Her growing fascination led to an Emerson Foundation-funded research project this summer, titled "Demystifying African Religion." Copyright 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College. If you take these reports at face value, you may start to believe that all Africans are poor. The culture believes and traditions of the people of Africa is vast and should not be oversimplified in a stereotypical way. Fact: Slavery is virtually a universal institution. Marriage customs in Africa vary from one tribe to another. Little wonder John Mbiti, a famous African theologian said, Wherever the African is, there is his religion. However, the missionaries of the two foreign religions succeeded in converting some African people to the new religions. Not the one we saw, very clear and good article easy to understand. One of the more fascinating conversations that has emerged in the debate about African indigenous traditions is about the central role of women as bearers and transmitters of the traditions, and also the negotiation of gender dynamics. 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. An example is the Ancient Benin Kingdom, known for its impressive artwork which is now scattered across the world. For example, James George Frazer (18541941) and Edward B. Tylor (18321917) classified indigenous religious practices of natives not as universally religious or generative of religious cultures but as forms of primitive religion or magic arising from the lower of three stages of human progress. 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. Such an approach should endeavor to provide not only an awareness of sociocultural contexts but also to narrate the historical dimensions of these traditions. 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. In response to this verse, Ifa defines its own pilgrimage tradition in the rituals of the climbing of Oke Itase (Ifa Hill), the home of Ifa, when the Araba of Ifa in quiet solitude leads the devotee to the top of the sacred temple of Ifa. Connecting With Your Ancestors (African Spirituality Beliefs and Practices) Monique Joiner Siedlak. African Religion is not Ancestor Worship. 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. Majority of countries on the continent are . Each of the more than 50 modern . African religion supplies knowledge to live by and also a transfer of tradition, worldview, ethical orientation (principles of what is right or wrong), an ontologya way of life. African people do not worship their deceased relatives or ancestors. Introduction. 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. It is also the most diversified continent in the world. 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. African countries are also top the list of the 2021 WHO health care index. Paperback. They include assumptions, misconceptions, traditional or religious beliefs and beliefs about the . Every tribe and culture have their beliefs and way of life. There is a common saying in Africa Dont forget where you come from. 9 years ago. They held the view that twins were a symbol of excessive fertility which is a characteristic of animals. 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. 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. ao Ajima OM, Ubana EU (2018) The Concept . African Traditional Religion is the traditional religion of the African people before the coming of Islam and Christianity. 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. Static.COOKIE_BANNER_CAPABLE = true; About | Commentary Guidelines | Harvard University Privacy | Accessibility | Digital Accessibility | Trademark Notice | Reporting Copyright Infringements The west, by trying to learn more about the African tradition will avoid the bias and ignorance of being misinformed. 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. Africa is not homogenous. John Mbiti, chap. 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;. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . Given our current impending ecological crisis, indigenous African religions have a great deal to offer both African countries and the world at large. In the primordial era, various forms of ethnic indigenous religions spread across the African continent, providing cohesive foundations of nations, peoples, and religious worldviews. Some biblical cosmological narratives have parallels in African cosmogony, for example, when the Supreme Being summons the hosts of heaven and declares to them, Come let us make man in our own image. This same script appears in the creation of the Yoruba world, when Olodumare designates to the Orisa (deities), the job of creating the universe. 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. Corrupt government officials also capitalize on the generosity of the westerners to the point of looking like a panhandler. 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. Having tried to dispel some of the misconceptions . Based on the understanding that even in 21 st century Africa, religion plays a vital role in gender construction, for effective Sexuality is Your email address will not be published. God is the first Initiator of a people's way of Life, its tradition. . 1 While, officially, statistics suggest that African . Perhaps, it was a deliberate attempt to make Africans feel inferior about themselves. Before colonization, marriages were strictly traditional and depends on the customs, traditions, and believes of, Africa is a beautiful continent. These 11 Traditional African Clothing Will Help You Identify Ethnic Groups At A Glance, 10 Facts And Myths About African Traditional Religion - African Vibes, 10 Prominent Ways Africans Showcase Their Culture, 10 Traditional African Dances That Showcase Africa’s Rich Culture, more than 3000 ethnic groups, and 2100 unique languages, the most diversified continent in the world, 30 % of the earths remaining mineral resources, Thinking Of Volunteering? African countries like Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya are among the fastest-growing economies in the world. Again, this isnt true. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. In certain contexts and communities we have many documented instances of the central role of goddesses as founders of traditions, builders of kingdoms, and saviors and defenders of cities and civilizationsfor example, Moremi in Yorubaland, Nzinga in Angola, and Osun in West Africa. Please confirm you want to block this member. The myths held by the west about Africa are mostly founded on misinformation. 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 . African religions are, therefore, a praxis, and this is where the focus of study should mostly be directed. The orthodox Easternize it. Religion occupies a reasonable space in the life of the traditional African/Igbo people. For one thing, a sizable number of African myths deal with events considered to have actually happened as narrated by the people themselves or as reformulated into symbolic expressions of historical events. It is misleading to say "Africa" when speaking about a specific tribe, ethnic group, or country in Africa. Many foreign nations and organizations do send aid to African countries. Gender dynamics are important in African indigenous religions and in cultural systems, so much so that women goddesses and women-invented rituals are commonplace. African religions should be studied on their own terms, examined through their own frames rather than set in a Judeo-Christian framework. African leaders are also investing heavily in diversifying the economy. It is misleading to say Africa when speaking about a specific tribe, ethnic group, or country in Africa. The reason is partly that they want a time when, Your email address will not be published. When I told him I am a twin (Ibeji) in Yoruba traditionand in principle a sacred being myselfhe almost fell on the floor to pay homage! Giving opportunity to stereotypes like Africa are poor and Africa is corrupt. 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). Mostly, the temperatures of these zones vary between the extremes (Either very hot or very cold). In whatever way it happens, African cosmological narratives are similarly complex, unsystematized, and multivariate, and they are the bedrock for indigenous value systems. 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. Will OAthers Follow Suit? There are many female goddesses along with their male counterparts. The most common African history begins with the colonial era. The term "African Traditional Religion" is used in two complementary senses. 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. They are known as upstanding citizens and have been entrusted with sensitive positions in society. Once again, this is far from the truth. Fact: Slavery is older than the first human records. The battle between the African traditional religion and western civilization has been raging on for years. Myths, folklores proverbs therefore become the major sources of African philosophy (Jaja, 1995:28). The more modern incarnation of this ancient African religionVoodooemerged as a unique blend of Catholic and African magical and religious rites. The story is the same in the political sphere. Jacob K. Olupona is Professor of African Religious Traditions at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Morocco and Algeria are typical examples of this misconception. Today as a minority tradition, indigenous African religions have suffered immensely from human rights abuses. This unified the tribes in a way, making it seem as if they are all the same. Divinities and ancestors have personalized annual festivals during which devotees and adepts offer sacrificial animals, libations, and favored foods to propitiate them. Unlike other world religions that have written scriptures, oral sources form the core of indigenous African religions. 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. inadequacies, objections and misconceptions, the practice has come to stay. They believe in Using the qualitative historical research . Myth #2. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . . It was just the belief of a few groups of people known as Efik people, the predominant tribe in Calabar. Just as rituals are an expression of this . A common stereotype about Africa is that the continent is poverty-stricken, full of corruption, and always at war. Through modern change these traditional religions cannot remain intact, but they are by no means extinct. 6. The formation of African diasporic religions in the crucible of forced and voluntary migrations of Africans from the continent from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries led to the intermingling of African religions with Christianity and local cultures of the Transatlantic to form novel religious expressions. South Africa, as a member state of the World Health Organisation, has been set on the path of institutionalising African traditional medicine. 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. Africa is the second-largest continent in the world. those misconceptions and misrepresentations of the facts presented by Eurocentric scholars. The misconception about African religion Man generally is given to misconception especially in the midst of conflicting ideas or contending issues. .entry-morefrom {display: none !important} Manage Settings Among its one billion inhabitants, more than 1,000 languages are spoken, and there is a massive variety of ethnic religions. The oral nature of these traditions allows for a great deal of adaptability and variation within and between indigenous African religions. Thank you. In spite of the heuristic value of V. Y. Mudimbes distinction between myth and history in Africa, and by extension the cohesion of oral and written narratives,10 the notion that myth is nonrational and unscientific while history is critical and rational is false. All rights reserved. Also, about 30 % of the earths remaining mineral resources are in Africa. Why is this important to our understanding of African indigenous religions? Initially, Christian missionaries and propagators of Islam assumed that indigenous religion would eventually fizzle out, while Islam and Christianity would dominate the African religious scene. 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. 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. Space constraints permit me to cite only one example. Ifas religious thought systemfriendlier to Islam than to Christianitynot only predates Islam but also engages Islam in serious conversation. Women are revered in African traditions as essential to the cosmic balance of the world. 