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| Title: | Abachwezi-Bashomi in Ankole |
| Author: | Baingana-Muntu, E. |
| Year: | 1990 |
| Periodical: | Journal of African Religion and Philosophy |
| Volume: | 1 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 53-77 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Uganda East Africa |
| Subjects: | African religions syncretism cults Nyankole religion Abachwezi-Bashomi cult (Uganda) Christianity Ankole (Uganda) |
| Abstract: | The Bachwezi-bashomi cult is widespread in Ankole (western Uganda) and the neighbouring areas. It uses well-known Christian religious thoughts, articles, books and imagery. At the same time, it plays on deeply rooted fears and anxieties, and purports to offer viable solutions stemming from traditional wisdom. The cult is certainly syncretistic. This study of the cult is based on interviews, questionnaires and group discussions with people in Ankole. It examines the major religious beliefs of traditional society in Ankole, some of which appear in part or in full in the Bachwezi-bashomi practice, including belief in a Superior Being, belief in spirits (family or ancestor spirits, divinities, especially cwezi divinities); the various names for the mediums; religious artifacts and the sacred space (the table or stool, the bottle or milk pot, eyojwa grass, seats and bark cloth, the bead cord, the Bible, prayer books and rosaries, the seat of the protector spirit); the process of becoming a mucwezi medium (manifestation of the call and the diagnosis, initiation and installation); the mucwezi's divinatory, healing and religious functions, and the discipline observed by both mediums and their clients. While traditional religions refuse to have anything to do with Christianity and try to resist its influence as much as possible from without, the bacwezi cult is reshaping Christianity from within, which makes it harder to detect and remove. This is the challenge the cult is posing to Christianity. Notes, ref. |