This anthropological account of a Catholic community in East Africa reveals how Catholicism came to have widespread acceptance in Southern Tanzania and how this history currently affects practicing Catholics. Maia Green provides a descriptive account of those considering themselves Catholics in Eastern Africa in relationship to Western assumptions of "conversion". She thus encourages a new approach to the consequences of large-scale shifts in religious affiliation. The book also contains information about other ritual practices concerning kinship, aging and death.
Author(s): Maia Green
Series: Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 200
Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series-title......Page 4
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Maps......Page 8
Preface......Page 9
1 Global Christianity and the structure of power......Page 17
The anthropology of Christianity......Page 19
Civil society and rural Africa......Page 22
Rural power and modes of domination......Page 24
Historical geographies......Page 30
Ethnicity and inclusion in Ulanga......Page 32
Establishing marginality......Page 34
German colonialism and the East Africa company......Page 36
Impacts of war......Page 38
Indirect rule and the control of nature......Page 40
Independence and socialism. The nationalisation of poverty......Page 44
Policy continuity in the post-colonial period......Page 49
Post-colonial continuities......Page 50
Conversion and power: the Benedictine conquest......Page 51
Capuchin expansion......Page 55
Promoting natural increase: the ‘matrimonial agency business’......Page 57
The economics of mission......Page 58
4 The persistence of mission......Page 62
The price of self reliance......Page 63
The ‘religion of business’......Page 65
Priests: businessmen or ritual specialists?......Page 68
‘African Europeans’: the Africanisation of the clergy......Page 73
The post-missionary position......Page 75
5 Popular Christianity......Page 76
Formal Christianity......Page 77
Giving a name......Page 78
Being Christian......Page 81
Blessings and powers......Page 83
Son, mother and spirits......Page 84
Remembering Christ......Page 87
Embodying Christianity......Page 88
6 Kinshipand the creation of relationship......Page 91
Gender and female autonomy......Page 92
The Christian family......Page 93
The marriage process......Page 96
Descent and the matrilineal opportunity......Page 98
Constituting paternity......Page 101
Gender and power......Page 105
7 Engendering power......Page 107
Gender as process......Page 108
Heat and life......Page 109
Managing power......Page 111
Unyago and the fertility of women......Page 112
Maiden of the inside......Page 114
The first cucumber seeds......Page 115
Bathing the mwali......Page 116
Containing female fertility......Page 120
8 Women’s work......Page 123
The bitterness of mourning......Page 124
Houses and women’s space......Page 125
Burial......Page 127
The gradual removal of death......Page 129
Gender matters......Page 132
‘Women’s work is weeping’......Page 133
9 Witchcraft suppression practices and movements......Page 136
Modern movements for the suppression of witchcraft?......Page 138
The social context of witchcraft......Page 140
Past practice......Page 144
Anti-witchcraft practice and purification procedures......Page 145
The emergence of anti-witchcraft movements......Page 147
The timing of anti-witchcraft movements......Page 151
Public anti-witchcraft practices as a political institution in Ulanga......Page 152
10 Matters of substance......Page 157
2 Colonial conquest and the consolidation of marginality......Page 161
3 Evangelisation in Ulanga......Page 164
4 The persistence of mission......Page 165
5 Popular Christianity......Page 166
6 Kinship and the creation of relationship......Page 167
8 Women’s work......Page 168
9 Witchcraft suppression practices and movements......Page 169
References......Page 172
Index......Page 184
