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Missiollalia 20:3 (November 1992) 201-215
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THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM ON 1WO
EAST AFRICAN SOCIETIES
R.E.S. Tanner*
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this analysis is to examine four aspects of the relations between
religion and secular life since the introduction of Christianity and Islam in
two East African societies: the Sukuma to the south of Lake Victoria in Tanzania and the Swahili of the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts. Both these societies are analytically distinct from surrounding societies. The four aspects to
be examined are the questions whether religion a) has provided these societies with a flexibility of response to their problems; b) has provided these
peoples with adequate ecologies of meaning; c) has provided a framework
explicable in economic rather than religious terms; d) has been responsible
for or hindered technological change.
The author has published a number of background studies on these two societies listed in the bibliography. Subsequent studies by priests and anthropologists and the author's current work have shown that despite considerable
economic and social change, the worldview of these two peoples has
changed very little in the intervening years. The present analysis is based on
this assumption.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL BACKGROUND
Usukuma comprises a core area of 20 000 square miles, containing an expanding popUlation moving into unoccupied land to the west. The Sukuma
number over two million. Stanley, the explorer, writing in Febuary 1875
(Stanley 1878:137) described their land as a most beautiful pastoral country,
but writing again in September 1889 (Stanley 1890:397-8) he stated that the
soil had been thoroughly scoured away and the pasture had been cropped by
hungry herds as low as the stone moss. It is still an arid land from May to
October with a desiccating sun and an annual rainfall of about 30 inches
falling in localised storms. A harsh environment.
The term Swahili is used indiscriminately for all people living on the East
African coast and its adjacent islands. An amalgam of the descendants of
Africans and Arabs (Prins 1961:12). They occupy a strip of land 5 to 10 miles
wide from beyond Cape Delgado in the south to the Juba river in Somalia in
the north. Their land is flat grass and thicket with low ridges, having a
•
Dr. Ralph Tanner is presently a self-employed tutor and researcher. Earlier he taught at the Universiry of East Africa
and Heythrop College, Universiry of London. His address is The Footprint. Padworth Common, Reading. Berks RG7
4QG, United Kingdom.
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Tanner
202
rainfall varying between 31 inches at Malindi in Kenya to 60 inches on
Zanzibar island. An equable environment.
THE USE OF TERMS
There are problems in analysing religion as something separately identifiable
from politics and economics. Among traditional Sukuma the answer to a
question about their religion gets the answer that they are Sukuma or that
they have no religion. Indeed the question itself involves the use of the
kiSwahili word for religion (dill i) since kiSukuma contains no specific word
for religion. Thus in the Sukuma context the use of this word dilli implies
conversion to a non-traditional faith.
On the coast among the Swahili the word dilli clearly refers to Islam and
the plural madilli is probably a later development to cover a linguistic need
when Christianity in its modern form appeared in the mid 19th century with
the Roman Catholics at Bagamoyo and the Anglicans on Zanzibar. Earlier
Portuguese occupations have not left anything identifiable as Catholic in origin. The need for a word for religion came with the expansion of scale when
tribal identity became an issue owing to the presence of strangers and the
out-migration of tribesmen. Situations then arose in which the tribal members' religious keys to individual and family survival were no longer functionally useful. A need arose for universal faiths which could be used in a variety
of social environments.
There are serious linguistic problems for these universal faiths in approaching tribal societies. Islam solves this by using Arabic only with its own
term for God, Allah. Roman Catholicism no longer uses Latin liturgically
and uses either the kiSwahili 1111lllgll or the kiSukuma liwelelo for God. The
meaning of the latter varies between north and south and has no Sukuma linguistic association with the Christian idea of a loving God. The Sukumas'
idea seems to be more that they would be happy if God left them alone to
get on with their lives. Indeed, they have little use for the concept of a
Supreme Being unless and until the guardianship and propitiation of their
ancestors fails.
THE RELATIONSHIP TO RITES OF PASSAGE
Religion in these two societies does not have the everyday implications of
regular worship and ideological consistency which is a feature of western
Christianity and Islamic practice. Firstly, religion is used in cyclical and linear
rites of passage focusing on the group rather than on the individual. Social,
economic and religious facts are mixed.
