Yo Mambo! Yo Mambo!

So often we as people find ourselves thinking that some things are universal.  Despite our different perspective, we can fall into this trap as well, thinking that some are true across the continent on which we live. That could be something as simple as eating from a common bowl, which is not true, to using only the right hand for greeting and giving, which does seem to be true. Recently in our travels, we discovered that the way chiefs are done in our area is not how they are done in the entirety of Africa. Thus I will try to give you a glimpse into the differences between east and west.

In the part of Africa that we recently visited, we had the great opportunity to meet a chief of a particular people, more precisely a chieftaness. I had no idea that a woman could be a chief, but this woman had served in this capacity for over forty years. While her clothes were not all that different from what the women wear in our part of the world, her headdress of feathers and scepter looked exactly like what you would imagine. While a people group could have more than one chief, this chieftaness is over 320 villages, each of which has a headman that reports to her. The people group would also have a paramount chief who is over this chieftaness and the others for this people, and it is this paramount chief who relates to the government.

In contrast, the chiefs in the West, or rather our part of the West, are structured differently. Each chief, who looks pretty much the same as all the other people in the village, will be over one village or neighborhood of a larger town such as ours. Once there are six villages each having their own chief in close proximity, the larger village is considered an arrondissement. The chief of this village is over the chiefs of the other five villages. For example, the chief of a nearby village died in December and his replacement proceeded to make a declaration that was unwise, so the chief of the arrondissement told him that the declaration was a mistake. Then the chief of the arrondissement reports to the government office in the next larger town, which for many villages around us is our town.

Praying for wisdom for each chief as he, or she, makes decisions for the benefit of the people.