In most of Africa, indigenous African religions have been pushed to the
margin because of a number of factors. The implied and open relegation
of indigenous African religions to the levels of inferiority and
inconsequentiality in world affairs by colonial powers and post-colonial
contemporary African states not only undermines and stereotypes the
examination of the unique contributions of these religions to
peacemaking, but also discards with them unique mythologies, values,
laws, cultures and meaning-making systems. I argue that applying North
American conflict resolution models, without considering African
religious values that existed for many millennia before the arrival of
world religions, will be an enormous hindrance to building lasting peace
from the bottom-up in the vastly rural and agrarian Africa that is
still steeped in traditions and rituals.
Contributing to a range of negative stereotypes about African religions
(example, uncivilized, barbaric and conflict-generating) is the fact
that many of them have been orally transmitted from generation to
generation and lack written major holy books unlike the world religions.
The purpose of this paper is to shift attention from common
misconceptions about African religions to a productive examination of
the constructive roles they can be made to play.
I will focus on the case of
Waaqeffannaa, an Oromo indigenous religion of East Africa, and its core values and laws. It will be significant to examine
Waaqeffannaa’s complex concepts, such as concept and view of
Waaqaa (God),
Eebba (prayers and blessings),
safuu (the place of all things and beings in the cosmic and social order), issues related to
cubbuu (sin) and other religious and ritual practices. Although there is no holy book for
Waaqeffannaa
thus far, I will obtain my data from published ethnographic books,
journal articles, periodicals, relevant reports and press releases. The
interactions between
Waaqeffannaa and other organized religions, such as Christianity and Islam, will be examined in context.
The paper will seek answers to three related questions:
What are the contributions or lack thereof orally transmitted values and laws of
Waaqeffannaa
to peacemaking and relationship-building? If there are any
contributions, how can they be compared to other forms of conflict
resolution? What will be the role of
Waaqeffannaa in peacemaking in the ever changing global and local contexts of religious diversity and difference?
The Concept of God in Waaqeffannaa’s Monotheistic System
In order to examine the hermeneutic advantages and disadvantages of
Waaqeffannaa and compare it to modern or Western conflict resolution methods, it is essential to examine the concept of God (
Waaqaa) in the religion in its own right. There is a consensus among researchers and observers of
Waaqeffannaa—the
most prominent of whom are pre-colonial European missionaries,
explorers and anthropologists and local religious leaders and
scholars—that
Waaqeffannaa is one of the ancient indigenous African monotheistic religions.
[1] The Oromo, the Cushitic African people of Ethiopia, among whom this religion emerged and developed, call their one God
Waaqaa or more intimately and endearingly
Waaqayyoo (good God). It is difficult to capture with one definition the complexity of the ways in which the followers of this religion
(Waaqeffataas)
relate to God and make sense of God (not gendered) is hard to capture
just with one definition. The question of ways of understanding and
relating to God is a question of
Waaqeffannaa’s worldview that
is indigenous and unique, in some ways, and thus, different from ways in
which followers of major world religions understand and relate to God.
While monotheism is a key similarity it shares with Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
Waaqeffannaa has the following worldview of its own:
We believe in God who created us. We believe in Him (sic) in a natural
way … We believe in God because we can see what God has done and what he
does: he makes rains and the rains grow greenery, and crops that we
consume. He lets the sun shine. So believing in him is instinctive and
inbuilt. It is as natural as the desire we have for food and drink, and
as natural as the reproduction of living things. We go to the nature,
the nature that He created: mountains and rivers to praise and
appreciate Him impressed by His works …
[2]
This contemporary declaration of the faith centers on nature and
creation that can be pragmatically seen and experienced in daily life.
There is no mention of “heaven” and “hell” here. Concerning the
followers’ perceptions of the residence of God, Bartels writes, “They do
not visualize
Waaqaa (sic) existing outside this world in time or space … In this sense
Waaqaa is as much of this world as the vault of the sky.”
[3]
Bokku concurs with Bartels findings that God exists among people on
earth, but Bokku makes a radically different claim as follows: “
Waaqeffataas
don’t [sic] believe in after life. They don’t believe that God would
come in the future to judge people and send the righteous to heaven and
the sinful to hell. God is with us always.”
[4]
Bokku’s claims can be controversial because in much of the literature I
reviewed, I found that the question of “after life” is either
overlooked or ambiguously treated, except in the work of Father De
Salviac whose much older field research (1901) explicitly states the
existence of the belief in life after death among
Waaqeffataas in eastern Oromia as follows:
They acknowledge three places destined to receive the souls after death. The paradise, which they call: the ‘Happiness of God’,
Ayyaana Waaqaa; or the: ‘Response of God’,
Bayanacha Waaqaa; or even
Jenneta Waaqaa;
‘Paradise of God’, is reserved for the just who go there to enjoy the
company and infinite blessings of the Lord … they say of death ‘That he
passed on to
Waaqaa;’ – ‘That he entered into
Waaqaa,’ – ‘That he went to his eternal house with
Waaqaa’.
[5]
Reference to life after death, punishments and rewards in hell and
heaven respectively are very rare features of the religion. Nonetheless,
the argument that De Salviac makes about the existence of the belief in
life after death in Oromo society is enough to make Bokku and other
writers’ denial of the existence of “life after death” contested and
curious. The issue of justice and how people relate to each other may
hold for every writer. The question of relationships between peoples,
and nature and justice will be treated in later sections for
safuu.
