African Religions: An Interpretation

African peoples have created hundreds of distinct religions that, despite centuries of contact with Islam and Christianity, remain important both in Africa itself and to followers in the Americas and in Europe. Approximately half of Africa's current population identify themselves as Muslim. A smaller number identify themselves as Christian or as followers of indigenous African religions, and small groups (under one million each) identify themselves as Jewish or Hindu. This essay focuses on those religions created by African peoples south of the Sahara. While there is considerable diversity in African religions, this essay will emphasize their commonalities.

Western Views of African Religions

Any discussion of African religions must consider the way in which Western observers have described them. It is fair to say that African religions have been subjected to the most negative stereotyping of any of the world's religious traditions. Beginning in the sixteenth century, Westerners attempted to justify the enslavement of African peoples by claiming that Africans lacked a sense of both history and religion. In the nineteenth century this alleged deficiency was used to justify the colonization of the African continent. Europeans initially claimed that the slave trade and then colonization would bring Africans into history and, through missionary activity, into religion. Europeans assumed that religious activity occurred in buildings and in reference to sacred scriptures. Such categories excluded Africa.

Shamans of Masai. This group of young shamans was photographed in the Masai region of Kenya sometime between 1920 and 1930.

(Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress)

view larger image

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, European administrators, travelers, missionaries, and anthropologists became increasingly aware that African cultures possessed something that corresponded to what Europeans regarded as religion. Still, they could take comfort in the general absence of sacred written texts and what appeared to be a lack of focus on a supreme being, both of which stood in sharp contrast to the three major monotheistic traditions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. African religions became relegated to a special category, labeled at various times as primitive, animist, fetishist, oral, traditional, and so on—essentially as living museums for a distant religious past. When missionaries sought to preach in African communities and to translate prayers and scriptures into African languages, they realized that most African religions have a term for the supreme being. Still, they insisted that this was not an active god, like that of Western religions. It was a god who began the act of creation and then stepped back. It became what they called a deus otiotus, a remote god, rarely invoked in African religions, which focused their attention on lesser spirits and ancestors and the rituals designed to supplicate them.

Western scholars have also characterized African societies as resistant to change. This view has even been accepted by some of the leading African scholars of religion who argued that African religious change prior to colonial conquest was so slow as to be imperceptible. As John Mbiti has described it: “Human life is relatively stable and almost static. A rhythm of life is the norm and any radical change is either unknown, resented or so slow that it is hardly noticed.”

While it is true that Africans do not have a word equivalent to the term religion, there are a number of terms in African languages that describe activities, practices, and a system of thought that corresponds with what most Westerners mean by religion. African religions are often closely associated with African peoples’ concepts of ethnic identity, language, and culture. They are not limited to beliefs in supernatural beings or to ritual acts of worship, but govern all aspects of life, from farming to hunting, from travel to courtship. Like most religious systems, African religions focus on the eternal question of what it means to be human: What is the meaning of life, and what are the correct relations between humans, between humans and spiritual powers, and with the natural world? African religious systems seek to explain the persistence of evil and suffering, and they seek to portray the world as operating with some degree of order and predictability. They uphold certain types of ethical behavior, which their followers see as influencing their status in the afterlife. These ideas are expressed in sacred oral traditions, handed down from generation to generation through the performance of rituals, and through intensive periods of education, including Rites of Passage and Transition.

Supreme Beings

While every African religious tradition has an idea of a supreme being who began the process of creating the universe and who created lesser spirits, they vary as to how they worship these supreme beings and how they perceive their involvement in people's daily lives. Most Western scholars see African supreme beings as somewhat remote, based on the relative lack of shrines devoted to such beings; on the fact that African ritual life typically focuses on lesser spirits; and also on the many African myths describing a supreme being who was active in the initial stages of world history, but then withdrew.

For example, the Dinka of Sudan describe a time when the supreme being hovered just over the earth and provided humans with a grain of millet each day, which was sufficient for all their nutritional needs. According to one version of this myth, one day a woman decided to plant more than the one grain allotted to her. When she raised her hoe in the air to plant it, she poked the supreme being, Nhialic, in the eye. Nhialic withdrew into the sky, and death and hardship became forces in Dinka life. Nhialic withdrew because of the woman's greed, and because she had invented agriculture, a task for the supreme being. One could argue, however, that the supreme being was simply too close, and humans needed some distance to carve out an area for their own initiative. A proverb told by the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria also illustrates this sense of distance and the belief that the supreme being should be approached only on matters of major importance: “God is like a rich man. You approach him through his servants.” According to this view, the supreme being remains in charge of major concerns, such as rain, but is relatively uninvolved in the minor events of daily life.

