Religion in Swaziland

The following snippets took place both at my permanent site and training one, so ignore the fact that time jumps around a bit….

I would like to record some of my interactions with religion/animism in Swaziland.  Religiosity is extremely high, and it is very important to say you are Christian (even on resumes).  According to my bhuti, a “fat American named Frank” came around the village one day when I was at school.  He handed out little picture books with the story of Jesus.  I chuckle at this, as I think Frank might have been a little late on the conversion bandwagon.  I have never been exposed to more deeply Christian people than in Swaziland.  Pre-missionary Swaziland also believed in a male supreme being, so conversion was easily facilitated.  Snippets of this faith remain, and are acted out upon in many churches with a myriad of fascinating customs.     

Swaziland recently celebrated King Sobhuza’s birthday.  In honor of the holiday, many versions of the same story were repeated over and over on the radio and by word of mouth.  The story goes like this:

King Sobhuza had a dream (some would say vision).  In the dream, a person of fair skin approached him.  In his left hand, the stranger held a medallion (coin).  In the right hand, he held scrolls with writing (the bible).  King Sobhuza consulted with his advisors, and asked which hand he should pick.  They advised him to pick the right hand, and thus he made the correct choice in choosing God over money.  Around this time, missionaries wanted to come into Swaziland.  Seeing the missionaries as the manifestation of his dream, he allowed the missionaries into the country. 

This story of Sobhuza has been handed down for generations, but I wonder if the story serves the dual purpose of giving Swazis (and the king) ultimate authority over and agency in their religious practices.  After all, Christianity is perhaps one of the most lasting legacies of colonialism in Swaziland.  At least in this version, Swazis are in control of the situation.

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My Gogo is a devout Catholic, but her daughters are Zionist, Apostolic, Born-Again, and Jericho.  On Sundays, I hike 45 minutes with her and some grandkids to the Catholic Church.  Along the road, we cross many Swazis dressed in an eclectic and colorful mix of costumes.  One sect wears white lab coats and white from head to toe.  I’ve heard from other volunteers who have attended services that this bunch sings/chants/dances/speaks in tongues/perform exorcisms for hours at a time.  Jericho men carry long canes or clubs and drape themselves in chains. Our neighbors above and below us are Jericho, and I often hear the men screaming themselves hoarse in deep voices as part of their religious practice.  It sounds almost like a New Zealand haka or a war cry.  The Apostles often don white hats and wear light blue capes.  These capes are quite common, and the colors vary often depending on the sect or individual church.  The female elders of Gogo’s Catholic Church wear purple capes like something I imagine might have been worn in the 1940s or 1950s.

Services in the little one-room Catholic Church are quite pleasant.  I am almost relieved at the banality of Catholic services world-wide, having heard stories of rather grueling all-day chant-a-thons from fellow volunteers.  The first time I attend, the priests never once look at their congregation, as their eyes are unnervingly glued to me the entire service.  I feel the strange disconnect I usually feel during religious worship.  I sense the deep spirituality of the Swazis around me as they sing and pray and preach, and I know that they are getting something out of this that leaves me feeling flat.  I often visualize it as if there’s a wire firing in their brains that makes religion make sense, but this wire is entirely absent or dead in my own brain.  The choir sings amazingly well, though, and my siblings enjoy the attention they receive for bringing the exotic Mlungu (white person) with them. 

Despite the high levels of Christianity, folklore and animism lie just beneath the surface- and I love the many fantastic stories I have heard so far.  Right after hearing the story of Sobhuza choosing the bible, my bhuti tells me another story of Sobhuza in which he turns himself into a snake in order to defeat the British in a battle.  “How did he turn himself into a snake?” I ask.  “I don’t know.  But he did!” my bhuti explains.

“Are mermaids real?”  My sassy, intelligent coworker asks me one day as we are huddled around the space heater, enjoying a lull in the busy clinic setting.

“No,” I respond.  “Do Swazis believe in mermaids?”

No, she tells me, but there is a magic snake in Swaziland.  It is a big snake, but it can turn itself into anything it wants to- the most beautiful lover, male or female- and talk its way into anything.  Once a girl disappeared, and it was because the snake proposed to her, pretending to be a suitor.  So dazzled by his charm was the maiden, that she didn’t notice him leading her down a long path, into the river.  She didn’t even notice when he led her underwater.  Under the water, it becomes like land again, and her suitor turned himself into his true form.  Then, the girl was stuck down there forever, the bride of the snake. 

