Ancestors, Metaphysics of Sexuality and Colonial Politics of Sexual Waithood in Africa

Arguing that colonialists disrupted African metaphysics to render them vulnerable to colonial and imperial [sexual] exploitation, this paper contends that ancestors provided metaphysical protective shields to descendants. Drawing on Shona (a people of Zimbabwe) proverb ziva kwawakabva, mudzimu weshiri uri mudendere (know your origins, the ancestral spirit of the bird is in its nest), it contends that colonialists condemned African ancestors to dissuade Africans from seeking guidance and protection from them. Instead of remembering their origins in the ancestral world, with sexual morality and normativity, Africans were taught by colonialists that their human origins were in animals from which, colonialists argued, Africans evolved. Consequently, instead of craving to [sexually] take after human ancestors, some Africans crave to [sexually] take after animals portrayed as the origins of humans. Sadly, some contemporary Eurocentric scholars writing on animism continue to deny separations between nonhumans and indigenous humans, including in matters of sexuality. This paper examines vulnerabilities suffered by Africans who got disoriented from their cultural normativity and lost ancestral metaphysical protection in the realm of sexuality.