What is the origin of African traditional religion?
What is the origin of African traditional religion? In the case of African traditional religion, it can be traced back to the very beginning of the emergence of African peoples. For Christianity, it is the first century AD, and maybe beyond; and for Islam the seventh century.
What was the most common form of African religion?
The Most common form of religion in precolonial Africa was Christianity. Log in for more information. Added 188 days ago|10/2/2021 11:03:57 PM.
What is traditional religion in Africa?
Traditional African religions generally believe in an afterlife, one or more Spirit worlds, and Ancestor worship is an important basic concept in mostly all African religions. Some African religions adopted different views through the influence of Islam or even Hinduism.
What are traditional African beliefs?
African traditional religion is the collective name given to a set of highly diverse beliefs, which vary according to geography and ethnicity. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than written, and include belief in a supreme creator, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, and use of magic and traditional medicines.
What was Africa's first religion?
Christianity came first to the continent of Africa in the 1st or early 2nd century AD. Oral tradition says the first Muslims appeared while the prophet Mohammed was still alive (he died in 632). Thus both religions have been on the continent of Africa for over 1,300 years.
What was Africa's religion before slavery?
Religious Transitions: From the Mother Land to the New World. A very few Africans enslaved in America were Christians; some were Muslims, and the vast majority practiced traditional African religions, which were animistic in nature.
What is the origin of African traditional religion?
In the case of African traditional religion, it can be traced back to the very beginning of the emergence of African peoples. For Christianity, it is the first century AD, and maybe beyond; and for Islam the seventh century.
Who founded African religion?
The founders of African traditional religion are the African ancestors. These are the men and women who have lived and died, handing over the religion to their descendants.
What religion was Africa before Christianity?
Forms of polytheism was widespreaded in most of ancient African and other regions of the world, before the introduction of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
What was the first religion in the world?
Hinduism is the world's oldest religion, according to many scholars, with roots and customs dating back more than 4,000 years. Today, with about 900 million followers, Hinduism is the third-largest religion behind Christianity and Islam. Roughly 95 percent of the world's Hindus live in India.
What God do Africans worship?
Generally speaking, African religions hold that there is one creator God, the maker of a dynamic universe. Myths of various African peoples relate that, after setting the world in motion, the Supreme Being withdrew, and he remains remote from the concerns of human life.
What was before Christianity?
Before Christianity, two major monotheistic religions existed in the ancient Mediterranean area. Explore the similarities and differences between Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and emerging Christianity, and how the empire initially accommodated their teachings and actions.
Who introduced Christianity to Africa?
The Dutch were followed by the Danes, and they by the British. Each reintroduced European Christianity to Africa as part of their commercial and colonial agendas. During the 18th and 19th centuries, repatriated Christian slaves helped spread the religion.
How did Christianity came to Africa?
After the end of Reconquista, the Christian Portuguese and Spanish captured many ports in North Africa. Missionary expeditions undertaken by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) began as early as 1548 in various regions of Africa.
What is African traditional worship?
During worship, worshippers seek forgiveness of sin and protection from God and His agents. They also seek material and spiritual blessing. Thus, worship in African religion is to show devotion to God through adoration, admiration, and love for His role in their lives.
Who made Judaism?
AbrahamAccording to the text, God first revealed himself to a Hebrew man named Abraham, who became known as the founder of Judaism. Jews believe that God made a special covenant with Abraham and that he and his descendants were chosen people who would create a great nation.
What is African traditional worship?
During worship, worshippers seek forgiveness of sin and protection from God and His agents. They also seek material and spiritual blessing. Thus, worship in African religion is to show devotion to God through adoration, admiration, and love for His role in their lives.
When did Christianity start in Africa?
Christianity in Africa arrived in Egypt in the middle of the 1st century. By the end of the 2nd century it had reached the region around Carthage. In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea became one of the first regions in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion.
What religion did Arab traders bring to Africa?
Arab traders first introduced Islam to the Swahili coast in the ninth century. Appreciating its religious value, the Swahili people also recognized that adopting their neighbor's religion would help their trading relationships as well, granting them new access to trade networks.
What is the African concept of God?
Generally speaking, African religions hold that there is one creator God, the maker of a dynamic universe. Myths of various African peoples relate that, after setting the world in motion, the Supreme Being withdrew, and he remains remote from the concerns of human life.
What does Olupona say about monotheism?
Olupona rejects the western/islamic definition of Monotheism and says that such concepts could not reflect the complex African traditions and are too simplistic. While some traditions have a supreme being (next to other deities), others have not. Monotheism does not reflect the multiplicity of ways that the traditional African spirituality has conceived of deities, gods, and spirit beings. He summarizes that traditional African religions are not only religions, but a worldview, a way of life.
How many people are adherents to traditional religions in Africa?
