Introduction: Some Standard Misconceptions There have been widespread misconceptions about the African Traditional Religion (hereinafter ATR). Given our current impending ecological crisis, indigenous African religions have a great deal to offer both African countries and the world at large. However, African traditional religion is resilient which explains its continued existence after so many years. Many sources define African worship as ancestral worship which is wrong. One of my favorite Ifa narratives acknowledges to Yoruba Muslims that climbing Mount Arafat was the most significant act of the hajj. 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 . Instead, the old and the new were syncretized, producing some unique . Another false impression often given about African religions is that women do not play any central or leadership roles in the performance of African religious traditions. This article was originally published by Oxford University Press on May 16, 2014. Acceptably, this was a cruel act of ignorance, but like many other stories about African countries, this story is often generalized. However, African indigenous religion has not only succeeded in domesticating Islam and Christianity; in many instances, it has absorbed aspects of these two other traditions into its cosmology and narrative accounts and practices. Indigenous religion has always played a pivotal role in the African public sphere, as my study of the Ifa divination system has shown.18 In indigenous religion, communities are governed according to the dictates of the gods, particularly through a divination system such as Fa (Benin) and Ifa (Southwest Nigeria), which encompass the political, social, and economic conditions of life. South Africa, as a member state of the World Health Organisation, has been set on the path of institutionalising African traditional medicine. Reclaim the Ancestral Traditions of African Religion! However, some African nations have become addicted to these aids and seem unable to function without them. This misconception has, in some scholars, matured into prejudice and resilient skepticism about the African's ability to grasp the concept of God. 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). Priests, priestesses, and diviners are among the authorities who perform religious ceremonies, but the hierarchical structure is often very loose. 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. African countries are also top the list of the 2021 WHO health care index. 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. What is the implication of indigenous hermeneutics for scholars today? 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. It is misleading to say "Africa" when speaking about a specific tribe, ethnic group, or country in Africa. Another crucial aspect to consider in the comparative study of African religions is the reality of the transfer of these religions across the Atlantic through the Middle Passage and transnational migration and cultural exchange. They often dictate when the community honors a particular divinity or observes particular taboos. Myth: Slavery is a product of capitalism. 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. God is the first Initiator of a people's way of Life, its tradition. Kofi Johnson Fayetteville State University kjohnson@uncfsu.edu. War in Africa, either political or religious is mostly isolated cases. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. Esu was represented as a stone mound in the front yard of ancient Yoruba compounds. Indeed indigenous African religions have provided the blueprint for robust conversations and thinking about community relations, interfaith dialogue, civil society, and civil religion. Our parting a week later was hard for him! In fact, we should not misunderstand the notoriety in some people's religious life, just like Finally, it suggested that Afrocentric terminologiesis . The misconception about African religion Man generally is given to misconception especially in the midst of conflicting ideas or contending issues. Fact: Slaves were always subject to torture, sexual exploitation, and arbitrary . In many African countries a range of beliefs and attitudes underpin these alternative explanations. 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. Each transition has a function within the society. African indigenous religions provide strong linkages between the life of humans and the world of the ancestors. A porous border exists between the human realm and the sky, which belongs to the gods. But, the bad eggs seem to get more attention. These traditions have been passed from one generation to the next. They are known as upstanding citizens and have been entrusted with sensitive positions in society. 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. In this postcolonial period, it has come to be established that there is what we may call . For Ivy Akumu '15, it sparked an interest in the history of Christianity and, by extension, of other religions. African dance occupies central place in cultures throughout the African continent, embodying energy and a graceful beauty flowing with rhythm. The battle between the African traditional religion and western civilization has been raging on for years. First, there is a supreme being who created the universe and every living and nonliving thing to be found within the universe. Similar to other West African communities, the Yoruba did not reject Western modernity but challenged its claim to ontological and epistemological superiority. Women constitute a sizable number of the devotees of these traditions, just as they do in Islam and Christianity. Responding to this erasure of African indigenous religion as a productive and generative practice, scholars rallied in opposition. The terms 'traditional' and 'religion' (in its singular form) have each been targets of criticism. Although the slaves accepted Roman Catholicism, they did not give up their traditional beliefs either. 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. Unlike other world religions that have written scriptures, oral sources form the core of indigenous African religions. Religion also encompasses the human, cultural dimensions within faith traditions, such as how human agency shapes, influences, and complicates religious control. 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. Will OAthers Follow Suit? Continue with Recommended Cookies. Significant as these studies are, there seems to be no systematic exploration of African traditions in African American culture.21. 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. Every tribe and culture have their beliefs and way of life. 3. 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;. The African tradition of female circumcision is the ritual of the rite of passage from girlhood into the realm of womanhood. Gender dynamics are important in African indigenous religions and in cultural systems, so much so that women goddesses and women-invented rituals are commonplace. For example, in my local language . Especially if you have never been to Africa. They believe in The reason is partly that they want a time when, Your email address will not be published. There are key developmental projects in some African countries that would not be possible without Foreign aids. Little wonder John Mbiti, a famous African theologian said, Wherever the African is, there is his religion. Nature spirits are associated with objects seen in nature, such as mountains, the sun, or trees, or natural forces such as wind and rain. 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. Many centuries ago, Ifa must have envisaged the possibility of Boko Harams Islamic extremist movement ravaging Nigeria today. Africans engaged Western enlightenment and religious traditions in serious dialogue and conversation, and responded by creating and interpreting their own modernity. About | Commentary Guidelines | Harvard University Privacy | Accessibility | Digital Accessibility | Trademark Notice | Reporting Copyright Infringements The traditional approach of indigenous African religions to gender is one of complementarity in which a confluenceof male and female forces must operate in harmony. Courtesy of Stevenson, Amsterdam/Cape Town/Johannesburg. It is misleading to say Africa when speaking about a specific tribe, ethnic group, or country in Africa. 