Rituals of Fertility and the Sacrifice of Desire: Nazarite Women's Performance in South Africa (review)

Rituals of Fertility is divided into seven chapters: Isaiah Shembe and the Making of religious Empire; Making and Exchanging Nazarite Sacred Forms; Nazarite Hymns: Indigenizing Sacred Song; Nazarite Hymns: Popularizing Sacred Song; AmaNtombazane as the Mountains of Abstinence; Nazarite Marriage and the "Brides of Christ"; and AmaNkosikazi as Maidens of Royal Blood. The title of the book derives from a subheading of the same name found on page 196 (ch. 6). The title is further illuminated in the following words:

While the two rituals have clearly drawn on the cultural heritage of Zulu girls' individual coming-of-age ceremonies and the celebration of female fertility [. . .] they have been re-created by Isaiah Shembe as collective rites to honor the maintenance of female virginity [. . .]. The personal cost, however, of maintaining this spiritual relationship with Shembe [. . .] is measured in a currency of personal sacrifice. This is particularly true for young female follower. (196-97)

With a current membership of nearly a million, the Church of the Nazarites (ibandla lamaNazaretha) was founded in 1910 by Isaiah Shembe (d. 1935) whose authority, power, and spectacular influences seem to overshadow, at times, the position of Christ in Nazarite doctrine and practice. (Muller conducted her research during the leadership of the successor Amos Shembe, d. 1995.)

An introduction sums up the incredibly difficult terrain and the volatile sociopolitical undercurrents within which Muller conducted fieldwork, 1990-97. For example, Muller states without any pretensions that "[i]n this research project 'the field' was, therefore, both volatile and amorphous due to the nature of both the religious grouping itself and the political instability of the region" (12). There are, however, additional obstacles that intensify the meaning and qualitative impact of this statement, such as the "irreverences" (10-11) that were directed, either intentionally or unwittingly, toward the author. It is, moreover, very important to remind the reader in this portion of the review of the impressive quantity and the quality of data presented in this book, an exemplary ethnographic piece of work accomplished in the face of those field challenges. Furthermore, Muller's search for an appropriate voice led her to adopt analytical threads that are not only consistent with the pluridimensionality of the subject matter, but also illuminate the data without employing glamorous academic jargons. As Muller acknowledges her "outsider" status in the face of specific analytical ideas and field actualities, the very nature of this religious institution—ibandla lamaNazaretha (Church of the Nazarites or Followers of Shembe)—suggests she become an "outsider" in the double sense of the term. (Of course, the binary claims of "insider/outsider" are rather complementary and dialectical, and should be viewed as such, even in the case of a Zulu ethnomusicologist, especially one who does not hold member status or special church privileges.)

Drawing on rich and diversified archival and oral sources, Muller is able to construct and situate her analytical discourse in a frame that is accessible to scholars of different disciplinary concerns. The historical, social, and economic sketches that initiate the stage fort the larger task of ethnographic focusing on the female domain confirm the complexity of southern African history. The perspective of marriage as the "most important social institution in this economy" allows Muller to build and stress a case for women's role in social and economic (re)production in KwaZulu. However, the broader implications of the female domain are clarified through the processes of change, adaptation, and innovation. Not only are these processes central to the thoughts and strategies of the charismatic leader and founder Isaiah Shembe (and his successors), but they also shape the content and structure of the ritual or religious events in which the roles and statuses of girls and women are redefined and reinvented through specific symbol and expressive forms, most of which...