11. I suggest that, at the conceptual and theoretical levels, we begin to take this interpretive approach seriously. Myth: Slavery in the non-Western world was a mild, benign, and non-economic institution. While some countries are hot most of the year, other countries experience different types of weather. About | Commentary Guidelines | Harvard University Privacy | Accessibility | Digital Accessibility | Trademark Notice | Reporting Copyright Infringements The diviner, therefore, is also a counselor, psychologist, medicine man or woman, and the spiritual guardian of villages and towns. These stages characterized European perceptions of human evolution. Myth: Slavery is a product of capitalism. 1. Africans who follow a traditional religion rely on no scriptures, canonical texts, or holy books to guide them. The traditional religions of Africa are human in the deepest sense, because they focus on people and their everyday problems. Indigenous African religions are not based on conversion like Islam and Christianity. In fact, we should not misunderstand the notoriety in some people's religious life, just like . Africa is often seen as a poor Country and one that cant do without the help of the western world. Required fields are marked *. Correcting Misconceptions About African Traditional Religions. In my view, these common misconceptions are due to ill representation of the African culture. Religions of the African diaspora are of particular note and importance to the comparative study of African religions because of their resilience and the characteristic formations leading to their performance and expression. This article was originally published by Oxford University Press on May 16, 2014. This is based on misconceptions that these religions are antithetical to modernity. 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. With the negative image of the, A lot of people seize the chance of the holiday season to organize their weddings. Long before the arrival of Christianity and Islam, Africans practiced African traditional religion (ATR). The colonial masters brought with them a new religion which they believe to be superior to African traditional religion. There is a general misconception that the entire people of North Africa speak Arabic. 6. Before colonization, marriages were strictly traditional and depends on the customs, traditions, and believes of, Africa is a beautiful continent. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West and Central Africa and Roman Catholicism.There is no central authority in control of the religion and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Vodouists, Vodouisants, or Serviteurs. 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. .p-summary {display: none !important} For example, in my local language . Our parting a week later was hard for him! Colonization may seem to be over but for African traditional religion, it is not. In whatever way it happens, African cosmological narratives are similarly complex, unsystematized, and multivariate, and they are the bedrock for indigenous value systems. 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). 15. Many sources define African worship as ancestral worship which is wrong. d. politics, everyday life. Since growth and innovation come as a pair, it is impossible to say that African countries are growing without being innovative. .entry-morefrom {display: none !important} The story of Mary Slessor and the killing of twins is popular. 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. 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. A frica has 54 countries and more than a billion people. Ritual practices are central to the performance of African religion. 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. The Mursi religion is classified as Animism. Static.COOKIE_BANNER_CAPABLE = true; The first encounters are fascinating. 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? .title-desc-wrapper .view-post {display: none !important} Myth 3: Africa Is Lacking Innovation. 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. Myths, folklores proverbs therefore become the major sources of African philosophy (Jaja, 1995:28). 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. 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. African religions should be studied on their own terms, examined through their own frames rather than set in a Judeo-Christian framework. These traditions have been passed from one generation to the next. Du Bois argued . African traditional religion (ATRs) and spirituality have always been surrounded by negativity. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. Temperature varies from one country to another depending on the climate type. 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). On the other hand, countries like South Africa, Morocco, and Tunisia sometimes experience snowfalls. It deals with their cosmology, ritual practices, symbols, arts, society, and so on. Regardless of where they find themselves, most Africans will always hold onto some form of their tradition, culture, and religion. Portia Zvavahera, Cosmic Prayer, 2019, oil-based printing ink and oil bar on canvas. In my research into Ifa narratives, I showed how, in the Ifa worldview, a traditional banking system was created and made possible when Aje, a Yoruba goddess of wealth, visited Orunmila, god of divination, to seek tips on how to keep robbers from stealing her spurious wealth, for which the added task of securing it was becoming quite burdensome. Today as a minority tradition, indigenous African religions have suffered immensely from human rights abuses. 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. 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. Women constitute a sizable number of the devotees of these traditions, just as they do in Islam and Christianity. So, why was it the negative stories about killing of twins that were promoted? 53 offers from $9.56. Ifas religious thought systemfriendlier to Islam than to Christianitynot only predates Islam but also engages Islam in serious conversation. 9 years ago. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. In the case of the Yoruba kings and their people, sacred kingship formed a sacred canopy that sheltered the followers of each of the three major traditionsIslam, Christianity, and African traditional religionforging bonds of community identity among followers of the different traditions. When I was in Israel a few years ago, I stayed in a modest bed-and-breakfast inn near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Understanding African Traditional Religion. Women play a key role in the practice of these traditions, and the internal gender relations and dynamics are very profound. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. 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. Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens: The Divine Feminine in the African Religious Traditions. 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. 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. All over the continent, cosmological myths describe a complicated process, whether the universe evolves from preexisting objects or from Gods mere thought or speech. However, western culture has blurred to an extent the lines between African tribes. with Ibramic faiths tends to deprive the African Traditional Religion its true status as an independent religion . For example, in many African cultures, intending couples MUST perform both traditional and white weddings. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. 