An Ethnopragmatic Analysis of Death-Prevention Names in the Karanga Society of Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

This article interrogates death-prevention names among the Karanga people in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe, from an ethnopragmatic perspective. In Karanga society, there is a strong belief that death-prevention names can counter the powers of supernatural forces that are responsible for the death of children. The use of such names is anchored in the Karanga belief that death is caused by external forces and can thus be prevented. The article argues that the bestowal of death-prevention names in the Karanga onomastic tradition is an emotional reaction to infant mortality and a device to facilitate recovery from fear, as the names are believed to prevent the death of the name-bearers. The article evinces that death triggers feelings of despair, helplessness and hopelessness driving name-givers to make entreaties to spiritual forces to spare the lives of the named children. It can also generate extreme frustration that can drive name-givers to express feelings of defiance and, in the case of death allegedly caused by witchcraft, threaten revenge through the names. The article uses data from four predominantly Karanga districts in Masvingo. The article concludes with the argument that death-prevention names are not arbitrary labels but are terse expressions of larger sociocultural meanings.

KEYWORDS:

• cultural scripts
• death-prevention names
• ethnopragmatics
• Karanga belief system
• sociocultural strategies

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zvinashe Mamvura

Zvinashe Mamvura is a senior research fellow in the African Languages Research Institute at the University of Zimbabwe. He is an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of African studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. He is also a research fellow in the department of African languages at the University of South Africa and a member of the American Name Society. He holds a PhD in onomastics from the University of South Africa. His research interests include onomastics, gender studies, post-colonial studies and African cultural studies.