Shembe Part 3

Sorry for the break. Here's more.

The Shembe church is known for several things.

*worshipping in clearings on top of a hill or mountain, enclosed by a circle of white stones

*a particular style uniform, which you can see in the pictures of the first posting, but I'll include more as unmarried girls wear a different uniform than married women. The women in the picture you see are the unmarried girls. Also, interesting to note, in South Africa, most churches have uniforms. If you are Baptist, you wear one uniform; if you are Catholic, another; Zionists wear yet another uniform etc. and so on (in Zulu, etc. is "njalo njalo"). I don't know enough about the different colors to identify which color is which, but on Sundays (or sometimes Thursdays) you will see many groups of women all dressed alike on their way to church. (Thursday was the traditional day off for women who worked as housekeepers; thus, it is also still a worship day in much of Africa.)

*following traditional customs, such as polygamy

*belief in miraculous healings (on the way up the hill, we saw many jars of vaseline, which were "holy jars" because they had been blessed by Shembe himself and are supposed to impart healing powers on the body)

*casting out of spirits

*they consider themselves Christians, although in a hundred years, they have departed radically from Isaiah Shembe's original vision and most mainline denominations would probably not recognize them as theologically orthodox

*the head of the church has been passed down through four successive generations of Shembe, so they are currently on the 5th Shembe, the great-great-grandson of Isaiah Shembe. His power has accumulated so that he is now referred to as Nkosi. The word for "king" is inkosi so Nkosi without the initial 'i"would be directly addressing someone as "King" if that makes sense. This appellation is also frequently used by Christians to refer to God. I've noticed a lot of bumper stickers around that state "Shembe is the Way."

*njalo, njalo

We did get to see the Baptisms. They have a large pool, and there were several hundred people singing as they lined up to get baptized. The line extended outside the building and down the hill. Inside, the lined up in the pool, going up to the two deacons who were baptizing. Many seemed really afraid of being dunked. One girl leapt out of the water and started trying to choke the deacon who had pushed her under. It would have been funny if her fear hadn't been so tragic and palpable.