Nature and Humanity in African

Traditional Religions

Ian Ritchie

"Duniya mace de ciki ce" - Hausa proverb

Introduction

At the outset, we must point out that when we attempt

to ask what African conceptions of "nature" are or were,
when we try to extract our modern notion of "nature" from
African religions which have not followed the same line
of historical and philosophical development, we are asking
a question which the African traditions were never
designed to answer. The English word nature or
environment has no exact equivalent in African languages.
For example we find that for the Hausa of North-central
Nigeria the term garii is generally translated as town or
sky, but signifies the total human and physical
environment of the Hausa city state (Richards 106). Garii
does not translate nature nor does duniya (meaning the
world) nor any other term in the Hausa language, but there
is a rich treasure from which to learn in the study of
words which one would use to approximate a similar idea.
A further problem for our study is that in the African
context there is no single authoritative tradition to which
to refer as a guide. Each ethnic group (or "tribe") has its
own distinct language, culture and religion, and it is
estimated that Nigeria alone has over four-hundred and
fifty distinct ethnic groups and languages. It is not
possible under these circumstances to make hard
generalizations about African Traditional Religions
(hereafter abbreviated ATR). Indeed the introductory
Ian Ritchie is a doctoral student in the Held of anthropology of religion at
the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University.
28 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

chapters to all of the texts written on ATR all expound at

length on the reasons why past definitions have been
inadequate, usually stressing the fact that they were
overly generalized.
This leaves us with extreme difficulty in choosing a
method to tackle our topic. One may attempt the method
preferred in anthropology, whereby one focuses upon one
ethnic group exclusively, covering it through ethnographic
writings devoted exclusively to that group, the advantage
being accuracy and depth. However, the uninitiated
person who reads such a work may come away imagining
that he or she now knows how "Africans" view the world
and this would be grossly misleading. The approach I shall
attempt here is multifocal: I shall begin with a synthesis of
works dealing with ecological practices throughout Africa,
examine some cosmogonic myths and give a comparative
analysis of a few ethnic groups in West Africa, with
special attention to the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria
and to some other Nigerian groups.

Africa has suffered from a long history of

misunderstanding and oppression at the hands of
westerners. In addition to the physical oppression of her
peoples, she has also withstood a succession of differing
mental pictures, all of which distort or overgeneralize. A
recent work on African environments and resources
(Lewis and Berry 13 ff.) chronicles some of these
distortions. Africa in the early period of contact was
often characterized as a place of "limitless" fertile tropical
forest. Another, and sharply contrasting image was that
of Africa as an endless desert. A third image is that of
Africa as the home of exotic wildlife, a game preserve:
many travel films and TV documentaries will show fifty
minutes of superb wildlife photography and three minutes
of the people in the area, yet today large areas are without
any game animals. Another picture of Africa is as an area
of insect and water-borne disease. Yet another and more
recent picture presents Africa as a devastated continent
 Ian Ritchie 29

(Vos, Eckholm). Those who espouse this view have

recognized some diversity, but portray an overall
impression of total devastation, citing the Sahelian
droughts, continent wide deforestation, desertification,
ubiquitous soil erosion and the loss of many animal species
all as evidence of generally deteriorating environments in
Africa.
Throughout the various changes in approach and
attitude, one tendency has remained, that of seeing Africa
as uniform, and that is the idea which must be rooted out
of one’s thinking completely before any progress can be
made in this area. The notion of uniformity has been
applied just as much to the people who inhabit the land as
to the land itself. The writings of early missionaries,
anthropologists and colonial officials alike are filled with
erroneous generalized applications of one cultural or
religious custom or habit from one ethnic group to all
Africans.
Western writers on Africa in the past have labelled
African religions with such terms as primitive, animism
(Tylor), paganism, polytheism, fetishism, ancestor worship,
totemism (Freud), naturism and nature worship (Fraser,
Willoughby). These terms have all been rejected by
modern African scholars of religion as inaccurate and
pejorative misconceptions invented by Westerners who did
not understand Africans and their world view. It is only
fair to point out however that modern anthropology has
also rejected these terms for the most part and now uses
such terms as "animism" only in a very carefully qualified
manner, when used at all.

Finally, the intrusion of the West has already made it

difficult to know with certainty when we have identified
a genuinely "traditional" concept. Traditions already have
been modified, even completely changed in response to
outside pressures and have sometimes been completely
30 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

obliterated (Norris and Heine 118-137). Furthermore there

is often intense suspicion about foreigners who poke about
in tribal affairs. It is said among the Tiv people that
when a person who is not properly initiated into the tribal
society inquires into the group’s secrets it is mandatory to
lie to the person in order to mislead them even if the
person is a member (uninitiated) of the tribe! Under these
circumstances only careful observations of what a group
actually practices, taken over a long period of time, can
yield even the most tentative of conclusions.

