Beer: Seeking to understand migrations of items from the material realm to the spiritual realm
TODAY’S article, while true to the current theme of food as a cultural expression, will be a double edged sword. It will, in the first instance, deal with incorporation or migration of material items from the physical or material realm into the spiritual one. Secondly, it will give expression to the present theme. This we shall do by exploring beer as a beverage and food and its import within the spiritual, social, cultural, political and economic dimensions.
It may now be difficult to determine precisely when beer made its appearance within African communities. White adventurers who came to Africa and visited some African communities have left records of beer as having been brewed and consumed by their hosts. We can thus surmise that beer technology was made use of in Africa a very long time ago. It was therefore either an internal or endogenous invention or the chemical technology was acquired from an external source.
For the purposes of this article what is important is the entry of beer brewing and beer consumption into African communities. We do know that some holier than thou Christian missionary denominations discouraged beer brewing and drinking among African communities that they sought to proselytize. The basis for that was their perception of African beer as an integral part of African spirituality which they sought to uproot and supplant with their own Euro-centric faiths.
They observed that consecrated beer was used during spiritual rituals to propitiate ancestral spirits. For some of these churches, conversion to Christianity was synonymous with abandoning both the brewing and consumption of African traditional beer. Our interest here is not so much in the chosen position of the churches as how beer ends up within the spiritual realm among Africans communities.
Usually, material items from foreign cultures enter the physical or material realm of the receiving community. They are adopted by the living who find use for them. This is true of beer ( utshwala), tobacco ( igwayi, probably from Portuguese sources), clothing items (calico) and many paraphernalia relating to adornment such as beads (ubuhlalu/amangqongqo). Usually, the adopted items have some social value attached to them. Sometimes, depending on attached social value, their adoption became reflective of social stratifications found within a given community.
For this reason some items became the preserve for the elite-the kings, queens, princes and princesses Adoption of new items reflected the class nature of the community. Be that as it may, what is critical to appreciate is that the new items entered the material realm through the living, the contemporary generation. This is to say items did not initially migrate or get to the spiritual realm. When finally that did happen, items played a dual role. They continued being used within the material realm but also found scope within the spiritual realm. So it was with beer at the time the pioneering Christian missionaries arrived in Africa. Beer belonged to both the material and spiritual realms.
Let us take the argument a step further. The living do not live forever. After living for a number of years, they die. To the African death did not mark the end of everything. In fact, African Thought posits that life emerges from or flows out of death. From the death of a supernova 14 billion years ago all particles in the cosmos/universe were created. Cosmic life emerged from the cemetery of a supernova. In fact, the phenomenon of duality of life-death is responsible for the sustenance or continuity of life. Eternal life comes after death, so thought the African.
What this translates to is that the once living, the ancestral spirits, want to continue, in the spiritual realm using the items they were using in their living form-a form characterized by some ephemeral union between body and spirit. This is what Dr Mathole Motshekga has expressed in this manner: “As above. So below.” It is an idea that I too have been expressing in my own way for quite a while now. Africans seek to replicate heavens on earth in terms of both their cosmology and cultural practices.
It has been for this reason that I have argued that to fully understand and appreciate African Cosmology and the cultural practices that flow therefrom, one requires some rudimentary grounding in the Physical Sciences such as Physics, Astrophysics and Astronomy. These, among others, are the subjects that we make use of to understand the cosmos. It follows therefore, that we need the same subjects to study replicas of the cosmos; African cultural practices.
Funerary traditions therefore are in line with these basic beliefs of the Africans. Various items are placed in the graves of the deceased so that the departed spirit may have the pleasure through accessing the same items it used to access in life, when body and spirit were in a harmonious marriage. “As below. So above.” This is adding the dimension of reversibility to Dr Motshekga’s axiom. What happened within the material realm (below) must continue to happen in the spiritual realm (above).
More importantly, what had hitherto been objects in the material or physical realm have migrated into the spiritual realm. The beginning is within the material realm and then the spiritual realm is incorporated later. Beer that was consumed within the social realm is then consumed within the spiritual realm. The separated spirit which was once in flesh/body and acquired certain tastes, continues to want the same joys or pleasures in the spiritual realm.
In practical terms, beer is then offered to the spirits to propitiate them. This is not; it must be understood, to say without beer, ancestral propitiation is not possible. Remember, we have people who lived a long time ago before the adoption of beer, tobacco and beads. They are propitiated without recourse to these items. The items were not part of their experience during the spirit-in-body ephemeral reality. The essence of spirituality is non-material. Material objects are mere enhancers of the depth or height of spirituality. They are not a sine qua non for spiritual experiences.
If beer had not initially entered the material realm, it is unlikely to have then migrated into the spiritual realm. Meat too is part of sacrifices that are offered to the ancestral spirits. Now it should be clear that meat was consumed, in the first instance, by man. When that man became spirit, he demanded the pleasures of the erstwhile marriage. The same argument can be advanced with regard to tobacco, snuff to be more precise, which after some time became an integral component of ancestral propitiation.
The next article will deal with beer within the context of materiality. As pointed out above, beer found application in both the social spiritual realms. As beverage and food, beer incorporated a wide variety of cultural expressions.