Mutuality, resistance and egalitarianism^63initiative of control. From this perspective, one could argue that
this form of associativism implied a ‘model for liberation’, based
simultaneously on religious notions of communality and tran-
scendence, and on political ideals of autonomy and transforma-
tion.^41 However, as stated above, despite the common liberationist
aspiration, the subsequent political transitions transformed many
of these movements into socialist, Marxist-Leninist, communist
and in many cases totalitarian endeavours. Furthermore, just like
as I suggested above movements such as Kimbanguism engaged in
similar processes of transformation that introduced hierarchy and
inequality, Tokoist mutualism was also and eventually substituted
by vertical forms of organization.
Refiguring vertical and horizontal organization
in the post-colony
As a prophetic movement, Tokoism reflects forms of leadership
that can be easily interpreted as prime examples of hierarchical
ecclesiastical organization. It is not hard to agree with this, es-
pecially when one considers the moral, epistemological, political
and spiritual ‘dependence’ that is detectable between Toko and his
followers and is reproduced even today, decades after his physi-
cal passing. In fact, after the moments described above, the sub-
sequent decades of demographic growth of the Tokoist Church
witnessed a process of bureaucratization and administrative com-
plexification that introduced particular steps towards a hierarchi-
zation of the entity, often against the will of the prophet founder
himself. Considering that the following of Simão Toko began to
transcend several ethnic and political boundaries, different ad-
ministrative entities were created to address such processes. For
instance, in the late 1950s, an internal organization of the church
into “tribes”, which implied the integration of an intermediary
entity between believers and the leadership, was created, divid-
ing them according to their original ethnicities.^42 Likewise, the
creation of multiple entities with intermediate leaderships, such
as counsels of elders, youths, etc, added to the complexity. This
process of bureaucratization culminated after Toko’s death in
1984, which implied, for the first time in the church’s history, a