Spirits of Peace

Our most awesome event yet! We brought together traditional healers and researchers with some wonderful, exciting, inspiring and thoughtful creatives at Theatre in the Park. There were many young people just starting out on their creative careers, alongside some well-established and wonderful stars from the worlds of film-making, literature and acting. We shared our thoughts and feelings, and told our stories, about the roles of spirits, especially ngozi spirits, in reconciliation processes.

What were some of the main take-away points?
- The SADC 2013 Maseru Declaration on a Framework for Peaceful Development in Southern Africa states that ‘Member States shall reinvigorate and integrate indigenous and traditional methods of healing, reconciliation, and alternative dispute resolution into local and national efforts.’

- Problems that lead to ngozi cases are rooted in bigger societal problems. If we only start paying attention at the point where there is an ngozi case, it is dealing with symptoms, not causes. Chivanhu as a system needs attention: how do people build good relationships with each other, with the environment, with the spirits?

- Legal systems and Christian cultures are stumbling blocks for the restoration of traditional and indigenous systems. Colonialism is at the root of the problem, bringing in
*individualistic and punitive legal systems,
*a form of Christianity that framed protective spirits as evil
*a narrative that only European ideas about wealth, religion and education have value

- Legal systems don't resolve spiritual problems like ngozi - fines and imprisonment don't appease ngozi; the legal system only deals with individuals, while ngozi cases affect whole families & communities.

- People know about spirits and everyone has stories to tell. But how will people learn about the ways to 'reinvigorate and integrate indigenous and traditional methods of healing, reconciliation, and alternative dispute resolution'?

- Formal education is standardised and un-African in its approaches. Learning about spirits should start in the family and be specific to the contexts of the learner. There will be many variations. But it should happen in all families in Zimbabwe, urban or rural, Christian or traditionalist.

- Even within families, people disagree about whether or not it is good to engage with spirits. But it's hard to have open conversations about this, especially within the churches.

What can creatives bring to the process?
- Maybe it would be useful to have documentaries that explain key issues and systems, such as why mombe yemai matters, and how ngozi can be used for harm as well as good.

- But there is a danger of didacticism, which no-one enjoys. Young people want to engage with music and film and video games, and don't want to be told what to think.

- We need artistic output that opens up questions and provokes constructive dialogue within and between families and communities - not telling people what to think, but making them want to, and feel empowered to, have the conversations

- There are many ways to tell stories, and creatives must play to their strengths. Many stories and storytellers are already informally keeping knowledge alive.
Some ways of telling stories need money, some don't. What is the audience you want to reach? Identify the right resources for the size and level of the audience that you want to reach and the story you want to tell.

The youth were full of questions for the ZINATHA elders about systems that they knew about but had never really learned about, and many stayed on long after the event was supposed to have finished, to ask them more.

Many thanks to Theatre in the Park for hosting the event, and to everyone who came with their whole being - mind, heart and spirit - to take part in the conversation.

Today we learned about this film screening in Harare tomorrow evening. Worth your time if you're free.

NZARA-HUNGER is a full-length animated movie about the woman in the sky and the ultimate triumph of love against all odds. It features Polish animation, Zimbabwean actors and a magical mythological world. Made during covid in 2020, it was showcased at Polands most prestigious film festival in Gdynia in 2021 and at Grahamstown fringe festival in 2022. It was awarded and acclaimed by OP!LA animated films festival, KINO Magazine and others. It will be showing on friday, august 5th at 6pm at reps theatre upstairs, by donation. All donations will go towards this years Nyamatsatse Festival, august 14-20th. Please come and invite friends!
Written and directed by Klara Ana Rosa

You can see more about the film here:
Trailer: https://youtu.be/Gzjxb3m8fkE
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0-qy8J-MZh8

This week we took our work to the academy, with a joint seminar at University of Zimbabwe with colleagues from History and Religious Studies. Our topic was 'Taking Spirits Seriously: the challenge for the Academy'. Within the conventions of the global academy, is it possible to write about spirits as actors, or as having agency? Or can we only take a phenomenological approach, and write about what we observe that people believe?
The discussion turned towards methodology. Can we stir up stories about spirits - including ngozi spirits - and stories about events where reconciliation is needed, and be sure that we are protecting those whose stories they are? Is the danger only one of trauma and triggering bad memories? Or are there also dangers from spirits themselves?
(On our project, we have support from both traditional healers, who are experts in psychosocial healing, and from Dr Ross Parsons, an anthropologist and psychologist with clinic expertise in trauma psychotherapy. So we have addressed the ethical questions. But the question of whether we can write about spirits *as actors*, or only about damage caused by *beliefs* in spirits, remains moot.)

We had an amazing and exciting day at the National Archives today, with members of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association.
We shared with them archival materials about the work of traditional healers (usually called 'witchcraft' in the white archives - there was no distinction in the white administrators' eyes between varoyi and traditional healers & diviners). We discussed how the work of traditional healers has changed over time, partly in response to the notorious Witchcraft Suppression Ordinance of 1899, which outlawed their work; and partly in response to changing ideas about, for example, the best ways to deal with uroyi. In the past, traditional healers would use physical methods (such as ordeal) to demonstrate that a person was muroyi. Today, they will use spirit guidance only, and use blocking and protective muti to deal with the problem.
We would like to offer our profound thanks to the ZINATHA members who came to work with us today. We hope to do more of this work with them in the future!

Zinatha School of Traditional Medicine

Another very interesting interview, this time with Hon Jonah Sewera, MP for Murehwa West. He told us his experiences of being protected by midzimu spirits during the liberation war, and how the midzimu are opposed to violence and blood spilling. We discussed the roles of spirits in a country that is formally and constitutionally Christian, and what this means for Zimbabwe identity.

A good day in Murehwa. We interviewed many vasabhuku, market women, a female ward councillor and a female prophet who presides over an apostolic shrine village.
We discussed the paying of ngozi wives as compensation in a murder case, so that the victim's family can replace their family member with her child - after which she is free to marry again elsewhere.
The men thought it was necessary and worth the sacrifice of one woman to save many others in her family from persecution by an unappeased spirit. The market women hated it but did not think other options were available. The councillor said it no longer happens and ngozi payment can be used as bridewealth for a love match where the child will replace the lost family member. The prophet said that an ngozi can be worn down by prayer until it will agree to settle.

It was a great meeting indeed today, very important things were discussed and we summed up with a great lunch. Godfrey Nyasha Hove Bevyline Murambiwa Melissa Kaliofasi Gerald Chikozho Mazarire Ushehwedu Kufakurinani Takesure Taringana Amos Zevure

What a great trip it was. Our doctoral students had an opportunity to present their projects to an international scholarly audience, at only 4 months in to their doctoral work. Godfrey Nyasha Hove Beyline Murambiwa Nyashab Bushu Mellisa Maheti Kaliofasi Taringana Takesure Amos Zevure

Great workshop session today, with the project research assistants sharing initial thoughts about traditional authorities, methodology, gender, identity, justice and the agency of spirits.
Look out for their work at conference in East London next week!

Planning our oral history work in Mashonaland East!