The traditional rites of passage in Usukuma relate to the agricultural cycle
and have been transferred with difficulty to the festivals of the Christian year,
which do not coincide. Their cyclical rites of passage were related to chieftainship which had been in decay as a ritual centrepiece for a long time before chieftainships were abolished by the newly independent State. Amongs
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the Swahili whatever traditional practices may have existed, they have long
since been overlaid and replaced by the Islamic ritual calender, and based as
it is on the lunar cycle, it can have no regular relation to any agricultural activity. Islamic cyclical rites of passage relating to the holy month of Ramadan
and the birthday of the Prophet, are universally practised with social as well
as religious implications. The individualisation of agricultural effort and
ownership seems to have made these cylical rites functionally irrelevant in
both societies. Christian cyclical rites of passage have become popular, since
Sunday has become a regular and widely accepted break in the monotony of
agricultural work. Easter and Christmas are dates known in advance and are
accepted as holidays by the secular government. In both societies individual
birthdays have never featured because birth dates are not known.
Linear rites of passage are common. The Sukuma have no general rites of
initiation and they do not circumcise. The membership of the popular dance
and so-called secret societies continue to require initiating rites of passage.
The Swahili circumcise, often in groups and at as early an age as possible to
save expense over the long period of liminality and the use of a visiting
Moslem dignitary's services.
Marriage for both the Sukuma and the Swahili require appropriate rituals,
particularly for the first marriages of women. Since marriages among the
Swahili are unstable, these rituals are usually minimised for all second and
subsequent marriages, as indeed they are in western societies.
THE RELA TlONSHIP TO CRISIS CONTROL
Secondly, religion is used both individually and collectively for the control
and abatement of crises in which there is a real sense of tension and immediacy. These rituals are common, not overtly secretive and easily observed.
Community crisis control is more a feature of Sukuma than Swahili life as
they are subsistence farmers suffering from irregular patterns of rainfall, so
that rain-making rituals continue according to the severity of the drought and
its extent. Swahili communal crisis control ceremonies have lapsed as people
have become more involved in paid work and the ownership of palm-trees.
Individual crisis control rituals involving mixtures of spirit possession and
herbal homeopathy are a common feature of both societies, just as they have
always been, since these services are both consumer oriented and cheap.
There is little welfare backup available other than that which is part of their
own social systems. For the Sukuma, Christianity has provided no functionally adequate alternative to the traditional system, since the churches are
concerned about involvement in magic, a centuries old dilemma which has
never been resolved to the satisfaction of the laity experiencing these crises
and who want something done about them.
For the Swahili, the traditional system of cri~is control is so closely intermingled with Islam that any analytical division between them would be arbitrary. Since all are Muslims and spirit possession is universal, it is seen as
part of Islam even though Muslim leaders deplore its prevalence as unis-
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204
lamic. Thus Islam can be seen as enabling rather than promoting a function
ally adequate system of crisis abatement.
ORGANISED RELIGION PROVIDING FOR FLEXIBILl1Y OF RESPONSE
SUKUMA CULTURE
The Sukuma traditional culture and its religion provide a pattern of be
haviour functionally suitable for their subsistence agriculture. Their tradi
tional religion provides them with a wide variety of alternative responses t(
their crises which must account for its persisence under conditions of grea
political, economic and social change.
Traditional practitioners provide a service within a religious paradigrr
which is widely known and accepted, but they do not provide the same ser·
vice in the same form; all are to some extent specialists living on their repu·
tations for providing a successful solution to the problems presented to them
Individual Sukuma can go to these practitioners for (a) haruspitiation, tc
predict the future and explain the past, (b) psychotherapy, for the relief 01
personal misfortune due to spirit possession, (c) magical protection from evi
and promotion of good, and (d) the curing of physical ills by using herbal
compounds containing magical ingedients linking the sufferer with his prob·
lem. This system also offers opportunities for social and economic participa·
tion by joining so-called secret societies in fulfilment of an obligation to ar
ancestor as diagnosed by a traditional practitioner.
Apart from the variety of services provided, the form of this provision is at·
tractive since it occurs in ways that are far more acceptable to the Sukum~
than that of welfare organisations. Being questioned by a stranger whose personal credentials are unknown and having their problem recorded in writing
is for them a worrying procedure. Traditional practitioners have added to
their repertoires with the use of patent medicines and new procedures such
as fire-walking.
On the whole, this socio-religious system is very flexible, both for the patients and the practitioners and subject only to the controls of public opinion.
