The primitive world Pr Yiga helped to restore

In our pre-colonial religious systems, life was generally not perceived to be absolutely integrated with the body. The human instinct for survival is so strong that a narrative that preserves life in an immortal form is very appealing. So, at death, this thing called ‘life’ slipped out as a ghost and carried on in the spirit world.

The living had to avoid offending the departed. For ghosts remember; can be ruthlessly vengeful. A ghost whose earthly body was not properly interred could wreak havoc on an entire family.
Without a monopoly of the spirit world, ghosts interacted with mountain, river and forest spirits and higher gods in a dynamic supernatural authority that controlled earthly life.
If you wronged the spirits, your transgression had to be atoned for as the different traditions and priests prescribed.

The priests who interpreted the wishes of the spirits and reconciled people with them were both feared and revered.
Then commercial and colonial interests brought the so-called revealed religions, which attributed indigenous beliefs and practices to ignorance and wickedness. There was one God, and only His priests were truthful and deserved reverence. In Christianity, God’s Son, as human sacrifice, had atoned for our sins. Father, Son, Holy Spirit and several angels lived in Heaven. Some biblical heroes were there too. Lucifer had been ostracised.

Removing our Biblicentric blinkers, we quickly recognize that the cultural template for the tenants of Heaven and Hell is similar to the cultural templates that formed the indigenous spirits. They were all human inventions of a supernatural world about whose existence there was no credible evidence.

Jesus and others spoke of demons and curses because they did not have the knowledge in science, medicine and psychology available to twenty-first century man.
Just as Christendom denounced all indigenous priests, some philosophical movement, or a secular authority that does not fear issuing drastic rulings, could dismiss all Christian priests as frauds.

However, we could define an authentic Christian priest as a preserver of worship form, who nevertheless, recognizes the powerlessness in the spirit world and concentrates on the human agenda. He has thirst for the Divine, which cannot be quenched, and therefore, leaves him in a state of permanent humility.
In contrast, the quack Christian Priest claims to have easy access to the Divine. Humility is alien to him. Like the native priest-cum-witchdoctor of our times, he peddles the fake powers of the spirit world to manipulate and financially exploit his ignorant followers.
Pr Augustine Yiga was a wonderful example of this weird priesthood.

The laboratory scientist sometimes uses dyes to accentuate specific features of his specimen. Yiga was rather like a dyed specimen, highlighting the outlandishness his Pentecostal brothers pretended to reject.
The resurgent belief in demonic powers, witchcraft and other primitive narratives is in part directly related to the expansion of Pentecostal preaching, which endlessly validates these powers by claiming to fight them using divine power. Without them, the Ugandan Pentecostal preacher would seem redundant.

Pr Yiga was sometimes honest enough to admit that he was a conman making money.  He mocked the holier-than-him preachers who denounced him only because they were embarrassed by his excesses, challenging them to show how they were (in essence) different.

It is not accidental that Maama Fiina and the pastors are equally welcome as friends of State House. At no time since the 1960s has Christianity been dragged so far back into pagan interpretations of the human experience, or so many Ugandans relapsed into the primitive mindset.

Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.
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