These images of a remote supreme being, however, do not tell the whole story. Among the Igbo and also the Shona of Zimbabwe, the supreme being is said to speak to humans through spiritual mediums when they enter a state of possession. These mediums are usually women, though it is men who interpret the supreme being's message. Among the Jola of Senegal, fifty men and women have claimed to be prophets of the supreme being. They spread their teachings throughout their communities on such topics as warfare between neighboring villages, the introduction of new forms of rain rituals, and the introduction of a day of rest for the land. Among the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, daily rituals are performed to honor the supreme being, Nyame. In most African religions, the supreme being is both the giver of life and the judge of human conduct after death. Thus, for the Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin, Olorun breathes life into a newborn and gives it a destiny. When a person dies, it is Olorun who decides whether that person will become an ancestor and will eventually be reborn, or whether it will go to the place of broken pots, where those who led destructive lives rest for all eternity. It is a hot place, heated not with fire but with West African peppers. These are not the actions of a remote deity, but one who plays a vital role in African views of the universe.

Lesser Spirits

As the Igbo proverb suggests, the supreme being has assistants who help humans to resolve particular concerns. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin, these lesser spirits are known as orishas. There are said to be 401 orishas, each with a distinct character, special powers, and appropriate rituals. The most important of these include Obatalá, who was sent by Olorun to create the universe, but became inebriated on palm wine before he could finish creating human beings; Oduduwa, who completed Olorun's task and descended to earth to become the first king (oni) of Ife; Changó, the god of thunder; Oshún, a goddess associated with the rivers and with feminine ideals of beauty; and Ifa, the god of divination. These deities are also worshiped in the African-inspired religious traditions of Vodou, Santería, and Candomblé in the Americas.

Among the peoples of east, central, and southern Africa, many of the lesser spirits once lived as human beings, often as kings. This is especially true of the Buganda of Uganda and the Shona. Elsewhere, the lesser spirits are associated with particular forces of nature or human activities. In other cases, the lesser spirits do not have such elaborate biographies, but are associated with particular forces of nature or with particular types of issues. Thus, among the Dogon of Mali, the Nommo are associated with the life-giving properties of water. The Jola have lesser spirits associated with rain, fishing, blacksmithing, community governance, women's fertility, and male initiation, among other things. It is not uncommon to have lesser spirits associated with rivers, the ocean, particular caves or springs, and other places in the natural world.

In all of these cases, however, the lesser spirits derive their powers from the supreme being. Much as Yoruba kings are said to reign rather than to rule (they delegate their authority to various types of councils and advisers at their courts), so Olorun delegates much of his power to the orisha. This is equally true of the Nuer and Dinka of Sudan, who regard most of the spirits as creations of the supreme being. In some parts of Africa, these lesser spirits make their presence known through spirit possession. Among the Fon of Benin and the Yoruba, the spirit enters into the body of the devotee and is said to ride him or her like a horse. The possessed person speaks and moves in the manner of the spirit and communicates its desires to an assembled congregation. In other areas of Africa, lesser spirits communicate through dreams and visions but do not possess their devotees. Spirits who fail to communicate with their devotees or to respond to their prayers are abandoned, and their cults forgotten.

In a separate, but closely related category, are the spirits of the ancestors. In some cases, such as the Yoruba and the Jola, this category is limited to spirits of people who led benevolent lives. They continue to help the living by appearing to their descendants in dreams and visions and providing them with advice and warnings. In southern and central Africa, the ancestors are not necessarily benevolent. They often seize people with illnesses, to punish them for neglecting ritual obligations or obligations to the extended family.

Finally, African religions recognize powers that circulate in the universe and originated from the supreme being. The Dogon, for example, worship a supreme being called Amma, whose vital force, which circulates throughout the universe, is known as nyama. For the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria, the supreme being is known as Chiukwu or Chineke, and the life force that circulates in the world and governs people's destiny is known as chi.

African religions’ lesser spirits show clearly how the religions themselves have changed. For example, in the Yoruba creation myth about Oduduwa's completing the making of human beings after Obatalá became drunk on palm wine, historians see a symbolic account of the rise of Ife and its god Oduduwa, who conquers or displaces the indigenous population who worshiped Obatalá. Both orishas find their way into a Yoruba pantheon, even though Obatalá’s origins may not be Yoruba. With the growing importance of agriculture in Africa over the last 8,000 years, one can trace the development of earth goddess cults like Ala among the Igbo and Asase Ya among the Asante. The increasing importance of cults associated with iron, like that of Ogun among the Yoruba, may well have reflected the growing importance of iron. Among the Kongo and related peoples of central Africa and among the Jola of Senegal, new cults of lesser spirits emerged in relation to the development of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Similarly, the European conquest of Africa catalyzed a variety of new religious movements, which aimed to interpret the religious experience of conquest and offer a solution to the challenges of Colonial rule. Like most religious systems, African religions have been influenced by disruptive events such as conquest, famines, droughts, and epidemics, all of which challenge their ability to explain the world and reassure adherents of its predictability and order.

