literature review on african traditional religion

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Religion in African Literature: Representation, Critique and Imagination

2020, Religion Compass

The study of religion and literature is an emerging field of academic interest. Although some work has been done on religion and African literature, research in this area tends to be fragmented and dispersed over various fields and disciplines. Reviewing available scholarship in this area, this article explores what engaging with African literary writing brings to the table of the study of religion in Africa. Focusing on postcolonial and contemporary African literature, it identifies a threefold contribution: first, the creative representation of religious traditions and dynamics; second, the critique of religious beliefs and institutions; third, the imagination of alternative religious possibilities. It illustrates these contributions by specifically focusing on issues of (neo)colonialism, gender and sexuality. Hence the article foregrounds the importance of engaging with religion for interpreting African literary texts, and the significance of literary writing for understanding religion as part of African social and cultural life.

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Paradiso, Silvio Ruiz. "Postcolonialism and religiosity in African literatures" In: Proceedings of the 4th International Congress in Cultural Studies. Aveiro, Portugal, 2014. p.p. 73-79

Silvio Ruiz Paradiso

This paper proposes to question and discuss the manifestations of religion and religiosity in post-colonial African literature, both in the context of the colonizer as the colonized, through its own aesthetic, showing ambivalence, symbolic struggles and political thought in the [post] colonial world. Thus, this text is constructed from the Marxist idea of class struggle, taken, however, to the sacred spheres, which the religiosity described in the African text isn’t privileged about a purely theological point of view, but addressing the religious apparatus and its phenomenology as a literary strategy of creation or an aesthetic strategy of postcolonialism that sees in the discourse the inherent political struggle of the colonial place.

casestudies journal

African traditional religion is one of the starting points of the West African literature, and in most of the first generation of West African writers' novels, the topic is largely developed. These novelists have observed many of the qualities and roles ascribed to traditional religion in the expression of the African cultural identity. Any West African critic who neglects religion in his writings is also neglecting an important, even indispensable literary movement of the past, which has played a crucial role in the African's quest to the present, and a direction for the future. The African past was decapitated by the slave trade and the white domination, and the writers reconstruct the West African pre-colonial era, through its religious and cultural practices. African traditional religion is one of the starting points of the West African literature, and in most of the first generation of West African writers' novels, the topic is largely developed. These novelists have observed many of the qualities and roles ascribed to traditional religion in the expression of the African cultural identity. Any West African critic who neglects religion in his writings is also neglecting an important, even indispensable literary movement of the past, which has played a crucial role in the African's quest to the present, and a direction for the future.

HALIMA SHEHU

Religion has always impacted on the production and content of literature. In West Africa, most discussions on literature revolve around writing that emerged from the colonial experience, and therefore, takes into account the presence and effect of Christianity on society. However, this privileging of a specific period has inhibited the study of the significant impact Islam has had on literary production in this region. By focusing on the dynamics between Islam and literature, the following examines the marginalization of ‘other’ cultural influences and experiences. It analyses factors that drive canon formation in West African literature and also critical reactions that determine the survival of literary texts. Introduction The general impression conveyed by literary criticism of West African literature is one of a cultural activity that is largely a synthesis of Western literary ideals and indigenous African oral traditions. In fact, for a long time ‘literary texts’ referred to wri...

Jeanne-Marie Jackson

University of Stavanger, Norway

Yvonne Awuah

John C Hawley

Ahmed Badran

Jonathan A Draper , Rev Dr kenneth Mtata

This paper expores the implications of the mediation of not only African traditional religion, but also Christianity and Islam, through the medium of oral or residual oral culture and praxis. The paper argues that despite increasing levels of education and literacy, orality continues to play a role in African religion in a way that marks it out from religion in many other global contexts where literacy predominates. The paper is published in Jonathan A. Draper and Kenneth Mtata, "Orality and African Religions' in E. Bongmba (ed.), Religion in Africa. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pages 567-582. ISBN: 9781405196901.

In E: K. Bongma, ed. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions. John Wiley and Sons.

