African traditional religions
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, myths, 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.
Spread and syncretism with Abrahamic religions
Adherents of traditional religions in Africa are distributed among 43 countries and are estimated to number over 100 million.Islam and Christianity, having largely displaced indigenous African religions, are often adapted to African cultural contexts and belief systems. African people often combine the practice of their traditional beliefs with the practice of Abrahamic religions. These two Abrahamic religions are widespread across Africa, though mostly concentrated in different regions. Abrahamic religious beliefs, especially monotheistic elements, such as the belief in a single creator God, were introduced into traditionally polytheistic African religions rather early. West African religions seek to come to terms with reality, and, unlike Abrahamic religions, are not idealisations. They generally seek to explain the reality of personal experience by spiritual forces which underpin orderly group life, contrasted by those that threaten it.
Followers of traditional African religions are also found around the world. In recent times, religions, such as the Yoruba religion and the Odinala religion, Gaboism, are on the rise. The religions of the Igbo and Yoruba are popular in the Caribbean and portions of Central and South America. In the United States, Voodoo is more predominant in the states along the Gulf of Mexico.
Basics
Highly complex animistic beliefs build the core concept of traditional African religions. This includes the worship of tutelary deities, nature worship, ancestor worship and the belief in an afterlife, comparable to other traditional religions around the world. While some religions have a pantheistic worldview with a supreme creator god next to other gods and spirits, others follow a purely polytheistic system with various gods, spirits and other supernatural beings. Traditional African religions also have elements of totemism, shamanism and veneration of relics.File:Ganvie Voodoo Dancer.jpg|thumb|Traditional Vodun dancer enchanting gods and spirits, in Ganvie, Benin
Traditional African religion, like most other ancient traditions around the world, were based on oral traditions. These traditions are not religious principles, but a cultural identity that is passed on through stories, myths and tales, from one generation to the next. The community, one's family, and the environment, play an important role in one's personal life. Followers believe in the guidance of their ancestors spirits. Among many traditional African religions, there are spiritual leaders and kinds of priests. These individuals are essential in the spiritual and religious survival of the community. There are mystics that are responsible for healing and 'divining' - a kind of fortune telling and counseling, similar to shamans. These traditional healers have to be called by ancestors or gods. They undergo strict training and learn many necessary skills, including how to use natural herbs for healing and other, more mystical skills, like the finding of a hidden object without knowing where it is. Traditional African religions believe that ancestors maintain a spiritual connection with their living relatives. Most ancestral spirits are generally good and kind. Negative actions taken by ancestral spirits are to cause minor illnesses to warn people that they have gotten onto the wrong path.
Native African religions are centered on ancestor worship, the belief in a spirit world, supernatural beings and free will. Deceased humans still exist in the spirit world and can influence or interact with the physical world. Forms of polytheism were widespread in most of ancient Africa and other regions of the world before the introduction of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. An exception was the short-lived monotheistic religion created by Pharaoh Akhenaten, who made it mandatory to pray to his personal god Aten. This remarkable change to traditional Egyptian religion was however reverted by his youngest son, Tutankhamun. High gods, along with other more specialized deities, ancestor spirits, territorial spirits, and beings, are a common theme among traditional African religions, highlighting the complex and advanced culture of ancient Africa.
Some research suggests that certain monotheistic concepts, such as the belief in a high god or force were present within Africa, before the introduction of Abrahamic religions. These indigenous concepts were different from the monotheism found in Abrahamic religions.
Traditional African medicine is also directly linked to traditional African religions. According to Clemmont E. Vontress, the various religious traditions of Africa are united by a basic Animism. According to him, the belief in spirits and ancestors is the most important element of African religions. Gods were either self-created or evolved from spirits or ancestors which got worshiped by the people. He also notes that most modern African folk religions were strongly influenced by non-African religions, mostly Christianity and Islam and thus may differ from the ancient forms.
Traditional African religions generally hold the beliefs of life after death, with some also having a concept of reincarnation, in which deceased humans may reincarnate into their family lineage, if they want to, or have something to fulfill. The Serer concept of reincarnation rejects the notion of the incarnation or reincarnation of the Supreme Deity and Creator Roog. However, the reincarnation of the Pangool or souls is a well-held belief in Serer spirituality.
There are often similarities between traditional African religions located in the same subregion. Central Africa, for instance, has similar religious traditions in countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, and Malawi. The people in these countries who follow traditional religious practices often venerate ancestors through rituals and worship the land or a "divinity" through "regional cults" or "shrine cults", respectively.
Jacob Olupona, Nigerian American professor of indigenous African religions at Harvard University, summarized the many traditional African religions as complex animistic religious traditions and beliefs of the African people before the Christian and Islamic "colonization" of Africa. Ancestor veneration has always played a "significant" part in the traditional African cultures and may be considered as central to the African worldview. Ancestors are an integral part of reality. The ancestors are generally believed to reside in an ancestral realm, while some believe that the ancestors became equal in power to deities.
Olupona rejects the western/Islamic definition of monotheism and says that such concepts could not reflect the complex African traditions and are too simplistic. While some traditions have a supreme being, others have not. Monotheism does not reflect the multiplicity of ways that the traditional African spirituality has conceived of deities, gods, and spirit beings. He summarizes that traditional African religions are not only religions, but a worldview, a way of life.
Ceremonies
West and Central African religious practices generally manifest themselves in communal ceremonies or divinatory rites in which members of the community, overcome by force, are excited to the point of going into meditative trance in response to rhythmic or driving drumming or singing. One religious ceremony practiced in Gabon and Cameroon is the Okuyi, practiced by several Bantu ethnic groups. In this state, depending upon the region, drumming or instrumental rhythms played by respected musicians, participants embody a deity or ancestor, energy or state of mind by performing distinct ritual movements or dances which further enhance their elevated consciousness.When this trance-like state is witnessed and understood, adherents are privy to a way of contemplating the pure or symbolic embodiment of a particular mindset or frame of reference. This builds skills at separating the feelings elicited by this mindset from their situational manifestations in daily life. Such separation and subsequent contemplation of the nature and sources of pure energy or feelings serves to help participants manage and accept them when they arise in mundane contexts. This facilitates better control and transformation of these energies into positive, culturally appropriate behavior, thought, and speech. Also, this practice can give rise to those in these trances uttering words which, when interpreted by a culturally educated initiate or diviner, can provide insight into appropriate directions which the community might take in accomplishing its goal.
Spirits
Followers of traditional African religions pray to various spirits as well as to their ancestors. This includes also nature, elementary, and animal spirits. The difference between powerful spirits and gods is often minimal. Most African societies believe in several "high gods" and a large amount of lower gods and spirits. There are also some religions with a single supreme being. Some recognize a dual god and goddess such as Mawu-Lisa.Traditional African religions generally believe in an afterlife, one or more Spirit worlds. Ancestor worship is an important basic concept in nearly all African religions. Some African religions adopted different views through the influence of Islam or even Hinduism.