Discovering Culture: How and Where?

Gailyn Van Rheenen (1984?)

A missionary may live in the midst of an animistic culture without knowing that it is animistic. Conceptions are typically conceived through the grid of his own background and experience. Using Western language and cultural frameworks filter out indigenous cultural conceptions. Almost invariably apprentices to East Africa superficially see the wide use of Western dress and Western technology and assume that similar externals manifest similar internals.

One two-year missionary to Africa wrote: ‘People are people the world over. Not only are people basically alike in make-up, but they are minutely identical in needs. All need the gospel, and all can be approached in principally the same manner.’ Nothing could be further from the truth! In this case, nationals were speaking to the missionary in ways he could understand. All communication was being Westernized in transmission. Nationals were identifying with the missionary, speaking his language within his cultural framework. The missionary had not learned to identify with the nationals by learning their language and communicating in terms of their cultural framework. Only when the new cross-cultural evangelist realizes the diversity of culture and how to learn this diversity can he be effective. He must learn how to see through superficial similarities to learn how people think. Only with such understanding can a new missionary learn to coherently communicate God’s eternal message.

How then is culture learned? How can a new missionary understand new cultural conceptions? Before considering these questions there are two important considerations. First, the learner must realize that cultural worldviews can be perceived by outsiders at some times more than at other times. This article describes these times when cultural worldviews are laid bare for the perceptive to grasp. At these times cultural views are more explicit than at other times. Secondly, cultures are so natural to insiders that they feel that all others perceive reality their way. Cultures are like the air we breathe—very important but taken for granted. Cultures are like eye- glasses. One does not consider their importance until they are lost. Since much of culture is implicit to indigenous participants, the missionary must search for ways to make values explicit so that he can understand them.

Cultures can be effectively learned during times of crisis, during rites of transition, through proverbs, by contrast, and by analyzing how words and sounds are organized and classified.

Learning Cultures in Times of Crisis

Cultural differences become more apparent when a new missionary observes nationals during times of crises. These crises occur especially in times of crisis. These crises occur especially in times of illness and death. Each society works out its own distinctive ways of dealing with these evils. In Africa ways of conceptualizing illness and death are rapidly changing. In some settings there are alternative ways of dealing with a crisis in one culture. Among the Kipsigis of Kenya some rites are distinctively Christian; others are largely traditional. These rites are practiced by people living side by side.

The Kipsigis traditionally believe that the spirits of those dying will eventually be called back to life in the bodies of another generation. This is not explicitly obvious unless the new missionary sees and hears what is done and said at traditional burial ceremonies. For Example, the oldest son of a family stands before the grave of his father. He throws crab grass into the grave as a parting blessing and verbally bids his father farewell. ‘Go safely,’ he says. ‘We will soon call you to come back to us.’ This explicit statement of a cyclical worldview is seldom heard except at times of death and birth.

Hope is redirected in a Christian funeral. Hope is no longer in reincarnated life in physical bodies on earth but in a new life in spiritual bodies with God (1 Cor. 15:35-50). A Christian evangelist stands before a believer’s grave and proclaims: ‘Our hope is beyond this world. The spirit of man is of God. Let it return to Him. Let us read God’s view of life and death from Ecclesiastes 12:7’. Cultural perspectives of life and death are most vividly seen by witnessing what happens at death.

Culture can also be understood by working patiently with those who are ill. To many Africans, both Christians and non-Christians, extended illness is thought to be caused by sin. In fact, when I was severely sick with hepatitis in 1969, Christians prayed that God would forgive my sins so that I might be healed. I replied that I knew of no sin. Rather Satan was tempting me as Job in the Old Testament was tempted. I needed prayers to overcome Satan.

Traditionalists in Kipsigis seek to appease ancestors. They go to a diviner to find out what problem is causing the sickness. A diviner seeks to determine the cause of the illness. He may listen to ancestors by direct messages through visions or by analyzing the entrails of a sacrificial sheep or goat, or by casting lots. He then tells the family of the sick person: what ancestor or spirit caused the sickness, why the ancestor is angry, and what the living must do to appease the dead.

The Christian African, while continuing to believe that the dead have power over life, conceive that God’s power through Jesus Christ is greater than the power of the dead. Christians in Africa typically do not differentiate between physical and spiritual health. They typically pray for forgiveness so that physical ailments might be healed, a teaching they give a biblical base (James 5:15-16; John 5:1-14, especially vs. 14).

Africans are intensely practical. If Western medicine and prayer do not cure, weak Christians are tempted to try traditional appeasement rites to cure their illnesses. In such a newly Christianized society, new Christians believe in the power of God but feel the pull of traditional beliefs.

How Christians and non-Christians conceptualize such significant problems as death and illness tells the new cross-cultural evangelist much about his adopted people.

Learning Cultures through Rites of Transition

All societies have rites of transition from one status in life to another. Marriage ceremonies are an almost universal rite of transition from unmarried to married life. Baptism is a rite of transition into the Lord’s body. Many non-Western societies have rites of transition from childhood to adulthood. Some have rites from a warrior class to and elder class, or from one elder class to another. Usually these rites of transition are times of cultural indoctrination, when cultural values and worldview are especially explicit.

To such Native American tribes as the Corn, Comanche and Shoshoni, a young man became an adult when he received a special vision. When a boy was about fourteen, he took a trip to a special area to seek his vision. He would not eat, drink or sleep until the vision was received (Lowie 1924: 3-32). ‘I had a vision! I am a man!’ were Sacajawea’s sons’ words when he met his parents after returning from his vision trip (Waldo 1978: 1085). One could not understand these tribes without understanding the role of visions as a coming-of-age ceremony.

Among the Kipsigis of Kenya circumcision is the rite of transition into adulthood. During these month-long rites each December, Kipsigis youths are circumcised and taught what it means to be a Kipsigis. From then on they are expected to act as adults. In a short time, Kipsigis youth go through an identity change that American young people uncertainly accomplish with much anguish over a long period of time. These rites are extremely valuable for social and cultural identity.

Yet Christians cannot participate in the traditional rite and remain Christians. All, even non-Christians, realize this. Ancestral blessings are frequently used. Sexual promiscuity is expected. How to curse those who wrong one is taught. Circumcision is the time when the young are indoctrinated in the traditional animistic way of life. If an outsider could study what is taught to traditional circumcision initiates, he would explicitly see much of traditional Kipsigis culture.

Strong local churches in Kipsigis have created viable Christian alternatives to the traditional rites. Christian blessings are used. Holiness of a Christian adult is described. How a Christian Kipsigis functions is extensively taught. Where local churches have not creatively devised a cultural substitute, reversion back to paganism is extremely high. Where the church is strong, the Christian rite is accepted by the village and the traditional way becomes extinct.

A new missionary cannot understand the Kipsigis without seeing changing culture as worked out in both traditional and Christian circumcision rites.

Learning Culture through Proverbs

Oral cultures prevalent in non-Western societies are often proverb-oriented. Some of these proverbs are riddles that hide meaning from outsiders but vividly portray it to insiders. Other proverbs are simply concise, overt descriptions of cultural views. Learning such proverbs is an effective tool in cultural learning. But a new missionary must develop the linguistic fluency to catch succinct statements of cultural reality or else they will pass him as simply incoherent sentences.

The Kipsigis say, ‘Manamegel olyuk ak cheguk’, literally meaning ‘My ancestral spirits are not tied to yours.’ Those saying this mean that my ancestral spirits cannot harm you and your ancestral spirits cannot harm me. Every person is under the control of his own ancestral spirits. This statement is used when one is being made to fear someone else’s ancestral spirit. This proverb succinctly expresses a distinct cultural perception.

Another Kipsigis proverb says, ‘Mautlen moset katwalet,’ meaning, ‘A baboon does not forget how to jump.’ Traditional religious practitioners use this proverb to explain that Kipsigis cannot forget to do those things that are natural to Kipsigis: that is, practice traditional rites. Christian leaders use this proverb to explain that Christians cannot forget to do those things that are natural to Christians.

Since much of culture is oral a new cross-cultural worker must learn the oral forms of his adopted people. He learns much of the new culture by perceiving the proverbs of this culture.

Learning Cultures by Contrast

As new missionaries begin learning languages and cultures, they hear and see things that do not fit with their conceptions of reality. When there is such confusion, it is time for the new missionary to ask questions and seek answers in culturally appropriate ways. He might privately ask a newly-found friend, ‘In America, when we see men holding hands with me, it means that they are homosexuals. Is that the meaning here in Africa?’ An East African would laughingly respond, ‘No, to us it simply means friendship with people to whom we are close.’ Such reciprocity opens up numerous doors of understanding. When a missionary explains what a cultural act means to him, typically the national reciprocally responds by explaining what the act means to him.

