TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF A YAWO MUSLIM WORLDVIEW: A STUDY OF THE AMACINGA YAWO

Abstract

Although every person and group of people in the world has a worldview, they are multifarious, as they are shaped by the different stories that people hear, and by the diverse contexts within which people live. The premise of this thesis is that an understanding of a people’s worldview can be gained through an analysis of their guiding stories, history, context and customs. This thesis therefore analyses the guiding stories of the Muslim Amacinga Yawo of Malaŵi in order to understand their worldview. It then juxtaposes this analysis with their material world, customs and rituals and examines them together under six worldview categories: self, allegiance, causality, time, space and classification. Although Islam is the structurally dominant religion, many Yawo maintain strong links with their traditional religion and in actuality practice the two in parallel. The Yawo are a largely oral society, teaching and reinforcing their beliefs and practices using oral literature, which includes myths, proverbs, proverbial tales, songs of advice, and prayers at various stages of the life cycle, particularly during initiation events. Initiation, in its various forms, is also structurally significant in the life of the Yawo and plays an essential role in establishing a person as a fully functioning member of the community.The oral literature together with their total ritual complex are central to the process of passing onto each generation Yawo history, tradition, customs and their worldview.The presentation of a Yawo worldview in this thesis informs the reader about the way the Yawo view the world. It does this by first outlining the concept of worldview and establishing a set of organizing headings under which to analyse it. Second, it details pertinent aspects of the Yawo’s material world, customs, rituals and structural religion, grounding the study in the Yawo context. Added to this is an exploration of Yawo oral literature and methods of hermeneutics. The thesis is drawn together through an analysis of their oral literature in light of their material world, customs and rituals, using the six broad worldview headings as a guide. Finally, this thesis highlights the idea that the beliefs, views, thoughts, ideas and values of the Yawo are important and promotes the notion that these should be largely understood by people who engage with the Yawo. This is because worldview understanding can help people who engage with the Yawo (outsiders and insiders) to be informed, sensitive, insightful, accurate and appropriate in the way they interact with them and therefore be more effective in communication and practice.