African Friends and Money Matters, Second Edition. David E. Maranz
proverb (Nigeria)70
70 Clasberry 2010:179.
When misfortune overtakes individuals, typically they search for causes outside themselves rather than examining their own behavior. This applies to modern urbanites as well as to those living in traditional, rural areas. In general, people do not readily accept that their own actions or decisions might have led to unfavorable outcomes. Nor do they readily accept that impersonal natural randomness might have been the cause of illness, accidents, mischance, personal setbacks, and failures. Every significant event, positive or negative, is believed to have a cause that originates in the spirit world, which is acting in the visible world. Instead of following what Westerners consider a rational analysis, traditional Africans typically assume that most such events have a personal origin, and thus follow a different path to find answers: First, such adverse events are assumed to originate with unseen (spirit) forces, or personal metaphysical powers rather than from “natural,” empirical causes. Second, other people are accused of provoking or instigating these malevolent forces to act against the individual.71 Humans do this by engaging sorcerers, who they believe have the knowledge and power to entice malevolent spirits to act according to their wishes. Consequently, they try to ascertain who caused a problem, whether by contravening a taboo, or hiring a sorcerer.
71 LeVine 1970:292.
“Bad luck” or “randomness” are often used to explain adverse events in the “scientific” West. These do not provide convincing explanations to traditional or animistic peoples. So, for example, in answering the question of why my child was killed by a falling tree while your child sitting next to him was unhurt, “bad luck” or “randomness” are not sufficient explanations. In Western, scientific societies, people accept that one child happened to be killed, while the other happened not to. The tree just “happened” to fall a certain way.
Blame for misfortune, failure, and non-success is placed on some exterior source. So, for example, if there is a serious accident, the individual typically will not be blamed, nor will he or she feel blame. Rather, the blame will be sought for in the invisible world, outside the person who suffered the accident. This accident will be believed to be caused directly by a spirit but indirectly by one of the person’s enemies who has secretly engaged the services of a sorcerer. Hence, the blame is “exteriorized.” The individual tends not to look at himself or herself to see what they may have done wrongly or unwisely. Neither will they accept that impersonal causes were to blame.
This raises the question of reconciling two seemingly contradictory belief systems. Under the heading “Public anger” above, I stated that Africans believe that punishment for violating the moral law is meted out by God in this life, not in the afterlife. In other words, punishment comes as a result of people’s own actions. Here, we are saying that when Africans experience misfortune, they look outside themselves and blame it on the nefarious work of spirit beings and forces. So which is it? John Mbiti, whom I have already cited, addresses this very contradiction:
Misfortunes may be interpreted as indicating that the sufferer has broken some moral or ritual conduct against God, the spirits, the elders or other members of his society. This does not contradict the belief that misfortunes are the work of some members, especially the workers of magic, sorcery and witchcraft, against their fellow men. This village logic is quite normal in African thinking. I do not understand it, but I accept it.72
72 Mbiti 1989:205.
Separation anxiety
Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.
African proverb73
73 www.worldofquotes.com,
Robert LeVine writes that there are two expressions of personal behavior that are central to understanding differences between Westerners and Africans. One is the Westerners’ “desire for intimacy in social relationships, and the relative absence of this desire among Africans.” The second is the Westerners’ anxiety over physical separation from loved ones. The concerns over such separations manifest themselves in many ways in Western culture. “These tendencies are widespread in Western populations and are exalted in a variety of cultural forms ranging from sentimental literature and films to humanitarian ideologies with their concern about those who are rejected and abandoned.”74 In recent decades such concerns have been extended to animals, and people spend a huge amount of their resources and emotions to their care and protection.
74 LeVine 1970:294.
Many of these patterns of behavior seem to be absent among Africans. They appear to find physical separation from loved ones emotionally less upsetting. Sentimental attachments and their residues in longing, weeping, and nostalgia are not conspicuous in African communities. The reaction of Africans to the pet-keeping practices (in the West) is usually one of astonishment.75
75Ibid., 294–295.
Tembo observes that African couples and families are often separated for long periods. This happens frequently when the studies of a family member last for years during which time they rarely return home. Tembo writes that this should not be interpreted as due to a lack of love for, or a desire to be with family, but from financial necessity. If there seems to be less “weeping” when a person leaves, or while they are gone, this is most likely because emotions are expressed differently in Africa than in the West.
Competition
Everyone had better pay attention to his or her peer.
Wolof proverb (Senegal)76
76 Shawyer 2009.
African society has many very competitive relationships. There is much competition for scarce resources and the greater the scarcity, the greater the competition. Examples are:
Co-wives competing for the favor of their husband, to the extent that in at least one language, the word “co-wife” has the equal meaning of “competition.”
Mothers seeking advantages for their children, to get them ahead of the children of co-wives.
Brothers and cousins competing for the inheritance of property.
Neighbors competing over land boundaries and blaming each other for damage caused to crops by animals or children.
Co-workers competing for advancement in plant or office.
Students competing for very limited academic or employment openings.
Suitors and their families competing for the most desirous mates by offering greater bride-wealth in the bidding process.
Verbal dueling, which is part of the competition in language use present in many African cultures.
Many jealousies and hatreds accompany these competitions. Authorities at every level, from the clan to the state, expend a lot of time and effort settling disputes that come to their attention, on the levels of family, lineage, compound, quarter, or at various levels in the modern judicial system, or within the traditional Muslim legal system in some areas. A number of African peoples consider jealousy to be the most corrosive or destructive emotion, or the worst sin, for it divides people who should otherwise form a unified block. Dissension is in many places equated with destruction, and spoken about through the metaphor of poison.
Yet in spite of these competitive pressures and the emotions they create, society decrees that people must maintain peaceful and amicable relations with those around them. This provides for the preservation of order in face-to-face societies where people live in intimate contact. This order