Clearly it meets the needs of the modern countrydweller as it has done in the
past but the whole system has expanded to meet the newer needs of those involved in the more modern world of towns, business and employment. For
these people the loosely institutionalised traditional system as it has developed matches the availability of fringe responses in any western city. All people are within walking range of what they want when they want it.
The non-traditional religions available to the Sukuma do not provide such a
broad range of alternatives and thus it is that Muslims and Christians often
feel the need to use the traditional system when their particular needs cannot
be met by these necessarily alien systems of belief and practice. In this there
is a scale of involvement. Islam has no supervisory institutions overseeing its
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Tile impact of Christianity and Islam on two societies
205
requirements and is so loosely structured that adherance on a regular or sporadic basis is a matter of personal choice. At the other extreme are the Seventh Day Adventists with rigid behavioural requirements, doctrinal exactness
and tight self-supporting groups of adherents. Less demanding are the Anglicans and the African Inland Church with fewer followers.
In between is the Roman Catholic Church which beneath an appearance of
uniformity allows considerable ritual variations and social groupings according to the needs of both parishioners and priests. This church is widespread,
with permanently staffed mission stations in most areas, each centre having
subordinate outstations served on a regular basis. This church in most areas
offers a range of special services for personal and family rites of passage as
well as cyclical ones providing for communal cohesion and entertainment. It
also provides wearable holy medals and crucifIxes which are analogous to the
amulets worn by traditionalists in answer to the dictates of ancestor worship.
In addition, the church provides opportunities for the Sukuma to join
Catholic societies such as the Legion of Mary which give them both sociability and the chance for upward social mobility paralleling the traditional dance
and secret societies. Catholic ritual can be altered to suit local susceptibilities
through the imaginative resources of the priests. The Sukuma are deeply
committed to the influence of their ancestors over the well-being of the descendants and thus in theory All Souls Day might be culturally and religiously
acceptable. However, they have not seen it in this light since they see no return in praying for souls with whom they have no blood relationship. One
priest placed a basket on the altar for the month of November into which
parishioners could put the names of ancestors for whom they wished prayers
to be offered, but such imaginative inculturation is rare.
Further opportunities are provided in the ritual of the Mass, for example
the wearing of new and highly coloured vestments by the readers of the
Epistle, the building of round churches and round tabernacles in imitation of
the traditional Sukuma huts, and church decorations in the traditional basket
weaving designs.
.
This potential flexibility is however countered by the cultural and administrative inflexibility of some priests and their bishops who see their roles in
theologically restricted terms, leading to a certain nervousness in deviating
from what they see as approved and safe rituals. Perhaps in this the missionary priests are more exploratory, adhering to what they see as approved
western theological patterns of constant innovation, while the Sukuma hierarchy are reluctant to move into areas of ritual which on the surface appear
analogous to pagan practices. Thus in Christian rituals there appears to be
no development into a single form of practice acceptable to the Sukuma but
rather parallel lines between which the Sukuma manoeuvre.
SWAHILI CULTURE
Amongst the Swahili, Islam provides the only organised religious institutions
available in every village. In-the smaller ones there may be a single mosque
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but in the larger ones the existence of several mosques shows up the existence of choice for the individual as to where he should worship. When the
Segeju village of Moa had 400 houses it already had four mosques. Each
mosque has its prayer leader, providing opportunities for upward social mobility for those who have the ability to settle disputes within the broad
context of Islamic law about marriage, divorce and inheritance. This is a
part-time occupation depending on reputation and with a limited range of
clientele so it is usually combined with other means of livelihood. Islam here
has not become sufficiently institutionalised for charitable bequests to
support these mosques with permanent incumbents. For major occasions the
villagers invite Muslim dignitaries from outside the area to officiate.
The cult of spirit possession occupies a prominent place in the Swahili
magico-religious system. The area is considered to be inhabited by spirits
(slzetalli), who are divided into tribes with different names and characteristics. These spirits are recognised in orthodox Islamic practice so that sufferers and their diagnosing diviners have a variety of options to which they can
relate misfortune without going outside the ideological tenets of Islam. The
victims of spirit possession are usually women, who are seen to be socially as
much as clinically ill and who can only be cured by the expulsion of the invading spirits. Since women are excluded from Islamic public affairs, they
may compensate for this exclusion in these widespread unorthodox rituals of
spirit exorcism. A cured women gains membership of a social group formed
from former victims of that spirit and she can then take part in the exorcism
of others, thus gaining both prestige and status.
