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The Maasai religion is the traditional beliefs of the Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania.
| Part of a series on |
| Traditional African religions |
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The Maasai religion is the traditional beliefs of the Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania.
In Maasai culture, nature and its elements are important facets of their religion. [1] Enkai (also called Engai) is the androgynous Supreme Creator, possessing both masculine and feminine principles. [2] The Maasai refer to Ngai's primordial dwelling as "Ol Doinyo Lengai" which literally means "The Mountain of God" , which they believe is in Northern Tanzania. [2]
Ngai or Enkai's name is synonymous to "rain." [3]
In Maasai religion, the Laibon (plural: Laiboni) intercedes between the world of the living and the Creator. They are the Maasai's high priests and diviners. In addition to organizing and presiding over religious ceremonies—including sacrifice and libation, they also heal the living, physically and spiritually. [4]
Olorun is the ruler of the Heavens in the Yoruba religion. The Supreme God or Supreme Being in the Yoruba pantheon, Olorun is also called Olodumare.
The Tumbuka are an ethnic group living in Malawi, Zambia, and Tanzania. In Tumbuka mythology, Chiuta is the Supreme Creator and is symbolised in the sky by the rainbow.
Candomblé Bantu is one of the major branches (nations) of the Candomblé religious belief system. It developed in the Portuguese Empire among Kongo and Mbundu slaves who spoke Kikongo and Kimbundu languages. The supreme and creative god is Nzambi or Nzambi a Mpungu. Below him are the Jinkisi or Minkisi, deities of Bantu mythology. These deities resemble Olorun and the other orishas of the Yoruba religion. Minkisi is a Kongo language term: it is the plural of Nkisi, meaning "receptacle". Akixi comes from the Kimbundu language term Mukixi.
Nana Buluku, also known as Nana Buruku, Nana Buku or Nanan-bouclou, is the female supreme being in the West African traditional religion of the Fon people and the Ewe people (Togo). She is one of the most influential deities in West African theology, and one shared by many ethnic groups other than the Fon people, albeit with variations. For example, she is called the Nana Bukuu among the Yoruba people and the Olisabuluwa among Igbo people but described differently, with some actively worshiping her while some do not worship her and worship the gods originating from her.
A religious symbol is an iconic representation intended to represent a specific religion, or a specific concept within a given religion.
Ngai is the monolithic Supreme God in the spirituality of the Kikuyu and the closely related Embu, Meru and Kamba groups of Kenya, and the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania. Ngai is the creator of the universe and all in it. Regarded as the omnipotent God, the Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, Kamba and the Maasai of Kenya worshiped Ngai facing the Mt. Kirinyaga while prayers and goat sacrificial rituals were performed under the sacred Mugumo tree. Occasions which may warrant sacrifice or libation include times of drought; epidemics; during planting and harvesting; and human life stages such as birth, marriage and death.
Afrocentricity is an academic theory and approach to scholarship that seeks to center the experiences and peoples of Africa and the African diaspora within their own historical, cultural, and sociological contexts. First developed as a systematized methodology by Molefi Kete Asante in 1980, he drew inspiration from a number of African and African diaspora intellectuals including Cheikh Anta Diop, George James, Harold Cruse, Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and W. E. B. Du Bois. The Temple Circle, also known as the Temple School of Thought, Temple Circle of Afrocentricity, or Temple School of Afrocentricity, was an early group of Africologists during the late 1980s and early 1990s that helped to further develop Afrocentricity, which is based on concepts of agency, centeredness, location, and orientation.
Molefi Kete Asante is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently a professor in the Department of Africology at Temple University, where he founded the PhD program in African-American Studies. He is president of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies.
The beliefs and practices of African people are highly diverse, including various ethnic religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural and are passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs, and festivals, and include beliefs in spirits and higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme being, as well as the veneration of the dead, and use of magic and traditional African 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.
Bantu religion is the system of beliefs and legends of the Bantu people of Africa. Although Bantu peoples account for several hundred different ethnic groups, there is a high degree of homogeneity in Bantu cultures and customs, just as in Bantu languages. Many Bantu cultures traditionally believed in a supreme god whose name is a variation of Nyambe/Nzambe.
