African Art

IIssl laamm, , CCh hr riisst tiiaanni ittyy, , aanndd AAn ni immi issmm

In general, a very exaggerated role is accorded to Islam regarding the
extent and importance of its domain in Negro Africa. It has hardly
penetrated in a profound and effectual fashion except among the
Negro and Negroid populations who live on the border of the
Sahara; its adepts become more and more rare in proportion as one
advances towards the south and, even in the region which we com-
monly call Sudan, it is far from being the numerically dominant religion.
It may be said that the only African peoples who are in the majority
Muslims, aside from the populations of the white race in Egypt,
Berbery and the Sahara, are the Wolofs who are, moreover, with the
exception of the Lebu of Dakar, of recent Islamisation the Tukulors, the
Fulani of the Futa-Jallon, the Sarakolle, the Jula, the Songhoy, the Kanuri
of Bornu, the Kanembu, the Teda of the Kawar, Tibesti, and Borku,
some of the tribes of the Wadai of Darfur and of Kurdufan, the Bishari,
the Danakil, the Somali and certain collectivities on the islands and the
coasts of Zanzibar forming a very small total population. The other
Fulani, the Mandinka, Susu, Yoruba, Hausa, Bagirmians are partly
Muslims and partly pagans. Portions of the Galla people and other
Negroid populations of Abyssinia or its vicinity are Christians, others
are pagans, and some few others are Muslims.

All the rest, that is to say, the immense majority of the Negro
population of Africa, is pagan, with the exception of some hundreds
of thousands of Christians dispersed here and there in the proximity
of Catholic and Protestant missions, notably on the coast of Senegal,
at Sierra-Leone, in Liberia, on the Gold Coast, in Dahomey, in
Lagos, uin Duala, and Yaunde in the Cameroons, in Libreville, in
Angola, in the territories of the [former] Union of South Africa, in
Mozambique and in the Uganda. It seems that there is not a single
Negro people who have been converted en bloc to Christianity.

It must be added that, on the whole, the Muslim Negroes and the
Christian Negroes remain faithful in good numbers to their ancestral
beliefs and to many rites of their ancient paganism. Of what does
this paganism or so-called paganism consist? Since it is the religion
of almost all the Negroes, it merits more interest than seems to have
been brought to it up to the present. It is generally characterised as
“fetishism,” but fetishism, that is, the belief in the power of fetishes
or talismans is not a religion; it is only one of the most apparent
aspects of universal superstition. Fetishism is met with in all religions,
even the most advanced and most disengaged from material
things, and the Christian Negroes like the Muslim Negroes are as

fetishistic as the pagan Negroes: only they have a greater number

of “fetishes”, for they have kept those of paganism and have added

to them those that they found in a number of practices, to be sure

not very canonical, of Christianity and Islam.

IInnddi ivvi idduuaal l SSppi irriittss oof f PPeeooppl lee aanndd TThhi innggs s

The religion of the Negroes of Africa is in reality animism, that is, the

belief in the all-powerfulness of spirits, to whom the faithful render a

consistent cult of prayers, offerings and sacrifices, with a view to

attracting their favours, deterring their anger or calling for help

against enemies. What are these spirits? It is not the spirit of good

and the spirit of evil; there are not good spirits and bad spirits. The

animism of the Negroes has nothing of dualism and that which has

led several missionaries to present it under this aspect can be only a

subjective reminiscence of the opposition made by certain Christians

between God and the Devil. Neither do they make the distinction,

dear to the religions with dualist tendencies, between gods and

devils, between good and bad spirits: no divinity is considered as

essentially good or bad in itself and there do not exist souls of whom

one seeks only to attract the favour and others of whom one seeks

only to avoid the wrath; the faithful demand of the same divinity aid

for themselves and harm for their enemies.

VViittaall BBrreeaatthh

African Negroes believe that every animated being encloses within

itself, in addition to its body, two immaterial principles. One, a sort

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Sorcerer costume.

Cameroon.

Various materials, height: 85 cm.

Private collection.

Accumulation on both sides of a fabric surface, of skulls, bones, wood, charms,

leathers, skins, scales, metals, barks, birds legs, and other diverse elements,

representing the analogic African thinking, which relates forces from different

origins and natures, whose combination creates a driving force.