African Religions
Many people consider African
religions to be limited to Animism and Tribal religions.
Africa is a vast continent, with many races, but in religion as in other
matters the continent is divided at the Sahara Desert. North Africa
belongs to the Mediterranean world and the religion of Islam was
established there from the seventh century AD. Islam spread only slowly
down the eastern and western coasts, and it did not enter the tropical
forests and the East African interior until modern times. Christianity
held the ancient Coptic churches in Egypt, flourished for a long time in
the Sudan, and still survives in Ethiopia as the only African kingdom with
a Christian state church. In the last hundred years Christian missions
have spread to most African countries in the tropical and South of the
Sahara, in the savannah regions and in the dense tropical forests, old
traditional religious beliefs survive. These have often unhappily been
called fetishist or animist, but they nearly always combine belief in a
supreme being with the worship of other gods, cults of ancestors, and
magical practices.
The races of tropical Africa are mostly Negro, divided by their languages
roughly into Sudanese and Bantu groups. There are also small
groups of Pygmies and Bushmen, and in Madagascar the population is chiefly
Malaysian in origin, with some Indian and African strains. Over this vast
area religious beliefs and practices vary considerably, owing not only to
the absence of literature but also to the lack of central organization or
missionary enterprise. Negro peoples have important religious beliefs
which are comparable in their main themes, but there are many differences
between particular places. The Pygmies or Negritos live in the forest
regions of the River Congo, and little is known of their languages or
social organization since many of them are wandering hunters. They trade
with the surrounding Bantu Negroes and many adopt some of their religious
beliefs or myths. The Mbuti Pygmies believe in a great being of the
sky, lord of storms and rainbows, sometimes called Creator, and
envisaged as an old man with a long beard. He is named Tore and not
only did he make everything but all belongs to him, so that before hunting
he is invoked for food. The Pygmies also revere the moon, and some of them
say that it was the moon who molded the first man, covered him with skin
and poured blood inside. Another story associates the first couple with
the chameleon, a reptile that figures in many African tales. The dominant
Pygmy belief is in the god of the forest, who is benevolent, and to whom
men pay as much respect as they do to their own parents.
The Bushmen and Hottentots live in southern Africa and were
the original inhabitants of the land when the first Europeans arrived at
the Cape. Today the true Bushmen (Khoisan) are restricted to the
Kalahari Desert and Namibia. Modern Bushmen pray to celestial spirits and
tell myths and legends about them. They pay special attention to the moon,
which comes into their speculations about the origins of death, a common
African preoccupation.
The Hottentots have largely become Christian and most of their ancient
religious beliefs have disappeared, so much so that it was once thought
that they had no former religion. Their ancient gods appear to have been a
mingling of natural forces and ancestral spirits.
In the sub-Saharan and forest areas there are small groups of Hamites
(Caucasians, related to Europeans) such as the Fulani of Nigeria,
but they are Muslims like the major Hamite groups of North Africa and the
Tuaregs of the Sahara. A vast majority of Africans south of the
Sahara are Negroes, and they generally have a belief in a supreme being,
though their conception of his role in daily life differs according to
localities.
In East Africa a common name for the supreme being is Mulungu, a
word of unknown origin but indicating the almighty and ever present
creator. The thunder is said to be his voice and the lightning his power;
he rewards the good and punishes the wicked. From the northern Kalahari
through the Congo to Tanzania the name Leza is used, perhaps from a
root meaning "to cherish," since he is the one who watches over people,
providing for the needy and besetting the wayward. Leza is said to live in
heaven, to which humans pray for rain, but finally he is transcendent and
incomprehensible. Another divine name is Nyambe, perhaps from a
root indicating power, and used from Botswana to Cameroun. A similar name,
Name, is used in West Africa alongside other divine names, such as
Ngewo the god of the Mende people of Sierra Leone, Amma of
the Dogon of Mali, Mawu of the Ewe of Abomey, Olorun of the
Yoruba and Chukwu of the Ibo and Soko of the Nupe, all of
Nigeria.
Despite the universality of belief in a supreme being in Africa regular
worship is not generally given to him. There are no great temples or
organized cults for him in most places, though there are a few exceptions.
Yet despite this absence of formal worship and temples over most of
Africa, the supreme being (or God) is a reality to many people. He
is transcendent and there is a popular myth, told from West African to the
Upper Nile, which says that he or the sky his dwelling place was once much
nearer to the earth.
Africans believe in many other spiritual beings, roughly divisible into
nature spirits and ancestors, some of them having both human and natural
origins. They are often called children of God, but most receive much more
formal worship than he does. Yet it is said that in sacrifices offered to
other deities the essence of the gift goes to the supreme being.
There are countless gods, and their cults are particularly well developed
in West Africa, and less in eastern and southern Africa where the
ancestral rituals tend to dominate. Many of these cults of the gods are
declining nowadays but in some places, as among the Ewe of Abomey, they
are highly organized and are as yet little affected by Islam or
Christianity.
To learn about African Religions you can go to the following links
or perform your own research:
http://www.afrikaworld.net/afrel/
http://afgen.com/atr.html
http://www.afrikaworld.net/afrel/atr_bibliography.htm
