The Past (Labar Zizigu) 2
The Past (Labar Zizigu) 2
Marghi belief
Finally, we must consider that
portion of Margi belief which explains nature and the origin of natural
phenomena, for these forces are as much a part of the world as its geographic
features and its inhabitants. This must be done cautiously, however, in order
to avoid the impression that these people are overly concerned with
supernatural forces or even that religion constitutes a cultural focus as it is
claimed for societies in other parts of Africa (Herskovits 1958:177).
A "world view" entails
the organization of both natural and supernatural phenomena into an integrated,
meaningful belief system which underlies a society's conceptual system. It is
meant to be literally a view of the world. It is the efficient integration of
natural and supernatural forces into a single world view which causes the
Margi, and doubtlessly many other societies, to appear religionless. For in
fact "religion"--by which is usually meant those behaviors associated
with a belief in supernatural forces--does not exist for them.
There is no clear distinction
between what is natural and supernatural and consequently there is no discrete
institution concerned with supernatural phenomena. Of course, there is ritual,
but most of it is a necessary part of instrumental acts. Thus, rituals at
harvest are not separable from the harvest; they are a part of a single act.
Similarly, it would be a gross misunderstanding to separate the
"ritual" and secular aspects of the political institution, for it
would fail to grasp the most elemental aspect of the institution of
"divine kingship."
There are three categories of
forces or beings which control the world which may be ranked hierarchically
such that each has power over those under it. At the top of this system is iju,
the ultimate cause of everything--good as well as ill. Although in some myths,
proverbs, and figures of speech, iju is personalized, the term should probably
not be translated "god." Iju is not anthropomorphic in habit; rather
it is an omnipotent and omnipresent force which is totally beyond the
manipulations of men. The only logical system which encompasses iju is the
logic which says all must be caused and iju is that cause; a scoundrel may
prosper, or a good man fail, and the explanation is iju.
Iju is not merely a just god--it is beyond
justice, except that some say that iju will create justice in the afterworld
(ivuhu, literally, inside the grave). Although Margi are remarkably tolerant of
cultural difference in those of different ethnic groups or of different
historical tradition, they are incredulous that there could be persons who do
not believe in iju -- some iju. Their incredulity on this point is not that
someone might fail to believe in a specific supernatural being--that is
understandable --but that someone can deny causation.
The nature of iju may be
illustrated in an event in which I was painfully involved. When a visitor
attempted to reach my compound by passenger automobile, it was damaged on the
underside. We jacked up the car, and as I attempted to repair it, it fell off
the jack and gave me a nasty knock. This event was much observed by my
neighbors, and I am sure looked more frightening than it was. As I crawled
out--not without having someone close a door on my hand-- I was consoled by
comments of "iju, iju." Subsequent inquiry revealed that two aspects
of the accident were commented upon by this expression.
First and most importantly, the
event had been caused by iju, no one or nothing was responsible, and second, my
survival--which had not in fact been in danger--was also attributable to iju.
Given the omnipotence of iju, one might assume that Margi are fatalistic, but
this all encompassing causality is largely a "back-up system" to
other more instrumental systems. When no other explanation works, the answer is
iju.
Although the Margi seldom use etiological
tales or myths in general, one of the most frequently heard myths
recounts the alienation of man from iju.
Version I
(From M. Bitrus Kajil)
Once the
sky, where our vision ends, was not as far away as it is now. The sky was so
close to the ground that when someone ascended a very high mountain he could
even touch it with a very long guinea corn stalk. When people prayed to iju he
sent his only daughter, Awa, with whatever the person prayed for. When poor
people prayed to iju for food, for example, they were given the food. There
was, among the people who were given food by iju, a very careless woman who was
too lazy to wash the container in which the food was given. So when the
daughter of iju was washing the container a splinter got under her fingernail
and she died. See that the daughter of iju was killed because of the
carelessness of mankind, iju took the sky very far away from man so that there
should be no communion between him and man.
Version
II (M. Margima Gadzama)
Long ago
iju was close to the people of the world. At that time people did not do work
for their food. Whenever they wanted to get something to eat, they just told
iju what kind of food they wanted. This request would be made in the evening
and before the next day the food would be there. Also before the request they
had to decide the type or kind of food they wanted. They lived this way for
many years, but one day a careless woman left the calabash, in which the food
came, dirty. When iju came to take it, he saw that it was dirty and gave it to
his daughter to wash. When she was washing it she hurt herself and in not many
days she died, Iju then became angry and went up into the sky. When they begged
him to come down he refused, and they had to work for what they wanted to eat.
Today you see many people of the world working for their food. This tale, while
acknowledging the supremacy of iju, nonetheless validates the remoteness of
iju. Thus despite the supremacy of the power of iju, it is a generalized power,
only implicitly concerned with daily routines and the problems of men. Iju is
the raison d'être of all, but this fact--and it is a fact to Margi--exists as
an unspecified axiom of which all other concepts are but coronaries.