Adherents of traditional religions in sub-Saharan Africa are distributed among 43 countries and are estimated to number over 100 million.
What does the African religion believe?
Some recognize a dual god and goddess such as Mawu-Lisa. Traditional African religions generally believe in an afterlife, one or more Spirit worlds, and Ancestor worship is an important basic concept in mostly all African religions.
What is traditional African culture?
Traditional African, like most other ancient traditional religions around the world, were based on oral traditions. These traditions are not religious principles, but a cultural identity that is passed on through stories, myths and tales, from one generation to the next.
What is the basic concept of animism?
Animism builds the core concept of traditional African religions, this includes the worship of tutelary deities, nature worship, ancestor worship and the belief in an afterlife. While some religions adopted a pantheistic worldview, most follow a polytheistic system with various gods, spirits and other supernatural beings.
What are the beliefs of African people?
Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural and passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs, and festivals, include belief in an amount of higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme creator or force, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of magic and traditional African medicine. Most religions can be described as animistic with various polytheistic and pantheistic aspects. The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonizing nature with the supernatural.
Why are nature and environment important to African culture?
This is largely because cosmology and beliefs are intricately intertwined with the natural phenomena and environment. All aspects of weather, thunder, lightning, rain, day, moon, sun, stars, and so on may become amenable to control through the cosmology of African people. Natural phenomena are responsible for providing people with their daily needs.
How tall is a Yoruba cap mask?
Yoruba cap mask. Yoruba cap mask for the Gelede masquerade, wood, pigment, 1930–60; in the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Height 30.32 cm.
How are the cults of the divinities maintained?
Right relations with the divinities are maintained through prayers, offerings, and sacrifices, especially blood sacrifices. The shedding of blood in ritual sacrifice, which is believed to release the vital force that sustains life, precedes most ceremonies in which blessings are sought from the ancestors or divinities.
Why is divination important in African religions?
Divinatory ritual is the centrepiece of African religions, because it opens to all a channel of mediation with the gods. According to the Yoruba, 401 orisha “line the road to heaven,” and diviners identify among them the personal orisha to which an individual should appeal for guidance, protection, and blessing.
Why are witches called the owners of the world?
Witches are humans who are thought to possess intermediating power; they are called the “owners of the world” because their power to intercede surpasses that of the ancestors or the divinities. Their power is ambiguous and therefore dangerous, however, and must be controlled.
How do we maintain right relations with the divinities?
Right relations with the divinities are maintained through prayers, offerings, and sacrifices, especially blood sacrifices . The shedding of blood in ritual sacrifice, which is believed to release the vital force that sustains life, precedes most ceremonies in which blessings are sought from the ancestors or divinities.
What happened to the Supreme Being after setting the world in motion?
Myths of various African peoples relate that, after setting the world in motion, the Supreme Being withdrew, and he remains remote from the concerns of human life. According to a myth of the Dinka of South Sudan, God withdrew from the world after the first woman lifted her pestle to pound millet and struck the sky.
What is African religiousness?
African religiousness is not a matter of adherence to a doctrine but is concerned with supporting fecundity and sustaining the community. African religions emphasize maintaining a harmonious relationship with the divine powers, and their rituals attempt to harness cosmic powers and channel them for good.
What are Sangomas' spiritual skills?
They undergo strict training and learn many skills, including how to use herbs for healing and other , more mystical skills, like the finding of a hidden object without knowing where it is. Sangomas are part of spiritual traditions and are responsible for healing and telling the future. Source: bingelela-africa.co.za.
What religions are practiced in South Africa?
This is part of democracy. The major faiths practiced in South Africa are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, traditional African religions and Judaism.
What is traditional African religion?
Traditional African religion is a way of life in which ancestors are part of every major event such as wedding, births and deaths as well as less important ones such as getting a job and finishing university. During these events usually an offering is made to honour, please and thank the ancestors.
What do followers believe?
Followers believe in the guidance of their ancestors spirits. There are spiritual leaders, kinds of priests or pastors in most traditional African religions. This person is essential in the spiritual and religious survival of the community.
Why is religion important?
More than ten million Jews from all over the world observe the Sabbath every week and millions of Muslim pilgrims travel to Mecca in the Middle East every year. They do this because they have certain religious beliefs and because their religions guide their lives.
What is the meaning of ancestral worship?
Ancestor worship and belief is an extension of a belief in and respect for elders. Followers of traditional African religion believe that ancestors maintain a spiritual connection with their living relatives. Most ancestral spirits are generally good and kind.
Why is the community important in African culture?
This community is made up of people who remember and share the same tradition s. The individual only exists within the community and separation from it is sometimes worse than death. A believer's family still has influence over him or her even if they live far away. Religion in most African societies also supports moral order. It creates a sense of security and order in the community. Followers believe in the guidance of their ancestors spirits.
