In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Who needs centuries-old traditions and artifacts when you have a stack of free Bibles?

Jill

This is pretty repulsive.

Born to a family of traditional priests, Ibe Nwigwe converted to Christianity as a boy. Under the sway of born-again fervor as a man, he gathered the paraphernalia of ancestral worship _ a centuries-old stool, a metal staff with a wooden handle and the carved figure of a god _ and burned them as his pastor watched.

“I had experienced a series of misfortunes and my pastor told me it was because I had not completely broken the covenant with my ancestral idols,” the 52-year-old Nwigwe said of the bonfire three years ago. “Now that I have done that, I hope I will be truly liberated.”

Generations ago, European colonists and Christian missionaries looted Africa’s ancient treasures. Now, Pentecostal Christian evangelists _ most of them Africans _ are helping wipe out remaining traces of how Africans once worked, played and prayed.

As poverty deepened in Nigeria from the mid-1980s, Pentecostal Christian church membership surged. The new faithful found comfort in preachers like evangelist Uma Ukpai who promised material success was next to godliness. He has boasted of overseeing the destruction of more than 100 shrines in one district in December 2005 alone.

Achina is typical of towns and villages in the ethnic Igbo-dominated Christian belt of southeastern Nigeria where this new Christian fundamentalism is evident. The old gods are being linked to the devil, and preachers are urging not only their rejection, but their destruction.

If the objects aren’t destroyed, they’re often sold (for a high price) to Europeans looking to add to their art collection:

The changing attitudes have not escaped the attention of art dealers.

“This work you see here is from a shrine. It was brought to me by one woman who said her pastor had asked her to get rid of it,” said Wahid Mumuni, a dealer at Ikoyi Hotel in Lagos, gesturing toward a carving.

Mumuni said the price was the equivalent of $1,500 and he expected a European visitor to take it away soon.

Three cheers for colonialism and evangelism.

24 thoughts on Who needs centuries-old traditions and artifacts when you have a stack of free Bibles?

  1. My husband is Sri Lankan, but his parents were teachers at a private school in Nigeria for a long time and he mostly grew up there and in Sierra Leone. While in Nigeria, his older sister picked up a flavor of Christianity very similar to that. She and her husband are very much into Jesus (the rest of the siblings are more or less atheist/agnostic, but still respectful of their cultural heritage). So much so that she refused to even step foot in a Hindu temple with her mom before she got married (this was 10 years ago), she refused to go to the temple with the rest of us when I got married to her brother (almost 10 years ago–we had a church wedding for my family and a temple blessing for his mom) and she’s repeatedly asked her mother to convert to Christianity because “she wants at least one parent in heaven with her.” (Their dad died about 15 years ago and definitely was not converted). Of course, this really hurts their mom, who is very Hindu, both culturally and religiously, and won’t convert, even for her beloved oldest child and has caused a bit of a rift and some serious tension in the family.

    The people in this article very much remind me of her, with all the religious zeal of the convert.

  2. So, are Africans only supposed to worship the way that well-meaning white liberals decide, and keep their idols so that they can be “real” Africans, or can they choose their religion and make money while selling off items they don’t need anymore?

    I have many African Christian friends, and they never appeared stupid to me. I think they know perfectly well what they are doing and are just fine with it.

  3. Better sold than burned, and it would be even better if sold/given to some sort of historical society/museum. Someone should really set up some foundation that does that, but honestly, I think people should be allowed to do what they want with whatever they own (assuming they all own these things) and especially if they can get a bit of money for it they should go ahead.

  4. As an ethnologist (in training) i find this horrifying. Who needs all the interesting diversity of human culture when we can just have the same boring-ass flavor of Evangelical Christianity!

    While we’re at it, let’s cut down all the trees that aren’t elms, kill all the dogs that aren’t yellow labs, burn down the houses that aren’t late-60’s ranch-style, and forget all the songs that aren’t fucking Kumbaya. Yay homogeny!

  5. I think the way evangelical Christianity does conversion is stupid. I suppose I make a horrible evangelical & some would say I’m not a good Christian at all -after all, I have a tough time believing God is going to send your mother-in-law to hell just b/c she believes differently than her daughter. (what can I say, I take democracy seriously). I’m in good company too (Dante, for one).

