South Africa, as a member state of the World Health Organisation, has been set on the path of institutionalising African traditional medicine. John Mbiti, chap. The cosmological structure, however, is much more defined and precise. Myth: Slavery is a product of Western civilization. As in the Muslim pilgrimage, it is a solemn journey to the hilltop. Myths reveal critical events and episodesinvolving superhuman entities, gods, spirits, ancestorsthat are of profound and transcendent significance to the African people who espouse them. Women are revered in African traditions as essential to the cosmic balance of the world. For instance, the Asante people of Ghana see twins as sacred beings. The Mursi religion is classified as Animism. Indigenous African religions contain a great deal of wisdom and insight on how human beings can best live within and interact with the environment. These traditions are not religious principles, but a cultural identity that is passed on through stories, myths and tales. The ability of the Black community to call on the spirits and ways of its ancestors is crucial to its continu In these times of intense turmoil, people of African descent are facing serious threats and challenges to their well-being. 13. Divinities and ancestors have personalized annual festivals during which devotees and adepts offer sacrificial animals, libations, and favored foods to propitiate them. 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. 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.. Abstract. Every life stage is important in African religions, from birth and naming, to betrothal/marriage, elderhood, and eventually death. The idea that Africa is unsafe while statistics say otherwise shows how much misconception there is about Africa. 14. . Significant as these studies are, there seems to be no systematic exploration of African traditions in African American culture.21. The expression is also used almost as a technical term for a particular reading of such beliefs and practices, one that purports . .sqs-featured-posts-gallery .title-desc-wrapper .view-post the earlier idea was that African Traditional Religion was incompatible with monotheism. The myths held by the west about Africa are mostly founded on misinformation. It goes a long way to show that information is power and the way a story is told matters a lot. Every tribe and culture have their beliefs and way of life. Du Bois argued . African countries like Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya are among the fastest-growing economies in the world. There are many female goddesses along with their male counterparts. Yet in the scholarship on the history of religions, indigenous African religions were never considered a substantive part of the worlds religious traditions, because they failed to fulfill certain criteria defined by axial age civilization. Privileged European scholars denied the agency of African religions and singled outand thereby controlledAfrican identity. The problem of Africa isnt wealth but the unequal distribution of wealth. 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. Robert Mugabe . Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens: The Divine Feminine in the African Religious Traditions. Understanding the contours of traditions as they are today consists of picturing both what they are and what they can be against the backdrop of what they once were. Mostly, the temperatures of these zones vary between the extremes (Either very hot or very cold). Reclaim the Ancestral Traditions of African Religion! However, this was never a generally accepted idea. John Mbiti, a prominent Christian theologian from Kenya who helped debunk entrenched ideas that traditional African religions were primitive, giving them equal weight with major . 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. In most African cultures, history and beliefs have been explained and passed on through oral traditions and storytelling. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. All Religions has truth hidden in them for those who objectively seek them through the path of the religion. nanseezy@gmail.com Teaching Assistant, Department of History University of Cape Coast, Ghana "The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward . African traditional medicine (ATM) has been used by African populations for the treatment of diseases long before the advent of orthodox medicine and continues to carry a part of the burden of health for the majority of the population. Scholarship has since proved, however, that the tenacity of indigenous religion is evident in all spheres of African life. 6. 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. Africans combine a belief in the existence of a omnipresent and omnipotent supreme god, with multitudes of subordinate deities. By Jacob K. Olupona. They held the view that twins were a symbol of excessive fertility which is a characteristic of animals. Your email address will not be published. It was through this encounter that the Yoruba system of banking money in traditional pots kept underground in farms and forests began. 3. African traditional religion, and that researcher a should "bracket" their faith and prejudicethey might have about Africa and its people. Examples are mobile innovations such as Flutterwave, Sproxil, and Paystack. Africa is a continent that is made up of 54 countries, 1.3 billion inhabitants, more than 3000 ethnic groups, and 2100 unique languages. There is a common saying in Africa Dont forget where you come from. Header Photo:Traditional African Necklace Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Copyright 2016-2022, The Interfaith Observer | Site by FaithlabTIO is part of the Religica Theolab inside the Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement (CEIE) at Seattle University, Donna Bollinger Tapped to Lead Religions for Peace-USA, Interfaith Themes in Sub-Saharan African Tales (for Kids), Interreligious Literacy and Why It Matters, Religious Literacy & the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Thou Shalt Not Hate: The Role of Religious Actors in Addressing Hate Speech, When Wiccans & Evangelical Christians Become Friends, The Interfaith Rainforest Initiative: A Case Study of Religious Literacy, The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng (and what Ive learned from them), Reimagining Interfaith: Taking Our Lead from Kids. Whether it is being wrongly labelled voodoo, juju or witchcraft, indigenous African faith systems tend to be associated with darkness, animal and human sacrifices, violence and general backwardness. Africa has 4 main climate zones. a. newly birthed babies. African Traditional Religion is the traditional religion of the African people before the coming of Islam and Christianity. Due to the centrality of ancestral tradition to the African lifeworld, death itself is a significant transition from the current life to the afterlife and marks a continuity in life for those living and those to come. Especially if you have never been to Africa. Apart from a few instances in West Africa, where women actually ruled as kings, the designation queen was not often used in isolation from the position itself (which was defined in male terms). Required fields are marked *, Hello my question is how can I find a list of African countries that offers citizenship. It is the religion which resulted from the sustaining faith held by the forebears of the present Africans, Portia Zvavahera, Cosmic Prayer, 2019, oil-based printing ink and oil bar on canvas. The African roots of Voodoo may stretch back over 6000 years, making it one of the world's oldest ancestral traditions. 