The
second category of forces which control the world are anthropomorphic spirits
of which there are two classes; yal and shatar. These supernaturals are
actively malevolent or mischievous; the good which they do is entirely by
indirection; that is, they may not do ill and to that extent do good. Although
these beings do not always have anthropomorphic appearances, their behavior is
conspicuously like man's. They have appetites, reside at specific places, and,
most importantly, they are amenable to human acts in that they must be pleased,
angered, persuaded, or even tricked or fooled. Thus men are not entirely
helpless with respect to these supernatural’s unlike their relationship to iju.
The majority of rituals are aimed at influencing them.
Yal are
the more dangerous of the two, being capable of causing serious illness and
even death. One is very careful not to offend a yal; either by specific act or
by inadvertence. Margi do not talk lightly about yal, and they treat their
traditional abodes with respect. There are countless yal, most of whom reside
in unknown places; however, clairvoyants (salkur) have revealed the residences
of some yal and these are named and treated with deference by all. Some
revealed yal are associated with the life of a hamlet, and the abodes of such
public yal are entrusted to men called zuli who take care of the shrines and
perform rituals when appropriate.
The
office of zuli is hereditary in the patrilineal line of the senior clan of the
hamlet. There is a tendency for revealed or public yal to reside in
extraordinary places--deserted mountains, unusual rocks, large trees, or
springs; furthermore, any such place is regarded as a likely place for a yal to
be. For example, long ago it was revealed that a yal lived at the mouth of
Makwan Valley where a large spring is surrounded by woods. It is called Yal
Tsitsila.
There are
no public rituals associated with this yal as with some others; it is simply a
place known to have a yal. Individuals may sacrifice to Yal Tsitsila as a
private matter, and one may see i'iwa (pottery shrines) which have been left
there. For most people the spot is simply a spring that one may use as
respectfully and quietly as possible. Unlike other watering spots where women
get their families' water, here they do not linger to gossip though they are
not particularly loath to use it when it is convenient. The spot is a sanctuary
from thefts and persons sometimes leave portions of their loads there with no
fear of loss.
There are
stories of many strange occurrences at Tsitsila, and it must be conceded that
it is an awe inspiring place as one stands in the wide stream bed leading from
the pool with the rock wall beyond, high banks on either side, and arched trees
forming a roof above. This description illustrates the extent to which the
natural is linked with the supernatural. Although it would be an exaggeration
to picture the countryside covered with such places or to portray Margi as
treading fearfully through a yal-infested world, they do treat much of their
habitat with a kind of respect and awe reserved in Euroamerican culture for
churches and national shrines.
I take
this attitude to be the explanation for the following observation by Barth.
“Behind
the little hamlet Dalá Dísowa I saw the first specimen of the sacred groves of
the Marghí--a dense part of the forest surrounded with a ditch, where, in the
most luxuriant and widest-spreading tree, their god "Tumbi" is
worshipped” (1857, II:380).6
The close association of a hamlet with its
localized yal and the general geographic specificity of this aspect of their
belief system imparts to Margi culture a distinctly provincial character.
Individuals are tied to local areas or to already inhabited areas by their
familiarity with the local deities. A move into an uninhabited area is not
merely away from yal but is a journey into the unknown where it would be
difficult to placate a yal should it be necessary. In some instances in which
mountain villages have been deserted the zuli must return to mountain shrines
to perform their rituals.
The
supernatural’s of the second type, while less dreadful and less
specific, are more ubiquitous and are more frequently a part of a Margi's view
of the world in which he lives. These are the shatar, who usually only
cause misfortune or bad luck and who occasionally are merely mischievous. They
cannot be ignored, however, not only because of the ill which they do but
because it is said that a shatar can give a person to a yal.
There are no public or named
shatar, no shrines nor zuli associated with them. And although shatar have no
specifically designated abodes, one often sees offerings on ant hills which are
the traditional homes of shatar. Virtually anything unusual which is not dire
can be attributed to a shatar. Shatar may cause the silence which occasionally
falls upon a talking group, a sudden dust devil or any of hundreds of other
insignificant but puzzling occurrences.
One type of shatar is more
specific; it is Marghí is Barth's spelling which, without the accent, I
following the practice of others, followed in my earliest writing. The word
Tumbi, to mean god agrees with Meek's "Marghi of Minthla," tambi
(1933, I:242), and apparently shows an affiliation of that area with the Margi
Putai (Hoffmann 1963:8).
The mischievous kikyuwi, dwarfs
who live in tiny compounds in the earth. They are notorious for causing people
to become lost in the bush: for if one walks along a path across which a
kikyuwi has urinated directions become reversed, a situation which can be rectified
by placing one's left foot upon an ant hill. The most tangible evidence of
kikyuwi are the remains of their deserted compounds. These
"compounds" are perfectly circular "walls" of pressed mud
measuring about 3/8 inches in thickness, 12 inches in diameter, and just barely
rising above the level of the ground.
Unlike many other West African
societies, Margi culture does not emphasize ancestor worship and therefore
ancestors are not a significant part of their world. Only the most recently
deceased ancestor is specifically revered and believed to have direct influence
over the affairs of the living. Like the yal and shatar, direct action from an
ancestor is most likely to be negative, not because the ancestors are bad or
because good is not normally attributed to the ancestors, but because failure
to perform the annual ritual to one's father might incur his wrath. This view
is not at great variance with attitudes toward Margi fathers, though it would
rarely be so articulated.