Musa W. Dube

What is the basic structure of African Indigenous Religions (AIR/s)? How is it gendered? How did colonialism affect AIR/s? Is the academic study of AIR/s among Africanists and feminists decolonized? Using the context of Southern Africa, this paper will address the above questions by exploring the construction of gender in AIR/s’ concepts of community, ancestorhood and the Divine. The paper will investigate the academic frameworks of Africanists and feminist scholars of AIR/s by investigating the naming of AIR/s and the frameworks of gender analysis within the postcolonial history. It will further make some proposals on decolonized frameworks of studying AIR/s.

Randee I-Morphe

Nominated in 2013 for the 2015 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion! "This well-crafted book probes the key dimensions of Africa’s existential predicament. It constitutes an intellectual response to a gnawing “African situation”—the starting-point for grasping Africa’s social and religious quest. Beyond split explanations of external (e.g., colonization/slavery) vs. internal (e.g., leadership/cultural values) factors, this study accounts more comprehensively for emergent issues shaping this situation. The situation reflects a gamut of problems in (traditional) African religion and material culture, which hitherto defines African communality, polities and destinies vis-à-vis the cosmos and nature. Thus, African religion and communities, with their attendant values, operate via adaptation, rather than by critical engagement with larger issues of society and civilization, especially those shaped by the advent of (post-) modernity. The communal drive for natural and social harmony inevitably produces a preservationist view of culture (“leaving things as they are”). This study takes an integrative approach to religion, society and civilization, eschews dichotomies, broadly defines and resignifies life and wholeness as a true end of Africans’ quest today (from the Back Cover) ENDORSEMENTS (For more endorsements, see the US & World edition 2013 by University Press of America @ url: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761862680) “This book … strives to lay bare the determining structures, decisive trends, and dominant principle that fashion and serve the goals of thought and action in Africa. … [It] is a project of interpretation of life’s heritage and baggage which Africans employ to craft their identities, sustain flourishing human socialities, and actualize their potentials. …. If there is a select group of books that captures the broad phenomenology of African peoples’ spirituality this book is arguably one of it.” ~NIMI WARIBOKO, Katherine B. Stuart Professor & Chair of Christian Ethics, Andover Newton Theological School, Massachusetts, USA “A formidable contribution to a giant topic … The author proceeds to the project with a broad knowledge of the field as well as with impressing pedagogical skills, and the result is a book that will serve as an important discussion partner for scholars of religion, theology, and biblical studies in Africa in the years to come.” ~KNUT HOLTER, Professor of Old Testament studies, MHS School of Mission and Theology, Norway “A must-read document for every African citizen; a benchmark … for the new African project. [The] time has come for an African renaissance … with this cornerstone book …” ~DR. DANIEL ETOUNGA-MANGUELLE, Chairman and CEO of SADEG Consulting Group, Yaoundé, Cameroon & former member of the World Bank’s Council of African Advisors “… A richness of bibliographical references and sources, together with innovative theories, is a further confirmation of the presence of new prestigious African authors committed to the challenge of understanding Africa.” ~Professor BEATRICE NICOLINI, PhD, Chair of History and Institutions of Africa, Faculty of Political Science, Catholic University, Milan-Italy "

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section African Traditional Religion

Introduction, general overviews.

• Proponents of African Traditional Religion
• Land and Ancestors
• Symbolism, Intellect, Imagination
• Belief and Practice
• Translation
• The Category “Religion”

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• African Christianity
• Health, Medicine, and the Study of Africa
• Islam in Africa
• Music, Dance, and the Study of Africa
• Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Study of Africa
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African Traditional Religion by Wyatt MacGaffey , Mariam Goshadze LAST REVIEWED: 23 June 2023 LAST MODIFIED: 23 June 2023 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0064

