t Map o f Man k in d .Worlds"; and Clyndwr Wi ll lams and P . J.Mar sh ~. ~~son , Decon truct-On monsters see Friedman, Mo n st ro U S R a ce sr r 5" and Wiukower,

ing America; Park and Daston, "Unnatural ConlceptinOdnjovak WJ ld Man"M 1 ild e D ud ey a 'arve s of the East," On w men, se S On earthly para-With' 0 F' hild Noble avage. d. In. 11 nobl e savage s, s ec aJJC , . s ions ofconquest an repre-dlses, ~ee Bauder , P a ra di se o n E a rt h. For discuS s I nv as io n o f AmellCDj

Se~tatlOn, ee Hanke, S p an is h S tr ug gl ej ren::fr~/NatUIal MarIj and Pag-o Gorman, In ven tio n o f Amencai Pagden, F



2 7 6 NOTES NOTES 27 7

23. Rober t Moffat, Mis iottary Labours, 255 , 257 , 250 -51. For a im ila r com-

pari on between ob tacle in Africa and India, see John Mackenzie, T e l l

Years, 4 8.24. Rober t Moffat, Missionary Labours, 305. See Kay, Travels and R e s e a s d i e «

209. "

25. Rober t Moffat, M1 sionary Labours, 247.26. Rober t Moffat, Mis ionary Labours , 260-63, 395. See Setiloane, Image of

God, 77-86.

27. Rober t Moffat, Missionary Labours, 264-65, 261; J.Tom Brown, Among the

Bantu, 103; Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelat ion and Revolut ion, 218.

2 . Robert Moffat, Mi sionary Labours, 381, 267; John Mackenzie, Ten Years,

338-39_

29. Robe rt Moff at , Missionary Labour, 268, 252; Rober t Moffat, MatabeleJournals, 1:16, 27.

O. Rosal ind Shaw, "Invent ion, " 342-43; John Mackenzie , Ten Years, 134,137.

31. John MacKenzie , Ten Years , 136, 135 n. 1; see John Mackenzie, Day·

Dawn, 65-68.3 2. K irb j, DiaIY of Andrew Smith, 1:262; see Reyburn, "Missionary as Ra i n -

maker"; and Grove, "Scot ti sh Missionar ies. " John Mackenzie , Ten Years,

78_

33 . Edwin W.Smith , Robert. Moffat, 147; Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours,

134.34. Arbousset and Daurna r Narrative of an Exploratory Tour, 165-69; Orpen,

History of the Basutus, 24. . .,.3S. Casali, Basutos , 237; Casal i s, Etudes de 10 langue du Becbuaaa, XXXVlll ;

Casali, Etudes sur 1alangue Sechuana, 22. . .36 . Rol land, "Idees religieuses," 474; Arbousset and Daumas, Natrative o t an

Exploratory Tow, 176; Lemue, "Coutumes religienses," 54, See LlVlngstone,

Missionary Travels, 13; and Casalis, Basutos, 211:, . , 437. Lcrnue, "Coo tumes re lig ieuse s, " 54; Me thuen , Life illthe Wildernes s , ~ I

187, 254; ee Casalis, Basutos, 242; and Arbousser, Missio~~ E x c : u : s l ~ l :Ill.On the myth of the animal messengers, see Zahan, Religion. Spwl1 th

ity. and Thought, 36-52. On European in te re st inEgypt, see Iversen, M y;

of Egypt; and Wortham, Genesis o] British Egypto~ogy~ , .and38 Ca rl yle Soutli A/rica 48-49 57· see Merenskv; Beitrage zur Kenntlll

SS,

., " ' " . d DauroasMerensky, Erinnetungen aus dem Mlssionsleben_ Arbousset an 391'Nar ra ti ve ' o f an Expl ora to ry Tow, 104; John Mackenzie, Ten Years, '

386- 7_

39. Holub, Seven Years, 1:327-28.40, Shillington, Col oni sa ti on o f the Sout hern Tswana,. 188. D chs "Miss ion'

41. John Mackenzie , Ten Years, 394. On John Mackenz.1c, see Mak' ie r o h n

ary Imperialism"; Hall, "Humarutarianism"; w t l l f , a ID Ddint r o t a 'M a c .Mackenzie; William Northcott, "John MackellZle ; an I ery,

kenzie.42. John Mackenzie , /INat ive Races of South Afr ica, " 185-86.

