Religion and Spiritual Beliefs
Although many Kissi have converted to Christianity, most of them continue to practice their traditional ethnic religion. Ancestor worship or praying to deceased relatives is a common practice among the Kissi. The Kissi believe that ancestral spirits act as mediators between them and the creator god. Small stone statues are used to represent the spirits. They are worshipped and offered sacrifices by the village headmen.
The Kissi constantly live in fear of the supernatural. They wear charms in order to protect themselves from the evil spirits. Witchcraft is also practiced by sorcerers and witches. Some of the elders and religious leaders communicate with spirits through trances and hypnosis. The biriye and other rituals are held in the forest, since this is thought to be a sacred setting.
An interesting corruption of the name Kissi linked Christmas Mass to it to become Kissy Mess Mess, a neighbourhood of Freetown, SL.
Read more about this topic: Kissi People
Famous quotes containing the words religion, spiritual and/or beliefs:
“There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and he succeeded.... He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note of him.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Both Eliot and Pound condense; their best verse is weighted—Pound’s, with sensual experience primarily, and Eliot’s with beliefs. Where the mind’s life is concerned the senses produce images, and beliefs produce dramatic cries. The condensation is important.”
—R.P. Blackmur (1904–1965)