African Traditional Customs’ Potentialities And Dilemmas: Conflict Over Thanksgiving To Chiefs In Zimbabwean Rural Villages

Abstract

The transformation of society towards modernity and the attendant socio-economic challenges it

has imposed on African societies have compelled insensitive traditional structures of governance

to hijack traditional customs and practices to serve their ulterior motives. Thanksgiving to chiefs

(kubika chiutsi, in Shona language), is one such traditional practice that has been manipulated to

serve the self-aggrandizement of Zimbabwean traditional chiefs in rural areas under the guise of

subjects’ gratitude expression to traditional authority. We employ benevolent theory as a

theoretical lens to unravel both the potentialities and the dilemmas that surround this highly

contentious practice. While acknowledging thanksgiving to chiefs as an adhesive that tightly

bounds subordinates to established traditional authority thus fostering a cohesive society in

ancient times, we argue that in contemporary Zimbabwe, the practice unfolds as benevolent

despotism (by chiefs) unleashed on pauperised masses. Many rural people conceive thanksgiving

to chiefs as an idealized version of the “tragedy of the commons” as chiefs misconstrue them

(subjects) for tradable communally owned commodities. Drawing on our reflections of our

experiences in Zimbabwe, our argument is that the tradition of thanksgiving is riddled with

absurdities, injustices and abuses-itself a crime against humanity committed by African chiefs

veneered by relentless pursuit of tradition and custodianship. The paper thus contributes to the

African cultural practices and mainstream human rights debates in Zimbabwe predicated on the

contradictions between preservation of traditional customs and forces of change towards

modernity.