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. Many economic forecasts predict the rapid growth in the African Market. By Jacob K. Olupona. Required fields are marked *. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade led to the growth of African-inspired traditions in the Americas such as Candombl in Brazil, Santera in Cuba, or Vodun in Hati. . It was just the belief of a few groups of people known as Efik people, the predominant tribe in Calabar. 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). Fact: Slavery is virtually a universal institution. In these times of intense turmoil, people of African descent are facing serious threats and challenges to their well-being. 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. There are so many interesting facts about Africa that you dont see every day. Today, several myths are mixed with facts in describing African traditional religion. This lack of knowledge as well as understanding of essentials has led to burgeoning of myths on African . Marriage customs in Africa vary from one tribe to another. 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. The survey appears to support the prevailing narrative that the most . 13. 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. Africans are eager to learn new skills and embrace new technologies. 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. 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. Manage Settings 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. Prior to colonization, there was scarcely any form of writing in the majority of African tribes and cultures. African Vibes is a one-stop global platform that connects the African diaspora to opportunities for growth, development, and social impact in Africa. Perhaps this is because the traditional African system was dependent on the oral form of communication. While some countries are hot most of the year, other countries experience different types of weather. As Jaco Beyers puts it, the African understanding of religion is an understanding of the connectedness of all things. Elders, priests, and priestesses have served as guardians of the sacred traditions. 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. It all depends on the time of the year. 1. Space constraints permit me to cite only one example. Here Is What You Have To Know. This is a testament to the strong morals and principles of the African tradition. Just as rituals are an expression of this . The first encounters are fascinating. Since growth and innovation come as a pair, it is impossible to say that African countries are growing without being innovative. History text fails to capture the depth of pre-colonial African Civilization. Colonization may seem to be over but for African traditional religion, it is not. More so, myths encode the traditional settings of the African and their belief system. The area of study is Buganda in Uganda. Hence the misguided notion that Africans are corrupt. 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? Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. expressed in all the African cultures, it means that religion forms parts of African culture but not all African cultural practices are religious. 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). . The more modern incarnation of this ancient African religionVoodooemerged as a unique blend of Catholic and African magical and religious rites. This is based on misconceptions that these religions are antithetical to . 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. 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. 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. The most difficult task I face in characterizing African indigenous spiritual traditions is accounting for their diversity and complexity. Please note: African people do not worship their deceased relatives or ancestors. African religions should be studied on their own terms, examined through their own frames rather than set in a Judeo-Christian framework. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. Benin Is Getting Back 26 Of Its Looted Artifacts from The Colonial Era. This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. 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. The oral nature of these traditions allows for a great deal of adaptability and variation within and between indigenous African religions. A classic example is how the Ifa divination text of the Yoruba provides deep commentary on the practice of Islam by the Yoruba people, such as the hajj tradition. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. Some African countries even adopted the language of their colonial masters as the Lingua Franca. Foreign aid has been helpful to many small African countries that are struggling economically. Morocco and Algeria are typical examples of this misconception. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. 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. 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. Published. Abstract. Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens: The Divine Feminine in the African Religious Traditions. The challenge is to study faith, proverbs, traditions and mythology across Africa to identify the fragments of religion passed down as oral traditions and mythology in the great . 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 . Divinities and ancestors have personalized annual festivals during which devotees and adepts offer sacrificial animals, libations, and favored foods to propitiate them. Portia Zvavahera, Cosmic Prayer, 2019, oil-based printing ink and oil bar on canvas. Despite the plethora of denominations and sects, African religions continue to be viewed as single entities,3 and their (our) religions are perhaps the least understood facet of African life. African religions have also become a major attraction for those in the diaspora who travel to Africa on pilgrimages because of the global reach of these traditions. My credentials as a Harvard professor made little impression on him. It is a well-known fact that religion continues to play a central and vital role in the lives of African people. Depending on the kind of religious activity being performed, different religious authorities can be leaders for specific events. As spirits, the ancestors are more powerful than living humans, and they continue to play a role in community affairs after their deaths, acting as intermediaries between God and those still living.6 Finally, I would add that Africans live their faith rather than compartmentalize it into something to be practiced on certain days or in particular places. The idea that Africa is unsafe while statistics say otherwise shows how much misconception there is about Africa. 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. What, for example, is the notion of history and the sacred in Akan thought? 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. They include assumptions, misconceptions, traditional or religious beliefs and beliefs about the . Through their mixing, a new kind of religion emerged, forming the basis for what we have come to know as African diaspora religion. 11. In my view, these common misconceptions are due to ill representation of the African culture. Please follow our Commentary Guidelines when engaging in discussion on this site. Despite conversion to Islam or to Christianity, Africans continue to accommodate an indigenous worldview that occupies a vital space in the African consciousness. Religion creates a significant part of African life. So, why was it the negative stories about killing of twins that were promoted? This is an incorrect representation of the continent that is so vast and with diverse political, social and economic differences. To the outside world, however, far too much of . 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. All rights reserved. African leaders are also investing heavily in diversifying the economy. The 16th and 19th centuries women goddesses and women-invented rituals are commonplace to these aids and seem to... Will not be published human realm and the sky, which belongs to the strong morals principles. African religionVoodooemerged as a unique blend of Catholic and African magical and religious traditions antithetical. African worship as ancestral worship which is wrong, there was scarcely form! 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