While Islam provides the formal religious structures for the Swahili and indeed the paradigm for spirit possession, the individual is still provided with a
range of alternatives to suit individual tensions and their diagnosis and cure
by Islamic and traditional practitioners, who are virtually indistinguishable.
As with the Sukuma, spirit possession is a much handier socio-religious tool
for coping with misfortune than the scientific approach. Certainly the Swahili
are similarly aware of alternatives. Hospitals run by the government or
Christian missions have been available in the area for over a century but
their scientific system of caring is alienating, isolating and restrictive.
Under the Swahili system the sufferer knows the possible outcome of any
diagnostic session before it has been carried out. Both then and during the
ensuing rituals, the sufferer is centre stage. The diagnostic sessions in which
the sufferer is put into a state of dissociation, allows the practitioner to bargain with the infesting spirit who is in fact a stand-in for some disturbing element in the social life of the sufferer. Thus in this system there is substantial
behavioural flexibility within the paradigms of Swahili society provided by
their religion.
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17re impact of Christianity and Islam
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'1J)7
THE RELIGIOUS PROVISION OF AN ORGANISED ECOLOGY OF
MEANING
SUKUMA CULTURE
AU the Sukuma are able to give an outline of their traditional beliefs because
the language carries within it certain understandings. Converts do not lose
these habits of mind just because they have acquired new overt religious
patterns of behaviour. Even school children are able to make sentences with
key traditional religious words that are put up on a chalkboard, thus indicating the extent of this informal socialisation.
Covert traditional practices continue among Christians with the wearing of
magical amulets where they could not be seen by the casual observer. Perhaps only the children of converts may never have seen any traditional ceremonies, and candidates for the Catholic priesthood appear to be ignorant of
them except from hearsay. For the vast majority of Sukuma there is a substratum of meaning relating to the influence of their ancestors through spirit
possession which remains with them to some extent regardless of what ideas
and practices they may have acquired subsequently. A troubled undergraduate may undergo exorcism for much the same reasons as a subsistence
farmer or his wife. .
For converts to Christianity the situation is clearer. Each church member
has a range of documents to which he can refer since the Jerusalem Bible
with notes is available in kiSwahili at a heavily subsidised price. Most of the
Catholic prayers and rituals are available in kiSukuma. In addition each
church produces promotional literature. Church members knows that their
church has an organised ecology of meaning even if they do not know much
about the details and how these might involve them. In addition, people can
consult their priests and pastors, locally born or expatriate, who will have undergone substantial training. Whether they use these facilities or not, they
represent a set of tools which can provide a Christian opinion or fixed response to every situation in which people are likely to find themselves.
Muslims are in a more difficult situation. Few can read Arabic and so the
use of the Qur'an is closed to them. Thus Islam provides a much looser
framework in which to follow their beliefs. Sukuma Muslims are in effect
free to practise any rituals for which they may feel the need. Muslims do not
form an organised community of believers which can give support, nor does
it have a supervisory system over its believers.
The ecology of meaning for the Sukuma will have a value relative to time,
place and personality. The fact that Sukuma culture has substantial homogeneilY does not obviate individual variations in response but it is always
within a very generalised ecology of meaning which has evolved with time.
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208
SWAHILI CULTURE
Islam has been an active presence in worship and commerce on the East
African coast since the 13th century, with its field of influence further extended by the marriages of Arabs with tribal women. Islam is physically visible with the presence of mosques. Thus there is a substantial Islamic background to the contemporary Swahili culture, but the organised ecology of
meaning for them is much more implicit than explicit, when compared with
Sukuma Christians. Despite the fact that many learnt to recite the Our'an as
children, few can read it so that it has none of the practical utility of the Bible
translated into kiSwahili in Roman script. In every village there are interpreters of the Our'an, should villagers wish to consult them, but they are unlikely to do so should they suspect that such interpretations would go against
the requirements of the indigenous culture, and thus deprive them of clients
and their economic support. Islam provides for women to inherit in their own
right but few widows and daughters do so or indeed have begun to think that
they could claim such property rights.
