The Church of Women: Gendered Encounters between Maasai and Missionaries

4. The Church of Women

145 4 THE CHURCH OF WOMEN So what do these contemporary “churches of women” look like? How do these churches differ among the three communities, given their different histories and “stages” of evangelization? Who are the members of the church of women? How do they see themselves and their participation in the Catholic Church? Why have Maasai women been so eager to create a church of women, despite the resistance and reluctance of Maasai men and Spiritan missionaries? How do women, men, catechists, and missionaries participate in and understand the particular form the Catholic Church has taken among Maasai? How have the ideas and practices of both Maasai and missionaries worked together to shape the content and form of current liturgies, catechism , and practices in the Catholic Church, especially given Spiritan ideas of inculturation? This chapter compares how the contemporary “church of women” operates in three communities—Emairete, Mti Mmoja, Embopong’—with different histories of evangelization and explores how some of the Maasai women who participate in it understand the “church of women.” The following chapter probes the perspectives of Maasai men, male catechists, and Spiritan missionaries. Although they may differ in some regards from other Maasai Catholic congregations in Tanzania, a comparative study of these three congregations does suggest some common themes and patterns by providing insights into the gender, culture, and power dynamics of the churches; the idiosyncratic relationships between individual priests and church members ; the centrality of catechists to daily life in the church; and the mutual agency of all involved in influencing the content and form of the contemporary church of women. THE CHURCH OF WOMEN 146 Emairete Emairete has the longest and most intense history of interaction with the Catholic Church, in part because it is located on top of Monduli mountain , near the district headquarters of Monduli town (see map 4.1). The community lives in and around a large caldera: most homesteads are on the slopes of the caldera, circling the plains that are used for livestock grazing. Every family has at least one small farm in the valleys or on top of the ridges. Because of its rich, fertile land, it is, by Maasai standards, a densely populated community. Moreover, as more and more Arusha have moved to, married into, or been resettled in the community, it has become very ethnically mixed, with 26.7 percent (n ⫽ 132) of adult women and 13.1 percent of adult men (n ⫽ 65) identifying themselves as Arusha in 1992, from a total adult population of 291 women and 204 men (Maasai Census, 1992). A notable feature is that many of the Maasai residents belong to the Inkidong ’i clan, the clan of iloibonok (diviners and prophets). They moved to the area after they were evicted in the 1970s from their settlements on the Lashaine plains south of Monduli town to make room for a military training camp. After Father Hillman started a school for boys in Emairete in 1961, Spiritans visited the school and community regularly. Mwalimu Daniel Lolgolie , an Arusha man, was the school’s first teacher, and became and remained (until the present) the main catechist for the community. He taught religious education in the school, and continued religion classes when the school was nationalized in 1970. Father Poirier began intensive direct evangelization of adults, using the boma approach, in 1970,1 but it lasted only five years, since “in a short time we got so many people” (DL1/11). After that, “people searched us out themselves” (DL1/9). By 1975, after villagization , enough Maasai and Arusha had been baptized, and interest in the church was so strong, that the missionaries could successfully switch to the individual approach. Instruction was first held in convenient homesteads, then near a trailer that the priests set up, and, finally, in the grand church built in 1988 (see fig. 4.1) (DL1/9). More formalized lesson plans were designed and followed, with formal syllabi covering the Old and New Testaments , and memorization of certain prayers and creeds. Catechumens were baptized only after successfully completing a two-year course of instruction (DL1/10).2 Spiritan involvement in the community, however, has not been as constant or consistent as the above historical sketch suggests. Priests visited the The Church of Women 147 Nairobi Mt. Meru Forest Reserve Monduli Forest Reserve Embopong' A R U M E R U D I S T R I C T...