It is incorrect to assume that conversion to Islam or to Christianity dealt a deathblow to indigenous traditions. The absence of centralized and unified cosmologies indicates the multifaceted nature of African religious life and worldviews. While those who identify as practitioners of traditional African religions are often in the minority, many who identify as Muslims or Christians are involved in traditional religions to one degree or another. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . 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. To each his own. 2. Indigenous African religions contain a great deal of wisdom and insight on how human beings can best live within and interact with the environment. Hence the misguided notion that Africans are corrupt. Later in my academic life, I explored theoretical issues at the national level, showing how Nigerian civil religionan invisible faithprovided a template for assessing how we fared at nation building, allowing the symbols of Nigerian nationhood to take on religious significance for the Nigerian public above and beyond any particular cultural communities of faith.17 I do not want to be misunderstood here. The battle between the African traditional religion and western civilization has been raging on for years. The oral nature of these traditions allows for a great deal of adaptability and variation within and between indigenous African religions. Her growing fascination led to an Emerson Foundation-funded research project this summer, titled "Demystifying African Religion." All over the continent, cosmological myths describe a complicated process, whether the universe evolves from preexisting objects or from Gods mere thought or speech. They believe in 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. The problem is, this number is often collated for the whole of Africa, instead of each country of Africa. 13. However, since Africans are known for their excellent craftsmanship, these artifacts do tell the story of the ancient African empires. the belief that natural objects and natural phenomenon possess souls or spiritual beings. The story is the same in the political sphere. Africans who follow a traditional religion rely on no scriptures, canonical texts, or holy books to guide them. In fact, the continent is the most diverse in the world. These narratives come to us in the form of myths. Unlike its popular usage, in scholarly language myths are sacred stories believed to be true by those who hold on to them. Divination enables us to recognize how indigenous traditions have a foundation upon which knowledge and knowledge production is developed. So, while Africans easily adopt Western traditions, will the West also be willing to adopt African traditions? 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. However, some African nations have become addicted to these aids and seem unable to function without them. 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. . 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). Myth: Slavery is a product of Western civilization. The survey appears to support the prevailing narrative that the most . African Religion is not Ancestor Worship. Africa is not homogenous. Without relevant knowledge, stereotypes are unavoidable. In Africa, dance is a means of marking life experiences, encouraging abundant crops, honoring kings and queens, celebrating weddings, marking rites of passage, and other ceremonial occasions.Dance is also done purely for enjoyment. John Mbiti, chap. traditional African takes the character of critical reflection of the African understanding of reality and world view. First, there is a supreme being who created the universe and every living and nonliving thing to be found within the universe. The reason is partly that they want a time when, Your email address will not be published. Each transition has a function within the society. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. 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. Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete. This is far from the truth. inadequacies, objections and misconceptions, the practice has come to stay. According to the Global peace index, Malaysia, Botswana, and Ghana are among the top 50 most peaceful countries, beating the United Kingdom and the United States that were ranked 45 and 128 respectively. 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. 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. It is practiced around the world but there is no accurate count of how many people are Voodooists. Courtesy of Stevenson, Amsterdam/Cape Town/Johannesburg. Because of this, rituals were done to prevent the birth of twins which the people believed to be an anomaly. A common stereotype about Africa is that the continent is poverty-stricken, full of corruption, and always at war. There are key developmental projects in some African countries that would not be possible without Foreign aids. 5.3.2 Intolerance and misconceptions about African traditional religion and Culture As already alluded, the stories told in Europe about Africa, the notion of racial and cultural superiority, and the notion of salvation, led to the western missionaries having a negative attitude toward African traditional religion and culture. Africa is poor. Such an approach should endeavor to provide not only an awareness of sociocultural contexts but also to narrate the historical dimensions of these traditions. Each of the more than 50 modern . Priests, priestesses, and diviners are among the authorities who perform religious ceremonies, but the hierarchical structure is often very loose. The African religion was condemned by the Early European scholars, travelers, investigators and missionaries. The African religious worldview is primarily indigenous, although Islam and Christianity continuously respond to its viability and strength through their transitive approaches, their theologies, and their knowledge systems. The orthodox Easternize it. 2. This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. They certainly represent interpretive traditions, and, when carefully studied, they form a solid foundation for theoretical frameworks used to study and decode these religions in our scholarship. [email protected] 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 . 