The
third force which is relevant in the Margi worldview is man,
remembering that each of these three is subservient to and less powerful than
those above. Nevertheless, man has his own role in the world. Margi do not
stand back, so to speak, in the face of superior powers and wait or even rely
upon these forces to direct the world. As indicated in the myth related above,
man must work, and Margi are ever mindful that supernatural powers intervene
rather than direct.
Man may well be helpless in the
face of even the shatar, but action begins with man. He is When I first heard
of kikyuwi, I expressed some skepticism about the remains of their compounds,
and I was dumbfounded to be shown one. Subsequently, I discovered that these
compounds are probably the cross sections of partially buried large water jars
on the sites of long since forgotten homesteads, an active participant in the affairs of the
world. Nor is man helpless in the face of some of the superior powers above
him.
Although direct influence upon
iju is minimal, there seems to be an implicit belief that proper performance of
the annual rituals, perhaps even the living of a traditional (not necessarily
good) life--that these things provide a general security. However, it must be
stressed that this is implicit not explicit, for Margi will tell you that iju
causes all and it would be pointless for man to try to influence it, and they
do pray to iju on occasion and in an imprecise way they believe that it is
necessary to perform the various annual rituals.
However, there is no question but
that man can influence the yal and shatar through rituals. There is a form of
action available to man which seems intermediate between mundane acts like work
on the one hand and rituals directed to iju, yal, and shatar on the other;
these are the actions which are believed to be in and of themselves efficacious
in dealing with the world without specific recourse to or dependence upon
supernatural forces.
In customary terminology we would
refer to this category as magic, that is, a religious or ritual act which is
primarily instrumental in intent. For Margi, kuzugu achieves these ends. The
term refers not to the action but the material which has the power, and
encompasses such diverse items as medicinal herbs, western medicines,
protective charms, and poisons. The underlying unity of these items is that
they all produce desired ends seemingly unrelated to the items themselves.
Misipar is a related term which refers to
charms which have kuzugu in them. The proverb, Iju Tlu misipar sal, which translates,
"Iju is the charm of man," indicates the superiority of iju to all
things, but implies that misipar (and by extension kuzugu) is a potent force
like iju which man may use. Although everyone will know of a few simple kuzugu
for common illnesses and problems, there are men called pitipitima who know of
and possess a very wide variety of kuzugu for an even wider variety of ills. He
can give a specific medicine for an illness, or he may fashion a kuzugu into a
misipar.
Literally everyone wears misipar
or kuzugu at some time and many wear it all of the time. One extremely common
item called umpiama is so much a part of women's dress that they are sometimes
made without kuzugu and thus worn as simple decoration. On occasion a
pitipitima may become a very rich and powerful person. One such person residing
at Gulak since the early 1970's has attracted patients from as far away as
Cameroon and Chad. His compound had clients sitting outside his entrance at all
hours of the day and night.
He proved to be a most remarkable
man who was as quick to use psychology as medicine. As with many pitipitima, he
attributed his abilities to iju though acknowledging that one might learn some
of the kuzugu. He dated his own powers from a miraculous recovery from
smallpox. The distinctions made here among work, kuzugu, and ritual are not
Margi ones. Just as they perceive no sharp qualitative distinction between
natural and supernatural neither do they distinguish between modes of action.
Simply put, man acts as best he can with whatever he can to control his
destiny.
The importance of human action is
cryptically summarized in the saying, Su thlidlibu thlidlibu angwara su yaya,
which means "Things truly learned are more important than things with
which you are born." This proverb clearly rejects passivity. The world as
Margi see it consists of an environment from which a livelihood can be derived
but which also contains many dangers over which they have little control.
Although the habitat is amenable
to the power of man, shatar and yal may intervene and cause misfortune, and
other humans, e.g., governmental authorities, may interfere with the
traditional order of events. Yet Margi are not passive; they react to the
forces of nature and the forces of history. In so-me ways this system may seem
intolerable in that it emphasizes the responsibility of man while casting doubt
about the efficacy of his efforts, and Margi do seem to show considerable
anxiety over the outcome of problematical events. However, the dilemma is
resolved in the all-powerful presence of iju which causes all. Hypothetically,
the system explains everything.
Man acts but he will occasionally
meet failure and misfortune; even in the face of this he is not helpless and
may resort to the use of kuzugu or to ritual if he believes the problem to be
caused by a shatar or yal. Should these fail it is not necessarily a reflection
either upon him or his efforts, but evidence that it was ordained by iju.
That this resolution is imperfect
and that there is considerable anxiety generated by this view is apparent, but,
in general, it provides satisfactory explanations for the vast majority of
persons. In summary, the Margi live in a world of beauty, of plenty, of
misfortune, and of illness and death; but it is an ordered world, controlled by
overlapping forces imperfectly understood by man, to be sure, but not totally
beyond his grasp. It is a striking mixture of potential, challenge, and
uncertainty
find more images @https://margi.sitehost.iu.edu/page14.shtml
Comments