Sub-Saharan Africa - Religion

Religion

Further information: African traditional religion, Religion in Africa, Christianity in Africa, and Islam in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is largely Christian, while North Africa is predominantly Muslim. However, there are Muslim majorities in the Sahel and Sudan regions and along the East African coast (Muslim majorities in The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Somalia; comparable numbers of Christians and Muslims in Chad, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire with significant Muslim communities in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Eritrea). Traditional African religions can be broken into down linguistic cultural groups, with common themes. Among Niger–Congo-speakers is a belief in a creator God; ancestor spirits; territorial spirits; evil caused by human ill will and neglecting ancestor spirits; priest of territorial spirits. New world religions such as Santería, Vodun, and Candomblé, would be derived from this world view. Among Nilo-Saharan speakers is the belief in Divinity; evil is caused by divine judgement and retribution; prophets as middlemen between Divinity and man. Among Afro-Asiatic-speakers is henotheism, the belief in one's own gods but accepting the existence of other gods; evil here is caused by malevolent spirits. The Semitic Abrahamic religion of Judaism is comparable to the latter world view. Khoisan religion is non-theistic but a belief in a Spirit or Power of existence which can be tapped in a trance-dance; trance-healers.

Traditional Sub-Saharan African religion displays very complex ontology, cosmology, and metaphysics. Mythologies, for example, demonstrated the difficulty fathers of creation had in bringing about order from chaos. Order is what is right and natural and any deviation is chaos. Sub-Saharan cosmology and ontology is neither simple or linear. It defines duality, the material and immaterial, male and female, heaven and earth. Common principles of being and becoming are widespread: Among the Dogon, the principle of Amma (being) and Nummo (becoming), among the Bambara Pemba (being) and Faro (becoming),

West Africa

• Akan mythology
• Ashanti mythology (Ghana)
• Dahomey (Fon) mythology
• Efik mythology (Nigeria, Cameroon)
• Igbo mythology (Nigeria, Cameroon)
• Isoko mythology (Nigeria)
• Yoruba mythology (Nigeria, Benin)

Central Africa

• Bushongo mythology (Congo)
• Bambuti (Pygmy) mythology (Congo)
• Lugbara mythology (Congo)

East Africa

• Akamba mythology (East Kenya)
• Dinka mythology (South Sudan)
• Lotuko mythology (South Sudan)
• Masai mythology (Kenya, Tanzania)

Southern Africa

• Khoisan religion
• Lozi mythology (Zambia)
• Tumbuka mythology (Malawi)
• Zulu mythology (South Africa)

Sub-Saharan traditional divination systems displays great sophistication. For example the bamana sand divinition uses well establish symbolic codes that can be reproduce using four bits or marks. A binary system of one or two marks are combined. Random outcomes are generated using a fractal recursive process. It is analogous to a digital circuit but can be reproduced on any surface with one or two marks. This system is widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa.