turn of a prodigal son to his father, may seem like a cursing
match as one after another participant admits “anger in the
heart,” a grudge against kinsmen. This writer heard individu-
al women complain that they had not been received with due
respect by a brother’s wife when they visited and the broth-
er’s wife reply that her sister-in-law had been seen picking
and stealing, taking green food from the garden as she passed
through, and so forth. Unspoken anger, festering in the
heart, is thought both to be the root of witchcraft and to in-
validate an offering to the shades, for quarreling between
kinsmen infuriates the shades.
When an offering is made, an officiant, usually the se-
nior man of the lineage, or occasionally a dead father’s sister
or a grandmother of the homestead, addresses the shades,
calling them by name, explaining why the offering has been
made—that is, what is troubling the homestead—and re-
questing help. The calling of ancestors by name is in itself
a form of praise, and the manner of speech is that used in
the presence of a senior kinsman, or (as among the Nguni)
that used to honor a chief. Prayer and praise are here barely
distinguishable.
The occasions of family rituals are constant throughout
the area: death and birth, especially abnormal birth such as
that of twins; maturity, whether physically or socially de-
fined; marriage; misfortune and serious illness; reconciliation
after a quarrel; and the first fruits that the family celebrates
after the national or regional ritual. Thanksgiving rituals also
occur, particularly after escape from danger in war or hunt-
ing, or on the return home of a migrant laborer or a person
released from imprisonment; and there are rituals invoking
blessing for an important new tool such as a plough, but
these are less general than the rituals of life crises. Everywhere
the death rituals persist through time and are adapted to the
new economy. In the south funeral parlors with facilities for
keeping a corpse exist even in some country districts, and fu-
nerals are delayed until close kin, scattered at work centers,
can gather. Sometimes the corpse of a town worker who has
not visited the country for years is brought “home” to the
country to be buried. Great numbers of people come to
mourn, and, relative to the family’s earnings, enormous sums
are spent on traveling, funeral expenses, and food for guests.
Many guests bring a contribution of money, but even so the
family may be crippled financially. Whether a man has been
buried in a Johannesburg township or a remote village, as of
1982 family status still depended on lavish expenditure just
as it did among the Nyakyusa in 1935, when a hundred cat-
tle might be slaughtered on the death of a rich chief.
Although funerals have been adapted to the new econo-
my, they include certain traditional rites, notably a washing
and purification rite after the burial and a lifting of mourn-
ing after about a year. Among the Nguni peoples of the
southeast coast a commemoration dinner may replace the
rite of “bringing home” the shade and implies an awareness
of the continuing existence of the dead which is much greater
than that experienced by many contemporary Europeans and
Americans. Setiloane describes the vitality of such rites in
Sotho-Tswana families of professing Christians.
All the kinship rituals, but especially funerals, are an af-
firmation of kinship and the unity of the extended family,
and the efficacy of the ritual depends upon the presence, in
love and charity, of a network of kin. Exactly who is involved
varies both with the people—be they Ndembu, Bemba,
Zulu, or Sotho—and with the occasion. The celebrations are
a strong conservative force, for the health and well-being of
the whole kinship group is thought to depend on “following
the customs of the ancestors” in observing the ritual. This
is evident even in a city.
Maturity rituals have many aspects; the extent to which
any one aspect is stressed varies from one society to another.
This article has classed maturity rituals as religious, since they
are explicitly concerned with fertility, which in turn is con-
trolled by the shades; often they involve an offering and invo-
cation to the shades, whose blessings are sought. Frequently,
perhaps always, there is a symbolic death, a period of seclu-
sion when the novice must observe taboos associated with the
world of the dead, which is followed by a rebirth after which
he or she returns to ordinary life. The rituals are viewed as
a proper prelude to, if not a condition of, marriage and pro-
creation. Rituals of maturity for boys often (but not invari-
ably) involve circumcision: Those for girls may or may not
involve clitoridectomy or some lesser operation.
Circumcision is most often celebrated for a group, and
those who have endured this rite together share a bond for
life. The boys’ group may become a unit in the army, and
in areas where the political structure is based on age, its
members may graduate together as elders holding legal and
administrative office, and finally, as old men, share ritual
functions. Where there are chiefs, a royal youth is sought to
lead each circumcision group, and those circumcised with
him become his closest followers. The circumcision school
draws a youth out of the immediate network of kin and es-
tablishes links with scattered contemporaries and political
authority, links sometimes expressed in an esoteric language
known only to those initiated.
Girls’ initiation, on the other hand, is most often an in-
dividual celebration at the first menstruation, and wider links
with contemporaries or political authority are not treated as
important. But among a few peoples, notably the Sotho-
Tswana and the neighboring Venda in precolonial times,
girls’ initiation was a group affair with political implications;
a women’s regiment was linked to a men’s regiment, and,
like its male counterpart, it might be called out for public
service.
Maturity rituals are everywhere concerned with incul-
cating respect for authority: respect for seniors, shades,
chiefs, and respect of a wife for her husband. A man must
learn to keep secrets and never reveal the affairs of his chief
or the secrets of the lodge. A woman likewise must learn to
hold her tongue; she must not create conflict through gossip8658 SOUTHERN AFRICAN RELIGIONS: AN OVERVIEW