Voodoo, however, is a dynamic religion with no standardized dogma. 53 offers from $9.56. Indeed indigenous African religions have provided the blueprint for robust conversations and thinking about community relations, interfaith dialogue, civil society, and civil religion. The African roots of Voodoo may stretch back over 6000 years, making it one of the world's oldest ancestral traditions. To understand the social, cultural context of pregnancy, childbirth and subsequent maternal and child care and to use this information for . Your email address will not be published. African people do not worship their deceased relatives or ancestors. Myth 3: Africa Is Lacking Innovation. African indigenous religions provide strong linkages between the life of humans and the world of the ancestors. 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. 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. This is based on misconceptions that these religions are antithetical to modernity. Many foreigners who come to Africa become fascinated by ancestral spirits and spirits in general, as if the mystique of African religions is the only aspect of African spirituality that can hold scholarly interest.4 There are several common features of African indigenous religions that suggest similar origins and allow African religions to be treated as a single religious tradition, just as Christianity and Islam are. Our parting a week later was hard for him! Advocating for civil religion in a religiously pluralistic society does not require the erasure of conventional religious traditions. My earlier scholarship was propelled by the insight that the ideology and rituals of Yoruba sacred kingship are what define Yoruba civil religion and, indeed, the center of Yoruba identity.15 Sociologist Robert Bellah understands civil religion as the sacred principle and central ethic that unites a people, without which societies cannot function.16 Civil religion incorporates common myths, history, values, and symbols that relate to a societys sense of collective identity. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . 5. On the other hand, countries like South Africa, Morocco, and Tunisia sometimes experience snowfalls. Using the qualitative historical research . African dance occupies central place in cultures throughout the African continent, embodying energy and a graceful beauty flowing with rhythm. That is why they have developed institutions for healing, for commerce, and for the general well-being of their own practitioners and adherents of other religions as well. Robert N. Bellah, Civil Religion in America,, Jacob K. Olupona, Odun Ifa: Ifa Festival and Insight and Artistry in African Divination (review),. Similarly, there are others like Henry Louis Gates who has appropriated images of the Yoruba deity of Esu in his own work. Ritual enables supernatural beings to bless individuals and the community with sustenance, prosperity, and fecundity.14 Rites of passage, such as initiation ceremonies, are rituals marking personal transitions recognized and celebrated by the community. In summary, it is not every part of Africa that is hot. When I was in Israel a few years ago, I stayed in a modest bed-and-breakfast inn near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This unified the tribes in a way, making it seem as if they are all the same. Esu was represented as a stone mound in the front yard of ancient Yoruba compounds. 3. My essay Om ptadran, an Africanist Griot: Toni Morrison and African Epistemology, Myths, and Literary Culture, in. Perhaps this is because the traditional African system was dependent on the oral form of communication. This creates fear and panic resulting in misleading assumptions about Africa. 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. 1. One reason that might account for the gap in African history is the unavailability of any written document. An Ifa song warns those embarking on the pilgrimage to be pure and those who possess witchcraft not to embark on the pilgrimage. with Ibramic faiths tends to deprive the African Traditional Religion its true status as an independent religion . More so, myths encode the traditional settings of the African and their belief system. Second, spirit beings occupy the next tier in the cosmology and constitute a pantheon of deities who often assist the supreme God in performing different functions. Unique Beliefs, and Too Many Misconceptions Traditional native sweat lodge with hot stones inside . African Traditional Religion: A Definition (1973), Omosade Awolalu in Yoruba Belief and Sacrificial Rites and John Mbiti in The Concept of God in Africa (1970) are a few examples of postcolonial scholars of religion who have resisted and denounced colonial idea that Africans do not know God. One approach is to outline, in a systematic way, the essential features of these traditions without paying much attention to whether or not the traditions fit into the pattern of religions already mapped out by Western theologians and historians, who use Western religious traditions as the standard by which to measure religions in other parts of the world. The African religion was condemned by the Early European scholars, travelers, investigators and missionaries. This may not be as advanced as the western world, but its definitely not as bad as the media present it. It should be noted that any attempt to generalize about the nature of "African religions" risks wrongly implying that there is homogeneity among all African cultures. Africa is poor. In this essay, I attempt to refocus the centrality of indigenous religion, not only in defining African cosmology and an African worldview, but also in defining the African personality in the twenty-first century. This corrective scholarship and critical intervention helped to redefine African worldviews and spirituality and, as such, showed how African religion is pivotal to the individual and communal existence of the people. a. newly birthed babies. They provide the orientation for the human life journey by defining the rites of passage from life to death. Perhaps this is linked to the idea that Africa has an inadequate or substandard health care system. d. politics, everyday life. Foreign