Portal:Traditional African religions

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, myths, 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...)

Selected article

The Bantu beliefs are the system of beliefs and legends of the Bantu peoples of Africa. Although Bantu peoples account for several hundred different ethnic groups, there is a high degree of homogeneity in Bantu cultures and customs, just as in Bantu languages. The phrase "Bantu mythology" usually refers to the common, recurring themes that are found in all or most Bantu cultures.

All Bantus traditionally believe in a supreme God. The nature of God is often only vaguely defined, although he may be associated with the Sun, or the oldest of all ancestors, or have other specifications. Most names of God include the Bantu particle ng (nk), that is related to the sky; some examples are Mulungu (Yao people, Akamba of Kenya and others), Mungu (Swahili people), Kibumba (Basoga people), Imana (Banyarwanda and Barundi people), Unkulunkulu (Zulu people), Ruhanga (Nyoro and others), and Ngai (Akamba, Agikuyu and other groups). In many traditions God is supposed to live in the skies; there are also traditions that locate God on some high mountain, for example the Kirinyaga mountain - Mt. Kenya, for Kikuyu people.

Selected images

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 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 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 5The 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 6Vodun altar with several fetishes in Abomey, Benin (West Africa).
Credit: Dominik Schwarz
More about this picture on West African Vodun...
Image 7An Igbo Ukwu bronze ceremonial vessel made around the 9th century AD.
Credit: Ukabia
More about this picture on Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu...
Image 8Traditional 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 9An early 20th century Yoruba divination board.
Credit: Tamsier
For more about this picture, see Divination in Traditional African religions and African divination
Image 10An 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 11The star Yoonir, symbol of the Universe in Serer religion and Serer 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 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.
Credit: Tamsier)
For more about the pentagram in Serer spirituality, see Yoonir in Serer religion and Serer creation myth.

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

Maad Semou Njekeh Joof (or Maad Semou Djiké Diouf) was a member of the Joof Dynasty of the Kingdom of Sine now part of independent Senegal. Maad means king and Maad a Sinig means king of Sine in Serer. He was the founder of the Royal House of Semou Njekeh Joof, founded in the early eighteenth century. His royal house was the third and last royal house founded by the Joof family of Sine and Saloum. Since its foundation, at least seven kings of Sine from his royal house had succeeded to the throne including his son Maad a Sinig Boukar Tjilas Sanghaie Joof.

In the Serer religion, Semou Njekeh Joof is immortalized in the cult of Tagdiam. The principle shrine of Tagdiam is named after him. Tagdiam in present-day Senegal was where he lived.

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?

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