Waaqeffataas generally view and worship
Waaqaa based on their amazement with the ingenious works of
Waaqaa’s
hands that they experience and find them overwhelming to comprehend and
explain. Even family prayers around the hearth contains many such
instances: “UNIQUE AND SO GREAT GOD SUPPORT WITHOUT PILLAR THE DOME OF
THE BLUE SKY.”
[6]
Waaqeffataas view the earth as one of the major ingenious works
of God. The earth is viewed inseparably from God. The image that
followers of this religion have of the relationship between
Waaqaa and the Earth “comes close to that of a human couple”
[7]: ‘the earth is
Waaqaa’s wife—
Lafa niti Waaqaa,’
[8] According to Bartels, there are four manifestations of the close connection between
Waaqaa and the earth in four spheres of the
Waaqeffannaa religious life:
[9]
- Blessings
May the Waaqaa and the earth help you.
May Waaqaa and the earth cause you to grow up (a blessing for children.) …
- Curses
Be not blessed either by Waaqaa or the earth.
May Waaqaa and the earth burn [make dry] your kidneys and your womb (the curse is addressed to a woman).
- Oaths
The man who takes the oath breaks a dry stick, saying:
‘May the earth on which I walk and Waaqaa beneath whom I walk do the same to me, if I have done such and such a thing.’
- Rituals
There are rituals of slaughtering a bull or sheep for Waaqaa and making libation (dhibayyuu) under a tree for the earth.[10]
Waaqeffannaa rituals honor both God and the earth. Followers of
the religion seem to take cue from God Himself, who created the earth,
to inform their ways of relating to
Waaqaa and earth
(lafa).
Evidence that suggests a relationship based on fears, intimidations or
punishment between God and persons is less prevalent than those that are
mostly based on respect for God, one another and for the earth.
Waaqeffataas
embrace and celebrate the egalitarian view of God and the diversity of
names people call God. Despite some differences among people, research
points to followers’ similar attitudes towards God. “… it has become
clear that their attitude towards him [sic] is not only inspired by awe
but also marked by familiarity and even, from time to time, by lack of
respect. In his despair, a man may claim: ‘
Waaqaa does not exist!’”
[11] This just shows
Waaqeffataas
have a more liberal relationship with God. It does not mean that they
are less pious as there is enough evidence to suggest many magnificent
examples of humility, piety and obedience.
The question of
Waaqeffataas’ acknowledgement of the oneness of
God and the multiple names various religions call Him does not only
show the openness of the concept of God to various interpretations, but
it also shows the religion’s acceptance of religious diversity. It is
easier to engage in interfaith or other conflict resolution activities
when such an acknowledgement is extant than when religions claim “my way
or the highway.” The ways some prayers are rendered testify to this
progressive values of
Waaqeffannaa: “O Black God who created
the dark sky and the clean waters, who is one but called by multitudes
of names, who has no competitor, the omniscient, the omnipotent, the
omnipresent, who is eternal and ever powerful, whose power can never
decline.”
[12] Because of the view of God described here,
Waaqeffataas
believe that God is patient and that it is not in His nature to become
angry if people believe in other things abandoning Him. Bokku holds the
Waaqeffannaa God is too self-confident to be angered into punishing people who do not obey or defect to other religions.
[13]
Prayers and Blessings
Boran society sometimes appears to float on a river of prayers and blessings…
— Paul T. Baxter.[14]
Common to private, collective and family prayers is the focus of
Oromo/Waaqeffataas’ prayers on the material conditions and well-beings
of the self, the family and the group. Prayers mediate conditions of
people to God so he can intervene and alter their current conditions.
[15]
The faithful pray for peace, health, deliverance from wrongdoing and
harmful sprits and things, human and livestock fertility, growth of
babies (little ones), long life for adults, for the goodness of the
inside and the outside, rain, harvest and development, inter alia.
The
Waaqeffannaa prayer is barely about inheriting the kingdom
of heaven nor is it about seeking the help of God in a battle against
Satan and sin. Evidence suggests that the concept of Devil/Satan does
not exist in
Waaqeffannaa while spirits that cause all kinds of suffering and misfortune or harm
(ayyaana hamaa) are believed to exist.
[16] Instances of talk about Devils by
Waaqeffataas
are generally understood as the borrowing of a religious vocabulary
from the adjacent/co-existing major faiths, such as Christianity and
Islam. For instance,
Waaqeffataa pray to God to prevent them
from wrongdoing and errors committed in ignorance. The religion has no
room for addressing anxieties and fears arising from the imaginary realm
of the devil/evil. For instance, words used in prayers include,
“Prevent us from wrongdoing …” (
dogogora nu oolchi). In terms
of how people experience and understand misfortunes and fortunes (good
things) Oromo proverbs capture the peoples’ dependence on
Waaqaa. Indeed, the proverbs below indicate how
Waaqaa is perceived as the source of good and bad things that happen in real life:
[17]
A house that is built by Waaqaa will be completed.
It is Waaqaa who brings hunger;
It is Waaqaa who brings a full stomach.
The one Waaqaa clothes will not go naked.
Who trusts on Waaqaa will not lack anything.
Man wishes, Waaqaa fulfills.
Waaqaa is there [therefore] the sun rises.
It is Waaqaa who makes a person sick;
It is Waaqaa who restores him to health.
Waaqaa is never in a hurry;
But he is always there at the proper time.
There are standard prayers that have been codified in oral tradition and
bequeathed down to generations. The codification of prayers, rituals
and ceremonies in oral traditions serve the purpose of making Oromo
worships definite and unarbitrary. The question of precise transmissions
of spoken messages are always up for debates as there are obviously
some room for improvisation and modification as the word of mouth
(message) travels through time and space. I believe that the
improvisation aspect of oral narratives will add an interesting