    I wouldn’t have a problem with their getting rid of the relics of their past -if they did it as a meaningful way for themselves, a symbolic way of starting a new chapter in their lives- but they are doing it b/c they’ve had “misfortunes”. So basically, they are burning/getting rid of their stuff for the same reason that they would have made sacrifices to their old gods. Properly, in the historic forms of Monotheism (all three forms of it): one cannot “bribe” the Creator this way. The charlatans who are lying to them must not be using standard Bibles -or they must be skipping whole sections like Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes & so on.

  6. Oh wait. Yes, I have. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have it in me right now to type it all out again. Besides, it was just ramblings anyway. You didn’t want to hear me go on and on about this, right?

  7. Holy shit, that’s awful.

    And who wants to be that the original owners sure as hell aren’t making any money from this?

  8. So, are Africans only supposed to worship the way that well-meaning white liberals decide, and keep their idols so that they can be “real” Africans, or can they choose their religion and make money while selling off items they don’t need anymore?

    I have many African Christian friends, and they never appeared stupid to me. I think they know perfectly well what they are doing and are just fine with it.

    I think you missed my point. My beef isn’t with Christianity or Christians (if that was the case, I’m be in a spot of trouble). My beef is with destroying ancient and invaluable cultural and religious artifacts in the name of religion.

  9. I think you missed my point.

    You can’t blame people for thinking that’s what you’re saying, though, when your selective quoting is sending the strong message that this is just a matter of African Christians destroying stuff that belongs to them. You might have quoted this part:

    Ikechukwu Nzekwe, a 48-year-old farmer who belongs to a traditional masquerade cult, rues the action of his younger brother, a born-again Christian who destroyed the family’s masquerade costume, including pieces dating back seven generations.

    or this part:

    “We feared it may be stolen or destroyed like so many of our traditional cultural symbols,” said Chuma Ezenwa, a Lagos-based lawyer.

    or any of the other parts that talk about Nigerians objecting to theft and wholesale destruction of artifacts, and then maybe it wouldn’t have looked like you saw a conflict between dumb, religious Africans and savvy European and Americans who know better than they do what they should do with their own culture. It is always nice when people follow the links and read the full articles, but it’s also reasonable to expect that the quotes and summations you give are accurate and representative, and in this case they really are not, at all. You only quoted the Nigerians who were enthusiastically getting rid of stuff or profiting off of selling to Europeans. That’s why people are responding as though it’s a case of practical Nigerians vs. well-meaning American liberals, even though it’s not.

    As an ethnologist (in training) i find this horrifying.
    Who needs all the interesting diversity of human culture when we can just have the same boring-ass flavor of Evangelical Christianity!

    Ah. So it’s not just about the physical objects, then, it’s about the religion these Nigerians choose to practice, the cultures they inherit and adopt?

    Human beings are not artifacts. You cannot buy them and stick them in museum collections to keep them from being destroyed or “misused” by, uh, themselves. There’s a reason anthropologists and ethnologists have a really fucking bad reputation in these areas.

  10. You can’t blame people for thinking that’s what you’re saying, though, when your selective quoting is sending the strong message that this is just a matter of African Christians destroying stuff that belongs to them.

    The “selective quoting” was an attempt to illustrate the main point of the article and to encourage people to read more. That’s generally how I construct posts. If people can’t be bothered to click the link, then that’s really not my problem. And considering that I ended the post with “Three cheers for colonialism and evangelism,” I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out that I’m not blaming Africans for choosing Christianity, I’m blaming a history of imperialism, colonialism and religious domination for the continued devaluation of non-Western and non-Christian art, artifacts and tradition.

  11. You know, I tried to write a nice civil comment in respectful deference to missionary practices and evangelical christianity. But I couldn’t choke out the words. So I’m sorry.

    I’m sorry if I object to Cultural Genocide. I’m sorry if I’m angry that the culture of my ancestors was destroyed in a similar fashion by white people claiming they were saving their souls, just like these people. I’m sorry if the culture of my forebearers was so wiped off the face of history that I don’t even know what it was anymore. I’m sorry if I’m angry that it’s happening to these people today.

    There’s a mile of difference between cultures influencing each other and changing and developing organically and what this article described. It’s no different than what happened when the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed those giant Buddha statues or when white people in Australia “provided education” to bi-racial Aborigine children. There’s also a reason ‘kindly European civilizers’ have a bad reputation in these areas.