African Religious Expression and Instruction

African religious belief is expressed through the recitation of myth and oral traditions and through discussion both among elders and between generations. It is also expressed through ritual, which often involves making offerings in order to attract a spirit's power or win its benevolence. One reason that ritual offerings are seldom made to the supreme being, according to many traditions, is that the supreme being already owns everything in the world. Ritual offerings are often accompanied by libations of palm wine, millet beer, or water, which are seen to increase the power of the spoken word. Animal sacrifice may be used in order to release the life force of the animal, which combines with the force of the libation and of the spoken word, and thus further increases the ritual's power. Usually, a ritual's participants consume the meat of the sacrifice and the beverage of the libations, thereby binding the congregation, its priest, and the spirit being supplicated to work toward the fulfillment of their prayers.

Many African art forms are used primarily in religious ritual. In most of Africa, masks and costumes are used to impersonate the lesser spirits. Among the Yoruba, Igbo, Fon, and Ewe of West Africa, wearing a mask and costume invites the presence of a god in one's body. Such masking traditions and impersonations are never done for the supreme being, whose physical image is also not represented in statuary. In most African religions lesser spirits are represented in statues, but these are not idols; they are intended only to symbolize or attract the spirits portrayed.

Dance is also an important part of ritual activity. Dances invite the presence of particular spirits, depict the history of particular cults, or honor the dead. Among the Kung of southern Africa, dance is a particularly important part of healing rituals. The dance itself ignites a spiritual power within the dancer, enabling him or her to enter an altered state of consciousness and heal other people. Dance is also a powerful means of prayer, both to the supreme being and to lesser spirits.

While several African countries, including Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have established formal schools devoted to African healing systems and African religions, most forms of religious instruction are not officially chartered. Much of it occurs within the family and between elders and children. More formal occasions for religious instruction are often associated with rites of passage. Boys often endure an initiation school just before or after puberty, during which they are taught about their religious and social responsibilities as men. Such initiations into manhood may or may not be accompanied by circumcision, though usually some sort of physical ordeal is involved. Girls are often initiated around the age of menarche. In some cases they receive instruction in small groups, from their mothers; in other cases female initiation is more formal, with a period of ritual seclusion comparable to that of male initiation.

Religious Views of Evil and Suffering

African explanations of evil and suffering focus on disruptive spirits, often called tricksters, and on humans who use life-destroying powers for personal gain or to harm others. One trickster among the Yoruba is the messenger god Exú, who dislikes an overly orderly world. Exú often changes messages offered in prayer to see how events will unfold. While mistakenly identified as the Devil by early missionaries, Exú does not work to advance evil, but fully embraces life's incertitude, passion, and beauty. For the Dogon, the trickster figure—variously identified as the Pale Fox or as the Jackal—is a solitary figure who creates chaos in his efforts to find his natural companion. In both cases, these trickster gods make communication with the supreme being and with lesser spirits an uncertain enterprise and help to explain the failure of even the most carefully prepared ritual.

But supernatural beings are not the only cause of suffering. Some humans are said to be able to separate their souls from their bodies and send them in the night to attack other people or other people's goods. These attacks are said to be the source of many illnesses, deaths, and other calamities. In troubled times, societies have often blamed witchcraft and undertaken elaborate witch-finding rituals. But identifying witches is particularly difficult because their activities, occurring entirely in the spiritual realm, are not visible to ordinary people. Sorcerers, on the other hand, use medicines and rituals for personal gain or to harm others. They also cause human suffering, but their use of material objects makes them more readily identifiable than witches. Witchcraft accusations greatly increased in number and frequency during the European conquest of Africa, as people searched for the spiritual significance of their loss of freedom.

While the overwhelming majority of North Africans as well as substantial minorities in East and West Africa now embrace Islam, African religions continue to command a substantial following in most of sub-Saharan Africa. Despite nearly a thousand years of contact with Islam, and nearly five centuries of contact with Christianity, African religions continue to address the spiritual needs of their adherents. They have also influenced the practice of Islam and Christianity in Africa itself. In addition, African religions are practiced by communities across the Americas, as well as in Europe. It appears that African religions will continue to play an important role in Africa and in the West in the twenty-first century.

processed xml | source xml

Sign up to recieve email alerts from African American Studies Center