Tag: Art

Primary Resources on Sacrifice

While doing research for an encyclopaedia article on sacrifice in African theology, I have found lots of great primary resources online. The following text is a draft of the section that introduces some of the best examples.

There are a rich variety of primary resources available on the internet that are very relevant to the study of sacrifice in African theology. This section includes some examples from African religions and African Christianity. There is a good deal of material on African religions online, much of it collected by European ethnographers in the twentieth century. Evans-Pritchard 1935, Daneel 2004 and Cole 1973 are examples of photographs taken by ethnographers that bring out different aspects of sacrifice: the killing of a sheep, the butchering of an ox, and a building that has been created as a sacrifice to a deity. There is a wealth of material on African Christianity on the internet. Some of this material has been collected, but most of it has been added by African clergy and Christians. The earliest resources available are Ethiopian paintings of the crucifixion that depict Jesus as the Lamb of God (e.g., Double-Sided Gospel Leaf [first half 14th century]). Njau 1959 and Mveng second half 20th century are classic examples of modern African art that draw on African history and culture in their portrayals of Christ’s sacrifice. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century a vast amount of audio and video recordings have been put online. Eschatos Bride Choir 2016 is one of the most well-known African hymns that speaks about salvation through the blood of Jesus. This key notion has also been taken up in African liturgies, such as the Kenyan Eucharistic text that was used at the opening service of the 1998 Lambeth Conference and the closing service of the 2010 Cape Town Conference (Lausanne Movement 2011). Mbewe 2012 and Duncan-Williams 2016 are examples of an African Evangelical sermon on what it means to be a living sacrifice and an African Pentecostal sermon on having faith in the blood of Jesus.

Cole, Herbert M. Mbari Shrine House. 1973. Photograph of architecture and sculpture. Digital Collections of the University of Washington Libraries.

URL: https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/buildings/id/6087

Access: Free

The front side of an mbari house built by Igbo artists in Owerri, Nigeria in the early 1960s. An mbari house is form of religious architecture containing painted sculptures that is created over several years as an elaborate sacrifice to the goddess Ala and other deities. For more photographs and an analysis of the process of building an mbari house, see Cole’s article, “Mbari Is a Dance,” which is freely available by subscription from JSTOR.

Daneel, Marthinus L. ATR High God Shrine Vembe – 45. 2004. Photograph. Old and New in Shona Religion, a project of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University.

URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/africanphotoarchivebu/15541834301/

Access: Free

The butchering of an ox as part of a rain calling ceremony at the cave shrine of Vembe in the Matopo hills of Zimbabwe. Priestess Intombiyamazulu, “Virgin of the Rain Clouds,” mediated for the delegation. According to Daneel, “Often the animal is black, symbolizing black clouds that bring rain. Some portions are kept and consumed by the priestess and her family.”

“Double-Sided Gospel Leaf [first half 14th century].” Tempera on parchment. Tigray, Ethiopia, 7 February 2017. The Met.

URL: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/477148

Access: Free

According to the Met, “The compelling images on this double-sided leaf are from a group of early fourteenth-century Gospels that feature a revival of motifs that reached Ethiopia from the eastern Mediterranean, probably in the seventh century.” The reverse side of the leaf depicts the crucifixion. Instead of portraying Jesus on the cross, the Lamb of God appears above the cross, a striking symbol of Christ’s sacrifice and victory.

Duncan-Williams, Nicholas. The Place of the Blood in a Believer’s Life. Sermon video, 1:05:22. Given at the Prayer Cathedral of Action Chapel International in Accra, Ghana. Posted 23 May, 2016.

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI_XVWwtQwg

Access: Free

Duncan-Williams is the Archbishop and General Overseer of Action Chapel International, a Ghanaian Pentecostal megachurch with a worldwide network of churches. In this sermon (4:00-) he particularly draws on Rev. 13:8 and 12:11, to show that the blood of Jesus is the key to a believer’s identity and a life of victory. A believer must have faith in the blood, which means believing in and invoking it in daily life, as well as participating in sacrificial giving.

Eschatos Bride Choir. Tukutendereza Yesu. Hymn Audio, 43:42. Posted 23 December, 2016.

