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African traditional religions

One stereotype less

A senior officer from the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue takes part in the debate on African traditional religions – sometimes improperly described as “animistic” – started on this Magazine. He highlights their ethical value and some of their distinguishing features, along with the challenges stemming from a comparison with modernity.


by Chidi Dennis Isizoh


Introduction

It is stating the obvious to say that all ethnic groups in Africa have a WAY of
Oromo authorities following the Spirit Medium, Ethiopia.
Source: Lewis, Herbert S., University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, Africa Focus, 1965
acknowledging the Supreme Being, the Creator and the Sustainer of the world; a WAY of appeasing the superior Spirits; a WAY of showing respect to Ancestors; a WAY of living in a society as human beings. This WAY is not a system independent of other activities of human beings. It covers every aspect of being. One could that it is life itself. It has no specific name in most languages of Africa. Our African sons and daughters who have received European education call it a religion, following the patterns found in other peoples’ WAYS identified as Religions. Bolaji Idowu of Nigeria dedicated a whole book to the definition of the WAY of African peoples. And African scholars agree that this WAY should be known as, and called, African Traditional Religion. Is it singular or plural? It depends on how a person looks at it. Both positions are acceptable. I choose to write it in the singular for convenience of expression, but I am open to the plural use of the term.
There is a danger of seeing the whole of Africa as one piece. Certainly there are differences in the expression of what is deepest in every human being and among various ethnic groups on the continent. We can definitely point at these differences. But the elements that unite are so many that Africans in the sub-Sahara, apart from the complexion, can identify themselves as one. We can talk about African Culture or Cultures. We can talk about many aspects of African life in the singular or plural. Scholars can differ in their opinion about this.

Often we read about the African Traditional Religion in books and journals. Sometimes discussions end with the classical understanding of the religion. From time to time, however, one comes across articles challenging the way this religion is presented. Some people actually advocate that it is time to stop talking about a religion that is now on the list of “endagered species”, as most of its followers are converting either to Christianity or Islam in Africa. The religion has not really responded to the major crises facing the continent. Africa is considered a “third world” so too is the religion from the continent. Why waste time on a religion considered by some people as obsolete?
Yet some of African scholars have noted the profound influence the religion has on the African worldview and life. John Mbiti has often been quoted as saying that Africans are “notoriously religious” (African Religions and Philosophy, Oxford, 1975, p. 30). This position is acknowledged even among the Africans in the diaspora. Peter J. Paris writes that “the ubiquity of religious consciousness among African peoples constitutes their single most important common characteristic” (The Spirituality of African Peoples, The Search for a Common moral Discourse, Minneapolis, 1995, p. 27). J. Holloway, this time a non-African, observes:

Religion was (and remains) a vital part of the lives of most Africans. For some it encompassed their entire existence. It substantiated and explained their place in the universe; their culture, and their relationship to nature at large. Religion among most African ethnic groups was not simply a faith or worship system; it was a way of life, a system of social control, a provider of medicine, and an organising mechanism. (Africanisms in American Culture, Bloomington, 1990, p. 37)


1. Some permanent values derived from African Traditional Religion

Let me in this short paper indicate some permanent values from the African Traditional Religion which are valid today for both followers of the religion and converts from it to other religious traditions.


Family

One of the most treasured values of the African peoples is the family. A person is defined in terms of the group to which he or she belongs. This sense of community is gained through the family, the lineage, the clan, and the tribe. Among many African societies the family is not simply made up of father, mother and children. It comprises a whole group of persons: the head of the family with his wife or wives, his children, and grandchildren, and also his brothers and sisters with their wives and children, his nephews and nieces, in a word, all those persons who descend from a common ancestor. In some areas there are no separate words for cousins or nephews or nieces; every person is either a brother or a sister. It is not how large this family is that is important, but what role it plays in keeping together the members. In it, every person has a place. The elders are respected; the young people are treated with love and kindness.
The concept of the family goes beyong the living members. The ancestors and all the dead members are part of this large family. This means that the family never reduces in number. Those who are married into the family and the children born into it help to swell the number. The dead relatives remain permanent members.


Spirit of oneness

The spirit of oneness is not limited to the nuclear family, it extends beyond the group from the same ancestral tree to a clan or village or even town. The individual is not alone in the world; he is surrounded by members of his community. A person is complete only in so far as he is part of this community. An African, right from birth, learns to believe that «I am because I belong».


