See Luc De Heusch, What Shall We Do with the Drunken King?,. Responding to this erasure of African indigenous religion as a productive and generative practice, scholars rallied in opposition. Religion creates a significant part of African life. Post-colonial Africa is yet to be completely free from the mental slavery and stereotype created by the colonial masters. That is the ultimate and absolute being who originated and gives meaning to all existence.9 III. When I was in Israel a few years ago, I stayed in a modest bed-and-breakfast inn near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In fact, we should not misunderstand the notoriety in some people's religious life, just like In modern-day Christianity, Pentecostalism has become a major force to reckon with, indicating a sharp growth by adapting to local [] Your email address will not be published. As the late African historian Cheikh Anta Diop argued, matriarchy was embedded in the African way of life. 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. It is incorrect to assume that conversion to Islam or to Christianity dealt a deathblow to indigenous traditions. 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. John Mbiti divides spirit beings into two types, nature spirits and human spirits. 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. African traditional religions are structured very differently from Western religions in that there is relatively little formal structure. 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. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . Examples are mobile innovations such as Flutterwave, Sproxil, and Paystack. 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. 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. Thank you. This creates fear and panic resulting in misleading assumptions about Africa. Misconception 1: "Entire North Africa natively speaks Arabic.". 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. It is misleading to say "Africa" when speaking about a specific tribe, ethnic group, or country in Africa. 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. It is the foundation on which the morals of pre-colonial Africa were built. 9 years ago. To understand the social, cultural context of pregnancy, childbirth and subsequent maternal and child care and to use this information for . This misconception has, in some scholars, matured into prejudice and resilient skepticism about the African's ability to grasp the concept of God. 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. Many traditional African religions are based on guiding principles that are unfathomable to foreigners, more specifically those with interests such as historians and scholars. Also, poverty is mostly concentrated among few nations in Africa or within few regions of each Nation. In my view, these common misconceptions are due to ill representation of the African culture. Whether these words carry weight or simply make for a good quote, the fact remains that Africans are unique. 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. Once again, this is far from the truth. 15. Similar to other West African communities, the Yoruba did not reject Western modernity but challenged its claim to ontological and epistemological superiority. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. It was just the belief of a few groups of people known as Efik people, the predominant tribe in Calabar. 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. Another misbelief about Africa is that all Africans are the same. African Traditional Religions (ATRs) will be discussed within the context of which it belongs to, the African traditional life (ATL). Introduction. 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. To the outside world, however, far too much of . Robert N. Bellah, Civil Religion in America,, Jacob K. Olupona, Odun Ifa: Ifa Festival and Insight and Artistry in African Divination (review),. Thank you for this interesting essay on African religion. This unified the tribes in a way, making it seem as if they are all the same. Manage Settings In one particular odu of Ifa, Ifa informs us and, correctly so, that the most cardinal event of the hajj is the climbing of Mount Arafat (Oke Arafa). Acceptably, this was a cruel act of ignorance, but like many other stories about African countries, this story is often generalized. Many economic forecasts predict the rapid growth in the African Market. Africans who follow a traditional religion rely on no scriptures, canonical texts, or holy books to guide them. Published. Yes, poverty is an issue in Africa. Static.COOKIE_BANNER_CAPABLE = true; This inaccurate assessment of African belief even affects the definition of African religion. 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. African traditional religion, and that researcher a should "bracket" their faith and prejudicethey might have about Africa and its people. They often dictate when the community honors a particular divinity or observes particular taboos. 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. Africa is a continent that is made up of 54 countries, 1.3 billion inhabitants, more than 3000 ethnic groups, and 2100 unique languages. This is based on misconceptions that these religions are antithetical to modernity. More so, myths encode the traditional settings of the African and their belief system. Therefore for these people, twins were treasures. In whatever way it happens, African cosmological narratives are similarly complex, unsystematized, and multivariate, and they are the bedrock for indigenous value systems. Most are watered-down versions of what was truly a thriving civilization. Traditional African religions have gone global! The African religion was condemned by the Early European scholars, travelers, investigators and missionaries. In times of crisis they often come to the surface, or people revert to them in secret.8. It is a well-known fact that religion continues to play a central and vital role in the lives of African people. Whatever it is, the assumption that Africa is lacking innovation is laughable. As scholars of the comparative study of religions in Africa, we must begin to rethink the study of African religion in the twenty-first century in order to avoid the continuous mis-assessment of the resilience of indigenous traditions. Although many African languages do not have a word for religion as such, it nevertheless accompanies the individual from long before his birth to long after his physical death. Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete. This is an incorrect representation of the continent that is so vast and with diverse political, social and economic differences. 5. At the same time, forms of orature such as the Ifa tradition amongst the Yoruba, can form important sources for understanding the tenants and worldview of these religions that can serve as analogs to scriptures such as the Bible or the Quran. There is a common saying in Africa Dont forget where you come from. The oral nature of these traditions allows for a great deal of adaptability and variation within and between indigenous African religions. Elders, priests, and priestesses have served as guardians of the sacred 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. These can be found all over the Americas and Europe. The more modern incarnation of this ancient African religionVoodooemerged as a unique blend of Catholic and African magical and religious rites. In digging up facts I found that, while many Africans say that homosexuality is un-African, African culture is no stranger to homosexual behaviours and acts. 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. 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 . Before colonization, marriages were strictly traditional and depends on the customs, traditions, and believes of, Africa is a beautiful continent. 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. The ability of the Black community to call on the spirits and ways of its ancestors is crucial to its continu inadequacies, objections and misconceptions, the practice has come to stay. 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. This is based on misconceptions that these religions are antithetical to . Jul 26, 2007 #1. 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. 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. 8. 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. Perhaps, it was a deliberate attempt to make Africans feel inferior about themselves. This article analyses the legal processes of recognising customary and religious (Muslim) marriages in South Africa's constitutional democracy. 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.
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