Traditional African religion

Nigosian (1994: 4) defined religion in general as “an invention or creation of the human mind for regulating all human activity, and this creative activity is a human necessity that satisfies the spiritual desires and needs inherent in human nature”.

The traditional African religion, in particular, can be described as tribal (Van der Walt, 2003). In other words, its practice varies from tribe to tribe but the substance remains the same all over Africa.

A tribe is defined as a “social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognised leader” (Pearsall, 2001: 1530).

Traditional African religion had existed for many centuries before the arrival of Western Christian missionaries and Western political expeditions on the African continent. With the challenge for and the Westernisation of the African continent in the 19th century, many Africans became Christians not by choice but via intimidation.

Nonetheless, it is also worth mentioning that others became Christians by choice (Nigosian, 1994). In many parts of apartheid South Africa, an African child had to have a ‘Christian’ name before she or he could be enrolled at a primary school.

This is where many African children were introduced and ‘converted’ to the Christian religion. Contrary to the intentions of colonial authorities and the apartheid government, this forced conversion and Westernisation did not lead Africans to completely abandon the traditional African health care system and African religion (Nigosian, 1994).

Instead, many Africans practiced Western and traditional African religions concurrently and as such utilised the services of both the traditional and Western health care systems (Nigosian, 1994).

Before the Westernisation process, Africans had always believed in God and the ancestors and had been profoundly spiritual. This is contrary to some colonial authorities and Christian missionaries’ general beliefs that Africans were unbelievers.

Africans believed and continue to believe in the eternal and ubiquitous spirit of the ancestors and the Almighty God. The ancestors are called by different names depending on one’s ethnic origins.

The Bapedi, Batswana, and Basotho call them ‘badimo’. The Amazulu and the Amaxhosa call them ‘amadlozi’ and ‘iinyanya’ respectively.

The ancestors are the ‘living-dead’, compassionate spirits who are blood-related to the people who believe in them. The ancestors continue to show an interest in the daily lives of the relatives that are still alive (Van Dyk, 2001).

They are superior to the living and include, amongst others, departed/deceased parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles.

These spirits, because they have crossed over to the other side of life, act as mediators between the living and God. This way of life is regarded as ancestor reverence, veneration or remembering and not as ancestor worship (Berg, 2003).

The word ‘worship’, when referring to communication between Africans and the ancestors, is therefore inappropriate since the ancestors are not worshipped but remembered and revered by their relatives (Child & Child, 1993).

In traditional African religion, God is above and beyond the ancestors and is called the Supreme Creator/Being and the main pillar of the universe (Thorpe, 1993).

This is one aspect that many people who do not subscribe to this belief system fail to understand: that the God that the traditional African religion subscribers worship is the same God that Christians and other religious groupings believe in. Because African religion reveres and holds God in the highest regard, worshipers do not speak directly to Him. Their prayers and wishes are communicated to Him through the medium of the ancestors.

This is often aided by enlisting the services of a traditional healer who advises on how to communicate with the ancestors, depending on the purposes of the communication and the type of ritual that needs to be performed.

Traditional African religion, therefore, involves a chain of communication between the worshipers and Almighty God.

This chain is, as would be expected, influenced by the cultural context in which it exists, just as Christianity and other religions are embedded within their particular cultural milieus. Christians communicate directly with God, or through Jesus Christ, whilst traditional African religious believers communicate with God through the medium of the deceased relatives.

The deceased relatives are ‘means-to-an-end’ and not the end in themselves. The deceased relatives are conduits of their relatives’ prayers to the Almighty.

At times, communication between the living, the living-dead and God is done through the ritual slaughtering of an animal (Gumede, 1990). The practice of ritual slaughtering in traditional African religion is akin to the animal offerings carried out by people in the Old Testament of the Bible.

It can be argued that the main difference is that people in the Old Testament were making animal sacrifices directly to God whilst traditional African religious believers make animal sacrifices to God through their departed relatives who have attained the status of being ancestors and therefore mediators between their living relatives and God.

Different types of animals can be slaughtered for the purposes of communication between the living, the ancestors and God. These include chickens, goats and cattle, depending on the instructions or preferences of the ancestors.

The slaughtering of an animal has to be done properly and at an appropriate place. For example, such sacrifices could not be made at the modern abattoirs. They must be made at the homestead of the person/s concerned so that blood can be spilled there.

Blood is an extremely important aspect in the traditional African religion and customs. It serves as a bond between the ancestors and their descendants. This is one of the reasons why an animal has to be slaughtered when two people get married, for example.

The blood of the slaughtered animal is believed to be the eternal bond between the families and the ancestors of the two families that are coming together through the bride and bridegroom. Gumede (1990) explains that there are three basic tenets of a properly made sacrifice.

These are that there must be an appropriate animal, such as a cow or bull of a particular colour depending on the occasion, there must be home-brewed beer and frankincense.

Sacrifices and ancestor reverence are not confined to the ancestors at the personal and family levels only. These kinds of sacrifices can also be made, during an extended period of famine that threatens the life of humans, animals and plants, to what are normally called ‘the village ancestors’ which are the spirits of departed chiefs and other high ranking royal figures.

In the Bapedi tribe, found in the Limpopo province north of South Africa, this is achieved by gathering all of the village girls who are still virgins and have not, as yet, gone through the rights of passage into womanhood or adulthood. These girls draw water from the river using containers made of clay, called ‘meetana’ (‘moetana’ – singular) (Harries, 1929).

This water is carefully mixed with rain-medicine to sprinkle the earth with (Hammond-Tooke, 1974). This is done with the proper guidance of the chief traditional healer for that particular village called ‘Ngaka ya Moshate’ in Sepedi.

It is believed that the rain will come down as soon as the girls arrive back from the river having performed the necessary rituals both at the river and at the place where the departed chiefs are buried.

It must be emphasised that these rituals cannot be performed without the rainmaker’s instructions and the spiritual guidance of the ancestors. If it happens that these rain rituals do not yield satisfactory results, another ritual is performed. This entails village men hunting a type of buck with short horns, called ‘Kome’.

The buck must be caught alive and brought to the rainmaker who mixes some of the fur of the buck with rain-medicine and call upon the ancestors to shower the village and its environs with rain (Eiselen & Schapera, 1962).

Traditional Healer http://www.traditional-healer.net
Love spells http://www.traditional-healer.net/love-spells.html
Voodoo healer http://www.traditional-healer.net/voodoo-healer-spells.html
Money spells http://www.traditional-healer.net/money-spells.html
Thwasa training http://www.traditional-healer.net/thwasa-training.html
Fertility spells http://www.traditional-healer.net/fertility-spells.html
Magic rings http://www.traditional-healer.net/magic-rings.html
Ancestral spirits http://www.traditional-healer.net/ancestral-spirits.html
White Sangomas http://www.traditional-healer.net/white-sangomas.html
Spiritual healer http://www.traditional-healer.net