Portal:Traditional African religions

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Welcome to the Traditional African religions portal

Introduction

The beliefs and practices of African people are highly diverse, and include various ethnic religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural and are passed down from one generation to another through narratives, songs, and festivals. They include beliefs in spirits and higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme being, as well as the 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. They generally seek to explain the reality of personal experience by spiritual forces which underpin orderly group life, contrasted by those that threaten it. Unlike Abrahamic religions, traditional African religions are not idealisations; they seek to come to terms with reality as it is. (Full article...)

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Selected article

Traditional African religions have shared notable relationship with other religions, cultures, traditions.

Throughout the history, they are often noted for having one of the oldest presence in the world, and also applauded for its tolerance with other religions.

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Image 1Serer representation of the universe. The three worlds : the invisible world, the terrestrial world and the nocturnal world.
Credit: Henry Gravrand - La civilisation sereer : Pangool
For more about this picture, see Serer creation myth and Serer religion (A ƭat Roog).
Image 2The gods Osiris, Anubis and Horus, in order from left to right, painted inside the tomb of pharaoh Horemheb.
Credit: A. Parrot
For more about this picture, see Ancient Egyptian deities and Ancient Egyptian religion.
Image 3The Mbot mask. Symbol of the Serer peoples' Ndut initiation rite.
Credit: Tamsier
More about the Ndut rite of passage....
Image 4Bakongo masks from the Kongo Central. In traditional African religions, masks play an important part in many ritual ceremonies.
Credit: Ndoto ya Afrika
For more about this picture, see Practices and rituals in traditional African religions, Traditional African masks, African art and African sculpture.
Image 5Traditional healer of South Africa performing a divination by reading the bones.
Credit: User:FastilyClone (Fastily)
For more about this picture, see Divination in Traditional African religions and African divination
Image 6The star Yoonir, symbol of the Universe in Serer religion and Cosmogony. The peak of the star (top point) represents the Supreme Deity (Roog). The other four points represent the cardinal points of the Universe. The crossing of the lines ("bottom left" and "top right", and "top left" and "bottom right") pinpoints the axis of the Universe that all energies pass. The top point is "the point of departure and conclusion, the origin and the end". Among the Serers who cannot read or write the Latin alphabet, it is very common for them to sign official documents with the star of Yoonir, as the star also represents "good fortune and destiny". Yoonir also represents the Serer people and the Serer precolonial Kingdom of Sine.
Credits: Sarang, AnonMoos, (and Yoonir file by Tamsier)
For more about the pentagram in Serer spirituality, see Yoonir in Serer religion and Serer creation myth.
Image 7An early-20th-century Igbo medicine man in Nigeria, West Africa.
Credit: Ukabia
For more about this picture, see Divination in Traditional African Religions, African divination, Traditional African medicine and Igbo religion.
Image 8The Senegambian stone circles (Wassu section) believed by archaeologists and historians to be built by the Serer people of the Senegambia region. The Senegambia stone circles are the largest concentration of stone circles seen anywhere in the world according to UNESCO. They are sacred burial grounds and a place of ritual offerings (kuur in Serer).
Credit: Atamari
For more about this picture, see Senegambian stone circles, Mummification and Cult of the Upright Stones in Serer religion, and Serer ancient history.
Image 9An Igbo Ukwu bronze ceremonial vessel made around the 9th century AD.
Credit: Ukabia
More about this picture on Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu...
Image 10Vodun altar with several fetishes in Abomey, Benin (West Africa).
Credit: Dominik Schwarz
More about this picture on West African Vodun...
Image 11An early 20th century Yoruba divination board.
Credit: Tamsier
For more about this picture, see Divination in Traditional African religions and African divination

Festivals

There are several religious festivals found in the various Traditional African religions. Some of these are listed below next to their corresponding religion :

Afro-Cuban religion : Plantes
Dogon religion : Bulo — Sigi — Dama — Bado — Bago — Gogo
Igbo religion : Ekpe festivals — New Yam Festival of the Igbo — The Iwa ji festival
Jamaican Maroon religion : Kumina — Kromanti dance
Jola : Kumpo — Niasse — Samay
San religion : Healing dances
Serer religion : Daqaar mboob — Diouck — Gamo — Jobai — Khanghere — Mindisse — Mbosseh (or mboosé) — Mboudaye — Ndut — Randou Rande — Raan (held at Tukar, see also Saltigue) — Sam Southieh — The consultation at Ngalagne — The massacre of Cadde — The royal struggle — The session struggle at Ndiaye-Ndiaye — The session struggle Jiloor (Jijaak) — Tobaski — Tourou Peithie — Xoy (main Xoy held at Fatick)
Yoruba religion : Odun Egungun — The Yoruba calendar (the year in festivals)

Selected biography

A modern balafon. The balafon plays an important role in the Epic of Sundiata. The magical balafon belonging to Soumaoro Kanté was stolen by Sundiata Keita's griot - Balla Fasséké and taken to Mandinka country.

Sundiata Keita was a puissant prince and founder of the Mali Empire. The famous Malian ruler Mansa Musa, who made a pilgrimage to Mecca, was his great-nephew.

Written sources augment the Mande oral histories, with the Moroccan traveller Muhammad ibn Battúta (1304–1368) and the Tunisian historian Abu Zayd 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun al-Hadrami (1332–1406) both having travelled to Mali in the century after Sundiata’s death, and providing independent verification of his existence. The semi-historical but legendary Epic of Sundiata by the Malinké/Maninka people centers on his life. The epic poem is primarily known through oral tradition, transmitted by generations of Maninka griots.

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“

African religion, seen through the Sereer religion, has most of the traits of a religious trend: it has a theory, latent, but coherent, oriented toward sacred transcendence as source of life, communication and participation. An ethics proposed by the old tradition, with a sense of right and wrong. A popular cult. Places of worship. A corpus of prayers. A mystical life, reserved for initiates. A well-prepared staff, from Pangool [ancestors’ spirits] priests, seers, healers and leaders of religious worship, the Saltigi, not to mention a multitude of celebrants dedicated to family and local cults. A whole life based on the religious experience. It is a true religious path, whose central theme could be formulated as follows: "the divine in man.

”

Babacar Sédikh Diouf

Source: Diouf, Babacar Sédikh, Le Sérère, Paganism Polythéiste ou Religion Monothéiste [in] Camara, Fatou Kiné (PhD) & Seck, Abdourahmane (PhD), "Secularity and Freedom of Religion in Senegal: Between a Constitutional Rock and a Hard Reality", p 860-61 (PDF - p. 2-3) [1]

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Did you know

...that the organizers of FESTIMA, a festival in Burkina Faso celebrating traditional African masks, estimate that 100,000 people attended in 2016?