In the spiritual practices of the Ashanti people and Akan people, the sunsum is one's spirit. The sunsum is what connects the body (honam) to the soul (kra). The sunsum can be transmitted in a variety of ways, including from father to son during conception. This power is used to protect the carriers of this spirit. When a man dies, the sunsum returns to the metaphorical house of the father in wait to be reincarnated in the next son born of the men of that family.
Nzambi a Mpungu is the Supreme God, eternal Sky Father and God of the Sun (fire) in traditional Kongo spirituality. His female counterpart is Nzambici, the Sky Mother and Goddess of the Moon. Among other Central African Bantu peoples, such as the Chokwe, and in the Kingdom of Ndongo, Nzambi Mpungu was also called Kalunga, the god of fire and change. This may have a connection to an element of Bakongo cosmology called Kalûnga. It was seen as the spark of fire that begot all life in the universe. After Portuguese colonization, Nzambi Mpungu became synonymous with the Christian God and existed chiefly as the Creator God.
The Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) is an independent study group organization founded in 1984 by Drs. John Henrik Clarke, Asa Grant Hilliard, Leonard Jeffries, Jacob H. Carruthers, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and Maulana Karenga that is devoted to the rescue, reconstruction, and restoration of African history and culture. It is an organization that provides the opportunity for "African peoples to educate other African peoples about their culture." ASCAC was founded by scholars with ties to African-American communities in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles and derives its membership from African Americans across class and occupational locations. The organization has since expanded into an international organization, with membership regions representing the continental United States, as well as the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. ASCAC has four commissions which advance this agenda: education, research, spiritual development, and creative production. Along with creating study groups throughout the world, ASCAC holds an annual conference, operates a youth enrichment program, and is editing a comprehensive history of Africa.
Ogotemmeli was the Dogon elder and hogon who narrated the cosmogony, cosmology and symbols of the Dogon people to French anthropologist Marcel Griaule during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, that went on to be documented and adapted by contemporary scholars. A lot of what is known about the Dogon religion, cosmogony and symbolism came from Griaule's work, which in turn came from Ogotemmeli—who taught it to him.
The Lebe or Lewe is a Dogon religious, secret institution and primordial ancestor, who arose from a serpent. According to Dogon cosmogony, Lebe is the reincarnation of the first Dogon ancestor who, resurrected in the form of a snake, guided the Dogons from the Mandé to the cliff of Bandiagara where they are found today.
The Binou is a Dogon totemic, religious order and secret ceremonial practice which venerates the immortal ancestors. It can also mean a water serpent or protector of a family or clan in Dogon. It is one of the four tenets of Dogon religion—an African spirituality among the Dogon people of Mali. Although the Dogons' "Society of the Masks" is more well known, due in part to Dogon mask–dance culture which attracts huge tourism, it is only one aspect of Dogon religion, which apart from the worship of the Creator God Amma, a rather distant and abstract deity in the Dogon world-view, is above all made up of ancestor veneration. The Binou serves as one of the four aspects of Dogon religion's ancestor veneration. Other than the Binou and the worship of Amma, the other three aspects of the religion includes the veneration of Lebe, which pertains to an immortal ancestor (Lebe) who suffered a temporary death in Dogon primordial time but was resurrected by the Nommo; the veneration of souls; and lastly, the Society of the Masks, which relates to dead ancestors in general. These myths are in oral form—known to us in a secret language. They form the framework of Dogon's religious knowledge, and are the fixed Dogon's sources relating to the creation of the universe; the invention of fire, speech and culture.
Katonda is the name used to refer to the supreme creator god in the traditional religion of the Baganda people, who are mostly based in present-day Uganda. Katonda is considered as the father and leader of the Baganda pantheon, known collectively as the balubaale.
In the religious traditions of the Akan people and the Ashanti people of Ghana, Amokye is the woman who guards the entrance to the other world, which is called 'Asamando'. She is the woman who welcome the souls of dead women to the otherworld. According to the beliefs, Ashanti women were dressed for bury in amoasie (loincloths) and jewelry, which they gave to Amokye as payment for allowing them to Asamando.
Nzambici is the eternal God of Essence, as well as Moon, Earth and Sky Mother in Bakongo religion. She is also the female counterpart of the Kongo creator god, Nzambi Mpungu.
