Conforming To Christianity Essay, Research Paper
CONFORMING TO CHRISTIANITY
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Jomo Kenyatta & # 8217 ; s descriptive anthropology, Confronting Mt. Kenya was written in the 1930 & # 8217 ; s about Kikuyu society during 1890-1910, the early old ages of British colonialism in Kenya. Since the coming of the early colonisation the Kikuyu people have tried to develop a spiritual attitude that would specify it & # 8217 ; s ain civilization while accommodating forcefully to the European conforms of faith.
The preconceived European thoughts about the African indigens were unfair and uncorroborated. The missionaries viewed the Africans as barbarians and that everything that they did was immorality. Missionaries that were sent to distribute the position of Christianity would hold to alter their beliefs and their societal interactions to salvage them from the & # 8220 ; ageless fire & # 8221 ; ( p.259 ) . Interesting enough the missionaries overlooked the higher educated and the more good to make and concentrate on the more nescient and less educated. Many Mzungu ( Europeans ) were, interestingly plenty, frequently really uneducated in the procedure they were approximately to ship upon. Europeans felt that it was unneeded to hold formal preparation when covering with such barbarians as the Kikuyu people. Intelligence would propose that if you were covering with people who are uneducated and nescient you should hold some of your most qualified people on the undertaking.
Missionaries who were devoted to the alteration of the Kikuyu people took into history none of groups & # 8217 ; communal life, due to traditions and imposts. One of the most chief onslaughts on the Kikuyu people was the effort to pulverize polygamy. In order for them to be accepted by the missionaries, they would hold to discontinue in this pattern which was at the bosom of the tribes societal construction. Despite these foolhardy onslaughts on their civilization the indigens saw the opportunity of an instruction, a white mans & # 8217 ; instruction. In order to have this little sum of reading and composing lessons from the missionaries the Kikuyu would hold to change over to Christianity and wholly disregard most of their spiritual and communal beliefs. Missionaries tried to interrupt up the any polygamous relationships that existed between Kikuyu work forces and adult females without any concern to what it meant to the two sexes and the community. The demand for adult females to be female parents and married womans was rooted deep in traditional corporate beliefs. In Kikuyu communities the elevation of a household is great cause for rise in societal sta
tus. The larger a adult males household the better it was for the community as a whole. This rule now being thwarted by the white missionaries was hard on the whole household unit. Men would hold to direct away some of their married womans and kids whom were a portion of the community. Without polygamy, adult females would be driven off and hazard being single so shunned out of the community.
The Kikuyu people tried to demo the missionaries that the bible itself had polygamy prevalent throughout and that some of the most spiritual work forces had several married womans. Kikuyu work forces even tried to take on name of scriptural work forces who practiced polygamy to assist turn out themselves in forepart of God and the missionaries. To the discouragement of the kin these efforts to turn out that polygamy was merely, were finally ignored and thrown out by the missionaries.
In order to maintain their cultural and spiritual heritages existent new versions of faiths begin to organize after the invasion of the Europeans. The Kikuyu people formed a spiritual religious order called the Watu Wa Mngu or Peoples of the God. They developed a faith in which facets of both Christianity and their old faith could last. The Watu Wa Mngu prayed to god with carnal calls alternatively of Bible they besides worshiped their ascendants, non unlike the Europeans worshiped their ascendants as in Saints. In this spiritual order polygamy was allowed explicating that the Europeans interpreted the Bible to accommodate their ain demands and to diminish the Kikuyu population. The folk believed that if people were to suit the impression of monogamousnesss so their population would discontinue to be. Therefore they have an account as to why the Bible has signifiers of polygamy and why they can go on to continue it in their civilization.
In contrast, I fell that Kikuyu people were non a barbarian people as the Europeans had claimed. They seemed to be really intelligent, shown by the manner in which they used the missionaries to derive valuable instruction the art of reading and composing. They were besides able to utilize the Bible to reenforce their former beliefs in polygamy and that it was non merely allowed in Kikuyu society but they proved it was allowed in Christianity. Although the faith of Christianity was forced upon them they made the best of the state of affairs and subsequently some groups were able to accommodate to the signifier of Christianity and reshape it into a faith that would suit into the communal life as in traditions and imposts.
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