He also views the roles of the High and lesser gods somewhat differently.Ĭonstant features of the concept of High God in Africa are its use in explaining the origin and life courses of people, the uniformities such as birth and death, and also the differences. Unlike O’Connell, he sees the physical withdrawal of God as due to “an image of cosmic growth and differentiation” (1962b:138). Horton criticizes O’Connell’s anxiety-reduction model and suggests that man could just as easily make his High God less demanding and define His attributes more clearly rather than create lesser gods for these purposes. While the High God gives meaning to the lesser ones, the latter give concrete features and a means of approach to an otherwise abstract principle (1962:69). Lesser gods are more approachable because they do not possess the purity and guilt-arousing powers of the High God. O’Connell has contended that not only is it easier to have a god withdrawn because of one major sin than to have one preoccupied with human shortcomings, but also it would be dangerous to have an omnipotent being involved in one’s daily life (1962:68). Various theories have been presented to explain the remote position of the High God in West Africa and His neglect in ritual. Throughout the area, however, people acknowledge a High God, offer prayers to Him, refer to Him in proverbs and give small sacrifices. Only in Ashanti are there temples and priests to Him and even there the ceremonies to Him are outshown by rites to lesser gods (Parrinder 1961:15). Unlike the Judeo-Christian God, He is rarely directly worshiped. The High God, often identified with the sky, is usually personified as male 1. However, the on-going moral order is watched over by other forces, those of natural objects and those of the dead. In West Africa the world order derives ultimately from God, who is responsible for creation of the natural order and the setting of the proper moral codes. “Man is merely a tool in the hands of God and he therefore should be constantly aware that his actions are among the means by which God accomplishes his designs” (Bendix 1960:213). In the latter, there is an omnipotent God who not only created the world, but is the driving force guiding its destinies and maintaining His sacred principles. The role of the High God in West African religion can be better understood if it is contrasted with His role in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Finally, beliefs in predestination and reincarnation are also prevalent, involving both the High God and the ancestors. Medicines are yet another category of spiritual forces and can be viewed not only as magical means of manipulating the universe, but also as devices for communicating with the gods. Both the spirits of natural forces and the ancestors are much more particularized and localized than is the High God. However, the moral force is upheld not so much by the High God as by spirits of natural forces, sometimes referred to, when personified, as demi-gods, and by the dead, notably the legitimized and formally recognized ancestors. The broadest among these and the one which serves as a Final Cause is the concept of High God. In West African belief there are a variety of spiritual forces which relate man to the world order, both natural and moral. Some Prevalent West African Religious ThemesĢ.1.1. In the second section, an overview of some of the main features of the belief system of Onitsha Ibo religion will then be provided. When the many similarities and variations obtaining throughout the West African area have been considered, it becomes possible to see from a comparatively informed perspective how Onitsha religion relates both to social structural problems and historical and cultural factors. In the first section of this chapter, several recurrent themes in West African religion will be examined. Since we take these fundamental ordering conceptions as an important aspect of religion, it will be useful to begin from the fairly broad base of a discussion of West African religion in general.
The Ibo world-view may be classed in broadest terms as a “monistic”, personalized one (Bellah 1964:364) and as such it is a species of a very distinctive type, found quite generally in pre-colonial Sub-Saharan West African. Such systems of conceptions vary widely but not, it may be presumed, infinitely. Religion is in part a system of general ordering conceptions that place man in his physical, organic, psychological, social, and cultural universe. CHAPTER TWO: SOME ASPECTS OF WEST AFRICAN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS
0 kommentar(er)
