African Prophets

From Max Weber: essays in sociology, edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, London, 1947, p. 270.

Jules Chomé , La Passion de Simon Kimbangu , Brussels, 1959, pp. 49-51.

Efraim Andersson , Messianic Popular Movements in the Lower Congo, Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia XIV, Upsala, 1958, p. 66.

This contains the most complete and authoritative study available of Kimbangism, and the writer has drawn upon it at many points. The following more recent publications should also be consulted in addition to Chomé's: Charles-André Gilis, Kimbangu, fondateur d'Eglise, Brussels, 1960;

Paul Raymaeckers , 'L'Eglise de Jesus Christ sur terre par le prophète Simon Kimbangu' Zaire, XIII, 1959, pp. 677-756; J. Van Wing , 'Le Kibangisme vu par un témoin', Zaire, XII, p. 563-618. The last four works are summarised in Harold W. Fehderau's 'Kimbanguism: Prophetic Christianity in the Congo', Practical Anthropology , 9, 1962, pp. 157-178.

Raymaeckers, op. cit. , p. 679-87, and Gilis, op. cit., pp. 84-90.

Raymaeckers, op. cit. , p. 737-8,

cf. The Gospel according to St. John 14, vs. 12-18.

Cf. John V. Taylor and D. Lehmann , Christians of the Copperbelt , London, 1961,

and Robert Rotberg 'The Lenshina Movement of Northern Rhodesia', Rhodes Livingston Journal 29, 1961, pp. 63-78.

George Shepperson and George Price , Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Nyasaland Rising of 1915 , Edinburgh, 1959.

Many of the common features are world-wide; cf. Millennial Dreams in Action, supplement no. 2 to Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1962;

Yonina Talmon , 'Pursuit of the Millennium: the relation between Religious and Social Change', Archives Européens de Sociologie , iii, 1962, pp. 125-148;

A.J.F. Köbben , 'Prophetic Movements as an Expression of Social Protest', International Archives of Ethnography, XLIX, 1960, pp. 117-64.

F.B. Welborn , East African Rebels, London, 1961, p. 160.

Shepperson and Price , op. cit., p. 415.

Yrjö Hirn , Goda Vildar och Adla Rövare , Helsingfors, 1941. E. J. Hobsbawm refers to the parallel in his Primitive Rebels , Manchester, 1959, but does not develop it.

Cited by Georges Balandier , 'Brèves remarques sur le "Messianisme" de l'Afrique Congolaise', Archives de Sociologie des Religions , 5, 1958, p. 92.

Bishop Sundkler and, after him, F.B. Welborn , both point to the part that ideas about the land can play in these movements; cf. Welborn, op. cit., pp. 189-90.

Van Wing op. cit., p. 572. Note the striking similarity with Cargo cult beliefs.

Köbben , op. cit., p .137.

The authority for this statement is uncertain. Georges Balandier in Sociologie Actuelle de l'Afrique Noire, Paris, 1953, p. 469, states this was the practice of a Matswanist church led by Nganga E.

Andersson , op. cit. p. 61.

Ibid., pp. 235-8.

Chomé , op. cit. p. 98.

Cf. Gilis , op. cit. pp. 66-9.

Thomas Hodgkin , Nationalism in Colonial Africa , London, 1956, pp. 113-4.

Ibid., pp. 269-288;

cf. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1, pp. 267-301.

Bengt G.M. Sundkler , Bantu Prophets in South Africa, 2nd edition, London , 1962;

G. Parrinder , Religion in an African City, London, 1952;

Anonymous , 'Cherubim and Seraphim', Nigeria Magazine 53, 1057, pp. 119-34;

Michael Banton , 'An Independent African Church in Sierra Leone', The Hibbert Journal, 216, 1956, pp. 57-63;

H.W. Turner , 'The Litany of an Independent West African Church', Sierra Leone Bulletin of Religion, 1, 1959, pp. 48-55;

'The Catechism of an Independent West African Church', Ibid., 2, 1960, pp. 45-57;

and 'The Church of the Lord: the expansion of a Nigerian Independent Church in Sierra Leone and Ghana', Journal of African History , III, 1962, pp. 91-110.

Sundkler , op. cit. p. 305.

L.S.B. Leakey , Defeating Mau Mau, London 1954.

Cf. James S. Coleman , Nigeria: background to nationalism , Berkeley, 1958, pp. 302-3.