Indigenous African Women’s Expression of Christianity in South Africa

Indigenous African women’s expression of Christianity in South Africa is intricately intertwined with both the process of colonization and with the missionary enterprise of the late nineteenth century. A number of scholars have indicated the Church’s role in the process of colonization of African women and girls through the missionary enterprise.Footnote ² Cherryl Walker, in tracing gender patterns within the migrant labour system between 1850 and 1930, alludes to the role Christianity played in reinforcing sanctions against female mobility and independence.Footnote ³ Others, such as Jacklyn Cock and Modupe Labode have argued that mission education for girls was based on the Victorian ideal of motherhood and domesticity.Footnote ⁴ In the minds of women missionaries, ‘the kraal’ of the heathen African woman needed to be transformed into a home in which Christianity could flourish. One of the major concerns of female missionaries at this time was the necessity of inculcating the ideal of a male breadwinner, along with a dependent housekeeping wife and mother and dependent school-going children, among the African women and girls they worked with in the cities. However, argues Labode, this transformation was also necessary so that young girls could be trained for domestic service in the homes of colonial administrators and some missionaries.Footnote ⁵

African women were encouraged by the missionaries to meet weekly to pray together. They then used these meetings to prepare the young converts for domestic service by teaching them skills such as sewing, washing and laundering as they saw appropriate to an ideal Victorian home. By the turn of the twentieth century, African Christian women were meeting regularly together in groups that had been nurtured by female missionaries.Footnote ⁶ Deborah Gaitskell has referred to these meetings as training for ‘devout domesticity’.Footnote ⁷ Attempts at ‘creating’ women through this ideology of ‘devout domesticity’ were, however, not always met without resistance in this early period of colonization. Labode refers to a number of incidents of dissent where young girls were clearly more interested in ‘book learning’ than in the ‘domestic education’ the women missionaries deemed necessary for them.Footnote ⁸ Gaitskell, however, notes that Victorian Christianity ‘offered a contradictory package to African women: a way of escape from some of the constraints of pre-Christian society and yet a firm incorporation into the domesticity and patriarchy of Christian family life’.Footnote ⁹ So while mission education was often a servant of colonialism, it also worked towards offering independence for some individual young women.

The prayer groups of African women, nurtured by female missionaries with a focus on the home, were established at a time when increasing industrialization was threatening family life. By the early 1920s these groups were known as manyanos (prayer unions).Footnote ¹⁰ The term, manyano was first coined by the Methodist women to refer specifically to their weekly meetings known as prayer unions.Footnote ¹¹ Increasingly, it was adopted by women from other denominations when referring to their church organizations.

During the 1930s poverty was rife among urban African families. Urban women increasingly became full-time domestic servants living in the ‘white suburbs’ away from their children. In the rural areas family life was also under siege. By this stage, influx control laws were in operation, which increased the male migrant labour workforce, and in effect left millions of rural women also struggling to survive on their own and unable to find easy access to the cities. They had to struggle against their family life being destroyed by the structural realities of the migrant labour system. Thus, for both urban and rural women, family life became something to fight for rather than against. It was the support network of manyano groups with their emphasis on family life that increasingly played a central role in the neo-indigenous expression of African women’s Christianity.

The Mothers’ Union and the Manyano Movement

The Mothers’ Union (MU) of the Anglican Church, with its strong emphasis on mothering and family life, was introduced into South Africa within the contextual ideology of ‘devout domesticity’ as promulgated by female missionaries sent by the Church of England. As an organization it was nurtured through the early decades of the twentieth century, when African women were struggling for the survival of family life in both urban and rural areas.

While most of the manyano groups established in the mission initiated churches were particular indigenous expressions of African Christianity, the MU was the only organization that was a ‘colonial import’, having its roots outside of the African continent. All other women’s church organizations in the mission initiated Churches were started by missionaries for African women only. The MU on the other hand, was an organization with large numbers of white women in South Africa. As will be argued below, there was much resistance by women missionaries and the church leadership to African branches of the MU taking on the characteristics of a manyano, particularly the wearing of the church uniform. However, it was through the strategies and struggles of African Anglican women that today the MU is an integral part of the indigenous manyano movement, while simultaneously ascribing to the mission statement of its mother organization in England. The Church of the Province in Southern Africa (CPSA), now known as the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA), spent the first half of the twentieth century attempting to ‘regularize’ MU branches in African communities away from their ever-increasing manyano identity with its emphasis on extempore prayer and preaching, the wearing of identifiable uniforms and fundraising activities.Footnote ¹²

