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Yet, the good of it is that every beast roars in its own den. And, of course, the idyll is that it becomes a dilemma to try and be both a predator and prey. This is in as much as it is a dilemma to be both a referee and player in one football match.
When you think of Africa, you think of dense forests, scattered villages, “primitive” religions and colourful costumes. A continent as culturally vibrant as Africa would also be abound in age-old wisdom and religion, don’t you think?

This villager seeks, in this installment to draw a parallel between spirit mediums and latter day prophets and tele-evangelists. Unlike the loud, rattling and cashing in tele-evangelists, the African tradition remains a calm and subtle giant. One day or the other every African goes back to it.
African Christians and pseudo-Christians know deep down their hearts that somewhere somehow, the traditional religion is around and deep set. Like a crocodile, you might not see it but you are sure it is somewhere under the water.

Like your shadow, you can try to run away extremely fast, trip and fall but when you wake up and look back, the shadow is with you. Such is the nicety of African tradition and its rituals.
It is important to know that in Zimbabwe, spirit mediums, who are the autochthons and vanguards of the values, underpin traditional African religion and they

compare favourably against the role of the latter day tele-evangelists and prophets in Christianity.

The difference though, is that spirit mediums possess in public at a ceremony attended by all villagers yet prophets and tele-evangelist mushroom from nowhere.
Spirit mediums go through a public authenticity ritual test that involves seasoned members of their ancestral lineage yet the so-called prophets have no history.
The mediums are even challenged to plunge into crocodile-infested pools and if they are fake, they run away or get killed by the crocodiles.

But for prophets, their history starts and ends with them. the authenticity test is done clandestinely, if any.    
This villager attended one such ceremony when a medium was homecoming and being tested.
At midday, the sun burnt out of a massive cloudless sky. The thin contorted trees were bare of leaves. On the beds of Dande and Mupinge rivers lay stagnant pools.

From time to time a whirlwind rushed out of the undergrowth across the path and back into the bush casting up sand and brittle leaves.
Local household heads and their wives made their way towards the village of the ritual of a would-be medium.
As they arrived the women and men got off in separate directions. The women putting down their bags, unloading children from their backs, greeting their relatives and friends before setting out to look for firewood to cook the evening meal.

The men made for the open space at the centre of the village. The would-be spirit medium lay on a reed mat on the ground, surrounded by a group of elders drinking beer. He looked young and bearded, strongly built and dressed in a long black cloth draped across his right shoulder and reaching to his feet.

Meanwhile, the young boys tried their hand at drumming all day. It was a teaser or curtain raising.
The would-be medium’s wife brought out a large clay pot, knelt and set it at the would-be medium’s feet.
He ladled out a calabash of beer, tasted it and used the outer hand to wipe his mouth, before handing it round. The beer was brewed from grain collected from local households.

Other young boys dragged up the huge trunk of a tree, set fire to twigs and grass beneath one end and watched it burn. What a bonfire!
At sunset, the meal was over and plates were tidied away with mats and blankets laid out on the ground.
The youngest children slept. The young boys who had tried their hand at drumming all day long made way for their fathers. The ritual had started.

The cross-rhythms of the four hide drums became more complex, overlaid and sure. There was a systematic increase in tempo and crescendo.
In the darkness an old woman started singing out the first line of a song to the ancestors. “Kuenda Mbire, kuenda Mbire, kuenda Mbire waenda chose . . . Kuenda Mbire baba vevaana hauchadzoka  . . kuenda Mbire!”

Other voices followed. Some women danced — advancing, swaying, retreating, advancing again — turning circles on the ground.
The men around the fires drank on and at about mid night the singing died down. Women stretched themselves on the earth to sleep. The moon was full and rising from the eastern sky.

Two hours before dawn, the would-be spirit medium’s assistant went around among the people, waking them up. More than two hundred men gathered in a semi-circle at the door of the sacred hut.
Women huddled close together to one side, singing and then falling silent. Loud bursts of systematic clapping rose from the men. It died away, picking up and dying again. Singing. Clapping. Silence. Clapping. Silence. Silence.

The medium burst from the door of his hut. A long white cloth is wrapped around his body covering his head. The singing poured out.
He led it, his long stick bobbing and dipping above the sea of heads. The medium’s body stood before the crowd, but it is the medium, who, this time around, waved his arms and sang.

He suddenly sat down and the singing stopped. The men clapped, and women ululated. Silence. The medium spoke, his voice low and rough but his speech was clear.

He explained the ancestral lineage, the family secrets and the elders nodded in approval. Other elders asked questions to authenticate.
They addressed the spirit face-to-face and soon the awe his appearance had called up, wore off. The discussion was respectful but vigorous and free.
The spirit medium listened but said nothing until everyone had his say. Other neighbouring senior spirit mediums were in attendance and asked questions too.
They certified the new spirit medium as authentic and forged ties.

The light was rising. Dawn was near.
A few more people elbowed their way into the hut to consult the spirit medium about their health or other urgent matters. He listened and prescribed a cure.
Some asked only for a pinch of snuff, the spirit medium’s snuff which brings good health and luck.

When the last of these was satisfied the sun was already high, the women had packed their baskets, bound their babies to their backs and set out for their homes. In the aftermath, young boys took back the drums while their fathers drank a final calabash of beer.
After a while the medium emerged from his hut dressed in his long black cloth. He stretched, yawned and sat in the shade. The spirit was gone.
Two days later and early in the morning, at a small clearing in the middle of the bush, a spitting distance from the medium’s village stood a single hut. The

Dendemaro or house of the spirit, with its two doors, one for the medium and the other for those wanting to consult, stands as a reminder of the new medium.
This villager contends that the homecoming of the spirit medium is more transparent and accountable than the one we have with the latter day prophets and tele-evangelist.

This villager is told that the prophets have spiritual fathers in Ghana and Nigeria from where they get their powers but the village soothsayer contends that they get their powers from the devil.
Our prophets are not answerable to anyone, they have no history, they break away from their main churches and don’t want to be associated with them again.

Some of the prophets even change their names to suit their religious entrepreneurship. The opposite is true for the spirit mediums.
Does anyone in Zimbabwe remember attending the anointing of a prophet or we just wake up finding out that we have one among us? This villager is asking from among those ardent Christians or followers of the tele-evangelists. Not that all prophets are false, but the biggest number is dubious and fleecing the sick and the gullible.

In terms of moral truism of futility, the horizon will not disappear as you run towards it. Only time will tell!