Feature

by Karissa Clark

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Kwanja Celebrate
New Translation's Arrival

Two men, jujus disguised in masks, disrupt the Dec. 31, 2006, dedication service. Among the Kwanja, jujus represent the spirits of ancestors; they have magical powers, and some in the church fear them. On this day, the jujus distracted from the celebration of the New Testaments. --Karissa Clark, photo

For 24 years the Kwanja people had been waiting. Men and women crowded together with their children, struggling to get a space by the side of the road. A few men wearing traditional African dress danced in the middle, their footsteps kicking up red clay dust.

Then the crowd tensed, and quieted as they tried to hear the sound of a truck approaching. Everyone strained forward to see what was coming. Suddenly the men in the middle of the dirt road shot their guns in the air, and with a happy shout, the crowd rushed forward to greet the pickup trucks coming from the airstrip.

The license plate on the lead truck read: AD4019C, the prefix denoting the Adamawa Province of Cameroon, where Central Africa meets the West. This province has more head of cattle than people, and also has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country. This truck, though, is stacked to the top with copies of the Kwanja New Testament, "Njane Fa," literally translated: "New Gizzard."

The Kwanja people are a small group nestled into the corner between a large hot plain and a 1,500-foot mountain range. For years they avoided any main roads or Western influence. Then in 1983, a young missionary family came to them. This young man and woman, with their newborn baby boy, told the people about a God who had sacrificed his Son and who loved them. The young white people told them about a God who spoke to them, whose words were written down. But this God's words weren't written in the Kwanja language.

The trucks behind the lead were full of visitors who just arrived by a small 6-passenger Cessna plane. The passengers included the director of United Bible Society's Cameroon branch director, the journalists and the director of Wycliffe Cameroon.

The trucks proceeded at the speed of the walking crowd; they flashed emergency lights and honked horns. In the dusk, the headlights diffused a yellow glow through the dust. Drummers appeared out of nowhere; their rhythms lead the caravan.

Women waved palm fronds and danced along. First the parade walked through the market grounds. Six kilometres ahead of them was the village of Yimbere. Chiefs and dignitaries came out to acknowledge the jubilant crowd.

As they approached Yimbere, the crowd's volume grew. Another crowd came out of the center of the village, including two dancing jujus -- masked men who represented spirits. They jumped and twirled and created a space in the crowd. The braver children reached forward to touch the jujus' coverings: feathers, palm fronds, branches and burlap bags. The larger juju wore a carved mask almost three feet wide.

The dancers' presence dominated the darkness, and people followed the jujus after the convoy drove onto church property. A few people followed the lead truck with the Bibles all the way to the storage room. Men began unloading.

As they lifted each box out of the truck, women let out a loud trill, ululating their voices shrilly. Only a few feet away, the crowd around the dancing jujus had grown. In a village with no electricity, no flashlights, and no personal space bubble, the size of a crowd is difficult to gauge.

The jujus' dance was joyful and exuberant, meant to pump up the men behind the masks as well as the crowd. The drum rhythms and the jujus dance celebrated the Bibles' arrival, although their presence concerned the missionaries. In French, Andre Ngembe, a member of the translation team, said, "They are excited to have God's new covenant come to the village."

The completed New Testament arrived for the Kwanja in a slim red leather binding, with "Njane Fa" in simple gold letters. Translators at first were challenged to find a name that would communicate the content of their work. For the Kwanja people, a solemn agreement was always finalized by eating a gizzard together. The gizzard thus began to symbolize a sacred promise or a covenant between two peoples. For the Webers, the family working for Lutheran Bible Translators, this metaphor symbolized best the new covenant with God's Son.

Martin Weber, lead translator, stood in the middle of the stacked boxes. He smiled like a child on Christmas morning. That night Christmas came for the Kwanja people -- the people had God's words in their own language.

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