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. (Full article...)

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'Haitian Vodou, known commonly as Voodoo is a syncretic religion practiced chiefly in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. Practitioners are called "vodouists"

Vodouists believe in a distant and unknowable Supreme Creator, Bondye (derived from the French term Bon Dieu, meaning "good God"). According to Vodouists, Bondye does not intercede in human affairs, and thus they direct their worship toward spirits subservient to Bondye, called loa. Every loa is responsible for a particular aspect of life, with the dynamic and changing personalities of each loa reflecting the many possibilities inherent to the aspects of life over which they preside. To navigate daily life, vodouists cultivate personal relationships with the loa through the presentation of offerings, the creation of personal altars and devotional objects, and participation in elaborate ceremonies of music, dance, and spirit possession.

Vodou originated in what is now Benin and developed in the French colonial empire in the 18th century among West African peoples who were enslaved, when African religious practice was actively suppressed, and enslaved Africans were forced to convert to Christianity. Religious practices of contemporary Vodou are descended from, and closely related to, West African Vodun as practiced by the Fon and Ewe. Vodou also incorporates elements and symbolism from other African peoples including the Yoruba and Kongo; as well as Taíno religious beliefs, Roman Catholicism, and European spirituality including mysticism and other influences.

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Image 1Traditional 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 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 3An Igbo Ukwu bronze ceremonial vessel made around the 9th century AD.
Credit: Ukabia
More about this picture on Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu...
Image 4An 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 5Bakongo 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 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 7Serer 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 8The Mbot mask. Symbol of the Serer peoples' Ndut initiation rite.
Credit: Tamsier
More about the Ndut rite of passage....
Image 9The 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 10An early 20th century Yoruba divination board.
Credit: Tamsier
For more about this picture, see Divination in Traditional African religions and African divination
Image 11Vodun altar with several fetishes in Abomey, Benin (West Africa).
Credit: Dominik Schwarz
More about this picture on West African Vodun...

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

Cheikh Anta Diop (29 December 1923 – 7 February 1986) was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. Though Diop is sometimes referred to as an Afrocentrist, he predates the concept and thus was not himself an Afrocentric scholar. However, Diopian thought, as it is called, is paradigmatic to Afrocentricity. His work was greatly controversial and throughout his career, Diop argued that there was a shared cultural continuity across African peoples that was more important than the varied development of different ethnic groups shown by differences among languages and cultures over time.

Diop's work has posed important questions about the cultural bias inherent in scientific research. Cheikh Anta Diop University (formerly known as the University of Dakar), in Dakar, Senegal, is named after him.

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“

The environment and nature are infused in every aspect of traditional African religions and 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.

”

Roger S. Gottlieb

Source: Gottlieb, Roger S., The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, Oxford University Press (2006), p. 261, ISBN 9780199727698 [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?