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. Africa is a Continent Full of Corruption, Poverty and War. The stories of violence, kidnapping, religious and political war in Africa are so common. Their many realities that Africans have not been . African Vibes is a one-stop global platform that connects the African diaspora to opportunities for growth, development, and social impact in Africa. What we know as African history today is mostly based on the interpretations of our colonial masters. But, the continent of Africa is far from poor. There are female priestesses, diviners, and other figures, and many feminist scholars have drawn from these traditions to advocate for womens rights and the place of the feminine in African societies. b. certain clan outsiders. Before colonization, marriages were strictly traditional and depends on the customs, traditions, and believes of, Africa is a beautiful continent. Benin Is Getting Back 26 Of Its Looted Artifacts from The Colonial Era. Our parting a week later was hard for him! There is a general misconception that the entire people of North Africa speak Arabic. 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"). Africa is the target of western stereotypes. Misconception 1: "Entire North Africa natively speaks Arabic.". 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. Compared to most patriarchal traditions, where womens participation and roles are curtailed, African religions attitude toward gender inclusion is unique. .entry-morefrom {display: none !important} However, the Efik people of Calabar were not the only ones who believed twin children were an abomination. Ironically, this pivotal source of knowledge and spiritual edificethat modern-day Yoruba reject as constituting paganismis the cornerstone of global Orisa traditions in Brazil, Cuba, and the Caribbean. African indigenous religions provide strong linkages between the life of humans and the world of the ancestors. Now it is our turn to Africanize it.. An Ifa song warns those embarking on the pilgrimage to be pure and those who possess witchcraft not to embark on the pilgrimage. 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. 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. The truth is that people in some African countries lack access to education and resources, but they make the most of what they have. It deals with their cosmology, ritual practices, symbols, arts, society, and so on. The idea that Africa is unsafe while statistics say otherwise shows how much misconception there is about Africa. Colonization may seem to be over but for African traditional religion, it is not. 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. Portia Zvavahera, His Presence, 2013, oil-based printing ink on paper. Many traditional African religions are based on guiding principles that are unfathomable to foreigners, more specifically those with interests such as historians and scholars. There are so many interesting facts about Africa that you dont see every day. 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. Finally, it suggested that Afrocentric terminologiesis . 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. Even in areas of Zimbabwe with easy access to Western-type delivery care, the majority of women are cared for and delivered by traditional birth attendants who are members of their extended family. Also, poverty is mostly concentrated among few nations in Africa or within few regions of each Nation. Myth #2. Significant as these studies are, there seems to be no systematic exploration of African traditions in African American culture.21. One of the most ridiculous myths about it is that homosexuality did not exist in the continent until white men imported it. The culture believes and traditions of the people of Africa is vast and should not be oversimplified in a stereotypical way. Mostly, the temperatures of these zones vary between the extremes (Either very hot or very cold). 3. 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 . In this postcolonial period, it has come to be established that there is what we may call . To understand the social, cultural context of pregnancy, childbirth and subsequent maternal and child care and to use this information for . 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. Thank you for this interesting essay on African religion. What is fascinating about this odu (Ifa text) is that it supports a key and cardinal principle of Ifa traditionthat we seek counsel first, before we perform divination (Imoram la nda ki a to da Ifa). Igbo religion is traditional according to Mbiti (1970), in the sense that it is rooted in their culture.It is received by oral authority by one generation and transmitted by the same process to subsequent generations and, thus, has effect of being widely diffused among its adherents and of deeply coloring their consciousness. While some Christian mission historians, such as J. D. Y. Peel, for example, correctly argue that the Yoruba had their own enlightenment (Olaju), this is always presented in the context of Christian conversion and is very much tied to the escalating Christian missionary movement. Intentional or not, this interpretation creates a distorted and misconstrued view of Africans by the rest of the world. Instead, the old and the new were syncretized, producing some unique . Correcting Misconceptions About African Traditional Religions. Your email address will not be published. Slavery and World History. The ability of the Black community to call on the spirits and ways of its ancestors is crucial to its continu Given our current impending ecological crisis, indigenous African religions have a great deal to offer both African countries and the world at large. Regardless of where they find themselves, most Africans will always hold onto some form of their tradition, culture, and religion. Gradually, there was a shift from ATR to Christianity. Voodoo is a religion that originates in Africa. Catholic moral theologian Laurenti Magesa argues that, unlike clothes, which one can wear and take off, for Africans, religion is like skin that cannot be so easily abandoned.7 Mbiti also captures this unique aspect in the following passage: Because traditional religions permeate all the departments of life, there is no formal distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the religious and non-religious, between the spiritual and the material areas of life. African traditional religious beliefs in East Africa. 2. Representation matters, and as scholars we have a responsibility to advocate for religions in their contexts. By Jacob K. Olupona. 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. 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. 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