African Traditional Religion
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African traditional religion, sometimes referred to African indigenous religion, is an umbrella phrase encompassing a wide, though remarkably related, variety of traditional beliefs and practices shared by most pagan African societies. Many of these beliefs and practices are technically known as animism. Although African traditionalists almost always acknowledge the existence of a high God who created the universe, they perceive this God as distant. In real practice, African traditional religion is not unlike traditional religions in most cultures (e.g., Indian, Greek, or Roman): God is worshipped through consultation or communion with lesser deities and ancestral spirits. The deities and spirits are honoured through libation, sacrifice (of animals, vegetables, or precious metals) and, in some cases, trokosi. The will of God is sought by the believer also through consultation of oracular deities, or divination.
There is awareness of the cyclical nature of reality. This includes those alive as standing between the ancestors and the unborn. It embraces such natural phenomena as ebb and tide, waxing and waning moon, rain and drought and the rhythmic pattern of agriculture. African traditional religion is not static, not even within its consciousness of natural rhythms. It incorporates the ever changing actual experience, as, for example, Sango, god of Lightning assuming responsibility for modern electrical processes.
In the proceeding article, some general themes common to many African religions will be discussed, although it must be remembered that African religions are by no means homogeneous, which isn't surprising, considering humans, as a species of African origin, probably had religion in Africa longer than in elsewhere.
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[edit] Deities
Many indigenous African societies worship one God (Chukwu, Nyame, Olodumare, etc.) by paying obeissance to the God through lesser deities (Ogoun, Agwu, Esu, Ifa, Mbari, Da, etc.). Some societies also deify entites like the earth, the sun, the sea, lightening, or Nature. Each deity has its own priest or priestess.
[edit] Duality of Self and Gods
Most indigenous African religions have dualistic conceptions of the person. In Igbo language a person is said to be composed of body and soul. In Yoruba language, however, there seem to be tripartite conceptions: in addition to body and soul, there is said to exist "spirit" or ori, an independent entity that mediates or otherwise interacts between the body and the soul.
Some religious systems have a specific devil-like figure (for example, Ekwensu) who is believed to be the opposite of God.
[edit] Virtue and Vice
Virtue in African traditional religion is often connected with the communal aspect of life. Such includes such social ways as respect for parents and elders, appropriately bringing up the young, providing hospitality, being honest and trustworthy, as well as courageous.
In some ATRs, morality is associated with obedience or disobedience to God in the way a person or a community lives. For the Kikuyu, according to Mbiti, God, acting through the lesser deities, is believed to speak to and be capable to guide the virtuous person as one's "conscience." But so could the Devil and the messengers. In indigenous African religions, such as the Azande religion, a person is said to have good or bad conscience depending on whether one does the bidding of the God or the Devil.
[edit] Religious offices
African traditional religion does not have a named and known founder, nor a sacred scripture. It is very ancient and oral.
[edit] Priest
In some societies, these are intermediaries between individuals or whole communities and specific deities. Variously called Dibia, Babalawo, etc., the priest is usually presider at the altar of a particular deity.
[edit] Healer
Practice of medicine is an important part of indigenous religion. Priests are reputed to have professional knowledge of illness (pathology), surgery, and pharmacology (roots, barks, leaves and herbs). Some of them are also reputed to diagnose and treat mental and psychological problems.
[edit] Rainmaker
They are believed to be capable of bringing about or stopping rain, by manipulating the environment meteorologically (e.g., by burning particular kinds of woods or otherwise attempting to influence movement of clouds).
[edit] Holy places and Headquarters of Religious Activities
While there are human made places (altars, shrines, temples, tombs), very often sacred space is located in nature (trees, groves, rocks, hills, mountains, caves, etc.).
These are some of the important centers of religious life: Nri-Igbo, Ile-Ife, Oyo, Dahomey, Benin, Uida, Nsukka, Akan, Kanem-Bornu, Mali, and Igbo-Ukwu.
[edit] Cult and Rituals
Rituals often occur according to the life cycle of the year. There are herding and hunting rituals as well as those marking the rhythm of agriculture and of human life. There are craft rituals, such as in smithing. There are rituals on building new homes, on the assumption of leadership, etc.
[edit] Individuality
Each deity has a its own rituals, including choice objects of sacrifice; preference for male or female priest-officer; time of day, week, month, or year to make required sacrifice; or specific costumes for priest and supplicant on ritual occasions.
[edit] Patronage
Some deities are perpetual patrons of specific trades and guilds. For example, in Haitian Vodun, Ogoun, the deity of metal, is patron of all professions that use metals as primary material of craft.
[edit] Libation
The living honour ancestors by pouring a libation (paying homage) by giving them first "taste" of drink before the living consume it.
[edit] Magic, witchcraft, and sorcery
These are important, different but related, parts of beliefs about interactions between the natural and the supernatural, seen and unseen, worlds. Magicians, witches, and sorcerers are said to have the skills to bring about or manipulate the relations between the two worlds. Abuse of this ability is widely condemned.
[edit] Secret societies
They are important part of indigenous religion. Among traditional secret societies are hunting societies whose members are taught not only the physical methods, but also respect for the spiritual aspect of the hunt and use of honourable magical means to obtain important co-operation from the animal hunted.
Members are supposed to have been initiated into, and thus have access to, occultic powers hidden to non-members. Well known secret societies are Egbo, Nsibidi, Mau Mau, etc.
[edit] Possession
Some spirits and deities are believed to "mount" some of their priests during special rituals. The possessed goes into a trance-like state, sometimes accompanied by speaking in "tongues" (i.e., uttering messages from the spirit that need to be interpreted to the audience). Possession is usually induced by drumming and dancing.
[edit] Mythology
Many indigenous religions have elaborate stories that explain how the world was created, how culture and civilization came about, or what happens when a person dies. Other mythologies are meant to explain or enforce social conventions on issues relating to age, gender, class, or religious rituals. Myths are popular methods of education: they communicate religious knowledge and morality while amusing or frightening those who hear or read them.
(Information presented here was gleaned from World Eras Encyclopaedia, Volume 10, edited by Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure (New York: Thomson-Gale, 2003), in particular: E.C. Eze "Religion and Philosophy," pp. 275-314.)
[edit] Further Reading
- Mbiti, John [1969] (1990). African Religions and Philosophy. African Writers Series, Heinemann. ISBN 0-435-89591-5.
- Wade Abimbola, ed. and trans. Ifa Divination Poerty (New York: NOK, 1977).
- Ulli Beier, ed. The Origins of Life and Death: African Creation Myths (London: Heinemann, 1966).
- Herbert Cole, Mbari: Art and Life among the Owerri Igbo (Bloomington: Indiana University press, 1982).
- J. B. Danquah, The Akan Doctrine of God: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethics and Religion, second edition (London: Cass, 1968).
- Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dietterlen, Le Mythe Cosmogonique (Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie, 1965).
- Rems Nna Umeasigbu, The Way we Lived: Ibo Customs and Stories (London: Heinemann, 1969).
- Sandra Barnes, Africa's Ogun: Old World and New (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).
- Segun Gbadagesin, "African Philosophy: Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Conteporary African Realities (New York: Peter Lang, 1999).
- Judith Gleason, Oya, in Praise of an African Goddess (Harper Collins, 1992).
- Bolaji Idowu, God in Yoruba Belief (Plainview: Original Publications, rev. and enlarged ed., 1995)
- Wole Soyinka, Myth, Literature and the African World (Cambridge University Press, 1976).
