ANCIENT AFRICAN RELIGION

The indigenous beliefs and practices of African peoples include various traditional religions.  Whilst it is difficult to generalise about African religion because of the diversity of African cultures, they do have some characteristics in common. Generally, they are of an oral nature rather than scriptural, include belief in a supreme being, belief in spirits and other divinities, veneration of ancestors, traditional medicine and the use of magic.  Humanity is generally seen to be harmonising the forces of nature with the super-natural.  uBuntu is said to originate from African religion that is generally regarded as a Sun-centred pagan or heathen religion.

The main theme of two African religions (Tumelo ya Setho and Karaism) for example that are based on the African philosophy of origins, is that All is One, and its aim to awaken man to the fact that it is one with God and nature and that we are immortal.  All of life together with God forms a unified whole in which everything is inter-related, inter-connected, and inter-dependent.

According to Ancient African world-view God and man is never seen as separate from one-another and all of life is considered to be Sacred 

BEING HUMAN

Personhood in the Afrikan setting is ‘earned’ through an on-going process of incorporation.  To be, to exist, means to be so for the community and for the other, with the self emerging from relationship with others and the natural environment.  The human is never alone but in constant communication and communion with others and nature; in a permanent listening to the pulse of the world and in close contact with the universe.