Encyclopedia of African Religion

veneration of the ancestors of his parents. He alone has the lifelong responsibility to carry out the functions of libation and ...

Heroes and Wars It was a common practice for the Asante army to call on famous Asante warriors during battle. The names would be ...

firmly held in most of Africa. The second one is that the African idea of reincarnation differs from the Asian idea. Throughout ...

phenomenon in which heaven and Earth, vari- ous levels of humans, spirits that are terrestrial and celestial, and ancestors all ...

Further Readings Ephirim-Donkor, A. (1997).African Spirituality:Of Becoming Ancestors. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. MacGaffe ...

beetle. The dung beetle buries its eggs in cow dung. After the annual flood of the Nile, the eggs hatch, starting a new cycle of ...

as needed by humans. Animals are used for fun- damental survival, as well as for spiritual and religious purposes. Animals are u ...

represents the importance of the soul moving toward the light—that is, moving toward higher consciousness or awareness. Finally, ...

and animatism is impersonal; whereas animism shows us individuals with special spiritual charac- teristics or traits, animatism ...

Indeed, one finds that it remains current in the context of African religion. Among the Akan of Ghana, when one wants to create ...

60 Ankh An ankh, an ancient Egyptian symbol of life, in Abydos in Egypt. Source: iStockphoto. Egyptians were employed in the pro ...

Ankhs that were made out of faience, wax, metal, and gems were popular during the 18th and 19th dynasties as jeweled objects of ...

EgyptianBook of the Dead, as well as in funeral text and tomb and coffin texts. Anubis was the original god of the dead before A ...

In various times and places, Anubis was known by the namesAnpu,Imeut,Am Ut,Khent Sehet, Tep-Tu-f,Yinepu,Khenty Amentiu, andSekhe ...

Thus, Anuket took the form of being one of the triad of deities at the great temple of Elephantine. Alongside Khnum, or Khenemu, ...

sometimes equated with Seth, the god of chaos. But the character of Apep, unlike that of Seth, was always consistently that of t ...

and the priestly process of finding new bulls to take the place of Apis. Origin of the Idea The Apis bull concept may have origi ...

Apuleius 67 or animals had a vestibule where the people could come to see the Apis and the mother of the Apis. The Great Festiva ...

this black goddess became the face of woman throughout the lands where Rome ruled. In effect, Africa had seduced the Roman Empir ...

ASAMANDO According to Akan cosmology, the Asamando is the ancestral world or the land of the spirits. Whereas the Akan conceive ...