  12. I think you missed my point. My beef isn’t with Christianity or Christians (if that was the case, I’m be in a spot of trouble). My beef is with destroying ancient and invaluable cultural and religious artifacts in the name of religion.

    If the cultural and religious artifacts are no longer valuable to the people who own them, then they are not “invaluable.” If they are invaluable to you, buy one–because, apparently, they’re selling them. I can’t find a legitimate argument that a culture shouldn’t change just because it makes those on the outside, looking in, uncomfortable.

    Maybe you’re looking at this as colonialism’s coup de grace against Africa’s native religions. I don’t think that’s the case.

    Christianity has become integrated into indigenous religions in a way that it’s difficult for Westerners to understand–especially in post-colonial Africa*. In some places, religious identity has replaced tribal identity, frequently in opposition to those in power. In others, the structures of Christianity (particularly Catholicism, in Zimbabwe and South Africa) have served to carry the voice of the oppressed outside of Africa. They haven’t been tricked into being Christians; they haven’t been forced (though their ancestors could well have been): there are compelling reasons for Africans to convert.

    This doesn’t mean that Christianity hasn’t done some fucked-up things to Africa. It has. Particularly in Nigeria. But I just can’t see this as the hand of white colonialism reaching out from beyond the grave to choke the life out of native traditions.

    — ACS

    * I think the clearest example of this–using a framework “outside” the home culture to change some negative indigenous condition–is the mass conversion of the dalit class in India away from Hinduism. This isn’t in Africa. But still.

  13. Hrm. After sleeping on it I’m wanting to comment more.

    I suppose my first comment was a bit harsh. Christianity’s influence on Africa has been both long-standing and interesting. (For an offhand example – Coptic Christians in Egypt sent missionaries to the pagan Vikings long before Europeans did. Fascinating, unless I’m remembering it incorrectly.) It’s also led to all sorts of cool religious syncretism like the Bwiti rituals of the Fang people.

    And of course Africans have a right to practice any religion they see fit. I mean, it’s kind of obtuse to think that anyone commenting or posting on a left-leaning blog would think otherwise. I believe African Christians have the right to worship freely, and I also think puppies are cute and ice cream tastes good. Duh.

    However, it’s the wholesale destruction of a culture, past or present, that I take issue with (and when I say culture, I mean it in the anthropological sense – the material artifacts as well as the practices and beliefs). To excuse this destruction by saying “Well, it’s their stuff, they can do what they want with it,” sounds so tragic to me. Other Europeans burned the Library of Alexandria. Other Iraqis looted the treasures of the national museum and damaged the . Other Afghanis blew up the Buddhas. It’s still a fucking loss to history and anthropology, and lessens our understanding of the fabric of human culture.

    I’m sure everyone commenting here feels the people of Egypt are free to practice Islam as they see fit, but if they decided to destroy the Sphinx because it’s representational art there would be a huge international outcry. The artifacts and practices described in this article may not be as showy as the temples and statues of ancient Egypt, but they’re just as priceless and worthy of recording for posterity.

    Want to practice Christianity? Go ahead. But any religion that demands its practitioners destroy all traces of the past is a special kind of creepy, IMO.

  14. However, it’s the wholesale destruction of a culture, past or present, that I take issue with (and when I say culture, I mean it in the anthropological sense – the material artifacts as well as the practices and beliefs). To excuse this destruction by saying “Well, it’s their stuff, they can do what they want with it,” sounds so tragic to me. Other Europeans burned the Library of Alexandria. Other Iraqis looted the treasures of the national museum and damaged the . Other Afghanis blew up the Buddhas. It’s still a fucking loss to history and anthropology, and lessens our understanding of the fabric of human culture.

    I’ve seen this argument all over the place, particularly with regard to indigenous looters of local archaelogical sites. Still don’t buy it.

    In Peru, the Quechua (descendants of the people Europeans know as “Incans”) have all but ruined quite a few archaeological sites while digging up stuff to sell to white folks.

