Readings in African Religion

Again, the question “what is African religion?” is a question that only a Westerner can ask, and I do have my serious doubts that any African concerned – from wherever on the African continent – could ask a question like this. And such a question is at least implied when you are asked to define “African Religion”.

Is there something like “African Religion” at all, or should we not rather speak about “African Religions?” Some are tempted to view African religion merely as animism or would describe it as mere polytheism. If so, these are phenomena not unique to traditional cults of religion in Africa, as they may be found in other parts of the world as well. In the latter case, the focus on Africa cannot be anything else than the mere attempt to develop a generalising approach to such “natural” religions with Africa serving merely as a prototype for comparable religious and cultural systems in other parts of the world ---- in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, or among the aborigines of Australia, and so on. In such context, the label “African” is just a mere geographical denotation for “natural religions” to be found on the African continent. At the same, it may be a bit misleading because it would wrongly suggest as if there was, in fact, something like a general African religion or religious systems that are so similar that their worldview, beliefs and cults can easily be summed up and be brought together within an artificial essence system accounting for all the data from all of any these religious systems.

As may be obvious, I want to argue in favor of the point to be made here that there is in reality nothing like “an African religion”, even not in generic sense (as you might say “a German is a European” meaning “all Germans are Europeans” which, of course, is syllogistically true for the set of all Germans living in their native country Germany based in Europe, It may not apply to Germans living permanently, for example, in Australia or some other German colony abroad outside Europe).