AFRICAN knowledge systems have generally been viewed as being backward and inefficient because of lack of written records.
Traditionally, information among Africans has been transmitted orally, but this system has come under fire, especially with the coming of Western systems that rely on written communication.
The question is: ‘How do Africans store and pass on their knowledge?’
Today one can go to a physical or electronic library to access information on a wide variety of subjects.
Where do we get information in the African knowledge system?
We first must recognise and accept that Africans have accumulated a vast amount of information, the wisdom of numerous generations that is passed from generation to generation orally.
Human memories are short and degenerate with age.
So how have we managed over thousands and thousands of years to maintain the integrity of our knowledge?
In an earlier article in this paper, I recounted my experience at a ceremony where a mhondoro spirit was put under test to prove that he was genuine and not fake.
The test, which is called ‘kubata masuo’, included a requirement to recount events that must have occurred around AD400 – 450.
This is the period when the main group of the present-day Shona people are said to have crossed the Zambezi into the land we now call of Zimbabwe.
Questions were being paused by other mhondoros who were also possessed by the spirits of those who had lived at that time.
The new mhondoro calmly responded to all the questions.
The spirit revealed that the journey had started somewhere in the Great Lakes region in Tanganyika.
He named their village of origin and described the route followed.
He identified the place on the Zambezi River in the land of ‘Mazambuko’ (later named Mozambique by the Portuguese) where the group had crossed.
He also described many other details about events that took place hundreds if not thousands of years earlier.
What struck me was the detail.
While the people of Zimbabwe remember where they came from and names of their great ancestors, only the spirits seem to be in possession of the details.
And we come to another dimension of African spirituality.
We shall now explore how African knowledge systems rely on spiritual memory.
When someone who has expertise and profound knowledge and skills dies, their talents do not die; neither are they lost to the family or the clan.
The spirit of the dead person retains all the attributes and can return to possess and impart those capabilities to the living.
So the spirits become the custodians and repositories of all the knowledge, experiences and skills gained by African people in their lifetime.
In the last episode in this series, we discussed the ngozi spirits and saw how the spirits of the dead follow up to seek restitution from those (or their families) who wronged them.
The ngozi spirit will for example, retrace all the events leading to a murder in detail.
The details are good enough to pass scrutiny of evidence in a Roman-Dutch Law court because they can be verified on the ground.
Long years after the tracks have gone cold, spiritually stored information can be availed to solve criminal cases.
Just because the whiteman does not understand and refuses to accept the superiority of African knowledge systems, our courts do not admit evidence adduced from possessed spirit mediums.
During the Chimurenga liberation war, many comrades and ordinary people were murdered by the British colonial settler army.
Their bodies have remained partially or totally unburied or stuck in mine shafts across the land.
The case of Chibondo in Mashonaland Central is a case in point.
In all cases the identities of the deceased have been provided by their spirits or those of close relatives or other spirit mediums (masvikiro).
One shudders to think what it would entail and cost if we were using Western knowledge systems to identify these dear departed.
In Chibondo alone, DNA tests running into millions of US dollars would be required to identify each individual.
As it turns out, persons possessed by the spirits of the dead unequivocally identify their remains which are then ferried to their homes for a decent burial.
Spiritually inspired identifications are accurate, all the time.
It is proposed that our justice system incorporate elements such as African spiritual knowledge systems to gather evidence to solve difficult cases such as murder.
African spiritual knowledge systems have stood us in good stead for thousands of years.
Why should we suddenly ignore them to embrace foreign and often flawed knowledge systems that are cumbersome and prone to human interference such as bribery.
We have already made reference to the role of spiritual knowledge in African medicine and will take time in another episode to highlight the potential for spiritually inspired medical practices.
These are shunned by the ignorant and brainwashed African and of course the practitioners of Western medicine who fear the competition.
We shall also explore the vast array of spiritually inspired social technologies that Africans have deployed to enhance their production systems.
Again the whiteman as part of the defamation-colonisation strategy dismisses all African technology as inferior and primitive.
That also is a strategy to disconnect the African from his own spiritual world.
We argue here that the spiritual basis of African knowledge systems is in fact their strength.
Researchers should fully recognise and exploit spiritual sources of information to gain a better understanding Africa and its people.
Our systems of governance should fully embrace African spiritual knowledge systems to minimise bias and ensure fairness.
Costs of investigations can be significantly brought down by consulting authentic spirit mediums.
The reluctance/refusal by the Western-educated class to embrace African knowledge systems is a measure of their degree of mental and spiritual colonisation.
Those who have ‘seen the light’ must work hard to bring others to also see the light.
After all, we are our own liberators.
Bob Marley sang: ‘None but ourselves can free our minds’.
We shall continue our discussion in the next episode to show the centrality of spirituality in African knowledge systems.