Western idea of being when speaking of African
existence. It is more exact to refer to force inas-
much as Africans believe that everything has
force. There is a force to humans, living or dead,
plants, rocks, and minerals.
Yet the precise African concept of existence
cannot be understood by using the expression
being that expresses force, although force is
involved. Actually the concept of force is insepa-
rable from the African’s idea of being. One cannot
be divorced from force because without the ele-
ment of force there is no conception of being and
vice versa. Force is not some separate entity that
has to be expressed; it is the nature of objects,
things, people, trees, and animals to express force.
The Platonic notion of the separation of body
and soul, and substance and accidents must be
considered foreign to African ideals. In the
Platonic conception, substance is that which is
considered essential by Western philosophers, and
the accident is the physical body in which the sub-
stance is housed. When a person dies, it is said
that the accident disintegrates, but the substance
remains. The substance as the soul, according to
many Westerners, can go to either Heaven or Hell
depending on the quality of one’s life on Earth.
For the believers in reincarnation, it is this sub-
stance that is said to be reincarnated.
Africans understand the distinction between
different forces or inner realities, just as it is pos-
sible to see differences existing between material
things in nature. Just as someone may say that
different beings have different energies in the
Western sense, the African says that forces differ
also in their essences. The divine force is not the
terrestrial or celestial force, and the human forces
are different from the mineral and plant forces,
yet force is the commonality among all of them.
In African religion, there is a clear hierarchy of
forces with God preceding the spirits, then the
founding ancestors and the living dead, according
to their primogeniture, and then humans accord-
ing to their age.
Thus, Africa has a different idea of deathlessness.
In African ontology, one understands that all visible
beings are perceived by the senses as well as having
an inner nature or force. One does not say of a
person who dies that the soul has gone to the spirit
world, because it is not the “soul” or just a part of
a person that has gone, but the complete person that
has become invisible. Thus, what lives after death is
the person him- or herself. The one who was for-
merly hidden behind the perceptible expression has
become invisible, but is force endowed with intelli-
gence and will. For this reason, the African does not
speak of the dichotomy of soul and body, such that
at death there is a separation and the soul inhabits
another body. In fact, the person still exists as the
person in an invisible form. Although the bodily
energy disappears, the vital force increases and gains
in strength from day to day depending on the ritu-
als held to maintain the force.
Clearly, the dead assume an important role in
the society because of vital power and energy that
allows the dead ancestor to express will and intel-
ligence in dealing with the living. It is believed that
the departed gain in knowledge of nature, the
cosmos, and human relationships through the
experience of departing.
The dead ancestor becomes pure force.
However, a person can be “truly dead” when the
vital force is entirely diminished. This can happen
if the living do not ritualize the ancestor. A preoc-
cupation with immortality and deathlessness can
be traced to the ancient Egyptians, who believed
that one increased the chances of immortality by
leaving a vital force that is strong enough to out-
last death. Sacrifice and prayers are considered
essential for increasing the vital forces. The idea
behind reproductive fertility may be ritual sacri-
fices for the Dead by the living descendants. By
sacrificing, the living receive the vital force of the
ancestor and the ancestor receives immortality.
What one seeks is infinite deathlessness by per-
petuating the society through vital force.
Now one can see how the ancestors’ “perpetua-
tion of themselves through reproduction” is called
reincarnation. One might more correctly claim it
as the passing of vital force to the living from the
ancestors to affect births by giving of themselves.
The dynamic force of the ancestors can influence
everything, and that is why “reincarnation” can-
not be partial, as Idowu has claimed. It either is or
it is not. One esteems the dead ancestors to the
degree that they increase and protect their progeny
by giving them their vital force. Onyewuenyi
has argued that the vital force of an ancestor is
comparable to the sun, which is not diminished by566 Reincarnation