A much stronger and active ecology of meaning is provided by the spirit
possession cults which are as much a part of communal life as prayers in the
village mosque, but much less visible, since their functions often occur at
night in private houses. The Swahili have in this system a readily available
explanation for their misfortunes. Certainly the better-known Islamic teachers in the main centres of Mombasa and Zanzibar lament this wholesale and
popular breach of orthodoxy but their more arid interpretations of Islamic
law do not have the same cultural weight as the alternatives.
Thus the Swahili have an organised ecology of meaning at two levels. First,
there is the Muslim framework, the official label onto which they hang their
political, social and religious identity. This is used in much the same way as
Sukuma Christians uses their religion, except that the Christian churches
have a much more active supervisory system; Secondly, there is the magicoreligious framework, particularly used by the women who are excluded from
the Islamic structure, which provides for their needs at a much more functionally useful level and carries on independently of orthodox Islam.
These two systems provide the Swahili with a wide range of ways in which
to use their cultural understandings as well as a sense of personal identity
and communal solidarity. They are not ideologically divisive of the community - as conversion to Christianity tends to be for the Sukuma - and they thus
provide an effective and organised ecology of meaning. The fact that Swahili
culture has recognisably survived for several centuries without any leakage
into other faiths and without much use of westernised medicine, must lead to
the conclusion that they are well satisfied with this ecology of meaning and
the ways that it copes with the regular stresses in their lives.
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THE ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF ORGANISED RELIGION
SUKUMA SOCIETY
Traditionally the Sukuma do not have a religion with conspicuous institutions; there are no communal shrines and the only visible part of their religion are the spirit shrines in the compounds of more traditional households.
There are certain named associations of a permanent nature in which persons hold loosely defined posts with magical functions. They vary from those
that are more for entertainment (which use magic irregularly) to those which
have an extensive repertoire of magical activities.
The former group contains the so-called dallce societies, the BlIgika, BlIgarn,
BlIgobogobo, which only become active in the dry season in competitive public exhibitions designed to draw off onlookers the one from the other. These
groups have no more than minor economic functions, helping each other
with farming at critical periods in the agricultural year.
At the other end of the scale are the so-called secret societies such as the
BlIchwezi, which have a more permanent structure and membership. They
have complicated initiation rites and a membership induced by the requirements of the propitiation of the ancestors. The members, many of whom are
divorced and widowed women, give one another social and economic support
under a widely known hierarchical leadership. While their economic impact
is not quantifiable, the function of support is a major reason for membership.
There is a Masonic tinge to their activities, with enough secrecy to attract
and enough openness to recruit. Those who join have the drudgery of their
farming existences relieved. In Marxist terms they are less alienated than
they would otherwise be. Those who join the more permanently active societies are helped to keep their social lives in greater coherence and provided
with economic benefits which must be particularly useful for the deprived
and rejected.
Conversion to Catholicism provides opportunities for the continuation of
this cultural theme, with Sukuma Christians being interested in tertiary
Catholic groups such as the Legion of Mary provided that their charitable
acts receive some publicity and a uniform is worn. The church authorities
discourage this ostentation since charity should involve self-denial rather
than social advantages. However, Christianity came to Usukuma through
missionary a·ctivity - the presence of unsummoned foreigners indistinguishable from the colonial administrators - and not from any felt need by those
Sukuma who had travelled outside their tribal area. Only recently have
Sukuma priests and paslors begun to take a larger share of their church's
functions.
In considering the economic importance of these Christian groups, that
were (initially at least) largely sustained by outside funds and personnel, it
should be remembered that in the 1959 census 85% of the Sukuma described
themselves as believers in their traditional religion, although this is unlikely
to have,. meant that they were active practitioners paralleling a Christian
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commitment. Thus for the Sukuma there are two religious systems, each with
some economic spin-off. Having already discussed the economic benefits of
the dance societies and secret societies of the traditional religion, the focus
now falls on the economic spin-offs of organised Christianity.
First, the economic benefits related to priests or pastors. Expatriate missionaries are maintained by overseas funding and are thus independent of the
need to be sustained by their parishioners. This fact is widely known since
they have a higher standard of living and have access to funds which can be
tapped from time to time. Clearly there are "rice Christians" here just as
there were in China, and the reasons for conversion show this pragmatism.
The extent of the subsidisation is not known but it is higher than In the 1950s,
when some Catholic priests led lives of obvious poverty resulting from the
absence of more than minimal support from their religious order. The later
American priests are better off and better maintained by their order as well
as having access to more money for use in local development projects. The
Christian communities have thus become to various extents the possessors by
inheritance of missionary-built churches and accommodation for priests and
pastors: theirs by use and a sense of ownership rather than by legal title.
