Nothing came into place by chance with the
ancient Egyptians, who understood that the pat-
tern and plan of the universe was order. Africans
would later find this concept emerging in Greek
thought as logos, meaning essentially order, pat-
tern, and rationality. However, it should be clear
that the African concept of Maat antedated the
Greek concept by thousands of years and was
richly embedded with illustrations, examples,
and anecdotes from the literature and language
of the people.
For example, it was understood and believed
that the most solid and authentic grounding of
natural reality was Maat because it made the stars
shine, the sun give life, the river overflow, and the
king the great representative of the divine on
Earth. In the mind of the African, the universe was
neither moral nor immoral, but existed as tran-
scendent of those human terms. The universe is,
and because it is that is enough to call its existence
the action of Maat.
In theBook of the Coming Forth by Day and
Going Forth by Night, Maat was seen as a judge
in the underworld in the halls of Ma’ati, where
she was symbolized by a Feather of Maat. The
heart of the dead person was placed on a scale,
supervised by Maat, and weighed by Tehuti to see
whether it was lighter than the Feather of Maat. If
the heart was heavier than the symbolic ostrich
feather usually worn on the head of Maat, the
person’s heart would be eaten by a demon called
Ammut. She was also known as the devourer of
the Dead. This would be when the person would
die the second and final time. If the heart weighed
the same as the Feather of Maat, the deceased was
allowed to enter eternal life.
The duty of the per-aa or pharaoh was to
uphold Maat, and one of the principal responses
made to the people was that “I have done
Maat.” The per-aa lived to be considered loved
by Maat because of the stability and prosperity
of the kingdom.
Clearly, Maat was one of the most important
deities, if not the most important, in all of ancient
Egyptian religion. She was claimed as the wife of
Tehuti, the god of wisdom and language, as well as
the daughter of Ra. It is certain, however, that the
ancient Africans believed her to be the glue that
held back chaos. Without Maat, chaos would defi-
nitely overtake the society. Therefore, for African
societies, the presence of Maat is fundamental to
the working of civil and spiritual institutions and is
at the base of all normal operations of the universe.Molefi Kete AsanteSeealsoIwa; Iwa PeleFurther Readings
Asante, M. K., & Mazama, M. (Eds.). (2003).Egypt v.
Greece in the American Academy. Chicago: African
American Images.
Karenga, M. (2006).Maat:The Moral Ideal in Ancient
Egypt. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press.MAGIC
Magic happens when someone appears to cause
something to occur that seems to be outside of the
known principles of normal human perception.
Thus, when a law such as that of gravity is broken
or when a person is cut in half or disappears, we
usually say that it is because of magic. But African
magic also works in ways that annihilate the
known or understood law and generate a new per-
ception. Magic is the understanding of concealed
laws in relationship to what is known. Since the
earliest of times, Africans have been using these
usually hidden laws to convince the masses of
some divine intervention in the lives of the people.
There are several ways of viewing magic. From
the standpoint of an African philosophy, it assists in
the psychologizing of another person to feel, say, or
see whatever one wants him or her to experience.
You may also see magic as a social agent where
people actually see what is taking place because a
priest-magician controls the forces of nature. This
means that the priest-magician must study the forms
of energy in the universe, understand the nature of
climate, recognize the functions and forms of mate-
rial objects, and appreciate how the manipulation of
these forces impacts the human mind. Thus, as the
intellect of a divinity or spirit, the operator becomes
a priest serving the purposes of the spirit.
Every conceivable human emotion and capabil-
ity is open to the priest at the moment of his high-
est intensity. This energy and control over materialsMagic 399