The stories of violence, kidnapping, religious and political war in Africa are so common. . All Religions has truth hidden in them for those who objectively seek them through the path of the religion. Through modern change these traditional religions cannot remain intact, but they are by no means extinct. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. The myths held by the west about Africa are mostly founded on misinformation. 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. Africa is a continent that is made up of 54 countries, 1.3 billion inhabitants, more than 3000 ethnic groups, and 2100 unique languages. Despite conversion to Islam or to Christianity, Africans continue to accommodate an indigenous worldview that occupies a vital space in the African consciousness. Manage Settings They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . This is based on misconceptions that these religions are antithetical to modernity. 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. 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. 7. Temperature varies from one country to another depending on the climate type. 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 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. The unending political banditry and fraudulent activities by some individuals are the foundation of this stereotype. The Hausa man is different from the Igbo man who is also different from the Yoruba man. Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. Based on the understanding that even in 21 st century Africa, religion plays a vital role in gender construction, for effective Sexuality is Africans who follow a traditional religion rely on no scriptures, canonical texts, or holy books to guide them. African Religion is not Ancestor Worship. They are known as upstanding citizens and have been entrusted with sensitive positions in society. It is incorrect to assume that conversion to Islam or to Christianity dealt a deathblow to indigenous traditions. It was through this encounter that the Yoruba system of banking money in traditional pots kept underground in farms and forests began. Gradually, there was a shift from ATR to Christianity. 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. Ifas religious thought systemfriendlier to Islam than to Christianitynot only predates Islam but also engages Islam in serious conversation. South Africa, Tunisia, and Kenya rank among the top countries with the best health care system in Africa. In most African cultures, history and beliefs have been explained and passed on through oral traditions and storytelling. 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. Advertisement. Thank you for this interesting essay on African religion. 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. The African tradition of female circumcision is the ritual of the rite of passage from girlhood into the realm of womanhood. Representation matters, and as scholars we have a responsibility to advocate for religions in their contexts. Each transition has a function within the society. Africa has 4 main climate zones. 1. Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. It is an accepted position that the African Initiated Churches (AICs) were formed as a result of the search for a unique African identity and culture. About | Commentary Guidelines | Harvard University Privacy | Accessibility | Digital Accessibility | Trademark Notice | Reporting Copyright Infringements 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. Ritual enables supernatural beings to bless individuals and the community with sustenance, prosperity, and fecundity.14 Rites of passage, such as initiation ceremonies, are rituals marking personal transitions recognized and celebrated by the community. John Mbiti, chap. The debate regarding the continuity between African traditional religion and Christianity has been raging since the early 19th century. 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. The Mursi religion is classified as Animism. It goes a long way to show that information is power and the way a story is told matters a lot. 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. African religions do not rely on a single individual to be a religious leader, but rather depend on an entire community to make the religion work. One reason that might account for the gap in African history is the unavailability of any written document. Africa is given the image of a place that is hot and sunny all year round. .pagination {display: none !important} This was amazingly written. The culture believes and traditions of the people of Africa is vast and should not be oversimplified in a stereotypical way. 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. These leaders through greed and corruption ruin the image of their countries. 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. For example, in my local language . 3. This creates fear and panic resulting in misleading assumptions about Africa. This article is an edited version of remarks he delivered for the annual Surjit Singh Lecture in Comparative Religious Thought and Culture at the Graduate Theological Union on April28, 2020. 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. In fact, Africa is a vast continent encompassing both geographic variation and tremendous cultural diversity. However, western culture has blurred to an extent the lines between African tribes. They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals, ceremonies, and lived practices. 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. According to theologian Tony Evans, W. E. B. For Ivy Akumu '15, it sparked an interest in the history of Christianity and, by extension, of other religions. But, the continent of Africa is far from poor. An article by BBC explains why Nigeria is a global leader in the Bitcoin trade. The reason for this is quite simply the misunderstanding of the relevance and foundation of the African tradition. Marriage customs in Africa vary from one tribe to another. Perhaps this is because the traditional African system was dependent on the oral form of communication. 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. 1 While, officially, statistics suggest that African . These are also stories about how the world was put into place by a divine power, usually a supreme god, but in collaboration with other lesser supernatural beings or deities, who act on his behalf or aid in the creative process.11 The mechanisms and techniques of creation vary from story to story and from one tradition to another. The colonial masters brought with them a new religion which they believe to be superior to African traditional religion. Take for instance the story of poverty in Africa. In the Americas and the Caribbean, it is thought to be a combination of various African, Catholic and Native American traditions. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. The African roots of Voodoo may stretch back over 6000 years, making it one of the world's oldest ancestral traditions. 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). 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. Nature spirits are associated with objects seen in nature, such as mountains, the sun, or trees, or natural forces such as wind and rain. 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. Kofi Johnson Fayetteville State University kjohnson@uncfsu.edu. 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. Some African countries even adopted the language of their colonial masters as the Lingua Franca. 13. But Ifa divination predates Western modernity. Once again, this is far from the truth. A common stereotype about Africa is that the continent is poverty-stricken, full of corruption, and always at war. a. newly birthed babies. 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. . Unique Beliefs, and Too Many Misconceptions Traditional native sweat lodge with hot stones inside . 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