When I was first learning the Kipsigis language, I heard an old lady greet a young by and call him ‘Grandfather’. I asked the Christian with whom I was evangelizing, ‘Did I hear right? Did the old lady call the young boy ‘Grandfather’. ‘Yes’, he responded. ‘But she just does not understand.’ Now I was perplexed not only by the old lady’s greeting but also by the Christian’s response. The next day I was visiting a Christian who wanted me to know Kipsigis customs thoroughly. I explained the greeting of the old lady and the Christian’s respons. He laughed and said, ‘Let me tell you about the Kipsigis "Kurenet" rite.

This rite takes place immediately after a child is born to ascertain which ancestral spirit has embodied the new child. An old woman will ask, ‘Are you Arap Tonyl?’ The women gathered for this right will wait for some time for the child to sneeze, this signifying the affirmative. If the child does not sneeze, another name is proposed until the child responds by sneezing. Later I read of this rite in Orchardson’s ethnography of the Kipsigis. He writes that:
So firmly is it believed that the child really has the spirit of the Kurenet, and is in fact the same person, that his or her mother, when using terms of endearment, will address the child for many years by the "Kurenet" ‘s name… (Orchardson 1961: 45)

I learned that the old lady called the boy ‘Grandfather’ because she felt the spirit of her grandfather had come to live in the body of the young child. The Christian to whom I asked the question was ashamed that I heard the old lady’s greeting and could only respond that she had a false conception of reality.

When unexpected events happen that new missionaries do not understand, they must seek answers in culturally appropriate ways, perhaps by reciprocal dialogue about how each perceived the event.

Learning Cultures by How Words and Sounds are Organized and Classified

All peoples organize and classify words and concepts into categories. But the categories that Westerners employ vary considerably from categories of non-Western peoples. For example, colors are defined in culturally defined categories. Americans see six colors in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, violet and blue. Other cultures see eight. , some four, others three. Kipsigis classify blue and black together and consider the sky tue, the word that I initially translated literally as ‘black’. Tue, however, has a broader color range than simply black. Each culture makes categories through which reality is classified.

A good exercise for a new missionary is to ask how the host culture verbalizes the sounds of animals. He will see both similarity and diversity with the sounds he verbalizes for those same animals in his culture. The Kipsigis think a rooster cries, ‘Ku-ka-ru-ku’ while Americans hear ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo.’ Even animal sounds are organized so each culture can verbalize them.

A new missionary, with creativity, can develop a methodology to learn the mental categories of his host culture. He can write out a series of nouns and ask people to categorize the words that belong together. For example, how would Americans compartmentalize the following nouns: God, rocks, virus, man, bushes, fish, deer, rabbit, woman, demons, angels, cow, lion, whale, grass, germs, sand, and trees? A typical American might groups: (1) God, angels, and demons in a single category as ‘supernatural beings’. (2) man and woman together as ‘human beings,’ (3) cow, deer, lion, and rabbit together as ‘animals,’ (4) fish and whale together as ‘living beings dwelling in water,’ (5) bushes, grass, and trees together as ‘plants,’ (6) rocks and sand together as ‘inanimate things,’ and (7) virus and germs together as ‘organisms that cause sickness’ (Hiebert 1985: 148). These categories come from Western differentiation of the natural versus the supernatural, of human life versus animal life, of animate beings versus inanimate things, and of plants versus animals. Knowing these categories greatly defines Western thinking.

Participants of an East African hunting and gathering society would classify the same nouns in vastly different categories. One such participant classified: (1) God, angels, demons, viruses, and germs together as ‘things that can kill,’ (2) man, lion, and whale together as ‘things that rule their environments,’ (3 women and cows together as ‘things that are ruled and are convertible for bride price,’ (4) rocks, bushes, fish, trees, grass, rabbit, deer, and sand together as ‘things of the habitat free for the ‘getting’ (Partially taken from Hiebert’s classroom notes, Fuller Theological Seminary).

Conclusion

Each of the methodologies of culture learning designated in this article is identical. The new missionary is learning culture as he begins to actively evangelize on the field interrelating with the people in their environment and in their language. A missionary cannot learn a culture from a book or from meeting people in a Western institution.

When I first arrived on the field I did not know how to learn in an organized way. I struggled for years and picked up cultural views piece-by-piece. Newer missionaries using methodologies similar to those in this article have been much quicker to perceive culture and thus preach the word more effectively

Bibliography

Hiebert, Paul, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries, Grand Rapids (USA), Baker, 1985.

Lowie, Robert A., Primitive Religion. New York (USA), Liveright, 1924.

Orchardson, Ian Q., The Kipsigis. Nairobi (Kenya), East African Literature Bureau., 1961.

Waldo, Anna Lee, Sacajawea. New York (USA), Avon, 1978.