Shame

Shame in African religion refers to an awareness of the violation of a taboo that can cause harm to one's community if it is not dealt with through propitiation or sacrifice. The person who is responsible for the violation of the taboo is associated with disgrace and collective condemnation because he or she has placed the entire community at risk of retribution by the ancestors.

Throughout Africa, one finds the idea of a communal sense of responsibility; that is, people live with a degree of respect for others in the society. Therefore, dishonoring the ancestors by violating a taboo, breaking a rule, committing incest, cursing an elder, or attempting to harm the community produces shame.

Shame must not be considered the same as guilt in the Western conception. Actually, in the West, it is common to hear that there is no difference between guilt and shame, but this is to misunderstand the nature of shame. In Africa, because of [Page 611]the collective sense of responsibility, the familial ties, and the intertwining/interconnectedness of the community's life, shame carries with it the idea that someone has broken or violated the collective social values that have come down from many generations. Guilt is much more an individual and personal feeling, whereas shame is a much more collective feeling. There is no concept of guilt in traditional African religion. However, the idea of shame carries with it the intense pressure on a person to do right as a way to protect the society.

Shame causes the person to feel responsibility rather than regret, and therefore he or she must do everything humanly possible to change the reality. Shame in Africa involves public humiliation if the act that created the violation was offensive to the public in a major way. All are endangered and in peril if the person is not discovered and made to admit the violation; therefore it behooves the community to determine who is the cause of the violation; Once this is determined, in most African societies, the religious leaders seek to control the damage to the community by identifying the culprit and making sacrifices to appease the violated ancestors.

In some instances, the person who is responsible for the shame may be banished from society so as to get rid of the offending character. However, the idea of shame as a part of socialization means that it is a mainstay of stability in African communities that depend on the traditional values handed down by ancestors. Those who have violated the taboos of the society may feel worthless and outside of redemption and therefore may have to be banned from the community for life.

When a society employs shame to regulate the social and ethical activities of people, it usually relies more on the shared opinions and judgments of the people. Certainly any form of relational control in a communally articulated society, as most traditional African societies are, is important in the social structure. Shame is therefore a major force in the stability of the traditional African society.

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