    It’s their stuff. It’s not the Spanish-speaking, European-descended Peruvian government’s. It’s theirs. They’re dirt-poor — largely because of the actions of the Spanish-speaking, European-descended Peruvian government. If the government wants to get their hands on it, or hand out permits to dig it out of the ground, then outbid the other people trying to buy it, they can either (a) make it economically unnecessary for them to sell it, or (b) outbid the other people trying to buy it.

    Science or culture or art does not have some transcendent, all-encompassing right to what, fundamentally, is other peoples’ stuff*.

    — ACS

    * I think there’s a reasonable distinction to be made between burning down the Library of Alexandria, looting the Iraqi national museum, and people selling off objects they consider to be outdated (or dangerous) religious technologies.

  15. Well, ACS, I disagree. Religion should be a personal choice, and when you deliberately wipe all traces of a religion off the face of history you make that choice not only for yourself but for everyone who came after you.

    I do think that selling off these items is a different issue. Its not ideal, to be sure, but if cultural artifacts are a resource that you can use to help improve the lives of people by selling, then do so. Similarly, for instance, I don’t find it objectionable that the bones of Lucy were sent on a world tour. Richard Leakey, whom I have a particular distaste for, called it prostitution. Hey, if that’s what it is, then maybe we should look at the situations that have caused that to come about before we blindly object, and change that situation first.

    But if Kenyan Christians were to destroy Lucy because it was sent from the devil or something like that? That’s highly objectionable. You’re free to feel about your culture’s historical relics however you want. But if your goal is to destroy them, to make sure no one can ever see them or use them or learn about them again, then that’s highly problematic.

  16. Their traditions also include stuff like FGM. I think just because something is centuries-old doesn’t automatically make it worth preserving.

  17. Their traditions also include stuff like FGM. I think just because something is centuries-old doesn’t automatically make it worth preserving.

    Okay, well that’s a big fat strawman. There’s about a mile of gray area between wiping a culture off the face of the earth and turning a blind eye to FGM.

    Ah, the internet. It’s like a giant forest of strawmen. It’s hip deep in strawmen over here.

  18. Okay, well that’s a big fat strawman. There’s about a mile of gray area between wiping a culture off the face of the earth and turning a blind eye to FGM.

    You’ve come to a judgment about what parts of a culture are necessary, intrinsic, and which parts are not. FGM: unnecessary. Particular animist rituals: necessary. And then you’ve produced the conclusion that particular people stepping away, of their own volition, from their animist heritage constitutes “wiping that culture off the face of the earth,” whereas eliminating other cultural practices (like FGM) is, in fact, necessary.

    I can’t decide whether you think that people leaving their native religion is sad, or whether you think it’s wrong. Can you clarify?

    — ACS

  19. I can’t decide whether you think that people leaving their native religion is sad, or whether you think it’s wrong. Can you clarify?

    I think people leaving their native religion is a little sad, I guess. I find the huge variety of human cultures interesting, and the reduction of such (and not just religion) to be a loss. But people are free to do what they want, and if I find it a little sad that’s not really a big deal. Also the spread of Christianity has given rise to all sorts of syncretic religious systems like Bwiti and Santeria that are themselves interesting and diverse.

    But I think people setting fire to the artifacts of that religion at the behest of the leaders of another religion is wrong. It is, in fact, reducing/removing the ability of that religion to be studied and/or practiced by anyone else, ever. You make the choice for yourself, fine. You force that choice on your children, their children, and their children’s children? Not to mention everyone else in the whole world? That I have a problem with. (Not that I’m sure what the solution would be. But hey, when has that stopped a blog commenter before! 😉

    And to compare FGM to the entire religion, suggesting that the entire religion isn’t worth preserving because FGM isn’t worth preserving is like saying we should forget Shakespeare because Elizabethan culture had highly negative aspects, or we should tear down the Giza pyramids because ancient Egyptian culture had highly negative aspects. (And of course I object to FGM. I also think puppies are cute and ice cream tastes good.)

  20. But I think people setting fire to the artifacts of that religion at the behest of the leaders of another religion is wrong. It is, in fact, reducing/removing the ability of that religion to be studied and/or practiced by anyone else, ever. You make the choice for yourself, fine. You force that choice on your children, their children, and their children’s children? Not to mention everyone else in the whole world? That I have a problem with.

    Again, I think it’s the responsibility of people who believe in the abstract value of these artifacts to human knowledge to preserve them. It is not the responsibility of the owners, who believe in the objective reality of their Christian faith, and don’t continue to believe in their usefulness or safety.

