Talk:Religion in Africa

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Contents 1 animism 2 additions 3 swahilis 4 amharas 5 abacua and palo mayombe 6 all african ethnic groups 7 response to abacua and palo mayombe 8 Recommended page move 9 traditional and Indigenous

[edit] animism

instead of saying They are deemed to follow animism, which is incorrect, there should be written that there are some animistic elements in african religions (which of course are to be found also in christianity etc.), but the term animism itself is wrong as a title for certain beliefs. the important thing is: elements! (but to be honest i don't know how to formulate it and i'm not a registered user...)

Animism is not the worship of animals, despite the existence of totem animals. Animism is the belief that everything has a spirit and the worship of those spirits. MusonikiMusoniki

Why are african religions called "animism" instead of "polytheism"? The belief in natural spirits liky nymphs, fauns etc. also existed in anciend greek, but nobody calles the greece religion "animism". I think the term "animism" is in the group of racist terminology including "tribe" (used instead of "people") and "dialect" (used instead of "language"). These religieons are politeistic, with some monotheistic component in that there is a very high creator god (often thought as neutral and neither good nor bad, in fact more abstract than the God of the Bible) and a pantheon of lesser "gods" which are thought to be created, i.e. part of the creation. This article needs a lot of work to be done. Nannus 22:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

In one German dictionary about religions (Geschichte der Religionen, Edited by Günter Lanczkowski, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1972), there is a four and a half page article about African Religions. Interestingly, the term "Animismus" is not mentioned even once in that article. Does anybody have a good english source? Nannus 13:52, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] additions

someone added some things to this article that i'm uncertain of the accuracy of. but then maybe there are things about african animism i don't yet know. lots of poop happen too.

Gringo300 18:17, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] swahilis

i'm curious as to whether the swahilis had another religion before islam. Gringo300 09:51, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

addition to above post: i've read some things about swahili religious beliefs that sound rather un-islamic to me. Gringo300 08:10, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] amharas

i'm also curious as to whether the amharas had a pre-christian religion.

Gringo300 10:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The Amhara pre-Christian religion reverenced snakes as I recall. I think they had a fairly successful kingdom before Christianity so mixed in elements of Greek and Egyptian religion. This is going on memory, I'd be hesitant to write anything on it.--T. Anthony 01:13, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Now that i think about it, i recall hearing something about it also reverencing the sun. Gringo300 08:07, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Look for Saba and the Sabaeans. The writing system used today in Ethiopia and Eritrea is derived from that of the Sabeans. They had their empire in parts of Ethiopia and parts of southern Arabia (not yet Arabian at that time). Nannus 13:52, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] abacua and palo mayombe

is there anybody on here who could write or at least start articles on abacua and palo mayombe? about all i know about them is that they are both practiced by some cubans, many of whom are known to have african ancestry, and reportedly abacua involves burning candles in skulls. not exactly enough for me to start articles based on. Gringo300 08:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Look at the article on Abakuá and on Palo (religion). You may also be interested in Santería.Nannus 13:52, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] all african ethnic groups

the biggest question i'm curious about is: did ALL african ethnic groups once have their own ethnic religions?

Gringo300 11:44, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] response to abacua and palo mayombe

unfortunately, both Abacua y palo mayombe are very secret societies whose members protect (sometimes in a very violent way) their religious secrets as a matter of honor. Therefore, very little is known about either of this cults. there is a very vague description of their beliefs in this site. This information, although very biased towards mainstream christianity (http://religion-cults.com/Ancient/Africa/Africa1.htm) offers a general synopsis of what these religions are. Many studies have been conducted on these religious groups with little or no results, and books have been published (as a result of incomplete research) which present speculations and conjectures as hard fact thus creating even more confussion in the subject.