The term “African Traditional Religion” is used in two complementary senses. Loosely, it encompasses all African beliefs and practices that are considered religious but neither Christian nor Islamic. The expression is also used almost as a technical term for a particular reading of such beliefs and practices, one that purports to show that they constitute a systematic whole—a religion comparable to Christianity or any other “world religion.” In that sense the concept was new and radical when it was introduced by G. Parrinder in 1954 and later developed by Bolaji Idowu and John Mbiti (see Proponents of African Traditional Religion ). The intention of these scholars was to protest against a long history of derogatory evaluations of Africans and their culture by outsiders and to replace words such as “heathenism” and “paganism.” African Traditional Religion is now widely taught in African universities, but its identity remains essentially negative: African belief that is not Christianity or Islam. To understand the issue, one must go back to the beginnings of anthropology in the nineteenth century and follow its evolution (see 19th-Century Background ). As the European empires in Africa began to break up after World War II, both missionaries and African nationalists sought to defend Africans and African culture from their reputation for primitivism and to claim parity with Christianity, the West, and the modern world. At the same time a movement that began after World War I and intensified after World War II supported the idea that Africans retained values that the militaristic and materialistic modern world had lost, and that Africans individually and collectively were spiritual people. Such generalizations have been challenged by scholars who say that Africa is too diverse to support these notions. Ethnographic studies contradict the simplicities of African Traditional Religion and reveal the complex relations of religion with politics, economics, and social structure ( Ethnography ). A more radical challenge has been mounted recently by anthropologists and historians who argue that the concept of religion itself has been defined in implicitly Christian terms and that the collection of data to be treated as “religion” depends on an implicit Judeo-Christian template that often radically mistranslates and misrepresents African words and practices (see Criticism ). Certain religious topics have proved perennially fascinating to both scholars and the reading public with reference to the world as a whole, not just Africa. They include “witchcraft,” “symbolism,” and “ancestor worship.” These topics, lending themselves to exoticism, give rise in acute form to the problems of intercultural misunderstanding. “Healing,” on the other hand, sounds familiar and beneficial, although in practice what is called “healing” is often far removed from Western ideas of sickness and medicine.

African Traditional Religion is a thriving scholarly business, but a serious disconnect exists between contributions that celebrate a generalized African Traditional Religion and those that describe particular religions and aspects of religion on the basis of ethnographic and archival research. The generalizations begin by citing allegedly negative characterizations of African culture: it is argued that African beliefs and practices are misunderstood and unjustly condemned, that Africans are everywhere and always profoundly religious, and that their religion or religions are comparable to religions anywhere else. On the other hand, historians and anthropologists, skeptical with regard to abstractions and generalizations, focus on the religion of particular peoples to show how belief and practice fit into everyday life. They struggle with epistemological questions such as, “On what evidentiary basis can an individual or group be said to “believe” in anything?” There is little dialogue between the two points of view, but the readings suggested in this section reveal some of the differences. Chidi Denis Isizoh’s website carries links to a variety of essays on traditional religion and its relations with Christianity and Islam; it also includes Ejizu’s overview ( Emergent Key Issues in the Study of African Traditional Religions ). More and more materials are available on the Internet, notably at African Traditional Religion , but not all of it should be regarded as representative or authoritative. Journals such as the London-based Africa , Cahiers d’Études Africaines (Paris), and the Journal of Religion in Africa (Leiden, The Netherlands) publish articles on religion from time to time, representing the latest thinking. The edited collections Blakely, et al. 1994 ; Olupona and Nyang 1993 ; and Olupona 2000 provide essays on specific examples of African religion by leading scholars, while implicitly illustrating the gap between “spiritual” and “ethnographic” approaches. A handbook of African Traditional Religion, Aderibigbe and Falola 2022 offers the most comprehensive thematic overview of the nature, structure, and significance of African religion to date. Olupona 2014 , on the other hand, is the perfect introduction to the religions of Africa for those who are not familiar with the topic. This literature, however, does not actively engage with the radical objections raised in Criticism concerning the definition of religion, the errors introduced by intercultural translation, and the depth of outside influence on supposedly timeless “traditional religion.”

Aderibigbe, Ibigbolade S., and Toyin Falola, eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Traditional African Religion . Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

A comprehensive collection of thematically arranged articles on African Traditional Religion written by scholars from various disciplines designed for students, scholars, and the general public interested in the subject. The volume seeks to not only define critical issues that are essential for understanding African religions, but also to stress their dynamic nature and continuous relevance. The authors are building on a homogenized notion of Traditional Religion as a singular religious tradition of Africa.

Africa . 1928–.

The venerable journal of the International African Institute offers academic articles on all aspects of African history and culture, including religion.

African Traditional Religion . Africa South of the Sahara.

An idiosyncratic collection of sources from professional to popular.

Blakely, Thomas D., Walter E. A. van Beek, and Dennis L. Thomson, eds. Religion in Africa . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994.

