![]() In this religion, the creator god and spirits of the religion were seen as being on a communal level. One of the critical precepts of the Niger-Congo religion was the scope of human society. The perception that a particular individual had the ability to communicate personally or through diviner-priests with ancestral and territorial spirits meant the difference between a community accepting or rejecting a leader. Therefore, there was a close connection between cosmology and political power that translated into a view of the kin leader as an individual who had the power to protect the lineage. Niger-Congo clan chiefs wielded religious power and were accountable for particular ritual responsibilities. Religious belief and practice carried over into the social and political realm. In this sense, the social and physical landscape, which included the spirit or spirits that inhabited the space, affected social life. For example, the favor of a river spirit granted safety on the water, while disfavor could cause harm. In the minds of believers and practitioners of the Niger-Congo religion, these territorial spirits affected the outcome of events that occurred within their sphere of influence. They were spirits bound to a particular territory. Niger-Congo territorial spirits were important because they inhabited or presided over specific places such as a meadow, a river, a woodland, or a particular village. Ancestor spirits were not gods, so they were not worshiped but venerated. Because of the belief that ancestral spirits continued to play an active role and could thus have momentous impact on community welfare and well-being, these spirits were venerated and called on in times of misfortune or tragedy and for sanctions of celebrations and as sources of goodwill. Its main focus was life itself.Īccording to ancient Niger-Congo religious beliefs, ancestral spirits remained part of the lineage or family line as participating members who could help or harm the kin group and therefore had to be paid due respect and be formally remembered in ceremonial acts. The Niger-Congo religion had no concept of a final redemption and did not focus on an afterlife. Integral to the notion of evil was the potential for remedy through assistance from ancestors and doctor-diviners who diagnosed causes and prepared curative therapy with medicines and religious rituals. In societies such as the Niger-Congo, in which belonging to a lineage through sanguine or fictive ties was crucial to religious and social existence, becoming a social outcast was a highly undesirable fate. An evil person’s punishment was the most extreme retribution Niger-Congo society could confer on any person: The individual was ritually forgotten by his or her society and thus unable to receive blessings, bound to roam Earth alone. Wicked individuals faced serious consequences for their actions, but at no time were they thought to have communed with a satanic figure. This faith had no devil figure, no embodiment of evil. Evil was believed to be caused by human malice or ill will that was animated through curses and medicinal mixtures employed with witchcraft.Įvil was perceived by the ancient Niger-Congo peoples to be a human force caused by people’s feelings of resentment, envy, greed, or the like combined with techniques of witchcraft. The spirits included ancestral and territorial spirits, which were both forces that had more immediate consequences for the day-to-day lives of the Niger-Congo than did the creator god. From at least the sixth millennium b.c.e., Niger-Congo religious philosophy consisted of a creator god, who stood at the zenith of the religious hierarchy and was the maker of all things various other levels of spirits and a realm of evil. Niger-Congo religious beliefs and practices centered on basic human concerns regarding the creation of the world, human origins, malevolence caused by evildoers, and protection and beneficence emanating from the spiritual (divine) sphere. These ancient peoples spoke ancestral Niger-Congo languages, inhabited the woodland savanna of West Africa, and produced microlithic stone tools from the seventeenth millennium b.c.e. The practice among the Niger-Congo-speaking peoples of a religious belief system that included an omnipotent god of creation can be traced back to the sixth millennium b.c.e. The Niger-Congo religion recognized three levels of spirits: ancestral spirits, territorial spirits, and, by the sixth millennium b.c.e., a creator god, suggesting an early manifestation of monotheism.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |