Encyclopedia of African Religion

sex, family life, and procreation. Among the Mende people, for example, there exist two societies, thePoroSociety (for young men ...

her with a fertile marriage. Water is intimately associated with fertility in Africa. Among the Hutu, on the day of her wedding, ...

eminent Benin scholar, diplomat, and African tra- ditional religion critic, Dr. Joseph Yai Olabiyi Babalola once suggested that ...

Hoho VodunorHohovi: god of the twins who are worshiped as well. KinnessiorKinlinsi: goddess of witchcraft. Her home is believed ...

Traditional medical practices therefore include nonempirical and empirical means to heal human beings from spiritual, psychologi ...

The spiritual and social dimensions, however, interact because both are claimed to have origi- nated from the same source; they ...

in the importance of water, first as the foremost element in the cosmic order. Some myths claim that water is a female deity who ...

They then prepare the specific herbs from plants, animals, and barks that have curative properties for such a disease or illness ...

At the political level, a community wants to enjoy the blessing and continual healing of the spiritual beings that are associate ...

debate on the perceived and self-labeled conflict between science, which Western biomedicine represents, and religion, wherein A ...

a reflection period involving initiation and meditation on service; apprenticeship and training in diagnoses of disease and in ...

SeealsoDivination Systems; Healing; Medicine Further Readings Adegbola, E. A. A. (Ed.). (1983).Traditional Religion in West Afri ...

Chewa in Malawi had held the power of rain. In effect, the priestesses or mediums were really the protectors of the social, phys ...

relevance here is the sacrificing and offering of a chicken at the gravesite, 4 days after burial for a man, 3 days for a woman. ...

MIN Min is an ancient Egyptian deity of fertility. As far back as the Badarian Period (5000–3400 BC) along the Nile River, there ...

and was therefore looked on as one who could grant to the per-aa (pharaoh) or ordinary men the power to father children. Fertili ...

holding a curved sword or spear. In later periods, he was associated with the bull at Armant. This explains the reason behind so ...

The moon is also used to time religious cere- monies. The Katab and Nuer hold ceremonies at the new moon in which they ask for g ...

428 Mossi Mossi mask;the personage represents a family ancestor.Such masks were kept in a family shrine and received prayers and ...

responsible for general climatic conditions and fertility of the soil. Another isTido Wende, the plant deity, the source of plan ...