Americas and around the world, Yoruba religion
continues to thrive and develop through the forms
of Santeria, Vodun, and Condomble.
In the global expressions of contemporary
Yoruba religion, Ashe continues to be an impor-
tant concept of ritual expression, sacred empow-
erment, and critical analysis. Because of the nature
of the concept of Ashe, connections to the quan-
tum field theory of physics where Ashe is a form
of charged energy that seeks wholeness with the
Supreme Being, Olodumare are often made. Ashe
then is not only a universal source of energy,
which commands and orders the world, but can
also be used as a form of utterance (as in the sense
of Nommo), which praises and confirms spiritual
authority.
Katherine Olukemi BankoleSee alsoAnkh; Nkwa
Further Readings
Abimbola, W. (1976).The Yoruba Ifa Divination
System:An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Asante, M. K. (1992).Kemet,Afrocentricity and
Knowledge. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Gonsalez-Wippler, M. (1989).Santeria the Religion.
New York: Harmony Books.
Mauge, C. E. (1996).The Lost Orisha. New York:
House of Providence.
Mazama, A. (2002). Afrocentricity and African
Spirituality.Journal of Black Studies, 33 (2), 218–234.
Yai, O. B. (1996).Yoruba-English/English-Yoruba
Dictionary. New York: Hippocrene Books.
ATEN
In ancient Egypt during the Middle Kingdom, the
wordAten, also spelled Aton,was originally used
to describe the orb or radiant disk of the sun. By
the mid-New Kingdom times, a solar god named
Aten was well known and established among the
other Egyptian deities, although it was not until
the 18th dynasty of Egypt that the worship of
the Aten emerged. During the reign of King
Amenhotep III, the worship of the Aten was
encouraged. Throughout the history of ancient
Egypt, from c. 1550 BC, when the Egyptians
finally drove out the Hyksos from their land, the
god Amon-Ra had been given credit for this vic-
tory and was elevated to the status of chief of all
Egyptians’ traditional gods and from whom the
early Pharaohs claimed descent.
This status was held by Amon-Ra until the
ascendancy of Amenhotep III’s son, Amenhotep
IV (1352–1336 BC), to the Egyptian throne.
During the fifth year of his reign, Amenhotep IV
changed his name from Amenhotep, which meant
“Amon is satisfied,” to Akhenaten, which meant
“Glory of the Aten.” At this same time, the minor
god Aten was elevated to the rank of the state god
of Egypt, replacing Amon-Ra.
Instituting the worship of the Aten was the apex
of religious reformation ushered in by King
Akhenaten. Although Egyptians had always wor-
shipped a chief god, they had also worshipped
numerous other gods and goddesses. Akhenaten
imposed the worship of the Aten on Egyptian sub-
jects as the sole god to be worshipped. He enforced
a new form of strict monotheism, which denied any
rivals to the god Aten. Not only did Akhenaten for-
bid the worship of the former state god Amon-Ra,
he closed the temples dedicated to Amon-Ra, perse-
cuted and dispossessed the priesthood of Amon-Ra,
and removed all inscriptions of other gods from
public temples, monuments, and other building
structures. Akhenaten proclaimed himself the priest
of Aten and the god’s only son. He also had new
open-roofed temples built to reflect the essence of
the Aten’s radiance and power.
The Egyptian gods were traditionally repre-
sented by an animal head atop a human body.
Usually, the animal chosen to represent a god
reflected the character of the god. The earliest rep-
resentation of the god Aten was in the form of a
falcon-headed figure wearing the disk of the sun on
its head. As part of Akhenaten’s religious reform,
the Aten was no longer portrayed as half animal
and half human, but as a solar orb, a sun globe
with long rays, each ray depicted as long stick-like
arms ending in tiny human hands. The hands were
sometimes shown holding the Egyptian hiero-
glyphic sign for life, the “ankh,” which was a cross
shaped like a T with a loop at the top, or the hands
were shown open, extending his power and grace
to the royal family and to all humanity.Aten 75