aid has been helpful to many small African countries that are struggling economically. Such an approach should endeavor to provide not only an awareness of sociocultural contexts but also to narrate the historical dimensions of these traditions. My credentials as a Harvard professor made little impression on him. It was just the belief of a few groups of people known as Efik people, the predominant tribe in Calabar. Religion also encompasses the human, cultural dimensions within faith traditions, such as how human agency shapes, influences, and complicates religious control. There are quite a number of revival groups and movements whose main aim is to ensure that the tenants and practice of African indigenous religion that are threatened survive. Truly opening my eyes on traditions, cultures and rituals that I did not know existed. When I told him I am a twin (Ibeji) in Yoruba traditionand in principle a sacred being myselfhe almost fell on the floor to pay homage! As in the Muslim pilgrimage, it is a solemn journey to the hilltop. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals, ceremonies, and lived practices. Unlike other world religions that have written scriptures, oral sources form the core of indigenous African religions. They believe in And why should our work in critical theory not begin from indigenous hermeneutics before we invoke Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, or Jrgen Habermas as platforms for interpreting our own worldview and society? It is misleading to say "Africa" when speaking about a specific tribe, ethnic group, or country in Africa. It is the religion which resulted from the sustaining faith held by the forebears of the present Africans, Countries like Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso that are close to the Sahara desert have the Sahel climate. What, for example, is the notion of history and the sacred in Akan thought? Many economic forecasts predict the rapid growth in the African Market. 11. Through modern change these traditional religions cannot remain intact, but they are by no means extinct. 12. Required fields are marked *, Hello my question is how can I find a list of African countries that offers citizenship. African Traditional Religions (ATRs) will be discussed within the context of which it belongs to, the African traditional life (ATL). Similarly, indigenous religion, worldviews, and rituals such as rites of passage and other religious performances are permeated by other religions, culture, and society in general. 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;. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. Static.COOKIE_BANNER_CAPABLE = true; During the colonial era, most of these traditional believes became a target of the colonial religion. For example, in my local language . 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. Now it is our turn to Africanize it.. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . those misconceptions and misrepresentations of the facts pre sented by Eurocent . In most African cultures, history and beliefs have been explained and passed on through oral traditions and storytelling. .entry-morefrom {display: none !important} African Traditional Religion: An Examination of Terminologies Used for Describing the Indigenous Faith of African People, Using an Afrocentric Paradigm by Nana Osei Bonsu, B.Ed. Africa is host to the highest number of religious countries in the world, according to a recent Gallop poll. Most importantly, the rite itself should not be condemned together with circumcision or female genital mutilation. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. It is also the most diversified continent in the world. Though many Africans have converted to Islam and Christianity, traditional religions still inform the social, economic, and political life in African societies. 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"). The Ndembu tribe of the Democratic Republic of Congo shared a similar belief. 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. 7, The Spirits, in his, One must resist the structuralist temptation that views myths as static, unchanging, and simply the productions of a peoples imagination about the cosmic order. Its almost as if pre-colonial Africa never existed. Women are revered in African traditions as essential to the cosmic balance of the world. Reclaim the Ancestral Traditions of African Religion! 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. Therefore for these people, twins were treasures. 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. Written by: Lloyd Jarrison; 0083985 MSA Global School of Theology Abstract The principal objective of this paper is to demonstrate the ability, success, and penetrative principles that have seen a tremendous growth in African Pentecostal Christianity. Examples are mobile innovations such as Flutterwave, Sproxil, and Paystack. Finally, it suggested that Afrocentric terminologiesis . A proper ongoing study of Ifa in West Africa would enable us to understand how one groupthe Yoruba of West Africaencounters transcendence and the sacred in practicing their tradition in ways radically different from Western constructions of religion. A 1685 law, for instance, prohibited the practice of African religions, and required all masters to Christianize their slaves within eight days of their arrival in Haiti. All rights reserved. 7. Traditional African religion has common themes such as a Creator or High God, positive ancestor influences as well as tricksters, and an afterlife with spirit worlds. .sqs-featured-posts-gallery .title-desc-wrapper .view-post . Corrupt government officials also capitalize on the generosity of the westerners to the point of looking like a panhandler. However, the missionaries of the two foreign religions succeeded in converting some African people to the new religions. Jul 26, 2007 #1. While some countries are hot most of the year, other countries experience different types of weather. Myth: Slavery in the non-Western world was a mild, benign, and non-economic institution. Courtesy of Stevenson, Amsterdam/Cape Town/Johannesburg. 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. 3. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. Compared to most patriarchal traditions, where womens participation and roles are curtailed, African religions attitude toward gender inclusion is unique. There are abundant natural resources scattered across the 54 countries of Africa. All over the continent, cosmological myths describe a complicated process, whether the universe evolves from preexisting objects or from Gods mere thought or speech. These can be found all over the Americas and Europe. I ran into a co-resident, a famous Swiss author. The reason for this is quite simply the misunderstanding of the relevance and foundation of the African tradition. As the late African historian Cheikh Anta Diop argued, matriarchy was embedded in the African way of life. This statement isnt true. The cosmological structure, however, is much more defined and precise. Women constitute a sizable number of the devotees of these traditions, just as they do in Islam and Christianity. These countries are often very hot. 2. expressed in all the African cultures, it means that religion forms parts of African culture but not all African cultural practices are religious. Instead, the old and the new were syncretized, producing some unique . Thus, many practitioners of African religion, particularly in the shrines of goddesses, are women, indicating the parity with which African religion treats gender and gender-related issues. Scholarship has since proved, however, that the tenacity of indigenous religion is evident in all spheres of African life. Fact: Slavery is older than the first human records. traditional African takes the character of critical reflection of the African understanding of reality and world view. 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. The truth is that people in some African countries lack access to education and resources, but they make the most of what they have. Several African countries have good health care systems. Divinities and ancestors have personalized annual festivals during which devotees and adepts offer sacrificial animals, libations, and favored foods to propitiate them. Indigenous African religions are not based on conversion like Islam and Christianity. To understand Africans, one must understand the African religion. 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. The formation of African diasporic religions in the crucible of forced and voluntary migrations of Africans from the continent from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries led to the intermingling of African religions with Christianity and local cultures of the Transatlantic to form novel religious expressions. Given our current impending ecological crisis, indigenous African religions have a great deal to offer both African countries and the world at large. African traditional religion refers to the indigenousor autochthonousreligions of the African people. Also, about 30 % of the earths remaining mineral resources are in Africa. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. This is an incorrect representation of the continent that is so vast and with diverse political, social and economic differences. 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. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. Perhaps its the abundant wildlife, scorching deserts, or the vast uninhabited plainlands. Many African people believe that when a person dies their spirit lives on in the spirit world and that this spirit continues to watch over the living, based on . While scholars have often argued that African indigenous accounts of creation were ex nihilo (created out of nothing), as the biblical account of creation is often portrayed,12 African cosmological narratives generally indicate that there is never one pattern governing how creation happens. Robert Mugabe . There are so many interesting facts about Africa that you dont see every day. Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. In my work, I consider civil religion in Nigeria as a central galvanizing feature that brings together different aspects of religious beingness under the banner of sacred kingship. It is not unusual to see people living below the poverty line in nearly every country on earth. Indigenous traditions continue to define the African personality. The diviner, therefore, is also a counselor, psychologist, medicine man or woman, and the spiritual guardian of villages and towns. Depending on the kind of religious activity being performed, different religious authorities can be leaders for specific events. Temperature varies from one country to another depending on the climate type. Unlike the Christian community, recited stories of creation are not performed by a single God, who ordered, by fiat, the creation of the universe with mere spoken words. Abstract. African spirituality more generallyand Nigerian spirituality in particularis shaped by how individuals in their daily existence make sense of their interactions with religious experience. Understanding African Traditional Religion. Investors are moving to take advantage of the African market. What is the implication of indigenous hermeneutics for scholars today? When addressing religion in Africa, scholars often speak of a triple heritage, that is the triple legacy of indigenous religion, Islam, and Christianity that are often found side by side in many African societies. MISCONCEPTION OF THE SUPREM BEING IN ATR There have been widespread misconceptions about the African Traditional Religion (hereinafter ATR). In the Americas and the Caribbean, it is thought to be a combination of various African, Catholic and Native American traditions. Africa has 4 main climate zones. Published. On the other hand, we now know from research and archival sources that, by their very nature, sources and records of missionaries, colonial administrators, and indigenous elites, which were preserved by colonial administrations, were equally susceptible to distortion and perforation, having been written from the angle of an invented modernity that the colonizer considered superior to the worldviews of local peoples. 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. 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