2. “Paganism” and African Traditional Religion

For many years the words “pagan” and “paganism” took on a decidedly primitive – meaning negative – cast to them. This religion was simplistic, one-dimensional, and very confined in its scope. It bore no resemblance to reality and kept the followers under a spell that maintained fearful control. The gods were trees, mountains, rivers, rocks, to which the followers attributed power. They were false gods, idols, and were a stench to the one true living God.

Having read Mircea Eliade (Is that a name or what!!!) in my years wandering around Zen and such at the University, I knew there was more to this. David Barrett has done a great deal of research on these religions. His conclusions bore out my suspicions.

If paganism means religions like those of African Primitive Religion, then we are in the realm of very sophisticated patterns of faith. Even when one tribe is in isolation from another, the similarities across the board reflect a religious matrix as full and as comprehensive as the most advanced expression of Christianity.

To begin with, these religions are ancient, as are the tribes. The tribes have carried the legends of their origins, the influences on how they behave, the stories of their heroes from generation to generation. With this oral history has come their faith story. They know who made them and why he created them the way he did. They believe in God and they believe that their god has many helpers. These are the spirits, and there are as many spirits as there are phases of life.

There are gods and rituals for planting, for childbirth, for passing through puberty, for revenge, for loss of a crop, for the time of rain, and the list goes on. In fact the list is as long as are the momentous phases, epochs, and stages of the life of the tribe.

If any religion is interwoven through all of life, this most evidently is. One result of that is the absence of the secular and the profane, of the spiritual and the non-spiritual. In fact all of life is of one cloth – no times designated as vacations, or work, or play. Life is life and all comes under the overarching canopy of their very full and comprehensive religion.

We read of this in the books of Alexander McCall Smith. But for a deeper look into the satisfaction of these religions, read Achebe. In his book, Things Fall Apart, he portrays many different stages of life and life’s interactions. In each case the gods and their will come through.