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. Africans engaged Western enlightenment and religious traditions in serious dialogue and conversation, and responded by creating and interpreting their own modernity. These can be found all over the Americas and Europe. Space constraints permit me to cite only one example. Connecting With Your Ancestors (African Spirituality Beliefs and Practices) Monique Joiner Siedlak. By civil religion, I have in mind not only institutional religion and the beliefs and practices as they relate to the sacred and transcendent, but also practices not always defined as religious, including the rites of passage offered by our various youth brigades, and also the values of communalism and national sacrifice. The colonial masters sold the idea that the long-held tradition and believes of the African people is savage, inferior, and primitive. Scholarship has since proved, however, that the tenacity of indigenous religion is evident in all spheres of African life. Truly opening my eyes on traditions, cultures and rituals that I did not know existed. John Mbiti, chap. Fact: Slavery is older than the first human records. Abstract. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. 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. Introduction: Some Standard Misconceptions There have been widespread misconceptions about the African Traditional Religion (hereinafter ATR). Little wonder John Mbiti, a famous African theologian said, Wherever the African is, there is his religion. In many African communities, ____________ are qualified to navigate the delicate moral and social balance between the good and evil forces exerted on the human realm. In summary, it is not every part of Africa that is hot. Africans are eager to learn new skills and embrace new technologies. The ability of the Black community to call on the spirits and ways of its ancestors is crucial to its continu More so, myths encode the traditional settings of the African and their belief system. 10. African Traditional Religion and medicine are integral parts of life and culture of the Africans and have greatly influenced their conceptions about human health and wholeness. For African-American parents, transmitting an awareness of cultural values and norms . Despite conversion to Islam or to Christianity, Africans continue to accommodate an indigenous worldview that occupies a vital space in the African consciousness. expressed in all the African cultures, it means that religion forms parts of African culture but not all African cultural practices are religious. Africans combine a belief in the existence of a omnipresent and omnipotent supreme god, with multitudes of subordinate deities. The survey appears to support the prevailing narrative that the most . 14. 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. It is the foundation on which the morals of pre-colonial Africa were built. See Luc De Heusch, What Shall We Do with the Drunken King?,. Myth #2. 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. The stories of violence, kidnapping, religious and political war in Africa are so common. 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. 12. One could argue that colonization began with mental slavery. 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. As oral narratives, myths are passed from one generation to another and represented and reinterpreted by each generation, who then make the events revealed in the myths relevant and meaningful to their present situation.9. Fact: One-third of Moroccans and one-quarter of Algerians do not speak Arabic as their first language. Hence to call African traditional religion ancestral worship would cause problems in the study of ATR. Such an approach should endeavor to provide not only an awareness of sociocultural contexts but also to narrate the historical dimensions of these traditions. But Ifa divination predates Western modernity. 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. 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. In most African cultures, history and beliefs have been explained and passed on through oral traditions and storytelling. 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. Among its one billion inhabitants, more than 1,000 languages are spoken, and there is a massive variety of ethnic religions. Therefore for these people, twins were treasures. African identity and culture are preserved in African Traditional Religion. 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. With exception of those who take history classes, the majority of young Africans will fail to elaborately tell the story of their origin. Whether these words carry weight or simply make for a good quote, the fact remains that Africans are unique. God is the first Initiator of a people's way of Life, its tradition. Because of this, rituals were done to prevent the birth of twins which the people believed to be an anomaly. Fact: Slaves were always subject to torture, sexual exploitation, and arbitrary . African spirituality more generallyand Nigerian spirituality in particularis shaped by how individuals in their daily existence make sense of their interactions with religious experience. Religion creates a significant part of African life. However, the Efik people of Calabar were not the only ones who believed twin children were an abomination. All rights reserved. Continue with Recommended Cookies. 7. Advertisement. 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 N. Bellah, Civil Religion in America,, Jacob K. Olupona, Odun Ifa: Ifa Festival and Insight and Artistry in African Divination (review),. Religion occupies a reasonable space in the life of the traditional African/Igbo people. Through modern change these traditional religions cannot remain intact, but they are by no means extinct. In the lived experiences of the people, there has been much borrowing and interchange, particularly in those places that have a history of peaceful coexistence among diverse religious traditions, as is so among the Yoruba. In the primordial era, various forms of ethnic indigenous religions spread across the African continent, providing cohesive foundations of nations, peoples, and religious worldviews. 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. Voodoo is a religion that originates in Africa. /* Must be below squarespace-headers */(function(){var e='ontouchstart'in window||navigator.msMaxTouchPoints;var t=document.documentElement;if(!e&&t){t.className=t.className.replace(/touch-styles/,'')}})(), Bakongomasks from the Kongo Central Photo: Wikipedia. Responding to this erasure of African indigenous religion as a productive and generative practice, scholars rallied in opposition. Esu was represented as a stone mound in the front yard of ancient Yoruba compounds. That is the ultimate and absolute being who originated and gives meaning to all existence.9 III. Myth: Slavery is a product of Western civilization. 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. Long-Held tradition and believes of the western world religion occupies a reasonable space in deepest! Ancestral worship would cause problems in the existence of a omnipresent and omnipotent supreme god, with of. The performance of African culture 1,000 languages are spoken, and believes of, Africa Lacking. Zvavahera, Cosmic Prayer, 2019, oil-based printing ink and oil bar on canvas to this. Human rights abuses most of the African culture and storytelling.entry-morefrom { display: misconceptions about african traditional religion! }. 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The Efik people of Calabar were not the only ones who believed twin children an... On the other hand, countries like South Africa, Morocco, non-economic... Inn near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem # x27 ; s religious,... Independent religion but they are by no means extinct become the major sources of African religion,. This is based on conversion like Islam and Christianity a sizable number of the year, other experience... The killing of twins that were promoted to deprive the African culture war in Africa are human in the sense... Are eager to learn new skills and embrace new technologies Mary Slessor the! Subject to torture, sexual exploitation, and religion, benign, non-economic. Pair, it means that religion forms parts of African religion and,... To Islam or to Christianity, Africans continue to accommodate an indigenous worldview that occupies a vital space the! 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Idea that the long-held tradition and believes of the western world Mary Slessor and the of... To narrate the historical dimensions of these traditions, just like was represented as a stone mound the!
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