Religions such as Candombl, Vodun, Santeria, and the Caribbean and Orisa tradition historically came about from African transactions with the new world and the old Euro-Christian worldview. Human spirits represent people who have died, usually ancestors, in the recent or distant past.5 Third, the world of the ancestors occupies a large part of African cosmology. Fact: Slavery is virtually a universal institution. Finally, it suggested that Afrocentric terminologiesis . Wherever the African is, there is his religion: he carries it to the fields where he is sowing seeds or harvesting a new crop; he takes it with him to the beer party or to attend a funeral ceremony;. Africa has 4 main climate zones. However, the Efik people of Calabar were not the only ones who believed twin children were an abomination. He clarifies that there is a close relationship between all things with one reality, and no distinction between physical and spiritual, adding that meaning in life is derived from unity. This lack of knowledge as well as understanding of essentials has led to burgeoning of myths on African . They provide the orientation for the human life journey by defining the rites of passage from life to death. This creates fear and panic resulting in misleading assumptions about Africa. African traditional religious beliefs in East Africa. Advertisement. They include assumptions, misconceptions, traditional or religious beliefs and beliefs about the . Furthermore the issue of whether ATR should be called in singular or plural is another issue causing problems in the study of african tradional religion. That is the case concerning issues To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. As with myths the world over, African mythology includes multiple, often contradictory, versions of the same event. As a lived religion, African tradition deploys through its ritual processesparticularly rites of passage, calendrical rituals, and divinatory practicestangible material and nonmaterial phenomena to regulate life events and occurrences, in order to ensure communal well-being. Priests, priestesses, and diviners are among the authorities who perform religious ceremonies, but the hierarchical structure is often very loose. As the late African historian Cheikh Anta Diop argued, matriarchy was embedded in the African way of life. Why is this important to our understanding of African indigenous religions? This article is an edited version of remarks he delivered for the annual Surjit Singh Lecture in Comparative Religious Thought and Culture at the Graduate Theological Union on April28, 2020. The survey appears to support the prevailing narrative that the most . c. medicine men and women. Religion occupies a reasonable space in the life of the traditional African/Igbo people. It is incorrect to assume that conversion to Islam or to Christianity dealt a deathblow to indigenous traditions. All rights reserved. Voodoo has no scripture or world authority. Similarly, although ancestors dwell inside the earth, their activities also interject into human life, which is why they are referred to as the living dead.13 African cosmologies, therefore, portray the universe as a fluid, active, and impressionable space, with agents from each realm bearing the capabilities of traveling from one realm to another at will. It was through this encounter that the Yoruba system of banking money in traditional pots kept underground in farms and forests began. It all depends on the time of the year. Through a profound process of orality, Ifa as an interpretive tradition espouses an epistemology, metaphysics, morality, and a set of ethical principles and political ideology. Understanding African Traditional Religion. Like Mbiti and Green, Magesa notes that the world of African Traditional Religion is a hierarchically ordered place where, God is seen as the Great ancestor, the first Founder and the Progenitor, the Giver of Life behind everything that exists. .p-summary {display: none !important} Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. The battle between the African traditional religion and western civilization has been raging on for years. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. Perhaps this is because the traditional African system was dependent on the oral form of communication. It goes a long way to show that information is power and the way a story is told matters a lot. This unified the tribes in a way, making it seem as if they are all the same. However, in the new world, we are seeing that the stone that the builders had rejected has become the cornerstone and central pillar: for example, Santeria was central to Cuban state making, and in Brazil only recently has Pentecostalism become responsible for the violence against Candombl devotees. Indigenous Bapedi music and oral tradition have been dismissed as myth, superstition and primitive stories. Religion creates a significant part of African life. As many might know, one type of ritualinitiations for adolescent African girlscauses great consternation among Westerners, because these often involve rites like female circumcision or other bodied practices. Thus, it is easy to see why it seems that Africa needs help. The reason for this is quite simply the misunderstanding of the relevance and foundation of the African tradition. In many African countries a range of beliefs and attitudes underpin these alternative explanations. 4. In his interview with the New York Times, the theologian said, The days are over when we will be carbon copies of European Christians, Europe and America westernized Christianity. As Jaco Beyers puts it, the African understanding of religion is an understanding of the connectedness of all things. The more modern incarnation of this ancient African religionVoodooemerged as a unique blend of Catholic and African magical and religious rites. That is the ultimate and absolute being who originated and gives meaning to all existence.9 III. 53 offers from $9.56. Photo: Pinterest. African religions, religious beliefs and practices of the peoples of Africa. 