African Traditional Religion: A Religious Drama

Abstract

It is a fact, that African Traditional Religions are embedded in the Traditional life of Africans; therefore, there is a great difficulty on understanding it outside of the daily activities of the indigenous people; the reason why is simply, because religion enters into every aspect of African people’s lives. Therefore, its study has to go in accordance with the study of the people who practise the religion. The fallowing article presents ATR as an existential reality to be understood out of the wrong ideas created in the past, rather acknowledging first of all, essential features as carriers of its identity, as well its sense of belonging to the people who lives immersed in it.

Keywords: African traditional religion, African traditional life, Superstition, Animism, Fetishism, Ancestor worship, Magic or Fetishism, Heathenism.

African Traditional Religions (ATRs) will be discussed within the context of which it belongs to, the African traditional life (ATL). Let’s begun by saying that ATR, refer to the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of Africans. It is the religion which resulted from the sustaining faith held by the forebears of the present Africans, and which is being practiced today in various forms and various shades and intensities by a very large number of Africans, including individuals who claim to be Muslims or Christians. (J. O. Awolalu 1976).