What is the definition of race?
In the United States, for example, the term race generally refers to a group of people who have in common some visible physical traits, such as skin colour, hair texture, facial features, and eye formation.
What is the most popular language in Africa?
Here in Africa, we prefer white languages (French, English, Portuguese) as our lingua franca, even though Africa is linguistically the richest continent.
What is the difference between Caucasaoid and Africoid?
Africoid means (originating from Africa) and Caucasaoid means (originating from the Caucasus region). These terms denote area of origin more than they do skin color or ethnicity. "Caucasoid" just means people who originate from around the Caucasus Mountain Range in Southerncentral Europe and Asia Minor.
What is the modern meaning of race?
What most definitions have in common is an attempt to categorize peoples primarily by their physical differences.
Why do white people ignore this quote?
quote: White folks ignore this because it doesn't fit well into their world view...Truth is if it doesn't fit the view of whites, we can't justify it... This archaeological finding of the world's oldest religion was by White people - a team of Norwegian archaeologists.
Where did the Berbers come from?
Berbers (Amazigh) in North Africa are Caucasians who migrated into Africa from Arabia / Middle East some thousands of years ago. Caucasoids originated from Africans migrating to the Middle East and Central Asia 180,000 years ago. Berbers are Africans that moved north during the last major Ice Age, and thus lightened.
Where did humans originate from?
People keep coming up with this "oldest" crap only to replace it later with another "oldest" later.. Science asserts that humanity originated from Africa, and that these first humans were Negroid...Other races evolved from us.
What is the difference between East African and Horners?
Another distinction of East African and Horners is the greater prevalence of prophets within the oral traditionas and other forms of generational transmissions of traditional African religion.
What is the difference between West African and East African religion?
Some distinctions between West African and East or Horn African traditional religion often includes considering the supernatural and natural or tangible as being one and the same , and using this stance to incorporate divination. Clergymen from this region who would historically catechize to the masses was often referred to as waganga. Another distinction of East African and Horners is the greater prevalence of prophets within the oral traditionas and other forms of generational transmissions of traditional African religion. The most prominent indigenous deity among Cushitic Horners is Waaq, which continues to be manifested into the modern era with religions such as Waaqeffanna and Waaqism. According to the author Lugira, the Traditional African religions are the only religions “that can claim to have originated in Africa. Other religions found in Africa have their origins in other parts of the world.”
What religions do Africans practice?
Abrahamic religions. The majority of Africans are adherents of Christianity or Islam. African people often combine the practice of their traditional belief with the practice of Abrahamic religions. Abrahamic religions are widespread throughout Africa.
How many people practice Buddhism in Africa?
Buddhism is a tiny religion in Africa with around 250,000 practicing adherents, and up to nearly 400,000 if combined with Taoism and Chinese Folk Religion as a common traditional religion of mostly new Chinese migrants (significant minority in Mauritius, Réunion, and South Africa).
How did Islam spread to North Africa?
The spread of Islam in North Africa came with the expansion of Arab empire under Caliph Umar, through the Sinai Peninsula. The spread of Islam in West Africa was through Islamic traders and sailors. Islam is the dominant religion in North Africa and the Horn of Africa. It has also become the predominant religion on the Swahili Coast as well as ...
What is the religion of the Gbe peoples?
The religion of the Gbe peoples (mostly the Ewe and Fon) of Benin, Togo and Ghana is called Vodun and is the main source for similarly named religions in the diaspora, such as Louisiana Voodoo , Haitian Vodou , Cuban Vodú, Dominican Vudú and Brazilian Vodum.
How many Christians will be in Africa in 2025?
The statistics from the World Christian Encyclopedia (David Barrett) illustrate the emerging trend of dramatic Christian growth on the continent and supposes, that in 2025 there will be 633 million Christians in Africa.
What would happen if we lost the African religion?
For instance, if we were to lose indigenous African religions in Africa, then diviners would disappear, and if diviners disappeared, we would not only lose an important spiritual specialist for many Africans, but also an institution that for centuries has been the repository of African history, wisdom, and knowledge. Diviners — who go through a long educational and apprenticeship program — hold the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African people. The Yoruba diviners, for example, draw on this extensive indigenous knowledge every day by consulting Ifa, an extensive literary corpus of information covering science, medicine, cosmology, and metaphysics. Ifa is an indispensable treasure trove of knowledge that can’t be duplicated elsewhere; much of its knowledge has been handed down from babalawo [Ifa priest/diviner] to babalawo for centuries. (I myself have consulted with several diviners for my research on specific academic topics regarding African culture and history; consequently, if we were to lose Africa’s diviners, we would also lose one of Africa’s best keepers and sources of African history and culture. That would be a serious loss not only for Africans, but also for academics, researchers, writers, and general seekers of wisdom the world over.
