Who We Are

The name is composed of the prefix Ra-, which is honorific and perhaps connected with the idea of 'Father'; luvhimba is the eagle, the bird that soars aloft. It symbolizes the great power which travels through the cosmos, using the heavenly phenomena as its instruments.

'Raluvhimba is connected with the beginning of the world and is supposed to live somewhere in the heavens and to be connected with all astronomical and physical phenomena. . . . A shooting star is Raluvhimba traveling; his voice is heard in the thunder; comets, lightning, meteors, earthquakes, prolonged drought, floods, pests, and epidemics- in fact, all the natural phenomena which affect the people as a whole- are revelations of the great god. In thunderstorms he appears as a great fire near the chief's kraal, whence he booms his desires to the chief in a voice of thunder; this fire always disappears before any person can reach it. At these visitations the chief enters the hut and, addressing Raluvhimba as Makhalu [Grandfather], converses with him, the voice of god replying either from the thatch of the hut or from a tree nearby; Raluvhimba then passes on in further clap of thunder. Occasionally he is angry with the chief and takes revenge on the people by sending them a drought or a flood, or possibly by opening an enormous cage in the heavens and letting loose a swarm of locusts on the land.'

Raluvhimba, it is said, was wont to manifest himself by appearing from time to time as a great flame on a platform of rock above a certain cave. With the flame there came a sound as of clanking irons on hearing which the people shouted with joy and their cries passed on throughout the country. The Chief mounted to the platform where he called upon Raluvhimba, thanked him for revealing himself and prayed on behalf of his people for rain, felicity and peace.
He is at times greeted spontaneously by the whole people in a way that is most unusual amongst the southern Bantu. The Rev. G. Westphal of the Berlin Mission relates that in 1917 a meteor burst in the middle of the day making a strange humming sound followed by a thunder-like crash. This portent was greeted by the people, not with terror but with cries of joy. Another Missionary, the Rev. McDonald, tells how after a slight tremor of the earth the was an extraordinary clamour among the people, the lululuing of women, clapping of hands and shouting 'The whole tribe was greeting Raluvhimba who was passing through the country.' People say that during an earthquake they hear a noise in the sky similar to thunder. Then they clap their hands to welcome the mysterious god and pray: 'Give us rain! Give us health.'
Dr H.A. Junod says that Raluvhimba is regarded as the maker and former of everything and as the rain-giver. If rain is scarce and starvation threatens, people complain: 'Raluvhimba wants to destroy us,' they say the same if floods spoil their fields. Prayers and sacrifices are offered in times of drought. There is some notion of Raluvhimba as Providence. He takes care no only of the tribe as a whole but of individual members. When a man has narrowly escaped drowning he will say: 'I have been save by Raluvhimba, Mudzimu.'
Raluvhimba is identified with Mwari (or Nwali) whose earthly abode (like Yahwe's on Mount Sinai) is in the Matopo Hills of Southern Rhodesia. Every year the Venda used to send a special messenger (whose office was hereditary) with a black ox and a piece of black cloth as an offering to Mwari. The black ox was set free in the forest to join the god's large herd which had accumulated there.

Edwin W. Smith, 'The Idea of God among South African Tribes' in Smith (ed.), African Ideas of God, a Symposium (2nd Ed. London, 1950) pp.124-126

Comments on the Importance of Religion by Nelson Mandela

The 81-year-old former head of the liberation struggle against apartheid said his generation was the product of religious education. "We grew up at a time when the government of this country owed its duty only to whites, a minority of less than 15 percent. It took no interest whatsoever in our education." It was religious institutions—Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish—which bought land, built and equipped schools, employed teachers and paid them.

"Without the church religious institutions, I would never have been here today," Mandela said. "But to appreciate the importance of religion, you have to have been in a South African jail under apartheid, where you could see the cruelty of human beings to others in its naked form. It was again religious institutions who gave us hope that one day we would come out of prison."

This was why he respected religious institutions and tried as much as possible to read the sacred books of the different religions, he added.

Moving on from his personal testimony to the work of the PWR, Mandela said: "We shall have to reach deep into our faith as we approach the new century. Religion will have a crucial role to play in guiding and inspiring humanity to meet the enormous challenges that we face."

In South Africa, he said, there was a pressing need for efforts in material and social development and reconstruction to be accompanied by an "RDP of the soul"—a reference to the Reconstruction and Development Program, South Africa's post-apartheid strategy for economic and social development. "That is no less true of our entire world," Mandela said.

