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MOJOLA 73
For many years ever since the 1930s, when Christianity was brought to the Iraqw
people, most of the missionaries have neglected the study of the peoples’ practices,
such as ‘meta’ - taboo. I have discovered, that ‘meta’ has been, and it still is, one
of the great obstacles to the acceptance of the Christian faith and its propagation,
this was because it is a psychological matter which has created an inherent fear in
the Iraqw society as a whole. As it has some ethical values to the life of the
society, it cannot be simply abandoned. Thus since ‘meta’ hampers the
evangelistic work and the acceptance of the faith, it is something to be taken into
consideration seriously.
Ngaida’s attempt to think out the implications of this problem for his society is
certainly important. He poses a challenge to his people: “We as clergymen and lay
Christians have got to know what the ‘meta’ means to the life of the society, to
whom the Gospel is being brought and preached.” 35
Ng’aida goes on in this study to describe the various kinds of taboos in Iraqw
society and their consequences. He describes taboos connected with the birth of a
child—pregnancy, delivery, naming, weaning, and the case of illegitimate babies;
taboos connected with death—death of a child, a youth, a husband, a wife, old
people, and the case of suicide; taboos connected with sacrifices, both communal
and individual; and taboos on domestic animals. Violation of these taboos leads to
communal and personal pollution or uncleanness and consequently to the isolation
and exclusion of the violator from the community while he or she is in this state.
Purification rites as well as isolation from communal and social life for a certain
prescribed period are required to restore those who are unclean. This paper is very
informative and reliable. Its author, who was at the time of writing his paper a
theological student at the Makumira Theological Seminary, Usa River, Arusha, had
a special concern with getting the church to come to terms with this problem,
especially with its implications for evangelism and church growth. My contribution
here, however, focuses exclusively on understanding the death taboo from a
translational perspective, drawing mainly on Gorwa data.
Death-Related Pollution/Uncleanness
Fear of death (Gwa’araa) but especially of human corpses (tuu’aa) reigns supreme
in the Iraqw/Gorwa world. Contact with death or with a human corpse, its remains
or a grave is believed to be a cause of uncleanness or social pollution. Such contact
with death or death-related subjects is a taboo believed to bring about communal
and personal pollution. This state of uncleanness or pollution is referred to as tsumi.
Tsumi, however, refers not only to uncleanness or pollution caused by violation of
the death taboo as outlined below, but also to the uncleanness caused by violation
of other taboos. This term tsumi is also used to refer to the idea of a taboo.
Furthermore, a violation of any taboo leads to uncleanness, tsumi. The two
35 Ibid., 1.