[edit] Recommended page move

Recommending move from African religions to Religion in Africa. This is not only consistent with all the other "religion-continent" articles, like Religion in Europe (and even consistent with this very article, which uses an infobox at the bottom of the article linking to "Religion in Africa", which unfortunately redirects here rather than the other way around), but is also consistent with the Wikipedia article-naming style in general, which prefers "X in Y" over "Yan X", both because it's clearer and more specific ("African religions" could include any religions that people of African descent worship, not just people living in Africa, which makes this a racial rather than geographic listing, which is not the intent and is inconsistent and biased) and because the adjectival forms of many place-names are irregular or ambiguous. I see no reason to have; it's almost demeaning, since it suggests that every religious practice in Africa is part of a single, massed "African religions" (unlike "European religions", which are individualized enough to not belong in such an article title, right?) rather than consisting of a highly distinct and diverse range of beliefs.

Any comments, agreements, disagreements? -Silence 17:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a good idea, but I'm not sure how well your suggestion works mainly because Religion in Africa could just as easily mean any practiced faith with the continent. I think the original author is looking for a more "ethno-original faiths of Africa" piece but without such an awful phrase. Not sure what that might be but I do agree it's an interesting start for a fascinating entry. PhilipPage 22:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an "original faith of Africa". Even the most ancient of currently-existing African faiths are at most a few thousand years old, the truly ancient religions and myths having long been supplanted or reconfigured by more recent religions. Arbitrarily picking certain religions as "African" and excluding others that have just as much, if not even more, influence on Africa both in history and today, such as Islam, is deeply biased and a violation of WP:NPOV. For the exact same reasons, a "European religions" article that attempted to distinguish "real" or "native" European religions from later migrants would be fundamentally biased, because any such distinction would necessarily be arbitrary. Likewise for "Asian religions", "Australian religions", etc. The best way to handle this article is to move it to Religions in Africa and then discuss all noteworthy, major, and influential religions in Africa's history, regardless of where or when they originated. Simply using separate sections to divide the older from the newer (as I did to some extent in Religion in Europe, for example) is an infinitely better solution than trying to label certain religions as "African" and others as "non-African". -Silence 23:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You've simply pounced on what I admitted was a dreadful phrase and held it against me. What a rotter! I still think the original author was looking for something more specifically related to an area of interest which I'll not attempt to label. PhilipPage 23:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I was about to start a page called "African traditional religion", at the request of ZyXoas (who's currently posting via my talk page from a mobile phone! The joys of not having email to hand...). Having read the above, I'm inclined to think we have two pages here:

• African traditional religion, containing much of the current page + ZyX's material (view at User talk:JackyR#African religion), and akin to Chinese folk religion. One of ZyX's comments is the perfect opening line: "African_Traditional_Religion is the term used to talk about the remarkably homogeneous, complex, yet intuitive religion shared by most Sub-Saharan African societies."
• Religion in Africa, akin to Religion in Europe: a survey of religions practised in the continent of Africa.

• I agree. I would not oppose an article like "African traditional religion" to discuss traditions more indigenous to Africa. But my point was that such an article would necessarily be a sub-article of "Religions in Africa", since traditional religions are a type of religion in Africa. So, my recommendation is to move African religions to Religion in Africa and then create a section of that article called "Traditional religions" or "Indigenous religions" or similar, which will discuss and link to the vast wealth of native African spiritual beliefs and religions. Then, if this section of the article grows large enough (I'm thinking over 2 pages long at minimum, on its own), we will make a daughter article specifically devoted to the indigenous religions, and leave a summary (summarized, but still at least around 3 paragraphs long) on this page. This would be more effective than rushing off to split the page because it would lead to a more consistent and integrated series of articles, and would centralize our efforts more on improving both versions, rather than splitting the editorial taskforce and possibly marginalizing one of the two articles from receiving much-needed attention. Once both articles are full-fledged articles with plenty of content to stand on their own, dividing the two topics will be merited, but at this point I feel it would be premature and would cripple both topics. (Another reason this is a good idea is because, though China is certainly a massive and ancient area of the world, Africa is a much larger area than China, with a much more ancient history and a much larger diversity of religious traditions; trying to pack all of those into a single article is barely any smaller of a task than that of catologuing all religions of Africa.) -Silence 19:18, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

(de-indent) Hmm. It looks like someone has jumped the gun and created African Traditional Religion. I agree that the articles should be developed in co-ordination, and if one were working top-down, your idea is the obvious one. But if there already is an article on ATR, then I don't see the need to merge and then de-merge it. If there's demand for the ATR article (and its daughter articles as it grows), then editors are going to work on it anyway: you can't stop them. All we can do is manage the articles so that they work together.

