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Pathisa Nyathi
ON January 27, this publication carried a story about thieves who broke into the St Andrew’s Church and stole sacred items that are used during holy mass.

Parish priest Father Louis Chileshe reported that because of the theft of items that included chalices and ciboriums, holy mass was suspended as the acts of theft resulted in desecration of the church that lost its religious and ritual qualification to conduct an important church service such as the holy mass.

It was going to take consecration rituals by a Bishop to restore the sacredness of the church for it to resume church services including dispensing of the holy mass.

I began thinking about sacredness and holiness and concluded that almost all societies and communities have places and objects that they consider holy and approach them with reverence and respect.

Such sacred places and objects have their holiness ritually conferred on them by one considered qualified to undertake the restorative process.

This could happen at the initial stage when, the place or object has been identified for consecration. The ritual sets a site or object apart from other places and objects.

The person doing it must be ritually or religiously qualified to do so in the eyes and minds of community members.

Where sacredness has been conferred, it can be nullified as happened at the St Andrew’s Church.

Theft of sacred items was a sacrilegious act.

It will have to be reversed through sanctification by a Bishop as reported in the paper. Where sacredness has been removed it can be restored, but after requisite ritual acts.

As I read the article by Nqobile Tshili, I was also comparing what used to obtain in Africa where such defiling acts took place. Africa, like other societies, had places that were considered sacred and possessed ritual aurora and potency that the community recognised.

There were several such places and included, inter alia, mountains, mountain caves, tree grove, free-standing trees, springs, pools, individual stones, rivers and various shrines such as cemeteries.

Africa considers that the environment is ultimately self-regulating and self-preserving when its critical equilibrium has been disturbed and its sustenance threatened. Restorative efforts may be calamitous as happens during tsunamis.

The argument here is that the environment has some inbuilt mechanisms to fight back in order to restore the lost balance sustainable life.

I was then thinking about ways in which Africa applied similar strategies when it came to the spiritually sacred sites.

How did Africa cope with individuals that violated sacredness of her holy sites and objects? An adage goes,

“Prevention is better than cure.” Inbuilt into the self-preservation of sacred places were measures that kept at bay would-be desecrators.

I am in the process of publishing a book by Nicholas Njobo Siziba that deals succinctly with the key elements and his own experiences relating to African spirituality, which is quite maligned by some religions.

His will be quite a rare publication from one who is an avowed defender of African spirituality and its roles, not blindly but through intellectual enquiry and diligence of mind.

In the book titled, “Kiliwane Singezi Sibanda: A Community Heroine,” Siziba relates the story of two colleagues who came from two different spiritual backgrounds.

There was Jason Zondo a police officer during the colonial era. He served at various BSA police stations such as Mbembesi and Kezi. His friend was some sort of budding white geologist enrolled at the University of Rhodesia (now the University of Zimbabwe, UZ).

The two decided to scale the Belingwe (now Mberengwa) Mountain. I suppose their interest lay in collecting rock samples for analysis back in Salisbury (now Harare).

The white trainee geologist carried a bag with rock samples. As they went up the mountain, they observed changing vegetation zones, because of microclimates resulting from the impact of altitude.

As they neared the summit of the mountain, they saw deer with horns likes trees. Soon they were at the top. Police officer Jason, given his African spiritual background, knew the mountain was sacred.

The white man oversteeped in science would believe none of it. He was in the steely and suffocating clutches of the god of science.

All of a sudden, a huge python from nowhere lurched towards him. It missed him by a whisker and landed on a tree the other side of the man of science.

Frightened out of all wits, he fell down distraught and fainted. After a long while of near lifelessness, he came back to the world of mortals. Feebly, he dragged himself and trudged with the bag of heavy stone samples towards the base of the mountain.

Humiliated and put in his place, the geologist had left the bag of stones with Jason the police officer who struggled down to the base of the mountain.

When they got to their Land Rover, Jason had to summon non-existent driving skills. The geologist was so frightened and shaking within his shell, he knew next to nothing about automobile navigation. Jason drove the hapless man and got him to hospital at Mberengwa.

This is a story that is common in Africa when it comes to people’s experiences regarding attempted sacrilegious acts.

Would-be culprits immediately faced dire consequences that served as a warning not only to themselves but also, more importantly, to other members of the community. Respect was thus buttressed by fear of calamitous consequences. Sacredness was thus guaranteed.

However, various measures instilled palpitating fear and dissuaded would-be defilers of sacred places. For example, there were places where collection of wild fruits was prohibited.

Imparting sacredness in this instance was a measure to conserve seed for the perpetuation of the particular tree species. Another case is told where a woman took a basket to harvest amahobohobo/mazhanje within a section of the mountain that was considered sacred.

She lost her compass and began moving in circles and squares. She spent the day just going round and round until someone came to her rescue. She was shown the way home, beyond her mental compass logjam. She abandoned a basketful of juicy fruits and went back home crestfallen.

She swore by the Virgin Mother of the World never again to defy edicts relating to the observance and respect of sites regarded as sacred.

Some women went to collect firewood and ventured deep into a part of the grove that the community regarded as sacred. After collecting and tying the bundles of firewood they tried to carry the bundles back home. Lo and behold, they simply could not lift the bundles off the ground.

However hard they tried they failed. It dawned on them that their failure carried a message. The firewood had been collected from a sacred place; no wonder their failure to take away with them the collected firewood.

Sacredness imbued on a site has helped to conserve forests. For example, the bush close to the Njelele Shrine is still in a pristine condition. Pilgrims going to or living near the sacred mountain are not allowed to cut down trees or dig roots of some for medicinal use.

While the areas beyond the protected zone are being deforested, the fringing zone has been conserved. More importantly, dire consequences are visited upon non-believers who defy the spiritual edicts.

In such a situation, there is thus protection that is enforced through immediate spontaneous calamitous consequences for all to see.

These could involve examples such as those that befell police officer Jason’s trainee geologist. Being disoriented is also a common measure that was used to deal with those that sought to desecrate sacred places.

The spiritual authority worked hand in glove with the political authority. The former enunciated observances, taboos and myths actuated by spiritual considerations.

Where spiritually induced punitive or preventive measures did not come into effect, the culprit was taken to the political authority who too subscribed to the same belief system.

There were stipulated fines for the various violations such as ploughing or weeding on Wednesdays in some southern parts of Zimbabwe.

The spiritual dimension and its imprisoning measure have no place in modern societies.

As a result, anti-social elements will break into parishes, steal, and defile sacred items knowing there are no dire consequences that will befall them other than through the legal court system breaking in and stealing.