Rethinking Environmental Sustainability through the Ndau Notion of Communal Existence

Abstract

The twenty-first century faces a life-threatening environmental crisis of unprecedented magnitude. Scientists posit that the balance of life on the planet Earth is in danger as a result of human activities. Religions have not been seriously considered as potential partners in providing solutions to the crisis, but are in fact often blamed for causing it. This can be explained by the misleading disenchantment theory that holds that religions expose nature to exploitation by humans, as they teach that humans are distinct from nature and have a divinely sanctioned right to exploit it. A rethinking of religion in environmental discourse proves otherwise. African Indigenous Religions, for instance, are biocentric as they see all living beings as elements of one interdependent spiritual community. In this chapter, I use the Ndau notion of communal existence to pursue themes of interconnectedness, reverence, embeddedness and reciprocity with nature that can advance the agenda for environmental sustainability. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of the identity of the Ndau and a description of their religio-cultural value system, and finally unpacks the notion of communal existence in the Ndau religious world view, finding synergies with the wider environmental protection agenda. The approach in the chapter is qualitative for it seeks to access the meaning embedded in the rich religious and or spiritual life of the Ndau in the context of the environmental crisis through in-depth interviews.

Gendered small-scale crops and power dynamics: A case of uninga (sesame) production amongst the Ndau of south-eastern Zimbabwe

“…Ndau's strictest spiritual sense, some crops such as uninga, groundnuts, roundnuts and mujumbuya [cassava] are feminine and a preserve for the elderly women because of their supposedly ritual purity (Sipeyiye 2020). They are food supplements that matter most especially in times of hunger and starvation.…”