As Straight represents the Samburu ontology, their understanding is that Divinity is simultaneously One and capable of taking plural form. Nkai is both immanent and transcendent, continues to be present in the world, and appears to people in various shapes. “There is some consistency to Nkai’s intervention in human affairs, however. From a presentist Samburu perspective, Nkai continually gives birth to and nourishes the world and as such is a target of supplication and a source of joy. Nkai also, however, presents Itself/Themselves as a perfect model for moral Samburu personhood, and in this respect Nkai’s presence is double-edged. Nkai’s appearances can incarnate moral perfection to emulate, but Nkai can, as well, offer warnings and even bring harm as exemplary punishment for wrongdoing” (Straight, Miracles, 60). Sacred sites are without exception tied to natural features of the landscape that Samburu find remarkable or special, including springs, rivers, mountains, and hill caves. So Nkai is clearly immanently present; the cave into which Scudder shot was, for the Samburu, associated with continuous divine presence.
One of Straight’s main points is that the Samburu ontology does not allow for a dualism between spirit and matter, while Scudder’s does. Nkai is rain, and at the same time, Nkai is the human and animal forms which the Samburu report to encounter. On the other hand, Scudder and his European companions did propound a Platonic, dualistic ontology, separating souls from bodies and spirit from matter, maintaining that God is in heaven, not in caves. God may infuse matter with spirit and thus be continually present here and now, unlike for the Samburu, who hold that where Nkai appears “it is a case of spirit irreducible to matter.” Scudder’s God is (apparently) strongly transcendent.
In the metaphysical clash, Straight sees the missionaries as logically inconsistent – the uneven application of Cartesian logic and double standard for judging the merit of a religion/deity. Thus, with the use of medicine, “He too (Scudder) was on a mission to win souls by winning bodies or, rather, to win souls by separating them from bodies, thereby imparting a dualistic ontology by which the body could be healed by “rational” means separate from a soul that needed to be saved by faith” (846).
This quote from her book might clarify some points in her article:
“I want to suggest that two very different ontologies have been competing with one another. It is not (in any definitive way) that a masculine view of divinity has overcome a feminine (or, as I shall argue, a plural) one. Nor is it that a white Nkai is replacing a Samburu one. It is that the apparent similarities between two ontologies (Samburu and European) have obfuscated their differences, and, moreover, a Western proccupation with gender and race has occluded other, possibly more important for the Samburu, dimensions of divnity” (Straight, Miracles, 44-5).
Straight, Bilinda. Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
Discussion Questions:
1) Stright depicts Scudder's God as strongly transcendental and Samburu's Nkai as both immanent and transcendent.
Do you think her depictions are accurate? Even if she is merely describing the Christianity of Scudder, do you think she gives a substantial enough picture of Scudder to be able to make such an assertion? How would you evaluate the Igbo deities according to the transcendent/immanent dualism?
2) At witnessing/experiencing/hearing of Scudder's shooting at Naibor Keju and his subsequent death related to his gun play, what might the Samburus' shared imaginary be then? (Poetic justice from Nkai? Tragic accident?) How might this affect the metaphysical struggle? Do you see any similar case in the Achebe?
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