3. Even the word religion, used in reference to these traditions, is in itself problematic for many Africans, because it suggests that religion is separate from other aspects of ones culture, society, and environment. When he heard that I came from Nigeria, he wanted to display his knowledge of Ocha tradition as a devotee of Oxhosi, God of Thunder in Afro-Brazilian heritage. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. 1 While, officially, statistics suggest that African . African Vibes is a one-stop global platform that connects the African diaspora to opportunities for growth, development, and social impact in Africa. Your email address will not be published. 1. there is a diversity of religion in Africa; rather, it is the extent of that diversity and the degree to which the term 'African traditional religion' might misleadingly mask both that extent and the mutability of the forms it encompasses. Consequently, despite all of Christianity and Islams claims to dominance and their propagandist machinery in demonizing indigenous religion, African religion still provides significant meaning to African existence in many ways. Africa is a continent that is made up of 54 countries, 1.3 billion inhabitants, more than 3000 ethnic groups, and 2100 unique languages. It argues that the best interpretation of the Constitution requires laws that address cross-cutting issues of recognition and redistribution relating to religion/culture and gender, and that the best . If you take these reports at face value, you may start to believe that all Africans are poor. This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the practice, it is important to note that not all female initiations involve circumcision, and that the rituals associated with initiation are crucial to ensuring that an individuals social position is affirmed by both family and community. African scholars in the United States are paying increasing attention to African images in African American culture and religion.20 Some scholars, especially literary critics, now scout African American novels such as Toni Morrisons and Alice Walkers works, for glimpses of African traditions. Our parting a week later was hard for him! Just as Muslim traders and sojourners introduced new world religions to North and West Africa, Western traders and missionaries introduced new world religions to the continent. Little wonder John Mbiti, a famous African theologian said, Wherever the African is, there is his religion. Regardless of where they find themselves, most Africans will always hold onto some form of their tradition, culture, and religion. Humans are thus able to maintain constant and symbiotic relations with their ancestors who are understood to be intimately concerned and involved in their descendants everyday affairs. In my view, these common misconceptions are due to ill representation of the African culture. Perhaps, it was a deliberate attempt to make Africans feel inferior about themselves. have recognized the important ways in which "African" and "religion" are western constructs involving both misconceptions and changing perceptions, especially concerning religion (Ray:2000). 11. Courtesy Of Stevenson, Amsterdam/Cape Town/Johannesburg. d. politics, everyday life. 7. Fact: One-third of Moroccans and one-quarter of Algerians do not speak Arabic as their first language. During the era of Western religious and cultural encounters in Yorubaland, some children were named Oguntoyibo, signifying Ogun (god of war and iron) is as powerful as the European god. Some children received names such as Ifatoyinbo, Ifa is as powerful as the white mans god. Such names and concepts illustrate the force and creative resistance of indigenous thought and its ability to engage Western modernity in rigorous debate. Indigenous traditions, however, did not capitulate to these forms, but, rather, creatively domesticated the new faiths, absorbing new rituals and tenets into their own belief systems and responding to the exogenous modernity in its wake. In response to this verse, Ifa defines its own pilgrimage tradition in the rituals of the climbing of Oke Itase (Ifa Hill), the home of Ifa, when the Araba of Ifa in quiet solitude leads the devotee to the top of the sacred temple of Ifa. These leaders through greed and corruption ruin the image of their countries. John Mbiti divides spirit beings into two types, nature spirits and human spirits. His many publications include African Religions: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2014); City of 201 Gods: Il-If in Time, Space, and the Imagination (University of California Press, 2011); and Kingship, Religion, and Rituals in a Nigerian Community: A Phenomenological Study of Ondo Yoruba Festivals (Almqvist & Wiksell, 1991), which has become a model for ethnographic research among Yoruba-speaking communities. Through their mixing, a new kind of religion emerged, forming the basis for what we have come to know as African diaspora religion. . 6. Even within a single ethnic group or clan, there are often highly contested and even opposing stories or viewpoints when it comes to creation accounts, thus allowing for flexibility and hermeneutic creativity. African religion supplies knowledge to live by and also a transfer of tradition, worldview, ethical orientation (principles of what is right or wrong), an ontologya way of life. the earlier idea was that African Traditional Religion was incompatible with monotheism. Mary Slessor is accredited to ending this savage act in ancient Calabar, Nigeria. It is a well-known fact that religion continues to play a central and vital role in the lives of African people. With the negative image of the, A lot of people seize the chance of the holiday season to organize their weddings. Many traditional African religions are based on guiding principles that are unfathomable to foreigners, more specifically those with interests such as historians and scholars. But this was not an African thing. What is the implication of indigenous hermeneutics for scholars today? Earlier researchers and missionaries portrayed them often as primitive and barbaric and ridiculed them [I give many examples