Welcome to the Traditional African religion portal
Bienvenue sur le portail religions traditionnelles africaines
A wooden Nommo figure of the Dogon or Tellem people of Mali, believed to be made in the Mopti Region between the 11th and 15th century. The figure is now housed at the Brooklyn Museum, The Adolph and Esther D. Gottlieb Collection. This human form with raised arms is very common in Tellem sculptures symbolizing prayer for rain.
The Traditional beliefs and practices of African peoples include various traditional religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural, include belief in a supreme creator, belief in spirits, veneration of ancestors, use of magic, and traditional medicine. The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonizing nature with the supernatural.
While adherence to traditional religion in Africa is hard to estimate, due to syncretism with Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, practitioners are estimated to number over 100 million, or at least 10 percent of the population of the continent.
African diasporic religions are also practiced in the diaspora in the Americas, such as Haitian Vodou.
"African traditional religion is inextricably linked to the culture of the African people. In Africa religion has been understood as an integral part of life in which every aspect was knit together into a coherent system of thought and action, giving significance and meaning and providing abiding and satisfying values. Religion, culture, politics, and society were part of a seamless whole and no part of it could stand on its own.
The absence of a specific word for "religion" in many African languages is an indication of this African holistic understanding of life. Words related to the concept of religion may be translated as "customs," tradition," or "way of life.".
Source : "The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions", (Editor: Department of Global and International Studies University of California Mark Juergensmeyer Professor of Sociology and Director, Santa Barbara), p. 537, Oxford University Press, USA (2006), ISBN 9780199727612 [1]
Divination (from Latin divinare "to foresee, to be inspired by a god", related to divinus, divine) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency.
Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion.
More about divination in Traditional African religions...
An Igbo Ukwu bronze ceremonial vessel made around the 9th century AD.
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African religion, seen through the Sereer religion, has most of the traits of a religious trend: it has a theory, latent, but coherent, oriented toward sacred transcendence as source of life, communication and participation. An ethics proposed by the old tradition, with a sense of right and wrong. A popular cult. Places of worship. A corpus of prayers. A mystical life, reserved for initiates. A well-prepared staff, from Pangool [ancestors’ spirits] priests, seers, healers and leaders of religious worship, the Saltigi, not to mention a multitude of celebrants dedicated to family and local cults. A whole life based on the religious experience. It is a true religious path, whose central theme could be formulated as follows: "the divine in man. |
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Babacar Sédikh Diouf
Source: Diouf, Babacar Sédikh, "Le Sérère, Paganism Polythéiste ou Religion Monothéiste" [in] Camara, Fatou Kiné (PhD) & Seck, Abdourahmane (PhD), "Secularity and Freedom of Religion in Senegal: Between a Constitutional Rock and a Hard Reality", p 860-61 (PDF - p. 2-3) [2]
A terracotta sculpture from the Nok era believed to be made between the 6th century BC–6th century CE
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For more Traditional African religion topics, see Category:African traditional religions.
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Religion
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