Waaqeffannaa
ইথিওপিয়া'র বৃহত্তম ওরোমো
জাতিগোষ্ঠির
ধর্মের নাম। এটি একেশ্বরবাদী ধর্ম। এই ধর্ম মতে
সকল কিছুর সৃষ্টিকর্তা
ওয়াকা।
তিনি সকল ক্ষমতার উৎস এবং তিনিই এই বিশ্বজগৎ তৈরি করেছেন।
ওরোমো
জাতিগোষ্ঠির মতে ওয়াকা চান মানুষের ভিতরে সদা শান্তি, প্রেম, অহিংসতা, সৌহার্দ্য
বিরাজ করুক। এই
ওয়াকার প্রতি বিশ্বাস থেকে সৃষ্টি হয়েছে ওয়াকেফ্ফান্না ধর্মের।
এই ধর্মের ধর্মযাজকদের বলা হয় ওয়াকেফ্ফাত্তা
(Waaqeffataa)। এই ধর্মযাজক
একনিষ্ঠতার সাথে ওয়াকেফ্ফান্না ধর্মকে ধারণ করেন এবং ওয়াকার দেওয়া বিধি (সিরা
ওয়াকা) অনুসারে ধর্মীয় বিধান দেন। এই বিধি অনুসারে তিনি সাধারণ মানুষের নির্দেশনা
দেন, ধর্মভিত্তিক সুবিচার করেন। এরই ভিত্তিতে ওরোমাদের সমাজে প্রচলিত গাড্ডা
শাসনবিধি নিয়ন্ত্রণ। এই বিধিকে বলা হয় সিরা গাড্ডা।
তবে এই ধর্মের কোনো লিখিত গ্রন্থ নেই। এই ধর্ম কোনো ব্যক্তি বিশেষের দ্বারা
প্রতিষ্ঠিত হয়েছে এমন দাবি করা হয় না। অন্যান্য ধর্মের মতে মৃত্যর পর মানুষের
আত্মার কি গতি হয়, তা রহস্যময় এবং একমাত্র ওয়াকাই এই বিষয়টি জানেন। এই ধর্মে পাপ
পূন্যের জন্য স্বরগ্-নরকে বিষয় এই ধর্মে পাওয়া যায় না।
এই ধর্মে সকল মানুষকে সম-মর্যাদায় দেখা হয়। ভাষা, যে কোনো ধরনের সামাজিক মর্যাদা,
গাত্র বর্ণ ইত্যাদির বিচারে মানুষের ভেদাভেদকে স্বীকার করে না। এরা বিভিন্ন নতুন
শস্যকে ঘরে তোলার সময় উৎসব করে, ওয়াকার প্রতি কৃতজ্ঞতা প্রকাশ করে, কিন্তু কোনো
ধরনের আনুষ্ঠানিকতার মধ্য দিয়ে ওয়াকার পূজা করে না।
একেশ্বরবাদী ধর্ম হিসেবে ইহুদী, খ্রিষ্টান এবং ইসলাম ধর্মে শয়তানের উল্লেখ রয়েছে,
কিন্তু ধর্মে কোনো শয়তানের অস্তিত্ব নেই। এই ধর্মে ওয়াকার সব সময়ই মানুষের কল্যাণ
চান। সুতরাং কোনো শয়তানি শক্তিকে তিনি সৃষ্টি করেন নাই।
খ্রিষ্টীয় ষোড়শ শতকে যখন আবসিনিয়ায় খ্রিষ্টান ও মুসলিম শক্তির মধ্যে সংঘর্ষ শুরু
হয়, তখন তার কোনো পক্ষেই যোগদান করে নি। তবে কিছু কিছু মানুষ উভয় ধর্ম গ্রহণ করলেও
বেশিরভাগ মানুষ ওয়াকেফ্ফান্না ধর্মতেই থেকে যায়।
বিংশ শতাব্দীর শুরু দিকে আবসিনিয়ায় গোঁড়া খ্রিষ্টান ধর্মাবলম্বীরা খ্রিষ্টধর্ম
গ্রহণের জন্য ওয়াকেফ্ফান্না ধর্মাবলম্বীদের উপর ব্যাপক অত্যাচার চালিয়েছিল।
126
zekiel Gebissa
the new faith, despite the enthusiasm for the gospel in the vernacular. The
warm reaction could be to the Oromo text itself rather than the gospel
content. The next section deals with how the Oromo interpreted and
responded to the content of the message.
INTERPRETATION AND MUTUAL VALIDATION
When European Protestant missionaries arrived in the Horn of Africa
in the nineteenth century to reach the Oromo with the gospel, the Protestant
and Macca Oromo religious traditions had a surprising number of key
religious ideas that were similar. In this regard, I argue, following John
Thornton’s analysis of the encounter between Africans
and European
missionaries, that the Macca Oromo embraced Christian religious ideas and
ractices that they found compatible within the Oromo religion and
resolved through mutual validation those they found to
be different. Both
the Oromo and the European missionaries had similar cosmologies in that
oth conceived the universe as being a two-tiered continuum: “this world,”
the material world which is accessible to anyone, and the “other world,”
which is invisible and accessible only to a few gifted individuals. The
worlds are basically separate, but were intimately
interconnected. The
“other world” is primarily the abode of the
divine, but also
inhabited by
deities, spirits and souls of the dead from “this world.” It is also
superior
and controls events in “this world” (Bartels 1983: 46-47; de Salviac 2005:
155-156; Aguilar 2005: 57-60; Megerssa 2005: 76).
Even the creation myths each side believed about how the universe
came into existence were more or less the same. Bartels (1983:355) states
that for the Oromo creation begins with the element of water. According to
the Borana version of Oromo creation myth, in the beginning, there
was
water. This primeval water, called Walaabuu or
ishaan Ganamaa,was
divided into the
ishaan Gubbaa (Water of Above) and
ishaan Goodaa
(Water of Below). This was a fundamental conception of the universe
efore it was shaped into the physical space comprising the celestial and
terrestrial realms commonly known as heaven and earth, which the Oromo
refer to as qolloo
(lit. covering), and
dachii (land) respectively (Megerssa
1993). Cosmologically, the conception is replicated in the realm of
Waaqa,
known as
ayyanacha Waaqa (The Repose of God) or
ulaa Waaq (The
Dwelling of God), and the realm of humans, also known variously
as uuma
(creation), adunya
(world), and lafa
(earth). The fundamental difference
etween the two places is the absence of duality in
the realm of Waaqa,
which is also known as
ddo Dhugaa (The Place of Truth), and its
presence
in the realm of humans. The absence of duality, such as truth and falsehood
or life and death, in Waaqa’s
realm denotes wholeness or perfection, and
their presence in the realm of humans denotes
confusion, conflict, and
suffering. The realm of Waaqa
is therefore a place of delight to which the
Oromo assign only noble intellectual happiness as contrasted with
leasures (Megerssa 1993; Conversation with Gemechu Megerssa, Adama,
June 21, 2010).
The realm of Waaqa
is a destination for the dead to enjoy the company
and infinite blessings of the Creator. The Oromo describe death of a person
aspassingontoWaaqa
(Waaqati darbee),
or entering into Waaqa (Waaqati
alee), or going to the place of truth (iddo
dhugaa dhaqee) (Baxter &
Kassam 2005: 15). The Macca are generally reticent
about what part of the
human body travels to the realm of
Waaqa, deferring
to religious scholars
detailed knowledge about the afterlife (Knutssen 1967: 59-60). Yet they
assert tha
truth never dies but goes to iddo dhugaa.
According to
Gemetchu Megersa (2010), the
orana Oromo believe that truth is the
essence of Waaqa
that animates humans in life. It might well be the
indestructible part of humans that passes on to the othe
-world when they
die. Because the Oromo consider death the inevitable outcome
of the fact of
irth (namini gaafa dhalatee du
a) and an experience no one is spared (nutu
dhaqaa malee isaan hin dhufaan), they don’t
grieve excessively. Martial de
Sal
iac learned about this conception of death at the end of the nineteenth
century. He writes: “Who is dead, is dead, [the Oromo] cry out; he went
into his house; he entered in Waaqa; we will have to follow this road ….”
de Salviac found that some Oromo, presumably from
Harer, believe that,
after death, depending on the deceased’s work during his/her lifetime, the
soul will be consigned to ibidda ajabaa
(fire of punishment). But the
Oromo generally place their trust on
the goodness of Waaqa
who they
say
loves them so much he would “not sacrifice them
into the revengeful
flame” (de Salviac 2005: 157).
In both European and Oromo conceptions, communication
between
these two worlds is made possible by revelations. In Oromo religion,
individuals who had an extra sense with which to receive messages from
the “other world” report back on the existence, nature, and structure of the
“other world” (Aguilar 2005: 58-59). These individuals are known among
the Oromo as raaga
(prophet), waa argoo
(seers), or waa
dhagawoo (voice
hearers). In addition to gifted individuals, the “other world” also
communicated its message directly to the inhabitants of “this world”
y
orchestrating events, such as rain, to happen in “this world”
in a way that
everyone would understand that the message was intended to communicate
something (Bartels 1983: 64). Various other mechanisms were used as a
means of communication between “this world” and the “other world,”
including indirect revelations (augur
, divination), direct revelations
(dreams, visions and voices), and dramatic revelations (spirit mediation,
human possession). The inhabitants of “this world” made their wishes
known to the “other world” through prayers and rituals (Bartels 1983: 90;
Megerssa 2005: 76-77). According to Aguilar (2005: 58), “Oromo rituals
recreate, enact, and maintain the social order [which] symbolically
expresses the cosmological order. Prayers link the earthly part of the
cosmological order with the divine one.