4.8 out of 5 stars. Most are watered-down versions of what was truly a thriving civilization. Yes, poverty is an issue in Africa. One of these errors is description of African Religion as African traditional religion' which connote a derogatory epithets: paganism, idolatry, primitive religion, animism, fetishism polytheism, etc (Omoregbe, 1993). . 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. There are so many interesting facts about Africa that you dont see every day. African Religion is not Ancestor Worship. Depending on the kind of religious activity being performed, different religious authorities can be leaders for specific events. 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. For example, in many African cultures, intending couples MUST perform both traditional and white weddings. However, the so-called white wedding is Western culture. These elements are worth exploring and espousing. Please confirm you want to block this member. 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. Indigenous Bapedi music and oral tradition have been dismissed as myth, superstition and primitive stories. 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. Advocating for civil religion in a religiously pluralistic society does not require the erasure of conventional religious traditions. Manage Settings African Traditional Religions (ATRs) will be discussed within the context of which it belongs to, the African traditional life (ATL). 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. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . Divination enables us to recognize how indigenous traditions have a foundation upon which knowledge and knowledge production is developed. Symbolic and mythic narratives may exist side by side with narratives of legends in history that bear similar characteristics with motifs and events of creation or coming to birth. Such dismissal has been based on the misconception and assumption that indigenous Bapedi . Hence to call African traditional religion ancestral worship would cause problems in the study of ATR. 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. European theorists are important, and we need to know and understand them to engage in serious global cultural dialogue, but this does not mean that we should discard our traditions as noninterpretive traditions limited merely to ethnographic illustrations. 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. Myth: Slavery is a product of capitalism. The first encounters are fascinating. War in Africa, either political or religious is mostly isolated cases. There are rituals that celebrate the passage of time and mark time as it passes for the people, orienting them to the seasonal changes, such as the new yam festival and celebration of the old season and beginning of a new one. Investors are moving to take advantage of the African market. Why is this important to our understanding of African indigenous religions? Fact: Slavery is virtually a universal institution. Most of these aids go into building infrastructures like schools and hospitals. Once again, this is far from the truth. Loosely, it encompasses all African beliefs and practices that are considered religious but neither Christian nor Islamic. 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. 12. Just as rituals are an expression of this . Compared to most patriarchal traditions, where womens participation and roles are curtailed, African religions attitude toward gender inclusion is unique. 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. They counteracted various derogatory names given to AIR. That is the case concerning issues African Cosmology. John Mbiti in his book African Religion and Philosophy, argued that African Religion deserves the same respect as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. Also, about 30 % of the earths remaining mineral resources are in Africa. Little wonder John Mbiti, a famous African theologian said, Wherever the African is, there is his religion. Many people have bought into the narrative of African traditional religious beliefs as something untrue and based on delusions, but they have also forgotten that all religions have the same thing in common. Similarly, there are others like Henry Louis Gates who has appropriated images of the Yoruba deity of Esu in his own work. The culture believes and traditions of the people of Africa is vast and should not be oversimplified in a stereotypical way. 8. Jul 26, 2007 #1. The orthodox Easternize it. 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. Because it enables us to theorize questions of syncretism and hybridization and, more importantly, raises the issue of why African religion is flowering and spreading in the Americas, especially in the United States, while it is declining in Africaa phenomenon that we need to understand. My essay Om ptadran, an Africanist Griot: Toni Morrison and African Epistemology, Myths, and Literary Culture, in. 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. Long before the arrival of Christianity and Islam, Africans practiced African traditional religion (ATR). 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. The scope of the study is 1877-when Christianity was first introduced in Uganda to 1962 when Uganda got her independence; the period when Christian missionaries lost influence together with the colonial rulers. Acceptably, this was a cruel act of ignorance, but like many other stories about African countries, this story is often generalized. The terms 'traditional' and 'religion' (in its singular form) have each been targets of criticism. 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). Thank you for this interesting essay on African religion. Get it as soon as Wednesday, Oct 26. 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. Although it is difficult to generalize about African traditional cosmology and worldviews, a common denominator among them is a three-tiered model in which the human world exists sandwiched between the sky and the earth (including the underworld)a schema that is not unique to Africa but is found in many of the worlds religious systems as well. Mary Slessor is accredited to ending this savage act in ancient Calabar, Nigeria. 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 . Thus, I have argued that religion should be examined not only as a sacred phenomenon, but also as a cultural and human reality, all the while remembering the importance of integrating the sociopolitical dimensions of religiosity into any examination of an African state. The culture believes and traditions of the people of Africa is vast and should not be oversimplified in a stereotypical way. 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. Africa is not homogenous. Although the slaves accepted Roman Catholicism, they did not give up their traditional beliefs either. Rather, institutional religion continues to grow in relevance and in the national imagination, whether its invocations are part of conversations concerning nation building, Maitatsine and Boko Haram violence, the secularism debate, the Sharia debate, the question of Islamic banking, or the role of the Organization of Islamic Conference. African cosmogonic narratives posit the creation of a universe and the birth of a people and their indigenous religions. African leaders are also investing heavily in diversifying the economy. Misconception 1: "Entire North Africa natively speaks Arabic.". Again, this isnt true. Among its one billion inhabitants, more than 1,000 languages are spoken, and there is a massive variety of ethnic religions. In this way, the visible and invisible are in tandem, leading practitioners to speak about all objects, whether animate or inanimate, as potentially sacred on some level. It was through this encounter that the Yoruba deity of Esu in his own.! 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