Capital investment from overseas has thus provided the local Christians with
the plant for developing their operations. Indigenous priests are in a markedly
disadvantaged position unless they are able to get overseas sponsors. However, since they are Sukuma, they are better able to organise parish support
for their own maintenance. For both groups the weekly collection during services produces negligible sums as the Sukuma have no concept of disinterested giving to an abstract institution.
However, besides priests and pastors, there are three groups of Christians
who have clearly benefitted from their incorporation in the institutional pattern of their church. First, the catechists, the lowest rung of the Christian
professional hierarchy, who are trained and receive small sums for their ser- vices. Second, those who take on the role of godfather who can - by the accumulation of godchildren - receive and provide the familial services of a
traditional polygynous family and thus become the centres of functioning
Christian family networks. Since seXual activity is rarely the main concern of
the polygynist, this adaptation works well.
The third group of economically successful Christians are the Seventh Day
Adventists. In comparison to the usual Sukuma society, this is an ascetic
group who do not drink alcohol, smoke or dance and who were thus in
Sukuma terms isolating themselves. This enabled them to adapt more positively to new forms of economic opportunity. In the mid-1950s cotton was the
only cash crop but the buying and processing was an Indian monopoly. Cotton crops were individually owned and harvested and were not burdened with
the problems relating to inheritance and marriage negotiations as in the case
of cattle farming. There was a crescendo of demands for cotton cooperatives.
The ascetic Seventh Day Adventists were well placed to take advantage of
this opportunity and thus came to occupy a high proportion of the posts in
the newly created cooperatives at both provincial and local levels. Not only
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17le impact of Christianity and Islam on two societies
211
did this small minority faith enable its followers to benefit economically but
the spin-off from their hard work increased the well-being of all cotton growers.
SWAHILI SOCIETY
Whereas Christianity in Usukuma provided for the creation and maintenance
of a religious system paralleling - and to a large extent detached from Sukuma society, the Swahili framework of organised religion is contained
within the communities conce~'
ed. The sums involved in seeking relief from
spirit possession are often larg depending on the seriousness of the affliction and the value to their faml ies and husbands of those possessed. The
spirit cults are kept going by the (easts and dances organised by their members who, having first obtained relief, seek to maintain their status by a continued expenditure of time and money.
The communal celebrations of the main Islamic festivals involve considerable expenditure and this potlatch approach combined with the numbers and
prominence of the visitors which they are able to attract, are seen as important for village prestige. The expenditure in these two respects certainly diverts considerable funds from what might be available for economic use.
PERSONAL RELIGION AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
SUKUMA SOCIETY
Technological change punctuates Sukuma social life but its influence is discontinuous in the sense that it is more evident near the main towns and administrative centres and is dependent on the amount of money which the
Sukuma have over and above the basic necessities of life. Pressure to change
has been on them since the Germans introduced the radio to Mwanza in
1910, followed by vehicular roads and the railway between Lake Victoria and
the coast. The fact that allsuch changes came from the work of outsiders led
to both speculation as to its advantages and an instinctive rejection of the social consequences.
When religion offered them what they saw as material advantages which did
not initially require any specific changes in their pattern of living, they
grasped it. Traditional practitioners now foretell the future by using Coca
Cola bottle tops rather than bones and they advise the use of patent
medicines. Missionary medicine has always been cheaper than that of these
traditional practitioners.
The early missionary Brothers personified self-reliance, building churches,
houses and schools and in general keeping the mission stations going. This
type of necessary self-sufficiency diminished with better roads and finally disappeared altogether with air-travel enabling missionaries to go on leave,
combined as it was with the decline of European and American vocations to
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the religious life. More recently the American Maryknoll Fathers have had a
standard of living higher than any previous missionaries. The nuns belonging
to this order, driving cars and living independently of men, stimulated some
wider understanding of the implications of technological change. Missionaries as examples of self-reliance and as encouragers of peasant efforts to improve themselves technically are now no more than memories.
As in the West, theological attitudes in Africa towards technological change
consist of overall approval of any changes that might increase the standard of
living of their parishioners. There has never been any kind of ideological embargo on change which did not involve moral issues. Culturally the Sukuma
thought and behaved in terms of group associations; they were not acculturated to the idea of individual economic success. They held religiously based
feelings that the ancestors required social cooperation with others to whom
they were related by blood or marriage.