African Views of Creation

Nature as Sacral

African views of creation are many and varied (Mbiti

1969, 39-41). Many African myths assume the existence of
the world at the beginning and start with the creation of
humanity (Evans-Pritchard 1956, 6). Most of the creation
myths say that the creation of heaven preceded that of the
earth but there is no normative order for the creation of
other things (Mbiti 1969, 40). The idea of a creation ex
nihilo is reported in at least three African tribes and there
may possibly be others, but the idea seems to have been a
rare one (Mbiti 1969, 30).

It is common in ATRs to find a high status given to the

sun and to the moon. The Galla people of Ethiopia say
that the sun is God’s eye, the Balese people of Congo
consider the sun to be God’s right eye and the moon his
left, while the Ila people of Zambia believe the sun
signifies God’s eternity (Mbiti 1969,47, 52). For the Hahm
people of Central Nigeria, there was an ambiguity about
the sun: some would say that the sun is God and others
only that the sun manifests God (Kato 30-34). This
ambiguity is noted among other peoples as well such as the
Ankore (Mbiti 1969, 41) and the Ninzam. Despite the
 Ian Ritchie 31

ambiguity modern African scholars reject the term "sun

worship" as a generalized category.

All African societies depend on rain and value it

highly. Mbiti reports a few societies which "associate God
and rain so closely that the same word, or its cognate, is
used for both" (Mbiti 1969, 53). Others personify rain as
one of the divinities. Some groups saw rain as God’s saliva
(Mbiti 1969, 41) and others such as several groups in
Nigeria’s Plateau State saw rain as God’s urine. Mbiti
concludes that in all cases rain is taken as a sign of God’s
care and providence for humanity and the world.
Generally throughout Africa bodies of water are thought
to have major spirits or divinities in them (Mbiti 1969, 54).

The term "animism" cannot describe African religions

because it implies that its practitioners believe all rocks or
trees are inhabited by spirits or spirit, and this is not so.
They believe that only certain rocks and trees are
inhabited by spirits and these have special significance for
them. Some are believed to be the dwelling place of an
ancestor, for example, and such sites must be respected.
Animation also extends in some cases to physical objects
such as amulets.
Generally, there is a consensus among scholars of
African religion that "pantheism" and "panentheism" are
not appropriate terms to use as a description of African
religions (Mbiti 1969, 33). Although ATRs see God or
evidence of God in all things, there is according to Mbiti
an ontological hierarchy in which some things are in a
higher mode of being than others. Mbiti reports an
ontological hierarchy of God/spirits/man/animals and
plants/phenomena and objects without biological life
(Mbiti 1969, 16). So the "life" or "force" that resides in a
stone is ontologically lower than that of a plant, and
plants than animals, and animals than humans. With this
kind of hierarchy blanket terms like "pantheism" or even
"panentheism" are too simple in that they fail to take in
32 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

the subtleties of the ontological hierarchy. Mbiti describes

it this way:
It emerges clearly that for African peoples, this is
a religious universe. Nature in the broadest sense
of the word is not an empty impersonal object or
phenomenon: it is filled with religious significance
.... God is seen in and behind these (natural)
objects and phenomena: they are His creation, they
manifest Him, they symbolize His being and
presence. . . . The invisible world presses hard
upon the visible: one speaks to the other, and
Africans "see" that invisible universe when they
look at, hear or feel the visible and tangible world
(Mbiti 1969, 56-57).

He adds that in addition to the five categories of beings,

there is a
force, power or energy permeating the whole
universe. God is the Source and ultimate controller
of this force; but the spirits have access to some of
it. A few human beings have the knowledge and
ability to tap, manipulate and use it, such as the
medicine-men, witches, priests and rainmakers,
some for the good and others for the ill of their
communities (Mbiti 1969, 16).
To be more precise, he adds that this "force" is
"approximately what the anthropologists call mana but it
has nothing to do with Placide Tempels’ ‘vital force’
concept" (Mbiti 1969, 16 n).

We should add that very important in the ontological

hierarchy is the role of the ancestors. They are believed
to be frequently present in the houses of their children
overseeing their daily activities, for it is they who are
most directly concerned about the welfare of their
 Ian Ritchie 33

offspring. Their influence on ecological practices is seen

in the fact that in some parts of Africa initial attempts to
expand the ancestral plot of farmland or to build houses
in a different shape from that of the traditional had been
opposed by the ancestors, because the new customs were a
departure from the old. This is not the case everywhere
however (Raum 1965).