I should admit I'm biased here. I love WP because voices which are usually the least heard get to write it. So articles are built bottom-up and then tied together. An overall vision for a topic is wonderful, because it greatly improves co-ordination: but to construct a topic top-down means we're in danger of dismissing the two-line contributions which have built so much of WIki, because they "don't fit the plan". I'm not accusing anyone here of doing this, but I have seen it begin to happen on other "distance-written" articles, which are beautifully written and formatted - and highly resistant to one-liners from locals who live the subject rather than read about it... JackyR 12:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

This page is a hodgepodge of partial truths and partial inaccuracies. You should not consider merging other pages into it until and unless it develops more coherency and accuracy. MusonikiMusoniki

Yep, this article is completely dum, but ATR is a bit disappointing too, you did read Mbiti, right? I'll try to see what I can do to it now. If I do change it, I'll leave messages on the talk page. NO MERGE. Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 10:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I strongly oppose the merger. There should be two articles, the "Religion in Africa" article including references to Islam, Christianity etc. and the special varieties of these religions in Africa etc., as well as references to African religions (including ancient ones). The article on African religions should, on the other hand, describe the traditional religions existing in Africa before the introduction of Islam, Christianity and some other recent arrivals. Why should these religins be denied their own article. Such an article makes sene, since many of these religins share some common traits like, for example, the belief in a supreme creator deity. From there, articles about specific religions can be referenced, including religions of the black diaspora in other parts of the world (like brazil and cuba). The current article, by the way, is in a very bad condition. It does not cite any sources. Nannus 13:52, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the page should be moved or renamed. But thinking about it religions in Africa would be very broad an really Islam and Christianity in Africa are too big to be mixed in a space that should be given to the "local" religions of the various regions. I think the problem is using the word "traditional" (see below). The section on religions in Africa would have to include ALL. Maybe it is best left where it is. One serious point raised here is to appreciate very few religions in Africa are more than 1000 years old so in some cases like the entire Ifa tradition is, in Africa, no older than Islam in Africa. So the local aspect of the faith has to be the focus (unique to Africa). And trying to isolate the faith by rituals is impossible as Sufi Islam in Africa is equally Africanized.--Halaqah 17:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] traditional and Indigenous

Often and mistakenly so the terms traditional, indigenous and classical are merged into one understanding as it relates to African culture and history. It is a fundamental mistake as it warps and limits a true understanding of Africa and its many complex international relationships thus restricting and confining African history and culture. Traditional As these words relate to the religion, Islam becomes a traditional African religion, which exists in classical and contemporary Africa. It is often said by scholars and historians that Islam has been in Africa longer than it has been in any other part of the Middle East (bar Mecca in Saudi Arabia). True also, Judaism and Ethiopian Christianity have also been in Africa for such a long period that in certain places (and this is key) there are traditional African religions. This does not mean that all forms of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are classical or traditional. And hence terms like traditional African Islam are fundamental in defining the African reality in classical African and contemporary history: Just as Christianity traditional to Rome is starkly distinctive from Christianity local to Ethiopia. Fundamental ingredients embody the essences of these religions in Africa, which makes them traditional, and this must be recognised in any constructive appreciation of African culture and history. Indigenous Indigenous is a word that can only be used to relate to something fostered by that community which claims it. Because something is indigenous to Africa does not make it traditional or for that matter classical. Indigenous thus does not by default speak to a people’s legacy only to the fostering of that item.