She holds the right to lead the ceremonies incumbent to the clan: marriages, baptisms and funerals. A unique Supreme Being, distant, omniscient, omnipotent creator of the world. Many groups, including the Yoruba, create carved figures to hold the soul of a deceased twin child, in order to care for and appease its spirit. They illustrate today’s view, not what ancient people believed, etc. Then they dance until a spirit takes over their bodies and, it … To give this in a summed aspect, a proverb says ‘When Lisa punishes Mawu forgives.[4]. Santeria vs. Voodoo Santeria and Voodoo are religions practiced by people who believed in one God that is served by several spirits. She will lead the women of a village when her family collective is the ruling one. Specifically, they are objects inhabited by spirits. [3] Lisa is the sun god who brings the day and the heat, and also strength and energy. I give Cultures of West Africa permission to use the e-mail address above. With no hope of ever coaxing Abasi back to their society to grant wisdom and advice, the Efik seek such things from strong ancestral spirits instead.1, Classification is never easy, as seen in the “West African Religion(s)”, plural versus singular debate, but it may be even harder when trying to pigeonhole traditional belief systems into mutually-exclusive categories, like “polytheism or monotheism”, a dichotomy that, like “black or white”, fails to discern the nuanced grays of not only the African paradigm, but also of, surprisingly, the so-called monotheistic world religions.1,2,4–6. The slaves were baptized as Roman Catholics upon their arrival in the West … (This does not count other traditional religions in Benin.) She is one of the most important members of community. In Igboland, one must never answer to the call of one’s name by an unseen nighttime voice. West African Vodun; Capabilities. Speaking his or her name implores and encourages Amma to continue to hold it. Some class it as a religion. Hinduism is widely considered to be a polytheistic religion, where multiple gods are but manifestations of a single divine being named Brahman. It is distinct from the various traditional African religions in the interiors of these countries and is the main source of religions with similar names found among the African diaspora in the Americas, such as Haitian Vodou; Louisiana Voodoo; Cuban Vodú; Dominican Vudú, and Brazilian Vodum (Candomblé Jejé and Tambor de Mina). pg. [8], All creation is considered divine and therefore contains the power of the divine. Magic and other spiritual forces that influence the lives of humans. While the other divinities serve as mediating forces between human beings, spirits and the Supreme Being, the God of gods is unknowable, omnipotent and omniscient, controlling the affairs of men and the other divinities but unreachable or unwilling to receive prayers or worship.1,7, The Supreme Being is known under many different names across West Africa: the Yoruba know of Olodumare as the supreme orisha; among the Ewe it is Mawu, the Togbe, the ultimate Grandfather; the Ga know him as Nyonmo and call him by the title Ataa-Naa (Grandfather and Grandmother) of all creation.1, The Supreme Being is often thought of as being a sky god, residing far above the heads of his creations and other divinities, making his or her presence known through rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning. "Ewe." Even mundane activities such as farming, trading, smithing or even simply the act of speaking, were imbued with spiritual significance and earthly consequences, both good and bad. The renewal of plant life, the birth of humans and animals, the appearance of lightning and waterfalls, the fall of rain and the push of the wind; all of it is Ngewo’s doing.1, The Supreme Being of the Bambara, Bemba or Ngala, created everything including himself. Interestingly, the late Yoruba artist, Twins Seven Seven, described his own work as “contemporary Yoruba traditional art”, trying to capture on canvas ancestral, but ever-present, Yoruba mythology and spirituality. Other popular Lwa, or spiritual entities, include Azaka who rules over agriculture, Erzuli has domain over love, and Ogoun who is in charge of war, defense and who stands on guard. This is how medicines such as herbal remedies are understood, and explains the ubiquitous use of mundane objects in religious ritual. The traditional belief systems, spirituality and faith of West African peoples has been described in more or less disparaging terms over the course of history, broad terms that fail to reflect the complexity and depth of these beliefs: “paganism”, “animism”, “ancestor-worship”, “idolatry”, “fetishism”, “heathenism”, etc. Only blood relatives were allowed in the family convent; strangers are forbidden. Bindweed ~ curses/hexing. The spirit world, while invisible to humans, is very real, and present all around them, at all times. Patterns of worship follow various dialects, spirits, practices, songs, and rituals. from Keble College, University of Oxford, and an M.A. Ifá [1] (em iorubá: Ifá) é um oráculo africano. Ifá and Yoruba religion infuses the art above; the Orishas sent by to Earth by the Supreme God Olodumare: Shango, (divinity of thunder/justice), Oshun, (divinity of love, purity, fertility), along with spirits (water, ancestral) that are summoned, appeased, worshipped, even to this day. p. 63. Mawu, the moon goddess, provides the cool of the night, peace, fertility, and rain. The archetype of a unique, omniscient, omnipotent Supreme Being, the hallmark of monotheism, is, in each case, elaborated by an intricate complex panoply of spirits and divinities, angels, demons or saints, giving some sort of polychromatic hue, to one extent or the other, to all religions. Together as one, the four aspects of Bemba rule over all of the primordial elements.5, For the Nupe of Nigeria, the universe consists solely of Soko (God). Yes! Children learn of God through stories told by elders, through proverbs associated with those stories and recalled when the situation arises, through other expressions and greetings. What is African Traditional Religion? They will then join their clan's convent to pursue spiritual instruction. In one tradition, she bore seven children. West African religion(s) obscure the line even further, with a hierarchical architecture that, in many ways, resembles them both. Vodun talismans, called "fetishes", are objects such as statues or dried animal or human parts that are sold for their healing and spiritually rejuvenating properties.