Special Forum • Visiting Scholar 21

dance, Africans passed knowledge about different aspects of their society. The songs aided in learning and entertainment. Through song and dance, community values and ethics were taught and reinforced. There were different types of songs, including praise, scorn, grazing, praying for rain, praying for floods to end, drinking songs, etc. Songs were also composed for practical purposes such as lodging a complaint.

In general, missionaries tended to look down upon African music and instruments in the earlier days of their establishment. In the mission-founded churches, the songs that were sung were those that were translated from English hymnals.11 Alongside the translated hymns, the instrument to accompany singing was primarily the piano. This was not the case with the African Instituted Churches, who formulated their own music and adapted the African instruments to use in their churches. 12 This was the result of the translation of the Bible and the realization that there are many great hymns in the Bible, particularly in the Psalms. Likewise, there are different instruments used to sing praises to the Almighty God. African Instituted Churches indigenized music in view of relating well to the African worldview. In praising God the African way, African Instituted Churches used instruments such as drums that had a lot of symbolism in the community. The beats of the drum would tell what the context is or what information is being passed around. In church music, the drum became an instrument of expressing praise and adoration to God.

The exhibition did a nice job of showing the diverse ways that music has been used in African Christianity, reflecting different cultural and theological viewpoints.

WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP: FROM MAMA MWILU KIAWANGA NZITANI MARIE TO THE CIRCLE OF CONCERNED WOMEN THEOLOGIANS

Another important theme that runs throughout the exhibition is African women. Statistics show that the church in Africa is composed of and is sustained by women and their unceasing devotion. Although men dominate the paid and officially recognized leadership positions in African churches, it is women who support the churches in most places. Their work in the churches, although indispensable, remains unpaid and often unacknowledged. In some churches where women’s work is acknowledged, the financial component of the recognition still goes to the official male leaders. Even though women make up the majority of membership in these churches, they continue to be subjected to a subordinate role, and their presence in the churches and their needs are yet to be fully recognized.

This neglect is now beginning to be addressed in most fields of writing, but particularly among those who are writing the stories of mission. Take, for instance, Dana Lee Robert’s book American Women in Missions and the edited volume Women and Missions Past and Present, works that present perspectives on missions from all over the world, including one essay actually written from Kenya.13 There are other texts that are slowly bringing to light women’s contributions to the church in Africa. However, most of the information about women remains in archives, a fact that highlights the significance of this exhibition. This exhibition brings to the fore women in their various roles as wives, mothers, leaders, partners, and founders of the Church. Notable among these in the exhibition are Mama Mwilu Kiawanga Nzitani Marie, the wife of Simon Kimbangu, and Susan Thompson, the wife of Samuel Ajayi Crowther. While there is not as much information about these women as there is about their husbands, their being named in the exhibition gives them voice and acknowledges the role they

11 For example, see the Nyimbo Standard used in the Anglican Church of Kenya, first published in 1897. The hymns are translated from English to Kiswahili, and they come from English hymnals, including Golden Bells and Hymns of Faith collections.

12 See Ane Marie Bak Rasmussen, Modern African Spirituality: The Independent Holy Spirit Churches in East Africa, 1902-1976 (London: British Academic Press, 1996).

13 Dana Lee Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (Macon, GA: Mercer Uni-versity Press, 1997); Shirley Ardener, Fiona Bowie, and Deborah Kirkwood, eds., Women and Missions: Past and Pres-ent: Anthropological and Historical Perceptions (Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Women) (Herndon, VA: Berg, 1994).