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| Title: | The Dramatization of Life and Death by Johane Masowe |
| Author: | Mukonyora, Isabel |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Periodical: | Zambezia (ISSN 0379-0622) |
| Volume: | 25 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 191-207 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Zimbabwe Southern Africa |
| Subjects: | African Independent Churches biographies (form) Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Religion and Witchcraft religion Masowe, Johane Christianity theology Traditional culture prophets Shona (African people) |
| About person: | Johane Masowe (-1973) |
| External link: | https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/AJA03790622_490 |
| Abstract: | The Masowe 'vapositori' movement was founded in the 1930s by Shonhiwa Mtunyane, sometimes called 'Sixpence', from Gandanzara in Makoni district in Zimbabwe. He became popularly known by his religious titles of Johane Masowe (meaning John of the Wilderness) and John the Baptist. Earlier studies have portrayed Johane Masowe as a replacement of Jesus Christ. The present author argues that this has resulted from uncritical use of Christian orthodox views of the death and resurrection of Christ as the main background against which to interpret the experiences associated with Johane Masowe's claim to authority as leader of a new movement. She shows how, in the Shona religious language of Johane Masowe's background, there exists an idiom in which suffering and healing are dramatized as forms of death and resurrection by figures comparable to prophets, especially the spirit mediums. Johane Masowe is thus best understood as he himself stated, as a prophet whose role model was John the Baptist. The references to suffering are no more than a way of claiming authority in the vernacular. The Zulu prophet from South Africa, Isaiah Shembe, exemplifies the same phenomenon. Notes, ref., sum. |