What honors did Olupona receive?
The recipient of many prestigious academic honors and research fellowships, Olupona also received the 2015–2016 Reimar Lust Award for International and Cultural Exchange, considered one of Germany’s most prestigious academic honors. The award allows Olupona a year of study and research in Germany; he is on leave this year (2015–16).
What is the success of Christianity and Islam in Africa?
The success of Christianity and Islam on the African continent in the last 100 years has been extraordinary, but it has been, unfortunately, at the expense of African indigenous religions. A native of Nigeria, Jacob Olupona was a graduate student when he endured the blizzard of 1978. “I had it.
What is the indigenous religion in Africa?
Indigenous African religions are by nature plural, varied, and usually informed by one’s ethnic identity, where one’s family came from in Africa. For instance, the Yoruba religion has historically been centered in southwestern Nigeria, the Zulu religion in southern Africa, and the Igbo religion in southeastern Nigeria.
How much of the African population practice indigenous religions?
The bottom line then is that Africans who still wholly practice African indigenous religions are only about 10 percent of the African population, a fraction of what it used to be only a century ago, when indigenous religions dominated most of the continent.
What was Jacob Olupona's first memory?
One of Jacob Olupona’s earliest memories in Massachusetts is of nearly freezing in his apartment as a graduate student at Boston University during the great snowstorm of 1978. “I had it. I told my father that I was coming home,” he recalled. But after braving that first blizzard in a land far from his native Nigeria, Olupona stuck it out and earned his Ph.D. He went on to conduct some of the most significant research on African religions in decades.
Why is African religion so successful?
African spirituality has always been able to adapt to change and allow itself to absorb the wisdom and views of other religions, much more than, for example, Christianity and Islam. While Islam and Christianity tend to be overtly resistant to adopting traditional African religious ideas or practices, indigenous African religions have always accommodated other beliefs. For example, an African amulet might have inside of it a written verse from either the Koran or Christian Bible. The idea is that the traditional African practitioner who constructed that amulet believes in the efficacy of other faiths and religions; there is no conflict in his mind between his traditional African spirituality and another faith. They are not mutually exclusive. He sees the “other faith” as complementing and even adding spiritual potency to his own spiritual practice of constructing effective amulets. Indigenous African religions are pragmatic. It’s about getting tangible results.
Overview
Further reading
• Encyclopedia of African Religion, - Molefi Asante, Sage Publications, 2009 ISBN 1412936365
• Abimbola, Wade (ed. and trans., 1977). Ifa Divination Poetry NOK, New York).
• Baldick, Julian (1997). Black God: the Afroasiatic roots of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions. Syracuse University Press:ISBN 0-8156-0522-6
Spread
Adherents of traditional religions in Africa are distributed among 43 countries and are estimated to number over 100 million.
Although most Africans today are adherents of Christianity or Islam, African people often combine the practice of their traditional beliefs with the practice of Abrahamic religions. The two Abrahamic religions are widespread across Afric…
Basics
Animism builds the core concept of traditional African religions. This includes the worship of tutelary deities, nature worship, ancestor worship and the belief in an afterlife. While some religions adopted a pantheistic worldview, most follow a polytheistic system with various gods, spirits and other supernatural beings. Traditional African religions also have elements of fetishism, shamanism and ve…
Ceremonies
West and Central African religious practices generally manifest themselves in communal ceremonies or divinatory rites in which members of the community, overcome by force (or ashe, nyama, etc.), are excited to the point of going into meditative trance in response to rhythmic or driving drumming or singing. One religious ceremony practiced in Gabon and Cameroon is the Okuyi, practiced by several Bantu ethnic groups. In this state, depending upon the region, drumming or i…
Spirits
Followers of traditional African religions pray to various spirits as well as to their ancestors. This includes also nature, elementary and animal spirits. The difference between powerful spirits and gods is often minimal. Most African societies believe in several “high gods” and a large amount of lower gods and spirits. There are also some religions with a single supreme being (Chukwu, Nyame, Olodumare, Ngai, Roog, etc.). Some recognize a dual god and goddess such as Mawu-Lisa.
Practices and rituals
There are more similarities than differences in all traditional African religions. The deities and spirits are honored through libation or sacrifice (of animals, vegetables, cooked food, flowers, semi-precious stones and precious metals). The will of the gods or spirits is sought by the believer also through consultation of divinities or divination. Traditional African religions embrace natural pheno…
Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu term meaning "humanity". It is sometimes translated as "I am because we are" (also "I am because you are"), or "humanity towards others" (in Zulu, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu). In Xhosa, the latter term is used, but is often meant in a more philosophical sense to mean "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity". It is a collection of values and practices that people of Africa or of African origin view as making people authentic h…