In continuing my discussion on Africa starting with the first humans and then moving on to humans leaving Africa, I thought the next step should be talking about the traditional religions of Africa. This is what I found on the Internet. First is a pretty comprehensive website. Second, is part of a paper that gives an overview of African Traditional Religion:
What is African Traditional Religion?
By J. O. Awolalu*
Dr. J. Omosade Awolalu is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies,
Source: Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Spring, 1976). © World Wisdom, Inc.
www.studiesincomparativereligion.com
RELIGION is a fundamental, perhaps the most important, influence in the life of most Africans; yet its essential principles are too often unknown to foreigners who thus make themselves constantly liable to misunderstand the African worldview and beliefs. Religion enters into every aspect of the life of the Africans and it cannot be studied in isolation. Its study has to go hand-in hand with the study of the people who practise the religion.
When we speak of African Traditional Religion, we mean the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of the Africans. It is the religion which resulted from the sustaining faith held by the forebears of the present Africans, and which is being practiced today in various forms and various shades and intensities by a very large number of Africans, including individuals who claim to be Muslims or Christians.
We need to explain the word „traditional‟. This word means indigenous, that which is
aboriginal or foundational, handed down from generation to generation, upheld and practised by Africans today. This is a heritage from the past, but treated not as a thing of the past but as that which connects the past with the present and the present with eternity. This is not a “fossil” religion, a thing of the past or a dead religion. It is a religion that is practiced by living men and women.
Through modern changes, the traditional religion cannot remain intact but it is by no means extinct. The declared adherents of the indigenous religion are very conservative, resisting the influence of modernism heralded by the colonial era, including the introduction of Islam, Christianity, Western education and improved medical facilities. They cherish their tradition; they worship with sincerity because their worship is quite meaningful to them; they hold tenaciously to their covenant that binds them together. We speak of religion in the singular. This is deliberate. We are not unconscious of the fact that Africa is a large continent with multitudes of nations who have complex cultures, innumerable languages and myriads of dialects. But in spite of all these differences, there are many basic similarities in the religious systems—everywhere there is the concept of God (called by different names); there is also the concept of divinities and/or spirits as well as beliefs in the ancestral cult. Every locality may and does have its own local deities, its own festivals, its own name or names for the Supreme Being, but in essence the pattern is the same. There is that noticeable “Africanness” in the whole pattern. Here we disagree with John Mbiti who chooses to speak of the religion in the plural “because there are about one thousand African peoples (tribes), and each has its own religious system …“1
Peculiarities of the Religion
This is a religion that is based mainly on oral transmission. It is not written on paper but in peoples‟ hearts, minds, oral history, rituals, shrines and religious functions. It has no founders or reformers like Gautama the Buddha, Asoka, Christ, or Muhammad. It is not the religion of one hero. It has no missionaries, or even the desire to propagate the religion, or to proselytize. However, the adherents are loyal worshippers and, probably because of this, Africans who have their roots in the indigenous religion, find it difficult to sever connection with it.
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