7 - Religious Interactions in Pre-Twentieth Century West Africa

Summary

This chapter examines the nature, processes and construction of identities of religious entities and the development of communities that interacted with one another in pre-colonial West Africa. The discussion will address the multi-dimensional and dynamic aspects of religious practices and beliefs undergirding the diffusion of shrines. The chapter shows the relevance of religious interaction, migrations of deities and changes within religious structures and their relation to the everyday life of West Africans. Attention is paid to the critical role of African religious practitioners as actors who transformed religion. I also address how, as religions are experienced, expressed, and interpreted within the culture of their birth, and indeed outside those contexts, new meanings emerge, certain notions are dropped, identities are redefined and new alliances are forged. I show that, during religious encounter, religious experience and expression contain, shape and are shaped by culture, specific individuals or groups and historical processes.

The first part of the chapter addresses the trans local potential of indigenous African religions and ways in which they manifested variation and plurality as they crossed boundaries and shaped people's lives. The translocal potential of indigenous religions challenges the age-old view that indigenous religions are not mission-oriented. The second focus will be on how indigenous religions encountered Islam and the complex forms that these interactions took. The interactions of Christianity with indigenous religions and, in some cases, the encounters among all three religions will be the third concern of the essay. Finally, the chapter touches on the religious and cultural pluralism that emerged before and after the colonial period and continues to flourish in West Africa. In attempting to show the nature and process of the interactions mentioned, the chapter also discusses the changing needs and methods of the practitioners and the religions engaged in the encounters. It thus contributes to African religious history and the current debate on identity reformulation and religious practice and belief. My analysis will draw heavily on Patrick Ryan's ‘history of religions’ approach, but I modify his analysis as the chapter develops.

Ryan divides the religious history of West Africa into ten separate but related periods. He describes the first as marked by the intermarriage between pre-migrant and migrant religious ideas.