A number of scholars have referred to the ongoing pressure on African Anglican women to conform to the identity of the MU as defined by the headquarters of the organization in London. Gaitskell, in a study focusing on women’s organizations within the Anglican, Methodist and American Mission Board Churches, argues that the Anglicans’ history was different from the other two Churches in that much greater control over indigenous women was exercised by the missionaries.Footnote ¹³ Likewise, Brandel-Syrier, conducting research in the 1950s on manyanos, while recognizing Anglican groups as part of this movement, points to a different history and ethos.Footnote ¹⁴ Brian Pauw’s work on manyano groups in the Northern Cape, South Africa, also confirms that Methodist women had greater freedom than Anglican women to conduct their affairs.Footnote ¹⁵

Numerous strategies of control were introduced into the MU meetings of African women. Branches were established only with consent from the male priest who was very often a missionary from England.Footnote ¹⁶ Even indigenous Anglican male priests insisted on attending the MU meetings of African women as a way to exercise strict control over their proceedings.Footnote ¹⁷ Control was also exercised from the London office of the MU who stipulated clear guidelines on how MU workers sent to South Africa were to carry out training in the ‘Bantu’ branches. These guidelines were set out in the Mothers’ Union Handbook for the Use of Bantu Branches which stated that each branch could only have an indigenous leader who was ‘chosen from the church members and approved by the Priest-in-Charge and the Mothers’ Union Worker’.Footnote ¹⁸ Set duties were laid down for these branch leaders. Materials published by the London office suggest that the training of branch leaders was a key aspect of the work of the MU worker.Footnote ¹⁹ It seems that branch leaders ‘reported’ to the MU worker who saw it as her duty to carry out teaching and training in the branch, to check financial records, to visit MU projects and so forth. The London office supported (and controlled) the work not only through human resources, but provided the necessary financial support through grants for salaries, transport and for other costs.

Control over the MU branches was not just exercised by the priests and MU workers; for decades the bishop’s’ wives were the titular heads of the organization in each diocese. They carried the responsibility of reporting on behalf of their diocese to the central office in England. Internally within South Africa, MU matters from the various dioceses would be discussed informally by the bishop’s’ wives when they met at Episcopal Synod. This pattern of leadership continued until as late as 1954, when a Provincial Council of the MU was inaugurated and a constitution finalized a few years later.Footnote ²⁰

It was during this decade of the 1950s that the colonial hierarchy of the Anglican Church attempted to exercise even greater control over the activities of the African MU branches. Every attempt was made at this time to bring the African members of the MU in South Africa into line with their English counterparts.

Strong campaigns were waged to rid the MU of common elements that it shared with manyano groups of other denominations, such as extempore praying and preaching, compulsory uniforms, fundraising and evangelism.Footnote ²² While Thursday meetings continued, complete authority of these meetings rested with the priest, who was required to be present and the wearing of church uniforms was forbidden in Natal.Footnote ²³ Despite this promulgation, MU members resisted and the wearing of the church uniform remained a key requirement of membership of the MU.

The Mothers’ Union and the Wearing of the Church Uniform

Thursday was and remains manyano-day, when women meet usually in the homes of one of the members. This tradition probably developed from the practice of launder-women fetching the washing on Monday from their employers, washing on a Tuesday, and ironing and returning the washing on a Wednesday.Footnote ²⁴ Increasingly, as women moved into full-time domestic service, Thursday became recognized as the designated ‘day off’ for African women.Footnote ²⁵ It is primarily the distinctive church uniforms worn by manyano women that mark this day as ‘women’s day’. Each denomination wears a distinct uniform that usually includes a skirt, blouse, girdle and hat in a variety of colours enabling women to identify one another immediately.

Members of the MU wear a uniform, consisting of a black skirt, hat and girdle, and a white (and/or purple) blouse.Footnote ²⁶ Joining the MU is through a formal ritual ceremony of ‘robing’ where in many congregations the uniform is placed on the altar and officially blessed by the priest after the women have made their MU promises. In my experience, new members are ceremoniously led out of the church carrying their uniforms by the older members of the MU. The congregation waits patiently singing choruses while the women don their uniforms. This ritual has come to be known as the ‘blousing’ ceremony.