The globalization of the world economy and the advances in communications technology had drawn nations together. Those advances might, however, have contributed to a growing confusion of values, Mandela told the gathering.

Religions, like all other aspects of human life, faced their own challenges. "We have seen how religion at times provided the basis and even legitimization to violent expressions of intolerance and hatred. Tragically, religion sometimes seems to have lost its ability to hold people to good values and inspire them."

But few other dimensions of human life reached to such a massive following as religion, in every sphere of society, where even political leaders and the economically powerful had no say.

"Hence the importance of religion to draw once more on those resources of spirituality and innate goodness. In drawing upon its spiritual and communal resources, religion can be a powerful partner in meeting the challenges of power, alienation, the abuse of women and children, the destructive disregard for our national environment and of HIV/AIDS," Nelson Mandela said.

Because the traditional religion of the African people has a strong cultural base, the various groups have different rituals, but there are certain common features.

A supreme being is generally recognised, but ancestors are of far greater importance, being the deceased elders of the group. They are regarded as part of the community, indispensable links with the spirit world and the powers that control everyday affairs. These ancestors are not gods, but because they play a key part in bringing about either good or ill fortune, maintaining good relations with them is vital and they have to be appeased regularly by a variety of ritual offerings.

While an intimate knowledge of herbs and other therapeutic techniques as well as the use of supernatural powers can be applied to the benefit of the individual and the community, some practitioners are masters of black magic, creating fear among people. As a result of close contact with Christianity, many people find themselves in a transitional phase somewhere between traditional African religion and Christianity.

Sub-Saharan Africa Hit Hardest by AIDS
Lawrence Morahan
Senior Staff Writer

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Faith-based and other organizations battling the spread of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa can't afford to squabble over differences in beliefs when it comes to preventing new infections, officials said Monday.

"We are in the same marketplace," Sophia Mukasa Monico, senior AIDS program officer of the Global Health Council, said at a Capitol Hill forum marking World Population Awareness Week….

The devastation caused by HIV/AIDS in Africa is so bad that organizations have to use every means at their disposal to stop its spread, officials said.

The "ABC of prevention" - Abstinence, Be faithful and Condom use - requires agencies to recognize that not everybody in the affected countries can be counted on to change their beliefs and halt the epidemic….

According to figures compiled by officials of the Population Resource Center (PRC) in Washington, a sponsor of the event, Sub-Saharan Africa is home to nearly 70 percent of the worldwide population of adults living with HIV/AIDS. Four of every five children living with AIDS are in Africa.

AIDS is by far the leading cause of death in Africa, claiming the lives of 2.3 million Sub-Saharan Africans in 2001, up from 2.2 million deaths in 1999, and representing 80 percent of all the AIDS-related deaths in the world, PRC figures show.

At the end of 2001, 2.4 million children were living with HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. Ninety percent of the four million children under age 15 who died of AIDS were Sub-Saharan Africans.

More than 12 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa are maternal AIDS orphans. Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria and Ethiopia each have over 1 million AIDS orphans within their borders. By 2010, 44 million children in 34 countries hardest hit will have lost one or both parents from the disease, the PRC said.

HIV/AIDS also is having a devastating economic impact on Africa, officials said.

In countries where 20 percent or more of the population is infected, gross domestic product may decline up to 2 percent a year. In South Africa, economic growth will be reduced because of AIDS, resulting in a GDP that will be 17 percent lower than it would have been without AIDS.

Kristin Hansen, a spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, said the approach of agencies fighting HIV/AIDS should be multi-tiered and tailored to specific areas.

"However, there must be a common theme: The U.S. should be aggressively promoting and funding successful programs, like those in Uganda - many of them faith-based, that teach the survival skills of abstinence until a life-long monogamous marriage," Hansen said.

World Population Awareness Week celebrates its 18th anniversary in 2002. It was developed by the Population Institute to alert the public of the consequences of rapid world population growth.

In the past 40 years, the world's population more than doubled, from 3 billion people in 1960 to 6.2 billion today. Some 77 million people, roughly the population of the Philippines or Vietnam, are added to that figure yearly, primarily in lesser-developed countries, reported Jeffrey Jordan, director of program development and operations with The Futures Group International, Inc.