In many ways, thus, the cosmology that the
Protestant missionaries
resented to the Oromo was similar to the indigenous Oromo conception of
the cosmos. The two belief systems were not so terribly different that
the
ractitioners on both sides could not comprehend
the practices of one
another. The information received through revelations was assembled into a
comprehensive description of the universe, and the instructions, rewards
and punishments received were compiled into
afuu, a code of behavior and
a religion (Megerssa 2005: 74-78). In the case of where
the cosmologies
appeared to be similar, thus, one would have to consider conversion as a
matching of the two cosmological conceptions.
The two faith traditions also had important differences. One
major
area of difference is that the Oromo religion does not construct a religious
dogma based on the revelations they had received. There were
no
established standards or canonized revelations in Oromo religion. In the
view of Oromo, revelations come to them continuously,
and updated the
elief system. In fact, they believe that
Waaqa appears to all
men on a daily
asis in nature and manifested himself in dreams, visions and augury
(Zitelman 2005: 86-87). On this point, the Oromo religious beliefs differ
from those introduced by the missionaries because the Oromo
were not
impressed by the notion of discontinuous revelation or a relationship with
the divine who had ceased to speak, thus closing the “
ook of revelation.”
A story collected by Martial de Salviac in the
late nineteenth century
illustrates the difficulty the Oromo faced in accepting the notion of
discontinuous revelation. He recorded a story narrated by an Oromo
informant: “Waaqa in the beginning had given a
book [to Oromo
forefathers]. A cow devoured it. Waaqa was irritated and did not want
to
give us another book. We have been reduced to
looking for the book where
it was lost, inside the peritoneum of the cows that we consult to know the
future” (de Salviac 2005: 158). In Oromo tradition, it is widely believed
the
ractice of looking at a cow’s stomach among the
Oromo is said to have its
origins in this folk story.
In cases of belief discordance, the Oromo and the
missionaries
resolved their difference through negotiations and validation of each
others’
revelations. The following exchange between one Catholic missionary and
the Oromo listeners exemplifies a process that may
have happened in many
Oromo areas. The missionary thought that he had
found in Oromo religion,
in John Peel’s words describing a similar situation among the Yoruba, “not
only an open and dynamic system of belief and practice [but also] currents
with which [his message] could swim and hope to turn [them] its own way”
(Peel 2000: 122). The missionary presented the Bible to his potential
converts and said
This book, which according to you, was given to your fathers
by
Waaqa and then was lost, I found it. Here it is!’ And
opening the
catechism written in their own language, he read them
the
commandments of God. Amazed at hearing
a volume read in
E
ncounter o
the Oromo Religion with Evangelical Christianity
129
their own language, and delighted with the beautiful
doctrine that
it contained, the listeners expressed
highly their astonishment. –
’But of course, they said, among themselves, he is right,
that is
well there the precepts of Waaqa taught by our
forefathers…. (de
Salviac 2005: 158).
The nature of the encounter with Protestant
missionaries was more or
less the same, as Dibaba’s story demonstrates (cf.
p. 146). Here the
illustrative aspect of the story is
not just the ingenuity of
the missionary, but
the response of the Oromo. What transpired is a
negotiated construction of
reality in which the missionary
validation of the Oromo’s belief
and the
Oromo’s acceptance of the missionar
’s version in the context of their own
religious tradition occurred.
The exchange between the missionary and the Oromo
illustrates the
two themes of this paper: first, hearing the new
message in their own
language from an Oromo evangelist caused the Oromo
to become open to
new religious ideas; and second, the Oromo
accommodated the evangelical
faith because its principles comported well
with the religious ideas of
their
ancestors. The acceptance of the book nevertheless
need not imply that the
Oromo standardized their revelation but that they
came to view evangelical
Christianit
as a new form of their old indigenous religion. This
was the
oint of departure in Oromo conversion to evangelical
Christianity where
they began creatively to formulate a
theology linking the
indigenous and
the
universal faiths, so that, to use Okorocha’s words
describing a similar
situation in Igbo conversion, “what is desired in
the old is realized in the
new, and . . . a dynamic equilibrium is maintained
within a new and unified
whole in spite of inevitable tensions” (Okorocha
1987: 31).