But African Anglican women, particularly in Natal, had to resist the attempts of missionaries and bishops to ban the uniform, as indicated earlier. In a memo sent from the Bishop of Natal on 30 March 1933, ten discussion points were offered for guidance (and further discussion) to MU workers who were all missionaries from England at this time. One of the points noted under the heading ‘Uniform’ was ‘that the idea of wearing uniforms should be discouraged; it was thought that the [MU] badge would be sufficient’.Footnote ²⁷ At a conference for African members of the MU of the Diocese of Natal in 1936, the Diocesan President, Mrs Fisher, ‘informed members that [the] uniform would undermine the integrity of the organisation’.Footnote ²⁸ Livingstone Ngewu suggests that the issue of the uniform was raised numerous times in conference with African members of the MU in the Diocese of Natal, ‘but Mrs Fisher remained adamant that there was no definite uniform for the members authorized by the Mothers’ Union’.Footnote ²⁹

The debate around the wearing of the church uniform continued to rage with ’bishops’ wives and MU Diocesan workers vehemently opposing its use.Footnote ³⁰ On 26 March 1958, Mrs S.C. Lorato, the ‘Special Secretary for [the MU] Lady Day’ from St Phillips Mission in Vryburg, Natal wrote directly to the ‘President’ of the MU at the London Headquarters on behalf of the branches in the area.Footnote ³¹ She indicates that at the first Lady Day celebration in 1957 when all the African MU members came together, the issue of the wearing of the uniform arose. Mrs Wade, the MU worker in Natal, had suggested that they only wear the uniform on the first Sunday of the month. The different rural branches in the area were meant to discuss this suggestion and report back. This, she indicates, never happened, and so the matter was discussed once more at the second Lady Day celebration in 1958. Mrs Lorato then goes on to request that they be allowed to wear the uniform every Sunday, especially when there is a Eucharist service. ‘… We Africans are not all alike. Some are very poor. And the question of uniform helped to let us all look the same. In one way or the other, it is something that helps us in our Christian life.’Footnote ³²

From the correspondence, it becomes clear that the letter was received by the Overseas Secretary of the MU in London, Mrs Dorothy Roberts. On 14 May 1958, she first writes to Mrs Wade, the MU worker, and informs her about the letter. She indicates that before she can respond to Mrs Lorato, she would value some background to the discussion as ‘we have heard from many parts of Africa, both the value and the difficulties which the wearing of the uniform causes…’.Footnote ³³ Mrs Wade responds extensively on 20 May 1958 indicating that the uniform is ‘doing more harm than good’.Footnote ³⁴ She goes on to say that her concern is that the uniform is worn all the time and that she has concluded ‘that too many women join [the MU] just to don the uniform – what membership means is nothing to them – they carry on with all their old bad habits…’.Footnote ³⁵ As a result, Mrs Roberts finally responds to Mrs Lacto on 16 June 1958 indicating that in England despite MU members coming from different economic backgrounds, they do not wear a uniform and only the MU badge.Footnote ³⁶ She continues:

The discussions on the wearing of the uniform that took place at the MU Provincial Council were not clearly recorded. But from the correspondence by the new MU worker in the Diocese of Natal, Mrs Jane Hopkins, it is clear that she continued the campaign to abolish the uniform despite the clear indication by African Anglican women that it was important to them. In a letter to Mrs Marjorie Davey, the new Overseas Secretary at the MU Headquarters in London, she wrote on 23 July 1959:

From the response to the letter, it was clear that Mrs Davey did agree with the sentiments expressed by Mrs Hopkins:

However the matter was handled by the South African Provincial Mothers’ Union, their attempts to rid the MU of the wearing of a church uniform failed. African Anglican women chose to align themselves first and foremost with the indigenous manyano movement and donned the uniform they had chosen to declare their allegiance.

Elderly MU members from Vulindlela outside Pietermaritzburg, South Africa remembered the struggle during those days as they recounted their memories in interviews. ‘They did not allow us to wear it [the uniform] and at that time many women joined other churches until the uniform issue was settled after being talked through by the Diocese’.Footnote ⁴⁰ Another indicated the support they received from some of the indigenous male church leaders:

Another recounted how women would wear their uniforms to attend Eucharist services if led by a ‘sympathetic’ priest. If they knew the priest was not sympathetic, they would make a point of not wearing their uniform that particular Sunday.Footnote ⁴² This was their strategy of resistance.