“Great story!”  I say.  I’m thrilled to finally be hearing some of the legendary Swazi oral tradition, having heard much about it but having been unable to coax many stories out of my shy friends.  But my coworker insists then that it is not a story- that this really happens when girls disappear, and she even has an auntie who once encountered the snake-man.  “There was once a man in the store where my auntie was a cashier.  He came to the register with about 500 E worth of items.  When it was time to pay, he didn’t pay, but merely wagged his tongue at her.  His tongue was a snake’s tongue!  Then, he and the items disappeared.  They looked and looked, but he was gone.”      

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There is a nameless waterfall in our community which is cursed or sacred, and every villager has their own version of its history.  Our trainers hear that some volunteers want to go there on a hike, and the one who grew up in the area warns us that it is not safe.  We press him, but he won’t say why.  Another trainer warns us that we will be “pieced” by traditional healers.  Slowly, stories begin to emerge.

Some say a man went there and never came back.  Others say an octopus lives under the water.  Some say a man threw a dog in, and the dog disappeared.  Still others believe some kind of a god or spirit lives there and controls the weather.  They explain that it was once angry and made it so windy that the roofs blew off the houses.  Several volunteers go to see it anyway.  That night, the windstorm is one of the strongest windstorms I’ve ever been in, or at least it feels that way under my clattering tin roof.  A roof of a house in the village gets torn off, and I’m sufficiently convinced that the spirit in the lake does not want us to go there.         

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I go stomping through the knee-high grass in my Sunday best.  Now I know why make and bhuti donned knee-high rubber boots for our expedition.  “Should I be worried about snakes?” I ask, slightly terrified. 

“No.” 

“There aren’t snakes here?”

 “There are.  I will give you something to protect you.  Then the snakes won’t bite you.”  I am very grateful for the kindness, but I think I’ll wear the rubber boots next time just to be on the safe side. 

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I ask make if Peace Corps can install a lightning rod on the homestead.  “No,” she tells me, visibly upset by the question.  She pauses for a few minutes, stirring the porridge on the stove.  I sit there awkwardly, telling her it’s ok, but that Peace Corps wanted me to ask.  “It’s just that there are witches in this country,” she tells me.  “They put something in the pole to make the lightning come more.” 

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We are sitting in our informal classroom, having a cross-culture session on Swazi traditions.  Our trainer tells us about the ceremonies leading up to the annual reed dance (celebrating Swaziland’s young maidens).  She tells us that if the reeds a girl cuts end up wilting or molding by the time she makes it to the royal kraal, she is not actually a virgin, and she must pay a fine for lying.  Several students vocally protest this with an American sense of scientific reasoning.  There is no way for a reed to be a scientific test of virginity.  “There is!” she protests.  “I have seen it!”  Apparently, the guilty girls are taken to be examined by some doctor, and the doctor performs a physical exam before they are fined.  “But it has never happened that they are virgins.  Never have they been virgins.  The reeds are always right,” our trainer insists. 

We insist back that this is not scientifically rational.  We try to understand, but our minds are grasping at straws.  “I don’t understand!” one student exclaims in frustration. 

“No you can’t.  You will never understand because you are not a Swazi,” our trainer ends the discussion. Her words haunt me for a long time afterwards.    

Most meetings in Swaziland are started with a prayer.  Many include a religious song that everyone joins in on.  Our little clinic begins each day by having all the staff (anywhere from 3 to 5 at one time) huddle into the little waiting room where the first patients are already sitting.  The patients who don’t know me yet stare openly at the Mlungu during the prayer and hymn.  I imagine they wonder what I am doing here… if I am a doctor…if this means that their wait will be shorter or their care will be better today….

I stare back at the patients.  I try and diagnose by sight what ails them, wondering and judging about who might have HIV or TB.  I wonder how many mouths they have to feed at home…how they are going to muster the strength to walk the long way home... If they know that the strongest painkiller we have is one that won’t even knock out light headaches for me.

As we sit opposite each other- scrutinizing one another- I am overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness and worry for them.  But by now, the morning hymn has started.  Gravelly voices and strong ones sing in a round, and the music begins to drown out my helplessness.  My fear and anxiety about myself and for the patients pass, and only the hymn remains.  It fills me with an aching comfort and a sense of peace.  It lingers in the air for a few moments after the singing is over.   If that’s not God, I don’t know what is.