Six countries - India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Indonesia - account for 50 percent of the world's population growth. By 2050, the world's population is expected to stabilize at around 9.3 billion people, Jordan said.

AIDS Is Devastating Africa, Report Says
Stephen Mbogo
Correspondent

Nairobi, Kenya (CNSNews.com) - A new report reveals the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa is worsening, and it calls on the international community to move quickly in making financial commitments to stop the looming catastrophe.

A joint report recently released by the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) said the HIV/AIDS epidemic is fueling an expanding and increasingly deadly famine in southern Africa.

More than 14 million people are now at risk of starvation in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. More famine has been reported in the Horn of Africa, central and western Africa regions.

The African famine is described as a clear example of how HIV/AIDS reaches beyond individual deaths and health care costs traditionally associated with disease. "The famine in southern Africa brings the world face-to-face with the deep and devastating impact of AIDS," said Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS.

He said the international community must act now, on a much larger scale, not only to assist those nations already hard-hit, but also to stop the explosive growth of AIDS in parts of the world where the epidemic is newly emerging.

UNAIDS estimates that AIDS has killed some seven million agricultural workers in Africa since 1985. AIDS-related deaths in a farm household cause crop output to plummet - often by up to 60 percent.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to about 70 percent of the world's AIDS infections.

"(Africa) cannot achieve the trade and investment unless you deal with AIDS," said Stephen Lewis, the United Nation's special envoy on HIV and AIDS for Africa. He spoke reporters in Johannesburg, South Africa, last week, at the start of his three-week tour of the southern Africa region.

Southern Africa is the world's hardest-hit region when it comes to AIDS, with close to 30 million people infected. It is feared that the worst years of this tragedy are yet to come.

"We are simply on the threshold," said Lewis.

Only about $2.1 billion has been pledged to a global fund set up in 2001 to spearhead the fight against AIDS, a sum that could run out by 2003 if developed nations do not step up their donations. "We could stop this pandemic in its tracks if only the world would get mobilized," Lewis said.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned last week that the number of children orphaned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa was expected to double to 25 million by the end of the decade.

During a meeting of 22 African countries in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, UNICEF said sub-Saharan Africa faced an explosion of parentless children because of the spread of the disease.

UNICEF fears the lack of parental care will lead to severe poverty among children and a wave of new HIV/AIDS infections.

"Given that the global AIDS pandemic is still in its early stages, there can be no doubt that the growing number of children orphaned by AIDS means the world will see an explosion in the number of child prostitutes, children living on the streets and child domestic workers," said Carol Bellamy, UNICEF'S executive director.

She accused the international community of a "grossly inadequate" response to the threat children in the region face.

African countries equally came under heavy criticism for not developing national strategies to provide support for orphans. Other countries have lagged behind in implementing policies to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

UNAIDS said evidence shows that effective anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns in Africa have borne positive results.

In South Africa, for instance, the number of pregnant women under age 20 who are HIV-positive fell to 15.4 percent in 2001, compared with 21 percent in 1998.

In Ethiopia, UNAIDS said the HIV rate also appears to be declining among young, inner-city women in the capital, Addis Ababa.

UNAIDS said effective prevention and care programs in low- and middle-income countries will require $10.5 billion (U.S. dollars) by 2005.

"Funding needs will then rise significantly, so that by 2007 some US$15 billion a year will be needed to successfully combat AIDS -- and that level would have to be maintained for at least a decade thereafter," the report said.

In Kenya, the United States government continues to be the main source of funding for HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns. The U.S. has disbursed $25 million for HIV/AIDS programs in Kenya during the last year.

U.S. ambassador Johnnie Carson said here last week that the $25 million has been spent on medical research, AIDS education, and prenatal care for HIV-positive mothers.

South African Government AIDS Strategy
Putting its money where its mouth is, government backed this with a massive resource allocation and increased funds to address HIV/AIDS in the country, to the tune of R1-billion in this financial year and to R1.8-billion in 2004/05.On the issues of prevention, government was hailed for the decision to roll out treatment for mothers who are pregnant and infected with HIV. For this reason, the health department is currently working on the roll out plan for the post-December period, to ensure that mothers who are pregnant and are HIV infected do receive Nevirapine to prevention HIV transmission from mother to child. Government reported, that by the end of June 2002, over 101 202 women had visited facilities attached to the 18 research sites, with 63 217 accepting voluntary counselling and testing, 17 274 of whom tested HIV positive. Nevirapine was dispensed to over 10 000 women who accepted it and over 6 000 babies who have been born to women recruited in the programme.

