Research and Writing on Sukuma Culture and Oral Literature in Tanzania is Alive and Well!

 In the last year we have seen the resurgence of research and writing on Sukuma Culture and Oral Literature in Tanzania. Here are some examples:

 1. Wasukuma Hutangaza Injili (The Sukuma People Announce the Gospel). 71 stories from the Sukuma People as collected and commented on by Catechist Joseph Nkumbulwa and Father Pascal Durand M. Afr. (Mwanza, Tanzania: KTN Printing Press, 2010).

 2. Kalenda ya Kisukuma 2011. Using Sukuma proverbs.

 3. Write-up of two Sukuma Proverbs to be posted as future “African Proverbs of the Month” on our website.

 4. “Three Case Studies of African Christology among the Sukuma People in Tanzania” by Joseph Healey. This article was originally presented as a 20-minute talk at the Pan African Conference of the Association of African Theologians (AAT) at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) in Nairobi, Kenya on 9 November, 2010. A longer text will be published in the “Proceedings” of the conference in an AAT book called The Church in Africa Fifty Years after States’ Independence. The full text will be published in the 2011/1 issue of the Tangaza Journal of Theology and Mission, a journal of the School of Theology of Tangaza College in Nairobi, Kenya. Presently online on our website at: http://www.afriprov.org/index.php/bibliography/575-three-case-studies-of-african-christology-among-the-sukuma-people-in-tanzania.html

 5. Father Donald Sybertz and the Ndoleleji Research Committee in Shinyanga Diocese in Shinyanga, Tanzania continue to write a lengthy theological interpretation of the creation myth Tears of Joy: African Story about Heroes and Monsters, the Sukuma story of the young man Masala Kulangwa and the monster Shing’weng’we that is part of a long Sukuma song. Presently they are comparing the Mother of Masala Kulangwa and the Mother of Jesus Christ.

 6.The Maryknoll  Magazine, based in Maryknoll, New York, USA is completing two projects:
     
      a. A short video on Father Donald Sybertz and the Ndoleleji Research Committee called “Opening a Door on African Theology and Music” to be posted on the magazine website.

      b. An article “Don Sybertz Opens a Door to African Theology” by Sean Sprague.