Learning through Contrast

    As new missionaries begin learning languages and cultures, they hear and see things that do not fit their conceptions of reality.  When there is such confusion, the new missionary should ask questions and seek answers in culturally appropriate ways.

    He might privately ask a national friend, "In America, when we see men holding hands with men, it means that they are homosexuals.  Is that the meaning here in Africa?"  An East African would laughingly respond, "No, to us it means friendship with people to whom we are close.  There are few homosexuals here."  When a missionary explains what a cultural act means to him, typically the national reciprocally responds explaining what the act means to him.  Such reciprocity opens up numerous doors of understanding.

    When I was first learning the Kipsigis language, I heard an old lady greet a young boy and call him "Grandfather."  I asked the Christian with whom I was evangelizing, "Did I hear right?  Did the old lady call the young boy `Grandfather'?"  "Yes," he responded, "but she just does not understand."  At this point I was perplexed not only by the old lady's greeting but also by the Christian's response.

    The next day I was visiting a Christian who wanted me to know Kipsigis customs thoroughly.  I explained the greeting of the old lady and the Christian's response.  He laughed and said, "Let me tell you about the Kipsigis kurenet rite."

    This rite takes place immediately after a child is born to ascertain which ancestral spirit has embodied the new child.  An old woman will ask, "Are you Arap Tonui?"  The women gathered for this rite will wait for some time for the child to sneeze, thus signifying the affirmative.  If the child does not sneeze, another name is proposed until the child responds by sneezing.  Later I read of this rite in Orchardson's ethnography of the Kipsigis: "So firmly is it believed that the child really has the spirit of the Kurenet, and is in fact the same person, that his or her mother, when using terms of endearment, will address the child for many years by the Kurenet's name,..."  (Orchardson 1961, 45)

    I learned that the old lady called the boy "Grandfather" because she felt the spirit of her grandfather had come to live in the body of the young child.  The Christian whom I asked the question was embarrassed that I heard traditional conceptions typically hidden from outsiders.

    When unexpected events happen that new missionaries do not understand, they must seek answers in culturally appropriate ways.

Works Cited

Orchardson, Ian Q. 1961. The Kipsigis. Nairobi, Kenya: East African Literature Bureau.

Copyright ©2000 by Gailyn Van Rheenen -- excerpt from Communicating Christ in Animistic Contexts (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1996)

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