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| Religion Distribution in Africa |
cultures, and worldviews. Here, Jacob K. Olupona, author of
1. African traditional religion refers to the indigenous or autochthonous religions of the African people. It deals with their cosmology, ritual practices, symbols, arts, society, and so on. Because religion is a way of life, it relates to culture and society as they affect the worldview of the African people.
2. Traditional African
religions are not stagnant but highly dynamic and constantly reacting to
various shifting influences such as old age, modernity, and technological
advances.
3. Traditional African
religions are less of faith traditions and more of lived traditions. They are
less concerned with doctrines and much more so with rituals, ceremonies, and
lived practices.
4. When addressing
religion in Africa, scholars often speak of a “triple heritage,” that is the
triple legacy of indigenous religion, Islam, and Christianity that are often
found side by side in many African societies.
5. While those who
identify as practitioners of traditional African religions are often in the
minority, many who identify as Muslims or Christians are involved in
traditional religions to one degree or another.
6. Though many Africans
have converted to Islam and Christianity, these religions still inform the
social, economic, and political life in African societies.
7. Traditional African
religions have gone global! The Trans-Atlantic slave trade led to the growth of
African-inspired traditions in the Americas such as Candomblé in Brazil, Santería
in Cuba, or Vodun in Haïti. Furthermore, many in places like the US and the UK
have converted to various traditional African religions, and the importance of
the diaspora for these religions is growing rapidly. African religions have
also become a major attraction for those in the diaspora who travel to Africa
on pilgrimages because of the global reach of these traditions.
8. There are quite a
number of revival groups and movements whose main aim is to ensure that the
tenants and practice of African indigenous religion that are threatened
survive. These can be found all over the Americas and Europe.
9. The concerns for
health, wealth, and procreation are very central to the core of African
religions. That is why they have developed institutions for healing, for
commerce, and for the general well-being of their own practitioners and
adherents of other religions as well.
10. Indigenous African
religions are not based on conversion like Islam and Christianity. They tend to
propagate peaceful coexistence, and they promote good relations with members of
other religious traditions that surround them.
11. Today as a minority
tradition, it has suffered immensely from human rights abuses. This is based on
misconceptions that these religions are antithetical to modernity. Indeed
indigenous African religions have provided the blueprint for robust conversations
and thinking about community relations, interfaith dialogue, civil society, and
civil religion.
12. Women play a key role
in the practice of these traditions, and the internal gender relations and
dynamics are very profound. There are many female goddesses along with their
male counterparts. There are female priestesses, diviners, and other figures,
and many feminist scholars have drawn from these traditions to advocate for
women’s rights and the place of the feminine in African societies. The
traditional approach of indigenous African religions to gender is one of
complementarity in which a confluence of male and female forces must operate in harmony.
13. Indigenous African
religions contain a great deal of wisdom and insight on how human beings can
best live within and interact with the environment. Given our current impending
ecological crisis, indigenous African religions have a great deal to offer both
African countries and the world at large.
14. African indigenous
religions provide strong linkages between the life of humans and the world of
the ancestors. Humans are thus able to maintain constant and symbiotic
relations with their ancestors who are understood to be intimately concerned
and involved in their descendants’ everyday affairs.
15. Unlike other world
religions that have written scriptures, oral sources form the core of
indigenous African religions. These oral sources are intricately interwoven
into arts, political and social structure, and material culture. The oral
nature of these traditions allows for a great deal of adaptability and
variation within and between indigenous African religions. At the same time,
forms of orature – such as the Ifa tradition amongst the Yoruba can form
important sources for understanding the tenants and worldview of these
religions that can serve as analogs to scriptures such as the Bible or the Qur’an.
*Jacob K. Olupona is Professor of
African Religious Traditions at Harvard Divinity School, with a joint
appointment as Professor of African and African American Studies in Harvard’s
Faculty of Arts and Sciences. A noted scholar of indigenous African religions,
his books include African Religions: A Very Short Introduction, City
of 201 Gods: Ilé-Ifè in Time, Space, and the Imagination, Òrìsà Devotion as
World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture, co-edited with
Terry Rey, and Kingship, Religion, and Rituals in a Nigerian Community: A
Phenomenological Study of Ondo Yoruba Festivals. In 2007, he was awarded the
Nigerian National Order of Merit, one of Nigeria’s most prestigious honors.
I agree oooo. I gasped for air when I read that the writer is a professor at Harvard. Tuale Baba. It is not easy. We are proud of you.
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