Tradition
African traditional religions
Overview
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 African traditional 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.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Related ideas
- Ritual
- Ancient Egyptian religion
- Faith
- Afterlife
- Dualism in cosmology
- Abrahamic religions
- Animism
- Judaism
- Spirit (animating force)
- Harvard University
- Madagascar
- Kardecist spiritism
- Malawi
- Polytheism
- BBC
- Monotheism
- Republic of the Congo
- Spiritualism (movement)
- Wayback Machine
- Pantheism
- Myth
- Narrative
- Rwanda
- Shamanism
Place in the tradition
Part of Pantheism.
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