Altogether 150 doctors have gone AWOL in Limpopo, breaching contracts with the provincial health department to work in understaffed rural hospitals and clinics.

Senior general manager in the department, Dr Morwanephaga Nkadimeng, said the government had paid for the doctors' training on condition they worked in the province or paid back their subsidies with interest.

He said some of the doctors had signed contracts with the former homeland governments of Lebowa, Venda and Gazankulu.

He was unable to say when the doctors graduated nor when they started reneging on their contracts.

"This is a result of laxity in our management," he explained. "All these doctors have disappeared and no one bothered to ensure that they complied with the contracts."

Nkadimeng said Limpopo had only 416 doctors at 43 hospitals and about 400 clinics responsible for a population of 4,9 million people. He stressed that the majority of Limpopo residents relied on public health facilities because only eight per cent could afford private medical treatment.

"These doctors had an option to work in the province or pay back the money with interest after finishing their studies. We'd have preferred if they stayed," Nkadimeng said.

He added that the department would publish adverts calling the doctors to return to the province. The South African Council of Churches (SACC) in Limpopo has also urged the AWOL doctors to honour their obligations.

"[The doctors] should respond to their conscience and make swift arrangements with the department," said SACC spokesman Reverend Lekubela Moobi. "The department should also trace them and order them to complete their public service." He accused the department of being irresponsible and the doctors of "grave immorality."

In the latter part of the 1950's, there were about 275,000 Venda in the Republic of South Africa, and most of them lived in the Reserves or on European-owned farms in and around the Zoutpansberg Mountains of the Northern Transvaal, in the districts of Louis Trichardt and Sibasa. Accurate figures were not available, but probably less than ten per cent had made permanent homes in the towns, though there were of course many who left Vendaland for several months every year, to work in the cities and towns of the Transvaal.

The culture of the Venda distinguished them clearly from other Bantu-speaking people in the Republic, and their language is classed on its own, though it has some affinities with Sotho and Karanga. They were originally shifting cultivators and hunters, but later adopted a more settled economy; they also took to keeping cattle as well as goats. They used to live in large villages, which were often sited on mountain slopes and difficult to reach, and every village was ruled by a chief or headman and his council. In the first part of the 20th century, the Venda began to move away from the villages of their rulers, taking up homesteads scattered all over the hills and mountains. With the expansion of development schemes in the country, they began to re-group in villages.

The Venda were a patrilineal, virilocal people, many of whom still practised polygyny and worshiped their families' ancestors. Members of the different patriclans could, and did, live in any of the tribal territories, because the tribe was purely a political and territorial unit, consisting of people who chose to owe allegiance to a particular dynasty. It was quite common to find a ruler attracting round him members of his own patriclan after his accession. There was no paramount chief: each tribe was ruled by an independent chief, who had under him headmen and petty headmen, responsible for the government of districts within the tribal territory. Most of the chiefs belonged to lineages of the same clan, which crossed the Limpopo River and subdued those whom they found living in the Zoutpansberg in the latter half of the 18th century. Thus there was an important social division in Venda society between commoners (vhasiwana) and the children of chiefs and their descendants (vhakololo). In the Sibasa district there were twelve Venda chiefs: some were the descendants of brothers, who were the sons of a ruling chief but broke away and established independent chiefdoms elsewhere; and others had been appointed recently by the government. There were a number of differences in the customs of the various patriclans, especially in religious ritual, but there were no distinct differences between the tribes.