On their part, the missionaries decided not to
contradict the local ideas
of God. As they did
particularly among other
peoples that had a single
name for that deity and whose creative and
sustaining acts resembled the
attributes of the Christian God, they adopted the
Oromo Waaqa
as a creator
of human life and of the cosmos. This was more than
a useful translating
device. It meant that the God of the Ancestors of
the Oromo came to be
identified with God the Father of Jesus Christ.
JESUS THROUGH THE
PRISM OF OROMO
RELIGION
Thus far, I have maintained that in the process of
conversion the
Macca Oromo tended to reinterpret religious
categories of the Protestant
faith in their own cultural and religious
frameworks. This position faces an
immediate difficulty when it encounters the
widely-held belief that
the
concept of Jesus as the only “son of God is
nonexistent within indigenous
religious conceptions” (Mbiti 1972: 51).
Articulating the foreignness of
Jesus in the African experience, Enyi Ben Udoh
(1988: 92) says: “It is as
though Africans are saying: God we know; ancestors
we acknowledge; but
who are you for us, Jesus Christ?”
However, the notion that contextu
conceptions of Jesus are impossible in Africa
without distorting the
“authentic” meaning of the person of Jesus Christ,
which remained a
dominant view in African Christology, has recently
been challenged.
Several studies have shown that African Christians
perceive Jesus not only
in light of the Western missionary tradition but
also in the context of their
own cultural heritage and realities, perceiving
Jesus as life-giver (especially
healer), mediator (particularly as ancestor),
loved one
(family and
friendship), and leader (king/chief and liberator).
Matthew Schoffeleers
(1994: 80) has surveyed various conceptions of Jesus
as nganga
(medicine
man) in different parts of Africa and found that, in
some regions, Jesus is
known as
yen Zame [He who sees
God] for his capacity to
be the
intermediate between the supernatural world and
humans (Stinton 2004;
Bediako 2004; Donovan 2003; Schreiter 1991).
If Horton’s claim that people have a tendency
to comprehend new
ideas in preexisting frameworks is valid, the issue
at hand is whether there
are indeed features in Oromo religious ideas that
correspond to aspects of
Jesus. The Oromo religion
is commonly described as
fiercely monotheistic,
hence has no room for the person of Jesus. And
indeed, as de Salviac has
noted long ago, “the Oromo people do not
tolerate one [who] expresses the
slight doubt regarding the orthodoxy of their faith
in the unity of God. They
very highly protest, in such
case, that there is
and there will
always be but
only one God: Waaqa
tokotu” (de Salviac
2005: 143).
Moreover, the Oromo traditionally referred to the
creator God as
Waaqa Gurraacha,
literally Black God. In their context, when associated
with Waaqa,
blackness denotes divine mystery
or inscrutability and
hence
the origin of the universe or the state of things
before uuma
(creation) was
formed out of it.
Gurraacha also means
pure, denoting the implausibility
of
mixing Waaqa
with anything else (Megerssa
1993: 15-16). The creator,
who the Oromo believe set the primeval water of
Walaabuu, which was
already pregnant with the basic structure and
components of creation, on
the course that brought forth the totality of
creation into existence,
has no
equal (Megerssa 1993: 97-98). As Gadaa Melba has
noted, “Waaqa
stands
for a God who is the one and the same for all, the
creator of everything,
[and] the source of life” (Melbaa, 1999: 23). Even
the names used by the
Oromo to refer to the creator imply that
Waaqa
reigns supreme above
everything else. He is known by
such exalted names as
edha Bulo (the
Sovereign, accountable to no one),
Ulfin
(the Most High),
Abba Iffaa
ukkanaa (Father of
Light and Darkness),”
Abba-
hugaa (Father of Truth
and Justice), and Abba
Nagaa (Father of
Peace), and
ayissa (Healer)
(Zitelman 2005: 86; Megerssa 1993). All of these
names testify, in addition
to his power as the creator and sustainer of the
universe, Waaqa’s
sovereignty, omnipresence, omniscience, justness,
mercifulness, and
healing power (Melbaa 1999: 23; Sumner 1995:
33, 106, 313). Despite a
diversity of appellation, the Oromo Supreme Being
is, after all, Waaqa
Tokkicha (the Only
One), the source of life and creator of all things,
who
has no beginning and end (Rikitu 1998: 97)
সূত্র:
-
Oromo Indigenous
Religion:Waaqeffannaa/Volume III, Issue IV, April 2016/IJRSI
]
-
oromo indigenous religion - Addis Ababa University
Institutional paper/june2017]