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. 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. The first encounters are fascinating. 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. Required fields are marked *. It is also the most diversified continent in the world. When Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code was released, it generated both curiosity and criticism for its portrayal of Christianity. African traditional religion refers to the indigenousor autochthonousreligions of the African people. Traditional African religion is based on oral traditions, which means that the basic values and way of life are passed from elders to younger generation. 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 . 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. Post-colonial Africa is yet to be completely free from the mental slavery and stereotype created by the colonial masters. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. Indigenous traditions continue to define the African personality. Advocating for civil religion in a religiously pluralistic society does not require the erasure of conventional religious traditions. These elements are worth exploring and espousing. Finally, it suggested that Afrocentric terminologiesis . Slavery and World History. Thus, many practitioners of African religion, particularly in the shrines of goddesses, are women, indicating the parity with which African religion treats gender and gender-related issues. However, the Efik people of Calabar were not the only ones who believed twin children were an abomination. Compared to most patriarchal traditions, where womens participation and roles are curtailed, African religions attitude toward gender inclusion is unique. African Vibes is a one-stop global platform that connects the African diaspora to opportunities for growth, development, and social impact in Africa. 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. Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. The absence of centralized and unified cosmologies indicates the multifaceted nature of African religious life and worldviews. Even within a single ethnic group or clan, there are often highly contested and even opposing stories or viewpoints when it comes to creation accounts, thus allowing for flexibility and hermeneutic creativity. Information was passed down mostly by oral communication in the form of folk tales. Here Are the Top Ten African Volunteer Programs, 9 Traditional African Music Instruments And Their Origin, 8 Traditional African Sports That Should Be In the Olympics, economic forecasts predict the rapid growth in the African Market, 10 Traditional African Hairstyles And Their Origin. Myth: Slavery in the non-Western world was a mild, benign, and non-economic institution. Whether these words carry weight or simply make for a good quote, the fact remains that Africans are unique. 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. They often dictate when the community honors a particular divinity or observes particular taboos. Du Bois argued . John Mbiti divides spirit beings into two types, nature spirits and human spirits. 2. In the Americas and the Caribbean, it is thought to be a combination of various African, Catholic and Native American traditions. Abstract. My essay Om ptadran, an Africanist Griot: Toni Morrison and African Epistemology, Myths, and Literary Culture, in. 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. Africans who follow a traditional religion rely on no scriptures, canonical texts, or holy books to guide them. It is practiced around the world but there is no accurate count of how many people are Voodooists. South Africa, Tunisia, and Kenya rank among the top countries with the best health care system in Africa. the earlier idea was that African Traditional Religion was incompatible with monotheism. There are key developmental projects in some African countries that would not be possible without Foreign aids. These one-sided stories or reports are among the major roots of stereotypes and myths about Africa. When I was in Israel a few years ago, I stayed in a modest bed-and-breakfast inn near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Similarly, there are others like Henry Louis Gates who has appropriated images of the Yoruba deity of Esu in his own work. Indigenous Bapedi music and oral tradition have been dismissed as myth, superstition and primitive stories. In most African cultures, history and beliefs have been explained and passed on through oral traditions and storytelling. 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. It deals with their cosmology, ritual practices, symbols, arts, society, and so on. However, African traditional religion is resilient which explains its continued existence after so many years. 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. Here are some 10 myths about Africa and Africans that are either an exaggeration of the fact or based on misguided information. 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. It was through this encounter that the Yoruba system of banking money in traditional pots kept underground in farms and forests began. This statement isnt true. It goes a long way to show that information is power and the way a story is told matters a lot. 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. 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. The unending political banditry and fraudulent activities by some individuals are the foundation of this stereotype. More so, myths encode the traditional settings of the African and their belief system. They tend to propagate peaceful coexistence, and they promote good relations with members of other religious traditions that surround them. Without relevant knowledge, stereotypes are unavoidable. Common misconceptions of Africa include the idea that it is behind the rest of the world, lacking in innovative technology. African history begins with the colonial era health care system in Africa, and Literary,! 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And Western civilization has been set on the customs, traditions, where participation...
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