Exploring the Origins and Expansion of the Nyaminyami (Water Spirit) Belief Systems among the BaTonga People of Northwestern Zimbabwe

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3932087
AutoresJoshua Matanzima (0000-0002-9709-9005, Department of Anthropology, Rhodes University Makhanda (Grahamstown) South Africa, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume51
Fascículo3-4
Páginas364-396
Data de publicação2022-03-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15700666-12340215
OpenAlexW4214831037
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas41

Water spirits are an integral part of African traditional religious beliefs and ritual practices. Like many other African traditional religious practices and beliefs, water spirit beliefs are characterized by complex 'myths' surrounding their origins. In that regard, this paper explores the origins and expansion of the Nyaminyami (water spirit,) beliefs prevalent among some BaTonga people of northwestern Zimbabwe. It argues that these beliefs were exotic to the BaTonga people. In so doing, it substantiates the assumption by Elizabeth Colson and Thayer Scudder that Nyaminyami was a foreign idea to the BaTonga people. This study brings in new contemporary evidence to substantiate and extend this diffusionist perspective. It provides evidence from ethnographic research conducted among the BaTonga and Shangwe-speaking peoples living in the immediate vicinity of the Kariba Gorge area from April to November 2017. This study also rests on the wider scholarship on water divinities in Africa that explains the emergence of water divinities in different societies through diffusion of ideas. The study further examines the ways by which the cultural borrowing may have occurred, as well as the period and the extent to which the diffusion of ideas occurred, based on the ethnographic evidence

Belief system · Environmental ethics · Ethnography · Ethnology · History of religions · Mythology · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Theology · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies