Your email address will not be published. In many African countries a range of beliefs and attitudes underpin these alternative explanations. Traditional African religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. This is far from the truth. Thank you. They often dictate when the community honors a particular divinity or observes particular taboos. Africa is a continent that is made up of 54 countries, 1.3 billion inhabitants, more than 3000 ethnic groups, and 2100 unique languages. 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. 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. One reason that might account for the gap in African history is the unavailability of any written document. Examples are mobile innovations such as Flutterwave, Sproxil, and Paystack. Intentional or not, this interpretation creates a distorted and misconstrued view of Africans by the rest of the world. Regardless of where they find themselves, most Africans will always hold onto some form of their tradition, culture, and religion. Nature spirits are associated with objects seen in nature, such as mountains, the sun, or trees, or natural forces such as wind and rain. . Africans are eager to learn new skills and embrace new technologies. These countries are often very hot. Kofi Johnson Fayetteville State University kjohnson@uncfsu.edu. 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? Will OAthers Follow Suit? 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. Religion occupies a reasonable space in the life of the traditional African/Igbo people. Several African countries have good health care systems. South Africa, as a member state of the World Health Organisation, has been set on the path of institutionalising African traditional medicine. 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. 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. African Vibes is a one-stop global platform that connects the African diaspora to opportunities for growth, development, and social impact in Africa. 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. 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. My credentials as a Harvard professor made little impression on him. Every tribe and culture have their beliefs and way of life. Each ceremony denotes passage from one social status to another and is an opportunity to celebrate the initiates on their journey. Because of this, rituals were done to prevent the birth of twins which the people believed to be an anomaly. 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. Since growth and innovation come as a pair, it is impossible to say that African countries are growing without being innovative. That is the ultimate and absolute being who originated and gives meaning to all existence.9 III. 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. Divinities and ancestors have personalized annual festivals during which devotees and adepts offer sacrificial animals, libations, and favored foods to propitiate them. This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. It is misleading to say Africa when speaking about a specific tribe, ethnic group, or country in Africa. However, the missionaries of the two foreign religions succeeded in converting some African people to the new religions. There are many female goddesses along with their male counterparts. It goes a long way to show that information is power and the way a story is told matters a lot. Misconception 1: "Entire North Africa natively speaks Arabic.". religions are considered: African Traditional Religions (ATRs) especially that which is found in sub-Saharan Africa, and Christianity, sometimes referred to under the umbrella of faith-based communities. Investors are moving to take advantage of the African market. Indeed indigenous African religions have provided the blueprint for robust conversations and thinking about community relations, interfaith dialogue, civil society, and civil religion. Africa has 4 main climate zones. The story of Mary Slessor and the killing of twins is popular. 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. Without relevant knowledge, stereotypes are unavoidable. Majority of countries on the continent are . Its almost as if pre-colonial Africa never existed. Divination enables us to recognize how indigenous traditions have a foundation upon which knowledge and knowledge production is developed. The battle between the African traditional religion and western civilization has been raging on for years. 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. In fact, Africa is a vast continent encompassing both geographic variation and tremendous cultural diversity. Before colonization, marriages were strictly traditional and depends on the customs, traditions, and believes of, Africa is a beautiful continent. Reclaim the Ancestral Traditions of African Religion! They are less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals . Hence the misguided notion that Africans are corrupt. With exception of those who take history classes, the majority of young Africans will fail to elaborately tell the story of their origin. 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. Myth: Slavery in the non-Western world was a mild, benign, and non-economic institution. The cosmological structure, however, is much more defined and precise. Courtesy of Stevenson, Amsterdam/Cape Town/Johannesburg. The African religion was condemned by the Early European scholars, travelers, investigators and missionaries. African American women are turning more and more to goddess religions and Orisa practices, as they find African religion offering them greater religious autonomy than other Western religions. Traditional African religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological advances. Africa is a Continent Full of Corruption, Poverty and War. 14. It is a well-known fact that religion continues to play a central and vital role in the lives of African people. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Hence, the aforementioned rituals are the entry point not only for an understanding of African tradition and religions but also for the visible manifestations and essence of African religious traditions. It is not unusual to see people living below the poverty line in nearly every country on earth. Photo: Pinterest. These can be found all over the Americas and Europe. As the late African historian Cheikh Anta Diop argued, matriarchy was embedded in the African way of life. The problem is, this number is often collated for the whole of Africa, instead of each country of Africa. Today as a minority tradition, indigenous African religions have suffered immensely from human rights abuses. Indigenous African religions are not based on conversion like Islam and Christianity. The diviner, therefore, is also a counselor, psychologist, medicine man or woman, and the spiritual guardian of villages and towns. 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 many African communities, ____________ are qualified to navigate the delicate moral and social balance between the good and evil forces exerted on the human realm. Though many Africans have converted to Islam and Christianity, traditional religions still inform the social, economic, and political life in African societies. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. South Africa, Tunisia, and Kenya rank among the top countries with the best health care system in Africa. Voodoo, however, is a dynamic religion with no standardized dogma. 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. A classic example is how the Ifa divination text of the Yoruba provides deep commentary on the practice of Islam by the Yoruba people, such as the hajj tradition. The colonial masters brought with them a new religion which they believe to be superior to African traditional religion. In the primordial era, various forms of ethnic indigenous religions spread across the African continent, providing cohesive foundations of nations, peoples, and religious worldviews. The ability of the Black community to call on the spirits and ways of its ancestors is crucial to its continu To each his own. In this essay, I attempt to refocus the centrality of indigenous religion, not only in defining African cosmology and an African worldview, but also in defining the African personality in the twenty-first century. 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. When I was in Israel a few years ago, I stayed in a modest bed-and-breakfast inn near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. .title-desc-wrapper .post-title {display: none !important} However, some African nations have become addicted to these aids and seem unable to function without them. The African roots of Voodoo may stretch back over 6000 years, making it one of the world's oldest ancestral traditions. Through their mixing, a new kind of religion emerged, forming the basis for what we have come to know as African diaspora religion. Yet in the scholarship on the history of religions, indigenous African religions were never considered a substantive part of the worlds religious traditions, because they failed to fulfill certain criteria defined by axial age civilization. Privileged European scholars denied the agency of African religions and singled outand thereby controlledAfrican identity. with Ibramic faiths tends to deprive the African Traditional Religion its true status as an independent religion . Traditional African religion has common themes such as a Creator or High God, positive ancestor influences as well as tricksters, and an afterlife with spirit worlds. Your email address will not be published. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. The reason for this is quite simply the misunderstanding of the relevance and foundation of the African tradition. They counteracted various derogatory names given to AIR. Acceptably, this was a cruel act of ignorance, but like many other stories about African countries, this story is often generalized. This is an incorrect representation of the continent that is so vast and with diverse political, social and economic differences. have recognized the important ways in which "African" and "religion" are western constructs involving both misconceptions and changing perceptions, especially concerning religion (Ray:2000). Instead, the old and the new were syncretized, producing some unique . The stoning of the devil in the Kaba in Mecca was a disguise for rejecting the local Esu, the Yoruba god of fate and messenger of the gods. Thank you for this interesting essay on African religion. 53 offers from $9.56. This unified the tribes in a way, making it seem as if they are all the same. Women constitute a sizable number of the devotees of these traditions, just as they do in Islam and Christianity. 2. 3. 4.8 out of 5 stars. 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. Perhaps its the abundant wildlife, scorching deserts, or the vast uninhabited plainlands. Compared to most patriarchal traditions, where womens participation and roles are curtailed, African religions attitude toward gender inclusion is unique. An Ifa song warns those embarking on the pilgrimage to be pure and those who possess witchcraft not to embark on the pilgrimage. 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. Igbo religion is traditional according to Mbiti (1970), in the sense that it is rooted in their culture.It is received by oral authority by one generation and transmitted by the same process to subsequent generations and, thus, has effect of being widely diffused among its adherents and of deeply coloring their consciousness. 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. A porous border exists between the human realm and the sky, which belongs to the gods. Please follow our Commentary Guidelines when engaging in discussion on this site. Paperback. The unending political banditry and fraudulent activities by some individuals are the foundation of this stereotype. Correcting Misconceptions About African Traditional Religions. An independent religion done to prevent the birth of twins is popular status. 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misconceptions about african traditional religion