43. War Off ice, Native Tribes, 121, 12.5. , II' Kl fll. Haile, A/ricaJl

44. Willoughhy, Tiger Kloo], 28-30. See Halle, TIger 00 ~ "

Bridge-Builders; and Chirenie, "Church, ~tate, and EduC~~~~t on a V i S l t ,4S. Willoughby, Tiger Kloof, 41; London MISSIOnary Society,

139. . " 278 282,281. .46. Willoughby, "Notes on Toterrusrn, 264-65~ 270-71, t: ~rKlool, 3-4; WiJ-47. Wil loughby, "Notes on ToteroisnJ, " 281; Wil loughby, 19

loughby "Notes on Totemism," 269. e absence of idoJatr}/

48. Ellenberger, History of the Basuto, v, 242-43. °dnMthh .en Lifein the W i l -see Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours, 243; an er 11 ,

derness , 304.

49. Ellenberger, History of the Basnto, 245, 243, 241, 245.

50 . Sonntag, M y Friend Malebocb, 8-9.51. Robert Moffat, Matabele Journals, 1:17; Winter "Mental and Moral Capa-

bilities," 371. r

52 . Bryden, History of South A/r ica, 127 , On comparison with "Levitical" laws

see Casalis, Basutos, 180; John Mackenzie, Ten Years, 393i and Widdi~

combe , Fomteen Years , 45-46.

53. Baines, Gold Regions, 71. See Schloemann, "Malepa"· Junod "BaLemba"·

Stayt , "Notes on the Balemba", and Van Warmelo, C;ntdbudons toward;

Venda History, 81-82.54. Rober ts , "Bagananoa," 256, 241.

6. Beyond the Frontier

1. Tooke, "Uncivi li sed Man," 79, 85. See Fabian, Time and the Other .2. Theal, Ethnography, 63 68 12· with reference to Skeat and Blagden,

Pagan Races. ""

3. Theal, Ethnography, 19.4. Theal, Ethnography, 107, 110,117,111. See Hahn, Tsuni-//Goam.

5. Theal, Ethnography, 80.

6. Thcal, Ethnography, 219-390, 143,425. .'7. Theal, History of South Afr ica, 5:332. On syncret ism in the his tory ofre li -

gions , see Stewart and Shaw, Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism. ,8. Theal, History of South Afr ica, 3:482. See Saunders, Makmg of the outh

African PaSL 29· and Schreuder "Imperial Historian."9 . ", ''A fh· Lc Vaillant, Travels into the Inter ior, 82; Vander Kemp , ccount 0 t e

Religion," 43.5.10. Gardiner, Narrat iv e o f a Journey , 314-15; Merriman, .Cape Journals, 43;

Chapman, navels in the Interior, 1:117i John MackenZIe, Ten Years, 337.

11. Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours, 269, 248.12 . R.ichard Cope, Journal 0 1 the Reverend T. 1. Hodgson, 357.

13. Lichtenstein, Foundation, 72. .14. Bergson, Laughter. John Campbell, navel s in South Naco, 124.15. Levy-Bruhl, Primitive Mentality, 22, 36; philip, Reseo:ches, 2:116.-1,?'

16. Levy-Bruhl Primitive MentalitY, 23. Arbousset, "Station de MOrLj3, 5717. Levy-Bruhl: Primitive Mentalit;' 2 4 , 26; Burchell, navels in tile Inteuot.

2:295; H. A. Junod Life of a South African Tribe,2:152.. r ,

18 L' B ' 6 69 R b t Moffat MiSSIOnary 1 - < 1· evy- ruh1 Primitive Mentality, 3 8- ; 0 er '. dui ~57

b~uIs, 384/ Livingstone and Livi~gstone, N~rrative a t a~Expe : .u~~ ,19 . Levy-Bruhl Primitive Mentality, 422-23' Dleterlen, Mefiance, 3 .:20 Sf' " d HPJ nod Bantu Hentai!e.· ee, or example, Kidd, Essential Kaffir; a n . , u .' " ReI! io n

21 . Jonathan Z. Smith, Map I s Not Terr ito ry, 240-64; [l1Jagwmg ~,

22-26. 'n Call Ii' 4 Gardiner Narmt!'>" of a

· away; Fragment on Comparat iv e Re gion, ; ,!oumey, 170-71.

2 . 3 . Metheun, Life in tbe Wilderness, 296. L imbon 6924 . Benveniste, Indo-European Language, 522; Hobbes r

, r e V ] v" 3'99 e Plu·2 S P hili R h B ''A count 0 a Qurnel, .

· p, esearches, 2:116; Jo narrow, c.. Em mcu~, 3:lo~;

tarch, Plutarch's Lives, 3:15; Sextus Em?!llCUS, S~~~~and~umc" aIU

Hobbes, Leviathan, 168-83; Vico, New SCIence , sec. r

ral History, 812 6. Holden, pdst a'nd Futme, 288; Bowker, Speeches, 131.