Sacrificing for the Group

The community consciousness makes one realise the necessity to contribute for the welfare of the group. It is not uncommon to find in some places communities making financial contributions to build houses for their members in need or to send some of their bright young people to study in order later to represent them in the government or, in case of doctors and lawyers, to handle their problems. There have been many cases, for example among Christians, in which seminarians and aspirants to religious life were sponsored by the community. Every member of the community rejoices on the day of ordination or religious profession. The success or failure of a member is not only for the individual concerned, the whole community is involved.


Concern for the Weaker Members

Another important value is the concern Africans show for their weak members: the sick and the aged. The sick are not left alone; the aged are not abandoned in “Old People’s homes”. They live with the members of their families. Euthanasia is not considered as an option to end the pains of these weak members of the society. They are loved and cared for until they die and join the dead family members.


Covenantal Dimension of Marriage

Marriage is not merely the concern of two individuals. It is an alliance, a covenant, between families and persons. Cultural provisions are made to guarantee its stability. Incest is punished severely. Those guilty of marital infidelity are frowned upon.


Children are treasured

Children are loved. In most African societies, marriage without a child is regarded as meaningless and unfulfilled. When children come, they are not just for the nuclear family. Children bring joy to the entire community.


Life is sacred

There is great respect for the sacredness of life. There is almost a feeling of a divine imperative that “Life must be given; life must be lived; life is to be enjoyed; life is to be whole; life is to be honourable; life is to be long and peaceful.” (Sarpong). For these reasons, many African societies have taboos and rituals to protect the divine gift of life. Wilful murder is an abomination, sometimes requiring complicated rites of purification which may include going into exile for several years and paying for the upkeep of the family of the murdered person. Abortion is also regarded as an abomination.


Hospitality

Among Africans, there is no need to book an appointment in advance for a visit to or a meal with a neighbour. In most societies, hospitality is considered a duty. Visitors are welcome, even when the motive for the visit is not clearly defined. This explains why it was easy for the first European Christian missionaries to gain a foothold in many African villages and how they were able to get close to the ears of the people and then preach to them about Jesus Christ.


Sense of the sacred

In the traditional religious setting, Africans have a very high sense of the sacred. There is reverence for sacred places, persons and objects. Religion enfolds the whole of life and there is no dichotomy between the secular and the religious, the sacred and the profane, the visible and the invisible. These distinctions are to them artificial. A completely secular world does not exist for them. There is no borderline between this life and afterlife. Life itself is cyclic, going from birth to death and to rebirth. The emphasis on a person’s enduring happiness is not concentrated on the afterlife but rather on the totality of his or her well-being in this life and in the afterlife.
There is consciousness of the invisible presence of God, the spirits and the ancestors. Human beings must therefore always live in a manner pleasing to these supernatural forces. They must tell the truth, be honest in business and just in dealing with others. Care is taken to ascertain the will of the spirit to whom sacrifices may be due or from whom protection may be sought.


The Sacredness of the Spoken Word

Great importance is attached to the power of the word. The words of blessing pronounced by a father on his child is believed to be very efficacious. The verbal last testament of a dying person is considered sacred, no one dares add or subtract. To break the oath of secrecy taken during some initiation ceremonies is considered a very grievous offence in a community.


2. Challenges to traditional religious values

In the last one hundred years the world has witnessed tremendous changes in the
A Oromo woman bringing Tribute to Water Spirit, Ethiopia.
Source: Lewis, Herbert S., University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, Africa Focus, 1965
social, economic, political, and even religious spheres of life. The changes have been brought about by the possibility of frequent contacts between peoples. It is a matter of hours for an event in India to be heard in Brazil, Spain and Zimbabwe, thanks to the mass media. People frequently travel by air, by road and by sea, from one end of the globe to the other. Religious missionaries are on the move. Mother Teresa of Calcutta is known world-wide and her sisters are easily identified in most countries of the world. All these movements mean that cultures meet one another, new ideas are acquired, prejudices are reduced, and friendship is fostered.
African Traditional Religion and its values are not in isolation. In the course of history, they have met with world religions such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. Foreign cultures have impacted with local traditions. Urbanization, industrialization, modern science and technology and local and national politics are realities which African peoples have to reckon with. What has happened to the African traditional religious values in the process? Let us refer to some areas of life.
The traditional family system has to battle with the impact of the economic problem posed to salaried workers in a big city who cannot afford to pay for a flat big enough for their growing families, let alone visiting relations.
The community spirit with the traditional sense of private property owners having the obligation to share with their poorer neighbours is put to a difficult test by the modern business culture which puts the emphasis on individual success, personal profit and further investment for yet greater gains.