    I don’t believe in the objective reality of Christianity, and I do believe in the abstract value of anthropology to human knowledge. But it isn’t the responsibility of indigenous peoples not to change so anthropologists can better study them. Especially when claiming that they have that responsibility creates new burdens; ones that aren’t incumbent on people living in first world countries*.

    — ACS

    * My family has a family Bible. It would normally go to me. However, I’m not a Christian. I’m not sure (nor do I particularly care) what happens to it once my parents die.

  21. Again, I think it’s the responsibility of people who believe in the abstract value of these artifacts to human knowledge to preserve them. It is not the responsibility of the owners, who believe in the objective reality of their Christian faith, and don’t continue to believe in their usefulness or safety.

    I do like the idea upthread of some sort fund for the purchasing and safeguarding of things in situations like this. But then you have to be careful not to cross the line into a paternalistic, “Oh, let us just take care of this for you for awhile, you don’t need it” kind of attitude that leads down all sorts of dark paths.

    But it isn’t the responsibility of indigenous peoples not to change so anthropologists can better study them.

    True. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that. At least, I didn’t mean to.

    Especially when claiming that they have that responsibility creates new burdens; ones that aren’t incumbent on people living in first world countries.

    If the UK government suddenly decided to tear down Stonehenge, I would be just as pissed.

    My family has a family Bible. It would normally go to me. However, I’m not a Christian. I’m not sure (nor do I particularly care) what happens to it once my parents die.

    Maybe part of the reason this issue means a lot to me is that both sides of my family came to this country with nothing but themselves, so I have literally nothing in the way of family heirlooms. I’m an atheist, but I would treasure a family Bible.

    In any case, I would hope you would give that bible to someone else in your family, or at least sell it to an antiques shop, rather than set it on fire.

  22. I do like the idea upthread of some sort fund for the purchasing and safeguarding of things in situations like this. But then you have to be careful not to cross the line into a paternalistic, “Oh, let us just take care of this for you for awhile, you don’t need it” kind of attitude that leads down all sorts of dark paths.

    I find that sort of paternalism infinitely preferable to the sort of paternalism that tells someone that, even though they believe this thing they own is literally, objectively infested by demons, that they have to hang onto it anyway.

    If the UK government suddenly decided to tear down Stonehenge, I would be just as pissed.

    Except this isn’t Stonehenge. The government of Nigeria isn’t ripping up spaces sacred to Nigerian animists: individual Nigerians are divesting themselves of ritual artifacts which they consider to be outdated, dangerous, or heretical. When it’s someone destroying something that’s not, by any standard, theirs, I can understand.

    But, again, people have a legitimate interest in the things they own; one that, especially for people that are extremely materially poor, as most rural Nigerians are, has to be counterbalanced against the (academic, Western) mania for cataloging every particular variation of every particular thing.

    — ACS

  23. Okay, I confess, I was naughty and peeked in the mod queue to read your response. Hopefully Jill won’t think that’s too bad of me. Anyhow,

    Except this isn’t Stonehenge. The government of Nigeria isn’t ripping up spaces sacred to Nigerian animists: individual Nigerians are divesting themselves of ritual artifacts which they consider to be outdated, dangerous, or heretical. When it’s someone destroying something that’s not, by any standard, theirs, I can understand.

    You’re right, “UK government” was sloppy wording on my part. I didn’t really mean just the government, not sure why I typed that (I’ve written 3 papers this week, my brain is kind of broken). If pagan druids tore down Stonehenge, I’d still be pissed. Hell, if you decided to destroy your family Bible, I’d try to talk you out of it.

    However, I have no issue with people “divesting themselves” of something. Sell something, get rid of it, leave it by the side of the road, whatever. Gather up everything and make a museum of ‘stupid stuff we used to believe’, if you want. Hey, especially if you can sell something as a resource (if you don’t want it anyway) and use it to improve your quality of life. It’s the destruction, the total erasing, that I take issue with.

    Even with cultural practices that I consider huge human rights abuses, like the above-mentioned FGM, or Chinese foot-binding, or the Holocaust, or slavery, or a million other things, I don’t think we should destroy evidence that they ever happened.

Comments are currently closed.