278 OTES



27. exrus Empiri cus , Sextus Emplricus, 3:9-1l.

28. Alberti , Tribal Life, ~; Drachmann, Atheism, 19,43.

29. Frere, "Presidential Addre ," 1:100

30. Bleck, On the Origin of Language, xv-xvi, Spohr, Natal Diaries, 24 .31. Robert Moffat, M l ionary Labours, 305; Kay, T r av e ls a n d Researches, 209.

For p receden t, ee Augus ti ne, City of God, 7:33; and William Laurance

. Brown, Comparative View 0/ Cbri t iani ty , 1:172.

32. See Hodgen, Doc tr ine o f urvivals.33. Van der Kemp, "Account of the Religion," 433; Lichtenstein, n av el s i n

SC?l1tbern Africa, 1:313; D Mi t, Diary of a Tourney, 4B-49; Alberti, Tribal

Ufe,47-4 ; John Campbell, Travel in South Africa, 517-1B.

34. Lubbock, Origm of Civilizatton, 205-10,215,2 6.

35. Lubbock, Origin o f Civil izat ion, 287.36. Clodd, Myths an d Dreams, 13; Tiele, Elements of the Science o f Rel ig ion ,

68,70,77.37. Ievon , I ntr oducti on t o t he Hi tory of Religion, 2B .38. Schultze, Psycbologie det Naturvolket. 223· Haddon Magic and Fetish·

ism, 84-85. ",

39. Andrew Lang, Making 0/ Relig ion, 207; Haddon, "Presidential Address,"

519.40. Schapera,. "Present State," 25 ; ee Eiselen and Schapera, "Religious Beliefs

and Practices," For pol it ical context , see Brian Du Toi t, "Miss ionaries"; Pur-

long, Between CroWD and Swastika, 225-26; Robert J.Gordon, "Apartheid's

A_nthropologists"; and T Dunbar Moodie, Rise 0/ A / ci k an e rd om , 2 72- 7 5.41. Ei e1en, "Geloofsvorme"; Ei elen "Die Seksuele Lewe" 166 174; R iselen,

"Die Ein tlike Reendans", E is ele~ Stamskole in Suid Afr ika , 76; South

Africa, Summary of the Report, 7 9 .42. Mi chael en, "S ignif ic ance o f the Ameri can Indian Re li gi ous Freedom Ac t";

Chidester, Pat te rns o f power 221-57· Chidester Salvation and Suicide,24-46. ",

43. Lawson and McCauley, Rethinking Relig ion, 7;Smart, Worldviews.

44. Leakey, Mau Mau and the Kikuyu, 93.

45. Leakey, Defeating Mau Mau, 41, 40, 43, 52.46. Rosberg and Not tingham Myth o f " Ma u Mau;' 336· Berman and Lonsdale,

"L ' Iou is Leakey 's Mau Mau," 194-95.47. Warner, "Mr . Warner' s Notes" 10B-9· Lawrence Road B e lo n g Ca rg o , 2 7 2-

73. On the significance of ~go mo~ements fo~ the study of religion, see

Long, Significations.4B. Cook, "Problematic Difference v . Malan "Cosmolocrica1 Factor."

49. Needham, "Polythetic Clas ific'abon"; 'Poole, "M';aphors and ~ps";

Sou th wo ld , "Re li gi ous Bel ie f" . See Chi de t er, Sbots in the Streets, 3-;)·

50. Hobsbawm and Ranger Invention of TI:adition· Anderson, Imagined c o m arnunmes. Clifford Pr; dicamen t of Cult ure 1-17· Rosaldo, Culture an, "d ·h Can·Truth. 217. On di cour e and fo rce , s ee Lincol n, Discourse an t e

strucnon of Society: .' hi51. Chidester, "Stealing the acred Symbols"; Chidester, Word and LJg ,

143-45.

52. Callaway, Rel igious Sys tem, 79-80.53 . See Be ll , Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice.54. Ko lb , Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, 29. . of Hu·55. Kolb, Present State of the Cape of Good Hope , 29; Burne, TreaUs

e9

ma n Nature, 1:375; MUller, In tr oducti on to t he Sci ence o f R el ig IO n, .

56. Jona than Z. Smit h, Drudgery Divine, 51.

~B7. Rowley, R eli gio n o f th e Africans, 15, 43.Mendelssohn, "Judaic or Semit ic Legends ," 13:395-96, 14:32-33.

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