Africana Womanism and African Proverbs: Theoretical Grounding of Mothering/motherhood in Shona and Ndebele Cultural Discourse

Abstract This article sets out to validate the Africana Womanist literary theory as an intellectual paradigm grounded in knowledge and values derived from the African people's cultural experiences. It achieves this by analyzing cultural discourse from the continent, drawing particular attention to Shona and Ndebele proverbs and sayings. The Shona and Ndebele proverbs and sayings analyzed in the article candidly express perspectives on mothering/motherhood, which is one of the 18 descriptors advanced by Hudson-Weems in her explication of Africana Womanism (1993 and 2004). Against this background, the article contends that Africana Womanism is built around and informed by African survival technologies evolved over many centuries by Africanans themselves. The article's argument, then, is articulated within the confines of the realization that theories are expressions of culturally derived knowledge. Introduction Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves is not simply a scholarly work, one of those in the mainstream, but our own. It is a new trail blazed with incontrovertible revelations on the African heritage and gender question. (from Zula Sofola, Foreword to Africana Womanism) This article marshals evidence of authenticity from Shona and Ndebele people's cultural discourse in the form of proverbs and sayings in order to explain the African cultural groundings of Africana Womanism. It draws specific attention to mothering/motherhood, one of the eighteen descriptors that Hudson-Weems presents in her explication of Africana Womanism in her second book on the theory, "The Africana Womanist Theory" (1993 and 1994). The Shona and Ndebele people constitute the two largest ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, a country in Southern Africa with about 13 million people. They share almost similar cultural and historical experiences and operate within the same geographical space. Over the centuries, the Shona and the Ndebele people have developed vibrant oral traditions that embody "the[it] central ideas . about what life is all about; that is, their social philosophy, their 'world view'" (p'Bitek, 1986: 13). In these oral traditions, the role and status of mother, which "is always a structural element in any civilization--a test" (Braudel, quoted in Allen, 2008: 814), is unequivocally spelled out, making it possible for us to argue for mothering/motherhood as the sine qua non of Africana Womanism, a family-centered perspective which prioritizes the collective survival of Africanans. The article advances the contention that Hudson-Weems' Africana Womanist theory, unlike so many other theories that stand divorced from the realities of African life as it is experienced by African people, is not a product of metaphysical and abstract intellection. It is a theory grounded in the lived experiences of African people and, as Reed argues in the Preface to Africana Womanist Literary Theory, the Africana Womanist theory is "about life" (quoted in Hudson-Weems, 2004: xviii). It is "ammunition for one big battle: the battle to decide where we here in Africa are going, and what kind of society we are building. " (p'Bitek, 1986: viii). The Shona and Ndebele cultural discourse analyzed in this article celebrates mothering/motherhood as the defining centerpiece of African-centered existence. Within this paradigm, the article discusses other life-furthering values associated with mothering/motherhood. Some of these include nurturing, family-centeredness, male compatibility, wholeness, flexible role playing, adaptability and strength, all of which are outlined and explicated in the theory of Africana Womanism. The use of evidence derived from specific African cultural centers is critical in validating African theoretical assumptions. It is also an intellectually ennobling experience in that it locates the production of African theoretical ideas within the embankments of African people's agency in history. …