PERSON, DIVINITY & NATURE

PERSON, DIVINITY & NATUREThis systematic study of African belief aims to give the reader more than a scramble of disconnected myths. Africa is viewed as a cultural unity in contrast to anthropological works which emphasize the idea of the diversity of Africa to the extreme. The result of this has been that ancient and traditional African worldviews belief systems as a whole are seen as historically and geographically unconnected. This is more a personal than a rigid academic

This systematic study of African belief aims to give the reader more than a scramble of disconnected myths. Africa is viewed as a cultural unity in contrast to anthropological works which emphasize the idea of the diversity of Africa to the extreme. The result of this has been that ancient and traditional African worldviews/belief systems as a whole are seen as historically and geographically unconnected. This is more a personal than a rigid academic view of African systems of thought as a corpus of ideas having some kind of connection. A connection based on certain common truths, they refer to man/woman as beings who are a meaningful part of a mysterious universe.
In eight chapters, the author looks at the topics of Rites of Passage, The Person as Multiple Selves, Number Destiny and Divination, Complementary Opposites in Ethics and Morals, Ancient and Traditional Accounts of the Beginning, Common Elements in African Cosmology, The Supreme Being the Divinities and Spirit Forces, and the Earth and Land in African Thought and Practice. These chapters are detailed examples of analysis and interpretation, as well as representative personal experience, in the articulation and expression of African cosmology. This work opens up new understanding of African cosmology in its presentation of the holistic unit of material and immaterial, visible and invisible - all are understood to be part of an African worldview.