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, including various ethnic religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural and are passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs, and festivals, and include beliefs in spirits and higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme being, as well as the veneration of the dead, and 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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Selected article

The Nommo are mythological ancestral spirits (sometimes referred to as deities) worshiped by the Dogon tribe of Mali. The word "Nommo" is derived from a Dogon word meaning "to make one drink." The Nommos are usually described as amphibious, hermaphroditic, fish-like creatures. Folk art depictions of the Nommos show creatures with humanoid upper torsos, legs/feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail. The Nommos are also referred to as "Masters of the Water", "The Monitors", and "The Teachers". Nommo can be a proper name of an individual, or can refer to the group of spirits as a whole.

Selected images

Image 1Bakongo 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 2An Igbo Ukwu bronze ceremonial vessel made around the 9th century AD.
Credit: Ukabia
More about this picture on Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu...
Image 3The 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 4Serer 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 5The 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 6The Mbot mask. Symbol of the Serer peoples' Ndut initiation rite.
Credit: Tamsier
More about the Ndut rite of passage....
Image 7Vodun altar with several fetishes in Abomey, Benin (West Africa).
Credit: Dominik Schwarz
More about this picture on West African Vodun...
Image 8An 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 9An early 20th century Yoruba divination board.
Credit: Tamsier
For more about this picture, see Divination in Traditional African religions and African divination
Image 10Traditional 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 11The 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.

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

Eileen Jensen Krige (1905–1995) was a prominent South African social anthropologist noted for her research on Zulu and Lovedu cultures. Together with Hilda Kuper and Monica Wilson, she produced substantial works on the Nguni peoples of Southern Africa. Apart from her research she is considered to be one of the 'pioneering mothers' of the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa, where she taught from 1948 until retirement in 1970. She inspired many women to devote themselves to research. Krige is also associated with a group of South African anthropologists who were strongly against the segregation policies of apartheid in South Africa. These include amongst others, Isaac Schapera, Winifred Hoernle, Hilda Kuper, Monica Wilson, Audrey Richards and Max Gluckman.

Selected quote

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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?