African Religions and Beliefs

By The Handy Mythology Answer Book, adapted by Newsela staff on 08.23.17

Word Count 924
Level 910L

The Dogon people of Mali perform rituals, called Dama dance ceremonies, that allow them to form a connection to the spirit
world. They are followers of Islam but also of animism, the belief that spirits are present in all things. Photo by: Wolfgang
Kaehler/Getty Images.

Africa is a continent with a population made up of hundreds of tribes and a huge

variety of languages. Each of these groups has its own stories and legends.

Today, the most common religions in Africa are Christianity and Islam. There are
also people who practice other faiths, such as Judaism and those who continue to
practice traditional African religions that developed before the arrival of
European colonists. Many people in Africa have combined traditional beliefs with
Christian or Islamic practices. Over 100 million people practice a traditional
African religion, and the traditions themselves vary widely across the continent.

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What is animism?

Animism is the belief that all things are animated by spirits. Spirits play an
important role in many African religions, where there is a strong tie between the
physical and spiritual worlds. Animism assumes that humans have souls. But it
also assumes that trees, the sea, the plants and the animals all have spirits.

Animism is clearly reflected in the stories of Japanese Shinto and in beliefs of

people in the Pacific Islands. Animism is also present in Native American
religions. In animism, supreme beings as are seen as creators. These creators
often have wives (in the form of earth itself). Tricksters also play important roles
in African religious stories.

The African supreme being and creation

Most African tribes have a creation story involving a supreme being. This being
can be either male or female. Many of these creators are different from Christian
or Muslim views of a supreme being. In animism, these supreme beings often
create the world and then leave their creation alone. The southwestern Nigerian
Yoruba creator is called Olorun. He left creation to an underling and then
remained aloof from humanity, handing over the Earth to spirits known as orishas.

Some of these creators leave the world alone out of disgust. The Bushman creator,
Mantis, lived with his human creations in the beginning. But human foolishness so
bothered him that he simply abandoned the world, leaving behind worldwide
hunger. Pygmies of central Africa believed their creator once lived on earth as an
animal master. They believe he now lives in heaven and concerns himself with the
stars and solar system.

Nyambe, the Malozi creator of Zambia, became disgusted that humans ate their
fellow animals. So he fled to a mountaintop. He invited the animals to join him
there in safety, but they decided to stay in the world. The humans constantly try to
find the creator, but he stays away.

Other creators are challenged by rivals. The Ijaw of Nigeria have a female creator,
Woyengi. She was angered by a woman named Ogboinba, who overstepped the
boundaries set by the goddess at creation. The West African Ashanti high god
Nyame had his creative work undermined by a famous trickster. The same was
true of Fidi Mkulla, the southeastern Congo supreme god of the Baluba and
Basonge.

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A more overtly animistic creator is the Zulu Unkulunkulu. The Zulu believe
Unkulunkulu not only created everything but is everything: the corn, the trees,
the water, the cows, the humans.

The Dogon creation story

One of the most complex African creation stories is that of the Dogon. The Dogon
live in the countries of Mali and Sudan.

In the beginning, say the Dogon, there was a world egg. It was shaken by seven
huge movements of the unformed universe. This caused the egg to break into two
parts, and both parts contained a set of twins. In both cases, there was one male
and one female twin. These twins are called the Nummo. One of the male twins,
named Yoruga, broke out prematurely. The piece of egg he broke out of became
the earth. Yoruga tried to get back into the piece of egg to reunite with his twin,
but she had left to join the other set of twins. So Yoruga went to earth and tried to
have children, but was unable to. Instead, the other twins had children and this
led to the creation of humans.

There are other versions of this story. One version, perhaps changed by
colonialism, says that the god Amma made the stars when he threw bits of earth
into the sky. He created the sun and the moon using the art of pottery. The sun is
like a pot brought to a high heat and glazed with red copper. The moon, heated to
a lower degree, was surrounded by white copper. Africans came from the sun,
white people from the moon.

African flood stories

There are many African flood stories. A Yoruba story tells how the god Olorun
ruled the sky and the goddess Olokun ruled the earth. Another god, Obatala,
gained permission to go to earth to create dry land and creatures to live on it.
After creating the land, he became bored and drank too much wine. Then, while
drunk, he created new creatures in his general image, including people.

The new humans built villages and a great city, and the gods were happy with
Obatala’s work. But the goddess Olokun resented what she saw as Obatala’s
intrusion into her territory. While Obatala was away on a visit to the sky, Olokun
used her oceans to flood the land. This killed many people and ruined their
settlements. The people begged the trickster Eshu to go up to heaven to beg for
help. Eshu agreed, but only if sacrifices were made to him and to Obatala. When
this was done, Eshu carried the message to the sky and put an end to the flooding.

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