Although the Venda allowed the first Berlin Lutheran missionary to settle amongst them in 1872, it was not until 1899 that they finally submitted to the authority of the Transvaal Republic. They were thus the last of the Bantu-speaking peoples of South Africa to be seriously affected by contact with Europeans. Owing to the enterprise of the missions, churches, schools, and hospitals had been founded in the Sibasa district, and the government had begun to subsidize other services, such as a wholesale association for Venda shopkeepers, and had launched forestry and agricultural schemes. In spite of these developments, European influence remained relatively superficial. There are at least three main reasons for this. In the first place, the mountainous environment, which in the past had helped the Venda to avoid conquest by Pedi and Zulu aggressors, made much of their country remote and inaccessible. Secondly, the Sibasa district was not as yet a seriously depressed area, so that there was no urgent need for men to work away from home, as there was in other Reserves: the country was still fertile and well-watered, though the cutting of too many trees and some ruthless soil cultivation had made it less naturally productive than it seems to have been at the turn of the century. Thirdly, the Venda had been somewhat preoccupied in settling political controversies, in which the presence of Europeans had been a factor since Louis Trichardt was induced in 1836 to interfere in a dispute between two factions led by the sons of a deceased chief (Van Warmelo 1932:19-20). As a result, they tended to participate in and assimilate European cultures less than the Shangana Tsonga, who came to live both to the south of them and amongst them in small numbers in the mid 19th century. The Shangana Tsonga were immigrants and refugees without a political organization involving headmen and chiefs, so that it was easier for them to accept European influence and take an active part in novel institutions such as the police force and government service. Most of the political feuds of the Venda took place between rival ruling families and clans, and the majority of commoners had to be content to look on, while they waited to see which side to back. Music played an important part in the political process, because much of it was sponsored by rulers, but performed by commoners (Blacking 1962).

The arms of Venda, taken into use upon Venda’s “independence” on 13 September 1979, may be blazoned:

Arms: Vert, an elephant's head caboshed or, tusked Argent, the whole within a bordure or.

Original arms registered:
The arms above replaced an earlier registration in the name of the Venda Legislative Assembly, published in the South African Government Gazette on 8 September 1972. The blazon reads:

About the arms:
The “independence” arms have supporters added, and replace the standing elephant with an elephant’s head. The term caboshed means that the head faces the viewer and there is no sign of a severed neck.

An official explanation states: “The head of the elephant who presses forward is a symbol of the will and determination of the people who will not be stopped in their attempt to venture into the future in the pursuit of their set ideals.

Of the crest it states: “The drum, known as a ngoma, symbolises the unity of the people; it is used by the chief when summoning the people of his tribe when an important message has to be conveyed.

And the supporters: “The two elephants . . . are a symbol of the power and stability exercised by the ruling authority.

The motto, Shumela Venda, translates as: “Always aspire for Venda.” (In the word Venda, the letter D has a circumflex accent added below the letter to indicate a sound like the TH in the.)

About the state:
The Venda people, or VaVenda, are quite distinct from any other in South Africa. They are Bantu-speakers, but they come from further north than any other South African group. This is revealed in the name of their language, TshiVenda.

The prefix used by both the Nguni and Sotho peoples contains the letter S – se- in Sotho (Sesotho, Setswana), and isi- in Nguni (isiZulu, isiXhosa, isiNdebele). Bantu-speaking groups from further north use either the tshi- (or chi-) prefix or ki-, as in tshiKongo, kiSwahili, kiGanda, kinyaRwanda or kiRundi. Only one other Bantu language spoken in South Africa also uses the tshi- prefix: xiTsonga.

The Venda tribal trust lands all fell into the Transvaal Province, and the northernmost of them abut the Limpopo River on the Zimbabwean border, close to Mozambique. Ironically, South Africa retained a narrow strip along the border between Venda and the Limpopo River, otherwise the state would have bordered on Zimbabwe.

The districts of Venda (starting roughly at the north-eastern point, adjoining the Kruger National Park) are: Mutele, Makuyua, Tshikundamalema, Manenzhe, Mphaphuli, Tshikonelo, Thengwe, Rambuda, Khakhu, Tshivase, Mphephu, Mulenzhe, Lwamondo, Gwamasenga, Tshakhuma, Shimbupfe, Nesengani, Davhana, Sinthumule, Masia, Mashau, Masakona, Mashamba and Mulima.

The Venda Legislative Assembly chose in 1979 to accept South Africa’s offer of “independence”. This independent status was, however, not recognised by any country outside South Africa, and the best international recogition Venda or any of the other three “independent” states received was the listing of their postage stamps in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue.

Throughout its existence Venda relied heavily on subsidies from South Africa, and the four “independent” states exploited the South African Government’s anxiety by inflating their budgets with salaries for excess staff and exorbitant expenditure on the leadership and their projects.

Like the other three “independent” homeland states, Venda ceased to exist on 27 April 1994. It now became part of Limpopo Province.

Religion Articles

RALUVHIMBA, THE HIGH GOD OF THE VENDA

Comments on the Importance of Religion by Nelson Mandela