ask, “What are the similarities, for instance,
between the Nile Valley cultures and other African
cultures?” Clearly, what is revealed in this work,
written by scores of authors, is the idea that Africa
is one, united, and spiritually related continen-
tally. Although it remains true that Islam and
Christianity have made significant inroads in
Africa, the basic traditional values of the people
are expressed in some of the most private occa-
sions. Nevertheless, the elements of morality,
ethical principles, and ancestor respect are seen
throughout the continent as Africans rely on the
ancient traditions of the ancestors.
Connective and Related LinksEva Meyerowitz (1951) attempted to describe
how the religious ideas of ancient Egypt were
closely related to the Akan ideas in Ghana. Her
work was groundbreaking, but found few follow-
ers at that time because of the more conventional
Eurocentric interpretations of African culture. She
argued that the similarities and correspondences
between the ancient Egyptians and Akan people
were so great that the relationship was clear. This
line of reasoning should not have created a crisis
in thinking in the West, but the rush to disbelief,
as Basil Davidson calls it, introduced a disconnect
in the thinking of European and American schol-
ars about the connectivity and contiguity of ideas
and cultures in Africa. They wanted an Africa that
was separate, disparate, and isolated. Yet the over-
whelming evidence of linguistics, anthropology,
and cultural studies has shown that Africans have
been migrating from one place to another for
thousands of years. There is no secret to the inter-
action between cultures.
What the authors of the Encyclopedia of
African Religionhave demonstrated is that the rep-
resentations of deities in West Africa often share
similarities with more ancient classical concepts.
This was not intentional; it only occurred because
as different scholars wrote entries for the encyclo-
pedia the editors noticed the similarities from one
culture to another. Consider the fact that in Benin,
Mawu-Lisaof the Fon appear in representations as
a joint deity withLisaholding the Sun disk in his
mouth andMawucarrying the crescent moon. In
various places in the Nile Valley, one could see
representations of this symbolism, but it is not
only a classical African form because we also see it
in other regions of the continent.
The Yoruba deityShangohas river goddesses as
wives. In many ways, this is like the Asante deity,
River Tano, who has wives as well as siblings. We
know also that pots of sacred water sit in the temples
for beautiful Oshun. The sea deity, among the Yoruba,
isOlokun, normally found in the bronzes of Ifè.
Lake Bosumtwe in Ghana is a sacred lake;
when the decaying matter explodes, the people
believe the goddess is active. There are many
sacred lakes in Africa; all are in some ways related
to the Sacred Lake at the Temple of Karnak. In
the country of Cameroon, for instance, Lake
Bamblimeis considered sacred.
Any encyclopedia is incomplete almost as soon
as it is published because ideas, concepts, and terms
continue to enrich the particular discourse. This
will be the case with our encyclopedia as well.
However, because our intentions are to set the high-
est standards of scholarship and capture the most
important aspects of traditional African religion,
we seek to establish a baseline for future examina-
tions of African religion. Thus, our encyclopedia is
the best representation to date of the comprehen-
sive nature of the African response to the sacred. As
you read, you understand our initial reaction to the
phenomenon of religion in Africa was to view it as
one single phenomenon with numerous manifesta-
tions depending on the ethnic community. When
our authors began to write and we reviewed the
entries for facts, quality, and contribution, we were
amazed to discover that the authors appeared to
confirm what we had intimated in our original
proposal to Sage Publications.
The entries in this Encyclopedia of African
Religionconfirm the idea that religion is neither
merely metaphysics nor simply morality. There is
every reason to believe that the universe of
African religious expression includes all that
humans, in certain areas, know about how the
world works, about what is necessary for humans
to survive in community built in the midst of
an environment that must constantly be coaxed
to allow human settlement, and about what is
known of the prospects of humans overcoming
the conditions of humanity. Answering these
questions and confronting these issues have occu-
pied the minds of African sages longer than any
others.Introduction xxix