Basic virtues like honesty in the village where there is no need to lock doors, truth in the marketplace where everybody knows everybody and the seller tells the buyer the real price of the article, being one another’s brother and sister by which a compact village community lives and celebrates together: these and similar values are severely tried in the megalopolis where the individual feels alone and unknown in a city of two or more million people.
The religious virtues, celebrations and customs which have been protected by closely knit communities begin to disintegrate under the anonymous impact of the big city where everyone is struggling to survive.
While democracy has its merits, it is undeniable that the threads that held many African societies together are weakening under the pressure being exerted by the onrush of modern politics and government, electioneering campaigns and changing attitudes towards the elders, traditional authorities and indeed customs as a whole.
In front of these, some of the Africans have lost confidence in themselves and occasionally try to hide their background in order not to be considered primitive. Some have embraced foreign values as if they are superior and better than those inherited from the African cultural background. At another end are the Africans who are campaigning for a return to the “original state”, that is, the state of the African culture that is unaffected by the impact of other cultures.


3. Preserving african traditional religious values

The answer to the challenges posed by the changes in the African societies lies not in regretting good modern developments, not in looking backwards, but in studying what values have a permanent validity, so that they should in some suitable form be saved and an acceptable synthesis with what is good in the new be worked out.



CHANGES IN THE STUDIES ON AFRICA'S RELIGIOUS DIMENSION

The religious dimension of African societies is certainly inadequately represented within the “hard core” of relevant common stereotypes. In Bolaji Idowu's opinion, everything started with the earliest travellers and explorers who considerably contributed to the dissemination of erroneous views and negative feelings on the Africans and their traditional religious culture. Christopher Ejizu stresses that native religious materials were regarded as “outlandish and bizarre”, and adds: «They noticed there were no religious temples, churches or mosques. This in particular made them seriously wonder whether African natives had any religion at all».
However, Ejizu (who in any case prefers to speak of one single religion having a number of different forms) claims that studies on African traditional religions continued to be carried out by European missionaries, soldiers and administrators first, then through research by Africanist institutions sponsored by colonial governments.
As Basil Davidson helped us understand, egregious mistakes were made at the time; they were caused by evolutionist (i.e., African traditional religions seen as an “early” stage of human religiousness) and single-discipline approaches (i.e., those associated with the use of ethnography which tended to confine the African religious experience within a static and “a-temporal dimension).
Not least because of this, Ejizu goes on to say, «in referring to African religious elements, for some time authors kept using terms having negative and degrading connotations – ethnocentric terms such as uncivilised, savage, native, and tribe. More terms are: paganism, idolatry, animism, fetishism, and totemism. Such terms were used (notably by Western anthropologists and evolutionists) out of deep-rooted bias and racial discrimination against the Africans ».
Ejizu notes that a significant change occurred immediately before independence, when a number of African (religious and secular) writers and scholars, such as Danquah, Mulago, Kagame, followed by Mbiti, Arinze, Ezeanya, Idowu, Ilogu and more, joined the arena. Through their contribution, more in-depth studies on African religions were carried out; above all, they highlighted their high significance in terms of ethics and community. Currently, there are a number of study centres on this subject, and a large choice of first-rate research is available on the theological, philosophical and moral characters of such religions, as well as on their ability to meet in a dynamic and flexible way the needs of present and previous African people and societies – with deep implications on social, economic and political life. What many find surprising, for instance, is a widespread presence of traditional spirituality among elites and the urban middle classes in African countries (see issues 2 and 3 of African Societies).
Stereotypes on African spirituality, however, are still common among the world public opinion, possibly also among a number of decision-makers globally. Traditional religions are part of African modernity (indeed, of post-modernity), but it is still a long way to a full acceptance of this fact.

D.M.

References