“Gays are worse than pigs and dogs,” Zimbabwe’s Robert
Mugabe is on record to have said. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, who has described
gays as “disgusting” people; and Yahyah Jammeh of The Gambia, who says gays are
“mosquitoes” and “vermin”. They are homophobes.
Most African countries have a strong anti-gay cultural
environment reinforced by stern anti-gay laws. Uganda and Nigeria passed
separate anti-gay laws about a year ago, which prescribe harsh custodial
sentences for gays. Homosexuals in Africa are targets of instant injustice. They
are, either stoned to death, or burnt alive by marauding crowds with beastly
abandon. Anything “un-African” must be intolerable to Africans, and must be
purged by ‘any means necessary’ – even lynching.
Africa’s sexual minorities are fighting back. “Who defines
what is un-African?” They are falling on ancient traditional practices
documented by anthropologists, to counter what in their view, is a misinformed
perception about homosexuality being alien to Africa.
A report titled: Expanded Criminalisation of Homosexuality
in Uganda: A Flawed Narrative / Empirical Evidence and Strategic Alternatives
From an African Perspective, prepared by Uganda’s sexual minorities, says
anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe, have clearly shown that
homosexuality has been a “consistent and logical feature of African societies
and belief systems,” throughout the Continent’s history. Other anthropologists
like Thabo Msibi of the University of Kwazulu‐Natal, Marc Epprecht, E.
Evans-Pritchard and Deborah P. Amory have reached similar conclusions.
The first documented case of homosexuality has been traced
to Egypt (Africa) in 2400 BCE. Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, two male “overseers
and manicurists of the Palace of the King” were depicted in a nose-kissing
position in Egyptian art. In a 2000-year-old “explicit” San Bushman painting,
which depicts men having anal sex with each other. Also, the Nzinga – a warrior
woman in the Ndongo Kingdom of the Mbundu – who ruled as ‘‘King” rather than
“Queen”, was documented by a Dutch military attaché, in the late 1640s, dressed
as a man surrounded in her harem, by young men dressed as women she called
“wives”. A clear manifestation of early transgenderism and transvestitism in
Africa.
E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that the Azande, or Zande
of Northern Congo, practised an institutionalised traditional custom, which
allowed older warriors to marry younger men, who were between 12 and 20 years
old. They served them as “wives”. The warriors, according to anthropologists,
paid a “brideprice” to the family of the young men they married, just as
happens in heterosexual marriage contracts within the same traditional setting.
The “boy-wives” served their “warrior-husbands” sexually, and domestically.
Once married, the warrior-husband referred to his boy-wife’s parents as
“gbiore” (father-in-law) and “negbiore” (mother-in-law). A precursor of gay
marriage in Africa.
Eighteenth century anthropologist, Father J-B. Labat, is
thought to have documented the Ganga-Ya-Chibanda, the presiding priest of the
Giagues – a group within the Congo Kingdom, as routinely cross-dressing and
being referred to as “grandmother”: another anthropological evidence of
primordial transvestitism in Africa, it seems. And there’s a plethora of them.
The “Chibadi”, found in Southern Africa, were thought to
have practised transvestitism. They were documented by a Jesuit in 1606, to
have expressed aversion to, and embarrassment at, being called men.
Also, effeminate transvestites in 17th century Angola, were
documented by Portuguese priests Gaspar Azevereduc, and Antonius Sequerius, to
have been married by men. Such marriages were purportedly “honoured and even
prized”.
Similarly, men who dressed and behaved as women in northwest
Kenya and Uganda’s Iteso society had sexual relations with other men. Same-sex
practices were also recorded among the Banyoro and the Langi, while in
pre-colonial Benin, homosexuality was apparently seen as a natural phase for
growing boys.
The Nandi and Kisii of Kenya, and parts of Eastern Africa,
are also recorded to have practised female-to-female marriages, while, among
the Cape Bantus, lesbianism was ascribed to women, who were in the process of
becoming chief diviners, known as ‘isanuses’. Generally, in Southern Africa, many
female diviners were thought to have been either homosexual, or asexual,
because the divine healer is thought to be closer to women, and by extension,
had spiritual proximity to nature’s fundamental source of sustenance.
Also, the rain queen of the Lobedu Kingdom in South Africa,
Modjadji, is said to have taken up to 15 young wives as she saw fit. Anthropologists
also claim gay sex amongst Bantu-speaking Pouhain farmers (Bene, Bulu, Fang,
Jaunde, Mokuk, Mwele, Ntum and Pangwe), in present-day Gabon and Cameroon, was
seen as mystical medicine for transmitting wealth. It was known as “bian
nkû”ma”. Similarly, among the Nilotico Lango of Uganda, men who assumed
“alternative gender status”, known traditionally as “mukodo”, could marry other
men and be treated as women. Other Ugandan tribes such as the Bahima, Banyoro,
and Buganda, have also been documented to practise same-sex relationship.
Buganda Monarch, King Mwanga II, who was known as the Kabaka, is documented by
anthropologists, to have had sex with his male subjects. Mwanga, apparently
fought Christian missionaries, who attempted getting him to stop sodomising his
male subjects. The Igbo of Nigeria; Nuer of Sudan; and the Kuria of Tanzania;
also had homosexual practices in their cultures. Murray and Roscoe documented
in their book, Boy-Wives and Female-Husbands that the Bafia people in Cameroon,
saw homosexuality among young men as a normal resort to avoiding impregnating
young girls during puberty. They found that boys had sex with boys as a
precautionary measure for fear of impregnating girls before full maturity. Sexual
affection between girls were also common in Lesotho.
Homosexuality is intricately interwoven into many African
traditions, and, therefore, cannot be labeled as un-African. It predates colonialism.
So, logically, the West can’t be deemed to have influenced a culture that
pervaded before its forays into Africa. And besides, the West didn’t choose
Africa’s tradition for the Continent. Africa is simply running away from its
homosexual past.
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