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwwMmm5NOGg

Access: Free

A beautiful rendition of the legendary hymn of the East African Revival (0:00-4:00). The words of the chorus proclaim the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus: “Tukutendereza Yesu / Yesu Mwana gwendiga / Omusaigwo gunazi’za / Nkwebaza Mulokozi” (We praise you Jesus / Jesus Lamb of God / Your blood cleanses me / I praise you, Saviour). The hymn is also closely connected with stories of sacrificial martyrdom in East Africa.

Evans-Pritchard, Edward E. Nuer sheep sacrifice. 1935. Photograph. Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

URL: http://photographs.prm.ox.ac.uk/pages/1998_355_21_2.html

Access: Free

The killing of a sheep as a sacrifice to the lion-spirit for a girl who was possessed by the spirit and had a seizure. According to Evans-Pritchard, “Her family sacrificed a sheep to the spirit and dedicated a cow to it, for the seizure was thought to have been due to their failure to dedicate a cow to it earlier; and the girl was restored to her normal self.”

Lausanne Movement. The Holy Communion – Closing Ceremony – Cape Town 2010. Worship video, 21:10. Given at the Lausanne Movement’s Cape Town 2010 Congress on 24 October, 2010. Posted 8 October, 2011.

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bumWSpYbkYk

Access: Free

The text of the Eucharistic Prayer and Institution (5:40-7:20, 11:01-13:50) is taken from the Church of the Province of Kenya’s A Kenyan Service of Holy Communion (Nairobi: Uzima Press, 1989). The words explicitly draw on both biblical and African understandings of sacrifice. In particular, the phrase “We are brothers and sisters through his blood,” (12:18) uses the African notion of blood brotherhood to proclaim the new kinship that believers have through Christ’s sacrifice.

Mbewe, Conrad. True Repentance Makes a Living Sacrifice. Sermon audio, 47:41. Given at Kabwata Baptist Church, Lusaka, Zambia. Posted 16 September, 2012.

URL: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=919122325358

Access: Free

Mbewe, the Pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church, has gained an international reputation as “the Spurgeon of Africa.” In this sermon he interprets Psalm 51:18-19 in light of Romans 12:1-2, to show that true repentance means giving everything to God (9:37-). In view of Christ’s self-offering, believers are to give themselves as living sacrifices (34:30-). The Ethiopian eunuch and the conversion of Ethiopia is an example of such a life of surrender and the fruit it can produce (40:15-).

Mveng, Engelbert. Ugandan Martyrs Altar. Second half 20th century. Photograph of a mural on the apse of the Chapel of Libermann College, in Douala, Cameroon. ArtWay.

URL: https://www.artway.eu/content.php?id=1142&action=show&lang=en

Access: Free

Mveng was a Cameroonian Jesuit priest, artist and historian. As he writes, “The Christ in majesty standing above the altar recapitulates the offering of the whole world and all of humanity in the sacrifice of the cross. At the foot of Christ crucified stand the martyrs of Uganda: they are the image of all those people in Africa who have united the sacrifice of their lives to that of Christ crucified.”

Njau, Elimo. Crucifixion. 1959. Photograph of a mural on the interior north wall of the Saint James and All Martyrs Memorial Cathedral in Murang’a, Kenya, 3.5m x 4.5m. Pinterest.

URL: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/62417144810802902/

Access: Free

Njau is a Tanzanian artist who studied at Makarere University in Kampala, Uganda. The painting is one of five murals depicting scenes from the life of Christ in a church that was built as a memorial to Christians who had died during the Mau Mau rebellion. Njau draws on Kikuyu culture and the local landscape in his portrayal of Christ’s sacrificial death. The blood of Jesus trickles down from the cross, cleansing the people and the land.

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The Shepherds in Ethiopian Art

While doing research on Ethiopian Hermeneutics for an encyclopaedia article on African Biblical Hermeneutics, I came across a number of websites with valuable primary and secondary resources. Recent interest in the digital preservation of Ethiopian manuscripts has led to copies of paintings that were previously inaccessible being made publicly available for the first time. These depictions of the Nativity are part of an illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels that was created at Dabra Hayg Estifanos monastery in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. What is fascinating about the paintings is the way they draw on Byzantine models and transform them into an Ethiopian idiom. The portrayal of the shepherds is of particular interest in this regard.