Any Sukuma who takes personal advantage of technological change in the
rural environment becomes socially exposed. Certainly some changes could
make a person independent of such social pressures. Corrugated iron roofs
prevent arson and owning a tractor means that one can cultivate more and be
less likely to be a victim of ill-health. In general, wealth is hidden rather than
flaunted. Success in cattle breeding is partially countered by the loaning out
of surplus animals so that their owners' range of social influence is increased,
while the range of disapproval is correspondingly diminished. This intolerance of social deviance involving the use of technology was probably independent of religious ideas as to what the "good" Sukuma's life should be.
Sometimes the use of money cannot be hidden and this is countered by accusations of witchcraft, which the main churches could not act against without
admitting the existence of witchcraft - something they are reluctant to do.
SWAHILI SOCIETY
The Islamic religion has given the Swahili a sense of superiority over the inland tribal groups surrounding them. This is shown in the popular phrase,
"washenzi wa bara, wenyeji wa pwani", which means "the uncivilised of the
interior and the civilised of the coast." The Swahili see themselves as having
been the rulers of the coast for centuries. This exclusive cultural identity and
its close association with Islam appears to have prevented them from taking
advantage of technological opportunities for two reasons.
First, their overriding concern for religious prestige on their own cultural
Islamic terms has meant that they have given high priority to Qur'anic
schools providing little more than the memorising of the Qur'an, which has
little practical utility in the modern world. Organised religion has thus had
the effect of shutting the Swahili into what has become increasingly a technological backwater. Secondly, their use of surplus wealth for rites of passage
and exorcism worked against their thinking of the use of money in terms of
economic advancement. A Muslim commented that all-weather roads were
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TIle impact of Christiallity alld Islam
011
two societies
213
useful as they could then get burial shrouds without difficulty in the rainy
season.
Without doubt the Swahili have not taken advantage of the technological
advances available to them since the beginning of the colonial period. Perhaps the only occasion in which they have taken advantage of a technological
change was the use of guns in the Bushiri revolt of 1898, which was not a
specifically Islamic event. Certainly the opportunities have been there should
individuals have wished to use them and their reluctance to do so must be
attributable to their Islamised culture. The' impression given by the Swahili even their appearance and their villages - is of communities fixed in the past
and yet they have never been geographically and culturally isolated from the
consequences of technological change.
Islam has acted as a restriction on the possibilities of personal innovation in
several ways. Individuals are enmeshed in a socio-religious culture which
does not distinguish between the secular and the religious. They cannot distinguish between the two with any clarity since both are enshrined in the
Qur'an, which they have come to believe is the literal word of Allah. This
governs their attitudes to marriage, divorce and inheritance and with the
elaboration of Islamic law, they are theoretically liable to have their business
actions interpreted along pre-industrial lines should they consult a Muslim
leader.
Perhaps on a personal level some Swahili have begun to think of themselves
as dominantly African rather than Arab in origin and thus become more
open to secular developments, but in these terms the centres of progress in
both Kenya and Tanzania have moved progressively inland and away from
the influence of Islam.
CONCLUSION
In this analysis four theories relating religion to secular life have been examined in relation to two East African cultures. The Sukuma, a large Bantu
tribe living to the south of Lake Victoria and the Swahili of the East African
coast. In both societies the traditional religious systems provide considerable
flexibility of response. Both Christianity and Islam provide relatively inflexible structures which their adherents circumvent by reverting to their traditional religious practices when they are under stress.
Both cultures have implicit ecologies of meaning which are seen as both adequate and indigenous. Christianity and Islam provide explicit ecologies of
meaning for their adherents, should they wish for rulings on almost any situation in which they might find themselves.
Neither traditional religion nor Christianity in Usukuma provide a framework explicable in economic terms. However in the Swahili culture both their
traditional religion and Islam are organisations explicable in economic terms
with each religion expanding and contracting with demand and generally
acting as a brake on economic development.
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Tallller
214
Traditional religions by definition cannot be related to technological
change. Christianity in Usukuma clearly intends itself to be in association
with technological development, even if it has not initiated much. Islam
among the Swahili has clearly set its face against giving any priority to technological change without actually preaching against it.
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