Africa
Ancestor veneration is very prevalent throughout Africa and serves as the basis of many religions. It is often augmented by a belief in a supreme being, but prayers and/or sacrifices are usually offered to the ancestors who may ascend to becoming minor deities themselves. Ancestor veneration remains among many Africans, sometimes practiced alongside the later adopted religions of Christianity (as in Nigeria among the Igbo people) and Islam (among the different Mandé peoples and the Bamum) in much of the continent.
Read more about this topic: Veneration Of The Dead
Famous quotes containing the word africa:
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (19101986)
“In Africa I had indeed found a sufficiently frightful kind of loneliness but the isolation of this American ant heap was even more shattering.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (18941961)
“Ill love you dear, Ill love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)