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, 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 Nyongo society is the name of a supposed group of witches believed to exist in Cameroon and Nigeria. The legends were first written about in the 1950s by British social anthropologist, Edwin Ardener, while describing what he called the Nyongo Terror the present-day Southwest Province in Cameroon. Today the belief in this society can be found from the coast of Cameroon to the Bakossi and Beti peoples in the interior of the country. It is even found amongst the northern parts of the country with the Bamileke and Bamenda peoples.

Selected images

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

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

Babacar Sedikh Diouf (Serer: Babakar Sidiix Juuf) is a Senegalese historian, author, researcher, campaigner against "Wolofization", a Pan-Africanist, and former teacher. He has written extensively about the history and culture of Senegal, Africa, and that of the Serer ethnic group to which he belong. He usually writes by the pen name Babacar Sedikh Diouf.

Diouf was one of the first (if not the first) to explain the Serer religious significance of the Senegambian stone circles. His work published on July 7, 1980 on the Senegalese newspaper Le Soleil became headline news and was picked up by the prehistorian and archaeologist Professor Cyr Descamps and his colleague Professor Iba Der Thiam. Professor Descamps was one of the archaelogisgts who excavated the monuments back in the 1970s. On July 28, 1980, Professor Descamps issued a response to Diouf—thanking him for explaining the significance of the Senegambian megaliths which until then were unknown or undocumented. Some of that included the arrangement of the stones and their religious symbolism based on Serer numerlogy. In his joint paper with Iba Der Thiam – titled: La préhistoire au Sénégal: recueil de documents, published in 1982, Descamps and Thiam republished Diouf's work and reiterated their thanks to him for his work two years earlier.

Selected quote

“

The environment and nature are infused in every aspect of traditional African religions and culture. This is largely because cosmology and beliefs are intricately intertwined with the natural phenomena and environment. All aspects of weather, thunder, lightning, rain, day, moon, sun, stars, and so on may become amenable to control through the cosmology of African people. Natural phenomena are responsible for providing people with their daily needs.

”

Roger S. Gottlieb

Source: Gottlieb, Roger S., The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, Oxford University Press (2006), p. 261, ISBN 9780199727698 [1]

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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For more Traditional African religion topics, see Category:Traditional African religions.

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