A wide-ranging symposium with contributions by major specialists in the field. Unlike Olupona’s collections ( Olupona and Nyang 1993 , Olupona 2000 ), this one does not presume or discuss “African spirituality.” One of the three sections deals with “religion and its translatability,” a topic and a problem of concern to both missionaries and anthropologists.

Cahiers d’Études Africaines . 1960–.

Offers articles in French and English on all aspects of African culture, often manifesting a distinctly French intellectual approach.

Emergent Key Issues in the Study of African Traditional Religions .

A historical review and critique of the subject and of major problems and disagreements associated with it, written by Christopher Ejizu. The review suggests that the defensive tone of much writing about African Traditional Religion is directed against outdated studies that no one takes seriously anymore. The main website African Traditional Religions , maintained by Chidi Denis Isizoh, is a useful guide to further reading.

Grillo, Laura S., Adriaan van Klinken, and Hassan J. Ndzovu. Religions in Contemporary Africa: An Introduction . New York: Routledge, 2019.

DOI: 10.4324/9781351260725

Building on the premise that Africans are exceedingly religious, the authors map out the religious scenery of modern Africa. The book is enlightening for those who want to understand the exchange between traditional religions of Africa and Christianity and Islam, especially the former’s influence on the latter. The text is designed for students and offers useful tools for instructors, such as discussion questions and short case studies.

Journal of Religion in Africa . 1967–.

Scholarly articles on Islam and on Christian and non-Christian religious diasporas. An excellent source for insights into contemporary scholarly issues and approaches.

Olupona, Jacob K. African Religions: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780199790586.001.0001

A concise and easily digestible overview of Africa’s religions. While traditional religions are at the center of the analysis, due attention is paid to the rise of Christianity and Islam on the continent. Olupona captures the enormous range of cultures, peoples, and religious practices across Africa, touching on basic beliefs, rites, and celebrations of African religions.

Olupona, Jacob K., ed. African Spirituality: Forms, Meanings and Expressions . New York: Crossroad, 2000.

Olupona identifies African spirituality in myth, and ritual as that which “expresses the relationship between human being and divine being” (p. xvi). Leading scholars cover a wide range of topics and religious practices, including Islam and 3rd-century North African Christianity, rarely questioning the concept of spirituality itself.

Olupona, Jakob K., and Sulayman S. Nyang, eds. Religious Plurality in Africa: Essays in Honour of John S. Mbiti . Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993.

A collection representative of the “religio-phenomenological” approach to comparative religion, theology, and philosophy, in which religion is conceived of as a phenomenon sui generis, “the transcendent” is universally recognized, and religions are presented in isolation from their cultural and historical contexts. Two chapters concern Islam in Africa.

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African traditional religion and concepts of development: a background paper.

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African Traditional Religion in the Context of World Religions: Challenges to Scholars and Students

• First Online: 21 May 2022

Cite this chapter

• Robert Yaw Owusu 3  

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There have been many good books on world religions that completely omit African Traditional Religions or just mention it in passing. For instance, in her renowned book, Living Religions (8th edition), the complex religious system of the Yorùbá culture occupied a few pages of just 39 pages that Mary Pat Fisher allotted to describing and discussing Indigenous religions which include African Traditional Religion (ATR), Native American religions, Australian aborigines’ religion, Malaysian traditional religion, and Shamanism. With ATR being a religion of influence for thousands of years and with over 1 billion people in Africa and around the world, ATR must be acknowledged and studied as a world religion just as they do with Judaism, Hinduism, and others. Studies have identified tremendous influence of ATR on African Christianity and Islam. A challenge to scholars of religion is that African Traditional Religion needs to be encountered anew. Also, I would argue that ATR has the same elements that are used to describe the nature and features of world religions, whether by the seven dimensions by Ninian Smart, the four elements by Bruce Lincoln, or John S. Mbiti’s five characteristics. For this reason, ATR qualifies to be regarded as a world religion. ATR is dynamic and active and, therefore, capable of transformation when it is appropriately engaged. Religions that are not active and cannot change eventually die. But this religion has been in existence since time unknown and is still active and effective. This alone should tell us that ATR demands a new and proper orientation from religious scholars. When African Religion is engaged in the study of world religions as a major tradition, its vocabulary will be preserved because the quest for meaning of the Indigenous idioms, metaphors, and other symbolic expressions will be researched and preserved to increase knowledge. And the world will benefit from such knowledge.