The Annunciation to the Shepherd and the Christ Child’s First Bath
“Illuminated Gospel [late 14th–early 15th century],” The Met, accessed 31 January, 2021, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/317618.
The Nativity
“Illuminated Gospel [late 14th–early 15th century],” The Met, accessed 31 January, 2021, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/317618.

Fortunately, there are useful secondary resources available to help interpret these paintings. Issues of the Journal of Ethiopian Studies from 1963 to 2016 are now freely accessible by subscription from JSTOR. Prof. Stanislaw Chojnacki, who co-directed the journal from 1963 to 1975 and has published extensively on Ethiopian art, has also written an article on the subject of the Nativity. As he observes in his analysis of several Gospels, “the announcement to the shepherds by the angels, and their subsequent homage paid to the Child born in Bethlehem, have been represented either together or singly. In the post-iconoclastic Byzantine schema the announcement by the angels was generally shown, the angels appearing behind the top of the rock to the shepherds, who were placed below, on the right of the composition” (Chojnacki 1974, 19).

The illustrators of the Dabra Hayg Estifanos Gospels have chosen to represent the announcement to the shepherds and the shepherds’ journey to or arrival at Bethlehem separately. In the former, they follow the Byzantine model in terms of placement, but portray the shepherd quite realistically. He is well-wrapped, wearing a coat and a hat. His right hand is raised in surprise. His crossed legs and the pipe in his left hand suggest that the angel has just interrupted a musical reverie. In the latter, three shepherds are depicted, accompanied by three sheep. The shepherds are bare-headed and wear a kind of skirt. They are shown with their legs stretched wide, striding along at a fast pace. Each has his right hand raised in a greeting and holds a curved stick in his left hand.

As Chojnacki suggests, “In Ethiopia, largely composed of a pastoral society, the subject of the shepherds no doubt struck the imagination of the painters. This is possibly the reason why it occupies such a prominent place in the composition, the shepherds’ figures having the same size of main personages. Also the shepherds seem to be portrayed from life and wear local dress, while other figures seem rather to reflect foreign influence. In the Hayq Nativity the shepherds wear short decorative skirts, are barefoot and hold curved sticks. In the Zir-Ganela Nativity the very crude execution does not allow clear observation of particulars of the dress; nevertheless the shepherds have the same curved sticks as in the Hayq Nativity, and additionally perhaps an intriguing head-decoration. It is however possible that the “head-decoration” represents the way of drawing hair, as in Däbrä Mar Gospels in which several figures have their hair drawn in “Afro” style. The same realistic approach is obvious in the Faras Nativity: two shepherds stand with one of their legs crossed, supporting themselves on a long stick, a position of relaxation still used by Nilotic pastoralists” (Chojnacki 1974, 21).

Later paintings go even further, portraying the shepherds as playing “a kind of lawn hockey.” As Chojnacki explains, “Gänna is a popular game traditionally played in Ethiopia at Christmas-time and therefore called by the same word as Christmas, gänna.” (Chojnacki 1974, 40-41). How this folklore addition came to be taken up in Ethiopian depictions of the shepherds is unclear, but he suggests that “in the basically pastoral society, in which most young people were engaged in watching cattle, since practically every male was a shepherd in the early stages of his life, the narrative of the Gospels indicating that the shepherds were the first to be informed about the birth of the Saviour must have had a special appeal.” (Chojnacki 1974, 41). According to Chojnacki, “One of the justifications still repeated by traditional scholars is the belief that the shepherds were indeed playing gänna at the very moment when the angel appeared to them” (Chojnacki 1974, 41-42).

Chojnacki’s interpretation is compelling and offers an interesting perspective on the inculturation or contextualisation of the Gospel in Africa. Much discussion has focused on the portrayal of Jesus. (Is it justified to portray Jesus as an African? What aspects of the Gospel message better communicated by doing so? What aspects are less well-communicated?) But the people who hear about Jesus and come to him are also important because they represent us and our response. In Ethiopian portrayals of the Nativity, the shepherds run to see the saviour. Do we?

Chojnacki, Stanislaw. 1974. “The Nativity in Ethiopian Art.” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 12, no. 2 (July): 11-56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41965866.

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