The Significance of the Church Uniform

In attempting to understand the significance of the church uniform historically, Gaitskell argues that adopting Western clothing was a sign by the first converts of a commitment to new religious beliefs.Footnote ⁴³ However, Western clothing lacked ‘symbolic particularity’ with little distinction between young and old, married or unmarried, widow or mother.Footnote ⁴⁴ The church uniform worn by manyano women could thus be interpreted as a reassertion of a distinctive Christian dress that proclaimed spiritual allegiance, advertised marital respectability, and was recognized as a reward for upright living.Footnote ⁴⁵ For manyano women the church uniform replaced Western clothing as the mark of Christian commitment. It also replaced the MU badge as a distinctive marking which was considered adequate corporate identification by white leaders, but was not sufficient for manyano members.Footnote ⁴⁶

Brandel-Syrier too argues from her research in the 1950s, that the church uniform is more than a symbol of corporate identification that indicates Christian commitment and status.Footnote ⁴⁷ There is a sacramental element to the wearing of the uniform. ‘In the donning of the uniform there is transferred an essential quality which is not just associated with it as symbol, but is inherent in the uniform itself and thus conferred upon the wearer.’Footnote ⁴⁸ Jean Comaroff confirms this view, suggesting that the uniform instantiates the ritual practice it represents and, as such, has a ‘magical’ quality.Footnote ⁴⁹ The uniform is not only a symbol, but has a substantial quality, inherent in itself, which is conferred on the wearer. In this sense, the uniform embodies supernatural powers that infuse the material world and become a resource for dealing with this reality. When women are admitted as members, their uniform is placed on the altar in church and prayers are said and in this way ‘such items of clothing are believed to have been consecrated’.Footnote ⁵⁰ Thus, it is seen as the only appropriate dress in which to receive Holy Communion, hence the plea by Mrs Lorato in 1958 to be allowed to wear the uniform every Sunday. In my experience during the 1990s, MU members choose to go to the grave with their uniform displayed on their coffin.Footnote ⁵¹

In interviews with elderly members of the MU at St Raphael’s Church, Vulindlela, KwaZulu-Natal during the 1990s, it became clear that they believe that the uniform is more than a symbol that gives them a corporate identity.Footnote ⁵³ These are no ordinary garments. For the women they contain supernatural powers. When asked why putting on the uniform is important a common response is, ‘Kimina nje ngiye ngizwe inginika amandla’ [I always feel that it gives me power],Footnote ⁵⁴ and another, ‘kufika amandla ehe ya’ [the power comes, yes ...].Footnote ⁵⁵ Some women would go as far as to say that when they put it on they are healed from physical illness: ‘...uma sengiyigqokayile noma ngigula ngiyasinda kuba khona ukusinda kimina’ [...If I am wearing the uniform when I am sick, I get well; I become healed];Footnote ⁵⁶ ‘...ngcono nje konke ngoba noma ngigula ke nje uma ngike ngathatha yunufomu yami nje ngathatha imedani yami ngayigaxa lapha ngakhuleka ngiye ngizwe ngiba namandla’ [...even if I am sick, once I take my uniform and put it on and pray, I feel the power].Footnote ⁵⁷ Other women alluded to a relief from ‘not feeling well’: ‘Ngizwa ngiphila impela uma sengiyifakile ngizwa kuba mnandi impela egazini lami ngizwa ukujabula nje impela sengiyigqokayile sengihamba sengiphelele’ [I feel better when I put it on, I feel good in my blood I feel happy when I have put it on and I depart the house being complete].Footnote ⁵⁸ The ‘feeling better’ suggests much more than a physical relief. It encompasses an overall sense of physical, mental and spiritual well-being, perhaps best summed up in the response that when the uniform is put on, ‘Ingenza ngiphila iyangiphilisa’ [It makes me feel alive].Footnote ⁵⁹

