Reading the book, performing the words of Izihiabelelo ZamaNazaretha

In this paper I examine izihlabelelo zamaNazaretha, the collection of liturgy, prayers, and spiritual songs composed by South African prophet-healer Isaiah Shembe and his son, Galilee, in KwaZulu Natal in the early twentieth century. The hymns exist in the community in both written and orally transmitted forms allowing for a certain tension between the two modes of transmission. I argue that this tension reflects on the nature of belief as the verbal versus written utterance: between the "Word of God" as carried by the human voice and experienced within the bounds of the body, and the objectified (lied "Word" of the scriptural economy that stressed belief divorced from the body. I write a parallel narrative to my earlier work (1999a), which stressed issues of political economy, musical performance, and ritual practice, to focus on the largely American Christian mission context in which Isaiah Shembe operated in the early twentieth century.