African Religions

I

Introduction

African Religions, the traditional religions of black Africa. They are referred to as traditional in the sense that they are indigenous and are defined by the language (see African Languages) and territory of their adherents.

African religions may be counted in their thousands and interact closely with two of the so-called world religions, Christianity and Islam. Both of these have long been part of Africa’s religious history; as such they have undergone considerable localization and for these reasons could also be said to form part of the traditional religions of Africa. Small Jewish communities have also existed in Africa for centuries, mainly in North Africa and Ethiopia (Falashas), and from the 19th century onwards Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism were established in eastern Africa. The 20th century saw the growth of a number of religions of African origin. Groups concerned with developing an African form of Christianity include the Aladura, or praying, churches of Nigeria; the Spiritist churches of Ghana; the Lenshina Church of Zambia; the Kimbanguist Church of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and the Ethiopian and Zionist churches of southern Africa. The unusual Muslim Mahdiyyat movement of south-western Nigeria attempted to integrate Christianity and Islam. Other movements—including Mahikari, Tenrikyo, and Soka Gakkai from Japan; Sathya Sai Baba and Hare Krishna from Asia via Europe; and Scientology, among others, from North America—have taken hold in Africa, further increasing the diversity of the religious culture of the continent.

Although described as traditional, the religions discussed here should not be seen as unchanging. They have undergone, and continue to undergo, modification through interaction with internal and external cultural, economic, political, and religious developments. It would be a mistake, therefore, to read the past into the present when interpreting the practice of traditional African religions today. They no more replicate past African religious practice than Santería in Cuba, voodoo in Haiti, Winti in Suriname, and Candomble in Brazil are identical to the traditional African religions from which they derive their gods and practices. Nor should it be assumed that Africa was a mystical garden in which all traditional societies were profoundly and pervasively religious, believing themselves totally dependent on the power and influence of God, gods, and ancestors in every aspect of their life. As will be seen, the gods are as dependent on people as the people are on them.

Unlike the major world religions, the traditional religions of Africa are based on oral traditions rather than sacred texts, and these traditions have changed in the process of being transmitted. The fact that they were memorized rather than recorded in writing was no doubt partly responsible for this, as was political intrigue, with different factions interpreting a creation myth or hero myth—both widely seen as relevant to a given contemporary situation—to reinforce their own claims and demands. This gave rise to the evolution of rival myths.

II

The History of African Religions

While the earliest forms of African religion remain unknown, art, particularly rock paintings, some dating from thousands of years ago, and archaeological discoveries provide a glimpse of the cosmology and the rituals of certain African societies prior to the beginnings of Christianity and even further back than that. The rock paintings of southern Africa (see African Art and Architecture) indicate that the indigenous peoples of that region, the pastoralist Khoikhoi and foraging San (no longer very numerous and now spread over the modern states of Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa), practised shamanic rites.

These paintings suggest that the early ancestors of the Khoikhoi and San staged ceremonial dances in which the leader would experience the presence of a sacred power in his body, one that certain animals, among them the eland, were also believed to experience. He would then fall into a deep trance during which he would be empowered both to embody and control cosmic powers. These are probably not the earliest paintings of formal religious ritual practices in Africa. The subject matter of these rock paintings is likely to have changed over time, as it clearly did in the rock paintings found in the Sahara and elsewhere.

It is likely that not only shamanism was widely practised across Africa from the earliest times of formalized religion, but also the cult of the serpent. Among the south-eastern Bantu, the python spirit symbolizes the coolness thought essential to cosmic equilibrium, and ceremonies are performed in his honour. Among the Luba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Zulu of South Africa, he is associated with terrestrial waters; in Luba belief, as the rainbow, he burns rain, while in Zulu belief his actions are beneficial. The Fon of Benin (Dahomey) likewise have long venerated the serpent known as Danbala. The serpent is also worshipped in Haitian voodoo, where it is equated with St Patrick.

Archaeology has done much to improve our understanding of African traditional religion and to enable the development of an historical perspective. The terracotta Janus heads found among the prehistoric sculptures of the Nok Culture of Nigeria, which were produced over 2,000 years ago, suggest the practice of fertility and ancestral rites. In south-western Nigeria, the Ife bronze heads of the 12th to 14th centuries possibly continue the Nok tradition and may point to the belief that the head (ori) of the king was destined to be the container of sacred power. The bronze heads produced in the Kingdom of Benin in the 15th century served as burial chambers of the kings.

In southern Africa the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, dating from the early 12th century, point to the existence in the region of a royal ancestor cult. Today the traditional religion of the Shona of Zimbabwe is focused on the spirits of ancestors, ancient heroes, and the land.

III

Creation Myths, the Supreme Being, and the Trickster

From creation myths we learn that humans were once immortal and enjoyed the status of gods, a state disrupted by an act of disobedience often committed by a woman. God then withdrew to live alone: Ngai, the High God of the Kikuyu, dwells on Mount Kenya and on lesser mountains in the Rift Valley region, leaving the world in the care of his ministers, the lesser gods, and humans with the memory of what it is like to live in paradise. Creation myths tell of the relations between people and wild and domestic animals, between people of different races and societies, the origins of fire and cooking, of hunting and farming, and the ties and obligations of descent, age, sex, and rank. They function as important philosophical and psychological systems in explaining why sickness, toil, and death are fundamental to human life.

While most traditional religions express a belief in a creator god who is omnipotent, eternal, and beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals, the idea persists that this god is largely irrelevant to daily life and that it is the lesser gods and ancestors with whom people engage. In practice, therefore, African religions are considered polytheistic.

Nevertheless, they can be seen as both monotheistic and polytheistic depending on the angle from which they are viewed. The High God among the Nuer of the Sudan is known as Kwoth (spirit), and kwoth is also the term used for spirits, such as Deng kwoth (“son of kwoth”), that proceed directly from him. Thus the Supreme Being in these faiths is best interpreted as being both one and many. He can, nonetheless, be sacrificed to as creator and judge, and prayed to as a father. Among the Igbo of eastern Nigeria he may be asked to be the guardian of a child, or, among the Zulu, to divert a thunderstorm from a village.

These personal approaches to the Supreme Being for specific kinds of help should not, however, be allowed to obscure the fact that he is generally seen as operating on a large scale, as the one concerned with the world as a whole, and with life in its entirety, while the lesser gods function mostly on a smaller scale, and are best understood as “forces of nature”. Their concern is with the wind, the lightning, the thunder, the creeks, the fresh water and the fish, and other fauna therein. Providing that they are properly served, they will protect the hunter, guard the rivers and the highways, and help their devotees to fulfil their destinies. Their assistance does not, however, always guarantee success, and, like charismatic leaders, they are not expected to act in a consistent and predictable manner.

The trickster god prominent in African traditional religious belief and ritual expresses primarily the widespread notion that life is basically uncertain and ambiguous. The trickster is not always an active deity and may only exist in the context of a story; in the folklore of the Akan-Asantie of Ghana he is a spider, and in eastern and southern Africa a hare. Through various stratagems, manoeuvres, tricks, and games, the trickster embodies and plays out the belief that evil cannot be completely overcome, that good can come from setbacks, that life can come from death, and that wholeness consists of integrating opposites.

The actions of the trickster god are double-edged. Ogo, the trickster god of the Dogon of Mali, destroyed the original plans of the creator god Amma for a perfect world and was capable of restoring them only partially, yet by means of divination Ogo helps human beings to discover the unforeseen dangers of human life.

In the Yoruba tradition, divination and sacrifice, two of the most effective means of uniting the human and the divine, cannot succeed without the intervention and intercession of the apparently capricious trickster deity Eshu, nor can any Candomble, Santería, or voodoo ritual performed to call in the gods from Africa succeed if Eshu is not first appeased in the manner to which he is accustomed.

The powers of the gods to do good or inflict harm on their disciples is counterbalanced by the power that the latter have over their gods, the relationship between them being one of reciprocity and interdependence. Each needs the other in order to achieve a meaningful existence, which for the devotee consists of taking on the character of the god, and for the god in making this possible, hence the Yoruba proverb “character is a god”.

IV

The Lesser Gods and Destiny

The lesser gods are regarded as indispensable to the fulfilment of destiny. Generally in western African religions, it is believed that before birth the pre-existing soul of the person to be born speaks in the presence of the Supreme Being about the course that his or her life will take. These words, along with the assistance of one or more lesser gods, ultimately determine the destiny of the person. Children are usually under the cover of their parents’ destinies until they reach maturity, when their own destinies take over. At this juncture the deities assigned to guide them are made known through divination. Chance alone determines whether a person will enjoy a good or bad destiny. Where a destiny is exceptionally bad, some modification is possible, and in some societies, such as that of the Kalahari of southern Nigeria, it can be “called back”, that is, revoked.

Destiny does not preclude freedom of choice, which exists to a greater or lesser degree in the religions of all African societies. The notion of destiny can be understood as a way of balancing individual initiative with a society’s need for co-operation in order to ensure the unity that it sees as necessary to its survival.