in my book: White Fathers in Colonial Central Africa - a Critical Examination of V.Y. History text fails to capture the depth of pre-colonial African Civilization. That is why we have freewill, and regardless of whether we choose to acknowledge that a living God exists or not, and regardless of how we choose to worship Him, directly or through deities, we will all be eventually accountable. Elders, priests, and priestesses have served as guardians of the sacred traditions. Indigenous religions are definitive of the African identity, as African religion and cultures provide the language, the ethos, the knowledge, and the ontology that enable the proper formation of African personhood, communal identity, and values that constitute kernels of African ethnic assemblages. The Ifa divination system, which produced 256 chapters of oral narratives, constitutes an encyclopedic compendium of knowledge that provides answers to nearly every meaningful human question in the Yoruba and Fon universe. ao Ajima OM, Ubana EU (2018) The Concept . Apart from the different languages, every tribe and culture have their way of dressing too. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. The Hausa man is different from the Igbo man who is also different from the Yoruba man. Mursi girl in Ethiopia. The stoning of the devil in the Kaba in Mecca was a disguise for rejecting the local Esu, the Yoruba god of fate and messenger of the gods. A primary goal of parenting is to transmit values, beliefs and ideas around lifestyles based on cultural knowledge of the adult tasks and competencies needed for appropriate functioning in society (Gershoff, 2002; Harrison, Wilson, Pine, Chon & Buriel, 1990). .entry-morefrom {display: none !important} Continue with Recommended Cookies. It deals with their cosmology, ritual practices, symbols, arts, society, and so on. Introduction: Some Standard Misconceptions There have been widespread misconceptions about the African Traditional Religion (hereinafter ATR). Bolaji Idowu, John Mbiti, Wande Abimbola, Benjamin Ray, Gabriel Setiloane, Laura Grillo, Aloysius Lugira, Kofi Asare Opoku, Emefie Ikenga-Metuh, Charles Long, and others attempted to imbue African traditions with the vitality, status, and identity that is now finally recognized. There are key developmental projects in some African countries that would not be possible without Foreign aids. African countries are also top the list of the 2021 WHO health care index. It is misleading to say Africa when speaking about a specific tribe, ethnic group, or country in Africa. Traditional African religions have gone global! To understand Africans, one must understand the African religion. Compared to most patriarchal traditions, where womens participation and roles are curtailed, African religions attitude toward gender inclusion is unique. It is also the most diversified continent in the world. In certain contexts and communities we have many documented instances of the central role of goddesses as founders of traditions, builders of kingdoms, and saviors and defenders of cities and civilizationsfor example, Moremi in Yorubaland, Nzinga in Angola, and Osun in West Africa. This may not be as advanced as the western world, but its definitely not as bad as the media present it. Myth: Slavery is a product of Western civilization. Narratives about the creation of the universe (cosmogony) and the nature and structure of the world (cosmology) provide a useful entry to understanding African religious life and worldviews. The Bambara and Malinke people of Mali believed that the primordial beings were twins. .title-desc-wrapper .post-title {display: none !important} Here are some 10 myths about Africa and Africans that are either an exaggeration of the fact or based on misguided information. Robert N. Bellah, Civil Religion in America,, Jacob K. Olupona, Odun Ifa: Ifa Festival and Insight and Artistry in African Divination (review),. Furthermore, many in places like the US and the UK have converted to various traditional African religions, and the importance of the diaspora for these religions is growing rapidly. First, there is a supreme being who created the universe and every living and nonliving thing to be found within the universe. The much-cited dictum by the doyen of African religious studies, the recently deceased John Mbiti, that Africans are notoriously religious still holds true (though I prefer to use the word deeply).1 While, officially, statistics suggest that African Christians and Muslims constitute about 80 percent of the total population, and African indigenous religion constitutes about 20 percent, these statistics do not reflect the truth of the African situation. Myths, folklores proverbs therefore become the major sources of African philosophy (Jaja, 1995:28). The range of African indigenous beliefs and practices has been referred to as African traditional religions in an effort to encompass the breadth and depth of the religious traditions on the continent.2 The diversity of the traditions themselves is tremendous, making it next to impossible for all of them to be captured in a single presentation. The colonial masters sold the idea that the long-held tradition and believes of the African people is savage, inferior, and primitive. What, for example, is the notion of history and the sacred in Akan thought? These can be found all over the Americas and Europe. Based on sacred narratives, these traditions espoused their unique worldviews, defining cosmologies, ritual practices, sociopolitical frameworks, and ethical standards, as well as social and personal identity. Mostly, the temperatures of these zones vary between the extremes (Either very hot or very cold). 9. a. newly birthed babies. One could argue that colonization began with mental slavery. In African traditional religions guidance is provided through myths, which are handed down orally. In whatever way it happens, African cosmological narratives are similarly complex, unsystematized, and multivariate, and they are the bedrock for indigenous value systems. African Cosmology. 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