Portal:Traditional African religions

Welcome to the Traditional African religions portal

Introduction Local ceremony in Benin featuring a zangbeto 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...) Selected article The Dahomean religion was practiced by the Fon people of the Dahomey Kingdom. The kingdom existed until 1898 in what is now the country of Benin. Slaves taken from Dahomey to the Caribbean used elements of the religion to form Vodou and other religions of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Selected images An Igbo Ukwu bronze ceremonial vessel made around the 9th century AD. Credit: Ukabia More about this picture on Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu... Serer 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). The 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. The 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. Bakongo 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. Vodun altar with several fetishes in Abomey, Benin (West Africa). Credit: Dominik Schwarz More about this picture on West African Vodun... Traditional 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 The 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. An early 20th century Yoruba divination board. Credit: Tamsier For more about this picture, see Divination in Traditional African religions and African divination The Mbot mask. Symbol of the Serer peoples' Ndut initiation rite. Credit: Tamsier More about the Ndut rite of passage.... An 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. 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 Father Henry Gravrand (France, 1921 - Abbey of Latrun, Palestine, 11 July 2003) was a French Catholic missionary to Africa and an anthropologist who has written extensively on Serer religion and culture. He was one of the leading pioneers of interfaith dialog and believed that Traditional African religion was the "first covenant between God and man". Selected quote “ In Africa, the traditional religions are fast being replaced by Christianity and Islam precisely because they have no organization which can prepare a strategy of self-defense. African traditionalists are not denounced as 'semitized fundamentalists' because in effect, they submit to the liquidation of their tradition by mass conversions....It is hard to find fault with this observation.... Ram Swarup analyzes the political intention behind laudatory labels like 'tolerant' and hate labels like 'Semitic'. He too points to Africa as an instance of what to avoid: 'The African continent has been under the attack of the two monolatrous religions, Christianity and Islam, for centuries. Under this attack, it has already lost much of its old culture. .... Some time ago, there was an article in the London Economist praising it for taking this attack with such pagan tolerance.... ” Ram Swarup quoted in Koenraad Elst (2002) Source: Swarup, Ram [in] Elst, Koenraad, Who is a Hindu? : Hindu Revivalist Views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Other Offshoots of Hinduism, Voice of India (2002), p. 72, ISBN 9788185990743 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? Related portals All Africa-related portals Topics For more Traditional African religion topics, see Category:Traditional African religions. 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