For
many africans, homosexuality is an imported modern phenomenon of society from
western civilisation. According to them, Europeans introduced this form of
sexuality in Africa during colonization. With the modernity and the development
of the media, some Africans easily agree with same sex relationship. No one
wants to recognize that the intimate relations between two men or two women
could exist in the past in our traditional societies.
But,
Stephen O Murray and Will Roscoe recognizes in their book Servant boy-wives and females husbands (studies of African
homosexuality)[1] that
homosexuality existed in another form in the African traditional societies.
However, they declare that the obvious absence of a real existence of this form
of sexuality such as known today can conclude that it was introduced into the
continent by the colonists. But, more recently, searchers discovered several
cultural varieties of same sex relationships in Africa.
1.
One notably ‘‘explicit” Bushmen painting, which
depicts African men engaging in same-sex sexual activity.
2.
In the late 1640s, a Dutch military attaché documented
Nzinga, a warrior woman in the Ndongo kingdom of the Mbundu, who ruled as
‘‘king” rather than ‘‘queen”, dressed as a man and surrounded herself with a
harem of young men who dressed as women and who were her ‘‘wives”.
3.
Eighteenth century anthropologist, Father J-B. Labat,
documented the Ganga-Ya-Chibanda, presiding priest of the Giagues, a group
within the Congo kingdom, who routinely cross-dressed and was referred to as
‘‘grandmother”.
4.
In traditional, monarchical Zande culture,
anthropological records described homosexuality as ‘‘indigenous”. The Azande of
the Northern Congo ‘‘routinely married” younger men who functioned as temporary
wives – a practise that was institutionalised to such an extent that warriors
would pay ‘‘brideprice” to the young man”s parents.
5.
Amongst Bantu-speaking Pouhain farmers (Bene, Bulu,
Fang, Jaunde, Mokuk, Mwele, Ntum and Pangwe) in present-day Gabon and Cameroon,
homosexual intercourse
was known as bian nkû”ma– a medicine for wealth which was transmitted through
sexual activity between men.
6.
Similarly in Uganda, amongst the Nilotico Lango, men
who assumed ‘‘alternative gender status” were known as mukodo dako. They were
treated as women and were permitted to marry other men.
7.
In the former Kingdom of Dahomey, women could be
soldiers (above) and older women would sometimes marry younger women, according
to anthropologist Melville Herkovits.
8. Same-sex relationships were reported amongst other groups in Uganda, including the Bahima and the Banyoro
9. King Mwanga II, the Baganda monarch, was
widely reported to have engaged in sexual relations with his male subjects.
10. A Jesuit working in Southern Africa in 1606 described
finding ‘‘Chibadi, which are Men attired like Women, and behave themselves
womanly, ashamed to be called men”.
11.
In the early 17th century in present-day Angola,
Portuguese priests Gaspar Azevereduc and Antonius Sequerius encountered men who
spoke, sat and dressed like women, and who entered into marriage with men. Such
marriages were ‘‘honored and even prized”.
12. In the Iteso communities, based in northwest Kenya and
Uganda, same-sex relations existed amongst men who behaved as and were socially
accepted as women.
13. Same-sex practises were also recorded among the Banyoro
and the Langi.
14. In pre-colonial Benin, homosexuality was seen as a
phase that boys passed through and grew out of.
15. There were practises of female-female marriages
amongst the Nandi, the Kisii of Kenya, as well as the Igbo of Nigeria, the Nuer
of Sudan and the Kuria of Tanzania.
16.
Among Cape Bantu, lesbianism was ascribed to women who
were in the process of becoming chief diviners, known as isanuses.
Today in Africa,
homosexuality means two things: black magic and western culture. In DRC, for
example, when you currently ask a person about same sex relationships, she
without any doubt answers you that people who like this form of sexuality want
to copy the white culture. If you question another person, she will say to you
that a homosexual is an occultist. There is, therefore, a total confusion in
comprehension more especially as approximately 50% of the population are
illiterate and a good portion of the people known as educated are not interested
in the reading of books or documents to understand what homosexuality is.
The other element which creates confusion is
the religion. Since more than one decade, most African countries are invaded by
evangelical churches. The proliferation of those churches contributed largely
to spread homophobia around the black continent. Pastors of those ministries
describe homosexuals as immoral persons and do not hesitate to link them to
Satanists. Now, populist politicians are claiming that
homosexuality is not african. They are improving homophobia among people just
for wining popularity. Some of them launch anti gay bills for criminalising
same sex relationships. In countries like Nigeria and Uganda, anti gay bills
were voted and homosexuals are living in fear. In August 1st 2014, anti-gay law were invalidated by ugandan court.
JW
[1] Published by Palgrave Mc
Millan
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