Wear'n Tear and Repair: The Colour Coding of Mystical Mending in Zulu Zionist Churches

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Periodical article

Title:	Wear'n Tear and Repair: The Colour Coding of Mystical Mending in Zulu Zionist Churches
Author:	Kiernan, James P.
Year:	1991
Periodical:	Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:	61
Issue:	1
Pages:	26-39
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	colours African Independent Churches Zulu symbols Religion and Witchcraft Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1160268
Abstract:	One of the most conspicuous aspects of religious experience in Zulu Zionist Churches in South Africa is the bright colours that are worn and otherwise employed. This highly visible feature has attracted only passing attention from those who have studied these churches; no serious effort has been made to uncover the ritual significance of their colour symbolism. Against the background of anthropological studies of the therapeutic deployment of colour symbols in Africa and in the light of the author's own research among Zulu Zionists, particularly in the Durban area, this article sets out to show that the colours - white and blue-green - selected by Zionists from among those of salience to Africans express how they situate themselves within their social universe and plot the process of their response to it in ritual healing. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. also in French.