5 - Numbers

Summary

Otamwine amwine omu'nda. A woman's womb may be barren; not so her heart

If an earlier revival of the Legion of Mary had, in a sense, developed out of a prior symbolic connection between the old Nyabingi and the Catholic Virgin Mary, in the context of a nascent MRTC this association was strengthened still further. Specifically, by receiving her visions at Nyabugoto, by reinvoking the earlier cosmology of Nyabingi, and by reestablishing the language, and ritual practices, of the old spirit – now in the context of Marian devotion – everything about Ceredonia's story suggests that her intention was to create something akin to a full-blown revival of the old religion. Indeed, it was because of her general success in this area, I have argued, that her visions came to be regarded as particularly compelling – more so than those of other seers of the period, and even amongst some quite senior members of the local Catholic hierarchy. Thus it was that her visions, and hers alone, came to quickly dominate the Movement's own forms of ritual practice, and its mode of social organization. Moreover, and of greater significance for my argument in the present chapter, this insight is also of key significance for understanding how and why the movement grew so quickly in the years immediately following its expulsion from the Catholic Church, (and for understanding the subsequent implications of this rapid growth).