Foundational Assumptions in Traditional Religion

Abstract or Introduction

This paper discusses the idea of the fundamental assumptions of traditional African religion. The author has attempted to locate the assumptions underlying the beliefs and practices of traditional religion. Although the assumptions put forward are not necessarily proven to be true; they are assumed to be true but simply form hypotheses. It has been claimed that the belief that the dead and ancestral spirits have authority over the living drives many practices into African traditional practices. These include the veneration of family ancestors, offering sacrifices to the deceased, divination aimed at seeking insights from ancestral spirits, and other rituals aimed at appeasing or thanking the ancestors. While God is the source of all life within African religions, an individual has life only when he participates in the life transmitted by God through the relationship of beings. The established hierarchy belongs to both the invisible world and the visible world so that Life is a participation in God, but it is always mediated by someone who stands above the recipient in the hierarchy of being. This ontological hierarchy places God first, spirits second as extra-human beings, and humans third. As a result, Human participation in God is participation in the ontological hierarchy, in which God transmits life through ancestors.