Among the Lembas of Zimbabwe, there are ancient rites to which historians and ethnologists attribute a Semitic origin, although there has never been a consensus on the origin or nature of these traditions. It is not excluded that external elements may have penetrated their customs to the point of giving birth over time to a form of cultural syncretism.
The Lembas believe in one G.d. They do not worship the spirits of the ancestors nor the animals nor the trees, the stones, the sun, the moon and the stars. They pray with a white cloth around the neck. They conclude their prayer ar “amen”. They do not eat pork or unclean animals or fish without fins or scales. They observe the weekly rest of the Shabbat. We recognize a number of Hebrew traditions and also African traditions that have not been practiced since they were supplanted by Christianity and Islam. The Lembas affirm their Jewish origin. Their oral tradition made them a migrant people from Judea 2,500 years ago to settle in Sénaa in the Hadramahout Valley of Yemen. Subsequently they moved from Yemen to Africa to stop in Zimbabwe before spreading to South Africa. In Zimbabwe, we find Great Zimbabwe: they are stone buildings, imposing, objects of interrogation for researchers on a missing civilization. Those who seek the gold mines of King Solomon have been there. There is often romance and exoticism in this research. On the other hand, other researchers try to assert their hypotheses with scientific theories. Genetic research has been done in the Lembas. A kinship with the Yemeni population was found, linked to the Y chromosome genetically marked by the ascendance of the Cohen, the high priests of Jerusalem. It is better not to stray in this direction and remember that Jewish identity has nothing to do with the biology and the color of the skin. Anyway, as we learn from Tudor Parfitt, who introduced us to the Lembas, the Lembas of today are already very different from the Lembas of twenty or thirty years ago. There are high school students and teachers at home. Many brought them books on Judaism. However, it seems that the affirmation of their Jewish origins is not followed by a significant community development, comparable to what is currently observed in Nigeria among the Ibos.
The Lembas