This aliveness is both a spiritual aliveness and an aliveness that equips Vulindlela women to deal with the harsh physical realities of their world.Footnote ⁶⁰ The uniform provides ‘status’ as it gives a sense of dignity to the wearer, ‘Ngiyayithanda ukuba ngiyigqoke iuniform ngoba sengathi kukhona ekukhiphe ngaphakathi enhlizweni yami yangibeka kwelinye ibanga’ [I like to wear the uniform because it seems as if it has taken something bad out from inside my heart and has put me in a certain position].Footnote ⁶¹ Putting on the uniform also strengthens, ‘...iyasiqinisa iyunifomu...’ [...the uniform strengthens us...].Footnote ⁶² ‘Bese ngikhuthala ngisebenze ngikhuthale manje ngoba sengidle into enginika umdlandla wamandla’ [Then I become hard working because I have eaten something which gives me strength].Footnote ⁶³ ‘Iyunifomu impela siyayithanda thina ngoba uma sihamba nje siya eSontweni kanje kodwa singagqokile uyabona singayifakile iyunifomu kuye kube sengathi asiphelele angathi izikhali zethu aziphelele’ [We really like the uniform because if we go to church without wearing a uniform we feel as if we are not complete; as if our weapons are not complete].Footnote ⁶⁴

James Scott, in describing the discursive acts of the oppressed, argues that what is proclaimed publicly in word and deed is only half the story.Footnote ⁶⁵ Public proclamations will always contain the hegemonic language of the dominant. Rather, it is in the realm of the hidden and in the disguised language of ‘infrapolitics’, the speech acts and a range of other practices carried out behind the backs of the dominant group that the voice of the oppressed is to be found. He further asserts that issues of dignity and autonomy should be privileged as ‘weapons’ of the dominated.Footnote ⁶⁶ Mrs Ntombela, in asserting her ‘completeness’ through the wearing of her church uniform which is her ‘weapon’, is asserting her autonomy and dignity in the face of oppression and a daily struggle for survival. The women of Vulindlela wear the uniform because it affords them dignity where they have none. Infused with God’s power, it brings hope and comfort and healing in the face of illness. As they are provided with strength, they are able to carry out the physical demands made upon them in the everyday practices of their lives. The uniform is literally and figuratively a symbol of their autonomy and dignity.

The Ambiguity of the Church Uniform

The church uniform offered autonomy and dignity to African women, particularly to those living under the colonialism of the early 1900s and the apartheid system introduced in 1948 when the South African Nationalist government came to power. The racial discrimination endured by African women through these decades was compounded by the cultural oppression they faced as a result of a deeply entrenched African patriarchal society. So women wore their uniform because it created space for them to operate in the church in ways that were not normally open to them. In proclaiming their allegiance to the manyano movement through the wearing of the uniform, they aligned themselves with and in a space that they themselves had defined, away from domination. As indicated earlier, women such as Mrs Ngcobo showed that they were not passive but were actively resisting the restrictions placed on them by the Church authorities. In a delightful public irruption of what was once hidden, she confessed to me a hidden strategy against the restriction of the wearing of church uniforms: women only wore the church uniform to services where sympathetic clergy were officiating. They had a keen grasp of which priests were on their side and harnessed clergy support in tactically continuing their protest. Strategically navigating the church politics of the day, they resisted until they had ultimately secured the space they now enjoy to freely wear their church uniforms.Footnote ⁶⁷

Now that there is freedom to wear the church uniform, it must be acknowledged that in the current South African context there is some ambiguity as to its significance. Ngewu, in conducting interviews for his landmark publication, Listening to the Silent Voices of the MU: The Centenary History of the MU in the CPSA published in 2004, notes that the issue of the wearing of the church uniform is contested. He argues that the MU is divided into two groups; those who believe there would be no MU without a uniform and those who feel it should not be made obligatory for members.Footnote ⁶⁸ However, he found ‘that in most Dioceses new members of the MU are expected to present their uniforms to the altar on the day of their admission to the organisation’.Footnote ⁶⁹ Inherent in this discussion is the question of the extent to which the uniform is seen by women themselves as a tool of oppression, because the practice is that single mothers or those women who are divorced are precluded from wearing the uniform.Footnote ⁷⁰

My recent experience from an urban setting suggests that as more members of the MU become middle class, other forms of ‘uniform’ are adopted for regular worship. A growing practice seems to be the designing of more modern clothing from material that has been printed with the MU logo, which is then worn to an ordinary worship service. However, it seems that these same women continue to wear the church uniform on days of special significance in the Church year.Footnote ⁷¹