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Modern Trends in the Teaching of African Religion in the Twenty-First Century: Conceptual Decolonization

African Traditional Religion

Religious traditions in africa: an overview of origins, basic beliefs, and practices.

Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism 4/15/05 Edition, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; edition [May 15, 2005]), 3.

Ninian Smart, The World’s Religions, 2nd ed., (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 13–21. Smart lists seven dimensions of religion: mythical and narrative, ritual, experiential and emotional, ethical and legal, social and institutional, doctrinal and philosophical, and material (symbols).

Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terror: Thinking About Religion After September 11 (The University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition [June 15, 2006]), 5–7. Lincoln’s four domains of religion are discourse, practice, community, and institution: discourse involves something beyond “us”; practices strive to make the world/people better; community forms around acts and beliefs; and institutions hold the truth.

John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 2nd ed., 1991, 1975. (Reissued by Waveland Press, Inc., 2015), 11–12.

Benjamin Murphy, “Why Is the African Traditional Religion Not Regarded as the World Religion?” Quora, March 27, 2019.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-African-traditional-religion-not-regarded-as-the-world-religion (accessed November 6, 2020).

Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions, 3.

Murphy, “Why Is the African Traditional Religion Not Regarded as the World Religion?” [online].

Rotimi Williams Omotoye, “The Study of African Traditional Religion and Its Challenges in Contemporary Times,” Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies, (IJOURELS) vol. 1, no. 2 (2011): 21–40, 23.

See Jacob Olupona’s edited work, African Traditional Religions in Contemporary Society (1998, 1991), and Theo Sundermeier’s The Individual and Community in African Traditional Religions (1998).

Omotoye, “The Study of African Traditional Religion and its Challenges in Contemporary Times,” 22.

Robert Yaw Owusu, Introduction to Religion: A Customized Version of An Exploration of World Religions by Robert Y. Owusu and Richard Bennett, Designed Specifically for Robert Y. Owusu at Kennesaw State University (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, 2016), 6.

“Fear,” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary . https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fear

Michael Molloy, Experiencing the World's Religions: Tradition, Challenge, and Change, 6th Edition, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012), 65.

Maarten Mous, “Loss of Linguistic Diversity in Africa,” in Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 5 th International Cognitive Linguistic Conference, Amsterdam, 1997 , eds. Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. and Gerald J. Steen (John Benjamins Publishing Co., 1999), 157. Mous lists five shifts that have caused indigenous cultures to lose their languages.

Ibid., 161.

Pew Research Center, “Size and Projected Growth of Major Religious Groups of Sub-Saharan Africa, 2010-2050.” March 30, 2015. https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/sub-saharan-africa/163-3/ (accessed November 6, 2020).

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Ibigbolade S. Aderibigbe

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Toyin Falola

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Owusu, R.Y. (2022). African Traditional Religion in the Context of World Religions: Challenges to Scholars and Students. In: Aderibigbe, I.S., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Traditional Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89500-6_43

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Published : 21 May 2022

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Sample of Literature Review in a Topic Related to Traditional Religious Beliefs in Some West African Novelists Works

International Journal of Case Studies, Vol. 2, Issue 4, May 2013

7 Pages Posted: 15 Nov 2016

Dr. Labo Abdou

Independent

Date Written: May 4, 2013

African traditional religion is one of the starting points of the West African literature, and in most of the first generation of West African writers’ novels, the topic is largely developed. These novelists have observed many of the qualities and roles ascribed to traditional religion in the expression of the African cultural identity. Any West African critic who neglects religion in his writings is also neglecting an important, even indispensable literary movement of the past, which has played a crucial role in the African's quest to the present, and a direction for the future. The African past was decapitated by the slave trade and the white domination, and the writers reconstruct the West African pre-colonial era, through its religious and cultural practices. African traditional religion is one of the starting points of the West African literature, and in most of the first generation of West African writers’ novels, the topic is largely developed. These novelists have observed many of the qualities and roles ascribed to traditional religion in the expression of the African cultural identity. Any West African critic who neglects religion in his writings is also neglecting an important, even indispensable literary movement of the past, which has played a crucial role in the African's quest to the present, and a direction for the future.

Keywords: Sample of Literature Review, Traditional Religious Beliefs, West African Novelists

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