The use of oral hymns in African traditional Religion and the Judeo-Christian

Abstract

When the Mamaala African rainmaking clan of South Africa performed rituals after which rain would fall in keeping with the research-established fact that African rainmaking rituals actually bring about rain (Makgopa 2005), they sang specific songs as part of the rituals (Rafapa 2007). This paper explores the nature and context of these poetic performances. The context will be considered from both the culture-specific and cross-cultural perspectives to, hopefully, enrich debate around the impact of globalisation on world cultures. The paper will attempt to show that rather than being mistaken for a culturally inane phenomenon, globalisation can be problematised for what it is as well as negotiated for the modification of those of its features that may lead to cultural distortion and imperialism. It will be demonstrated that oral poems that are a concomitant part of this specific segment of the African cultural complex can serve to reveal facts of culture that have significant implications for globalisation, especially in the context within which globalisation has been conceptualised by writers such as Okwori (2007).