ORIGIN OF RELIGION
Religion does not appear as a separate word in
Africa. In fact, there are no words in African lan-
guages that refer to religion as a specific activity.
To a large extent, this is a borrowed concept
in African culture coming from the influences of
Europeans and Arabs with the religions of
Christianity and Islam. In Africa, what one calls
religionis simply the way that a particular people
livetheirlives.Forexample,theoriginofwhatone
calls Yoruba religion is the people themselves. The
religionandthepeoplearecoexistent.Onecannot
beYorubawithoutalsopracticingthenamingpat-
terns and certain rituals of identity, music, dance,
andfestivalsoftheYorubapeople.Thus,thereare
no separate identities of the Yoruba people.
The question of polytheism or monotheism is
not an African question and has limited value in
trying to understand how Africans came to view
their lives and those of their neighbors. One does
not have to draw sharp distinctions between those
whobelieveinmanydeitiesandthosewhopurport
to believe in one deity to gain an appreciation of
the complexity of the African way of life. In fact,
most Africans accept a belief in one creator deity,
although there may be many spirits. Thus, in real-
ity, this is similar to the later forms of “religion,”
which followed the African pattern in many
respects. Africans were the first humans to con-
ceive of a concept of monotheism, and Akhenaten
has been considered the first person to have com-
mentedontheideaofoneGod.Ofcourse,thereis
ample evidence to note that many African tradi-
tionsacceptedthattheSupremeDeitywastoodis-
tant to deal with daily issues; these were left for
the interventions of ancestors and other spirits. It
appears that the idea of responding to the envi-
ronment, relationships, and mysteries might have
occurred so far in antiquity that we will never
know the precise origin of human response to the
universe. Nevertheless, these early attempts to
explain the environment may be called the origins
of religion when defined as a way of life.
The Psychological TheoryIngeneral,thepsychologicaltheoristsmaintainthat
early human beings created gods or supernatural
beings as a result of ignorance, fears, and intense
anxiety.Thepsychologicaltheoriesbranchintotwo
directions:intellectualand emotional.A few repre-
sentativeinterpretationsarepresentedhere.The Intellectual Theories
This interpretation of the origin of religion
suggests that the explanation of humans being
religious is to be found in early Africans’ attempt
to discover (principally by reasoning) the real
explanation of things in the world. The theory
claims that early human beings reasoned ulti-
mately that if they could not control such
“strange” things as thunder, lightning, seasons,
birth and death, and so on, these must be con-
trolled by spirits more powerful than human
beings. To the intellectualists, therefore, religion
was early humans’ attempt to control things that
were catastrophic and indecipherable.The Theory of Animism
One theory of African religion was set forth by
Edward Burnett Tylor. In 1871, Tylor’s book
Primitive Culturegave currency to the termani-
mism. Tylor maintained that the belief in spirits
and gods arose from the experience of dreams,
visions, disease, and death. From these experi-
ences, humans concluded that material and non-
living objects had souls. Tylor claimed that from
the concept of souls arose the idea of nonhuman
spirits and eventually a belief in gods.Magicoreligious Theory
In 1890, James G. Frazer advanced a theory
of the origin of religion built on magic. In his
encyclopedic workThe Golden Bough:A Study
in Magic and Religion, Frazer argued that magic
preceded animism in the evolutionary develop-
ment of religion. According to Frazer, there are
three stages of intellectual development: magic,
religion, and science. Frazer maintained that the
earliest human beings tried to cope with uncer-
tainties and bid for good fortunes by means of
magic. When they discovered that magic did not
always work, they evolved religion, that is, a
belief in spiritual beings who will be able, at
all times, to deal with all situations. FrazerOrigin of Religion 501