Adam and Eve walked with God until that whole apple misunderstanding; in the pre-Christian Europe of Pagan lore wise women made vegetarian offerings to the Triple Goddess until the evil Patriarchy ushered in the Burning Times; Edgar Cayce spoke of how conflict between the good Sons of the Law of One and evil Sons of Belial led to the sinking of Atlantis. According to one popular version of the Golden Age legend, Africans created civilization, only to see it wrested from their grasp by conquerers
. Since that time, Africa has been held down by racist forces, who feared the power of their culture and their magic
. In place of the peaceful spiritually advanced kingdoms of ancient Africa, we now have a bloody reign of looters (white and black) seeking to exploit the continent's vast resources. Only by recapturing the wisdom of the past can we hope to break this cycle of destruction and heartbreak. It is a convincing narrative, given the horrors wrought by the Triangular Trade
and the many abuses of colonialism in Africa
. It provides a useful counterbalance to the prevailing myths of black savagery and inherent African inferiority. But, like all myths, it can lead us into dangerous territory if we mistake it for factual truth. One of the issues with this worldview is its promotion of an overarching "African" culture. Africa is an enormous and enormously diverse continent. There are currently 521 different languages catalogued within Nigeria alone: the label "African Traditional Religion" encompasses an even more varied selection of beliefs. French anthropologist and scholar René Basset noted in 1910 that even among the linguistically homogenous Berbers there was a considerable variation in religious and spiritual practices. The Dogon
of Mali, the Akan
of Ghana, the Masai
of Kenya - their lives, cultures and practices vary widely. While Victorians (from Blavatsky
to Crowley
and beyond) sought to find the One True Religion which underpinned all spiritual practices, we may do better to recognize and treasure the differences
in our faiths.Still another problem is the way many of these tales privilege urban and militaristic cultures. Egypt, Yorubaland and Daome all helmed far-flung empires and fielded impressive armies. But they were also guilty of expansionism, imperialism, slave raids and many of the sins we decry among the Western colonial powers. In trying to find an antidote for colonialism, we concentrate overmuch on those cultures which engaged in its excesses. This blinds us to the wisdom which may be found among the less "civilized" peoples of Africa. We might learn a great deal about low-impact living in harsh environmental conditions from the !Kung
of the Kalahari Desert or the Afar
nomads of Ethiopia. Are their achievements less impressive because they do not involve great feats of construction and conquest?One of my favorite aspects of African Diaspora religions is how human the gods and spirits are. They are a mirror of our world, with all its tragedies and triumphs, all its beauty and flaws. To reduce that cosmology and history to a bland utopianism is to lose that glorious reflection. To envision Africa as a lost paradise is to misunderstand it as badly as those who see it as a bestial pit of savagery. To paraphrase Harold Golden's famous quote on the Jews: Africans are like everyone else, only more so. Like the people living on the other continents, they have scaled the heights and plumbed the depths of experience. Their lives reflect our own in their sweet successes and their glorious dysfunctions: instead of seeing them as an Other to be alternately emulated or scorned, we might do better to view them as fellow sufferers from the human condition.
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2 comments:
I don't see that myth and history have anything to do with each other in this argument, particularly in terms of religious practice. What of the mythical Ginen of the Vodouisants, or the Ile Ife of Yoruba Orisa? Are they any less real because they are not "historical" or "factual"? Isn't the problem that we resist drawing a stark line between our ordinary and mundane sense of the past, and the more powerful, interesting, and enduring past from which legends, gods, and ancestors derive?
I believe the Myth of Genesis teaches us that the Divine was intimately involved in the creation of this world and that S/He is personally concerned with its affairs. I believe that by meditating upon and studying this myth one can gain a better understanding of the Source of All That Is and the One From Whom All Blessings Flow. However, I think you do this myth a disservice when you take it as literal truth and say that it proves that the world was created in six days some seven thousand years ago and that any paleontologist who says otherwise is a servant of Satan.
As far as Gineh goes, I believe there is a place where the lwa and ancestors hail from and to whence they return after they visit us in this world. I do not believe that I could commandeer a submarine and locate that place in this plane of existence, despite the legends which state that it is beneath the ocean. And I would not discourage a scientific expedition which wanted to explore the ocean's floor because I was afraid they might accidentally drop their bathysphere on La Sirene's castle.
I think Afrocentrism and African religions do a valuable service in providing a counterweight to the prevailing Western myths of "black savagery" and "black inferiority." I think that they get into trouble when they start twisting facts to better fit their legends, just as Christians get in trouble when they start claiming that Satan hid fake fossils in stones to fool paleontologists and promote the heresy of evolution.
Mythical Africa is enormously important and deserves close study: the same can be said of historical Africa. But I think it is important to distinguish between the two Africas and realize that they are distinct entities despite being intimately entwined.
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