It is difficult to make any firm statement about the

"goodness" of creation in ATRs. On the one hand, the
literature often speaks of the African affirmation of the
physical world, similar to the ancient Hebraic view, and
certainly this is true if one is contrasting it with the
gnostic denial of the physical. Let us turn to the Yoruba
people of Southwestern Nigeria for more detail. In the
Yoruba myth of creation, Olbdiimarfe the Creator sent the
chameleon down upon the surface of the vast waters to
test to see if there were any place safe to put one’s foot
upon. This was because the chameleon was the most
cautious and tentative of all creatures. The place where
the chameleon touched down upon the earth later became
the site of the first human habitation, which the Yoruba
call life If6, the ancient holy city of the Yoruba people.
Interestingly their tradition fixes their story in space and
time and at least the geographical component is fixed in a
more concrete manner than that of the biblical account,
for Iffe is a city which one can still visit today while the
location of the Garden of Eden is a mystery.

Creation and Moral Order

While the general goodness of life on earth is affirmed

in most African traditions, few African creation myths
portray God as clearly affirming the goodness of the
world in an explicit manner, for example in direct
statements by God the Creator. In fact, in many African
myths the world is created as the result of an accident,
34 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

lending impetus to a fatalistic interpretation of life.

Idowu notes that in the Yoruba story of creation:
The oral traditions say that heaven was very near
to the earth, so near that one could stretch up one’s
hand and touch it.... There was a kind of Golden
Age, or a Garden-of-Eden period. Then something
happened, and a giddy, frustrating extensive space
occurred between heaven and earth.... One story
is that a greedy person helped himself to too much
food from heaven; another that a woman with a
dirty hand touched the unsoiled face of heaven. .
.. The privilege of free intercourse, of man taking
the bounty of heaven as he liked, disappeared
(Idowu 1962, 21 ff.).
In the creation myth of the Angas people of Plateau
State in Central Nigeria we find that in the Golden Age
before the ruin of humanity the hoe pulled itself through
the furrows producing food for human beings. Then one
day the woman, seeing the hoe at rest in the hut, took it by
the handle and worked with it in the furrows herself. At
this time the hoe was so offended that it refused ever to
produce food for humans in the old way again and since
then humans have had to work for a living (Kangdim 3-8).
We see here that the fall of humanity is due to a caprice:
as there was no stated order on the part of God to the man
or woman warning them not to use the hoe in this manner,
the fallen state of humanity seems due to an oversight.
One might deduce from this a fatalistic twist to the
universe: one never knows whether it will snap back in
one’s face.

Yet in other myths one does find hints of moral order

in the structure of the universe. One story which is found
perhaps more commonly throughout all of Africa than any
other myth is the following: In the beginning, in the
Golden Age, Heaven, the home of God was very close to
the ground, so close that one could almost reach up and
 Ian Ritchie 35

touch it with one’s hand, and fellowship between God and

human beings was very close. But one day a woman was
pounding grain with her mortar and pestle. She was
pounding very vigorously and began to hit the floor of
God’s home with the upper end of her pestle. At this, God
was annoyed and told her to stop, but she refused. God
became angry and warned her again to desist, but she
continued and so he withdrew much further up into
heaven so that he might live in peace and quiet. From that
day to this God does not concern himself directly with the
affairs of humans; they must go through intermediaries.
Many differing versions of this myth are told throughout
Africa. In some versions it seems that the woman is not
warned at all amd God leaves at the first hint of noise
coming from his floor. The difference may be an
important one as the omission of any warning could be
taken as a more fatalistic interpretation of the universe
and its proclivities than the version in which fair warning
is given. Fatalism becomes especially evident in terms of
ethics and the perception of the world as a place of chaos
and unpredictable misfortunes, against which one may
nonetheless protect oneself by means of magic.
Even more germane to a discussion of ecological ethics
is the creation myth of the Ewe people of Ghana who said
that it was the smoke from mens’ fires which got in God’s
eyes, that angered him and made him withdraw higher and
higher into the sky as the fires grew more numerous with
the increase of human beings on the earth (Donders 31).
One African theologian has commented that this story
could form an excellent basis for an ecological ethic.

Human Beings and Others

African creation stories generally do not state that

humankind is made in the "image of God." Neither do
they state that humankind has "dominion" over the
material world in any explicit or clear sense, though a few
36 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

do, such as the Fang of Gabon (Bejer 19). What generally

stands out with some clarity is that humans are at the
mercy of a capricious and unpredictable reality as we saw
in the Angas myth above, or as embodied in the Yoruba
myth of Eshu, the capricious trickster who is sometimes
evil and malevolent yet sometimes extremely generous and
benevolent. Sometimes Eshu is male and sometimes
female, but always unpredictable.

Fatalism is a word often used to describe African

religion. It may be a fair one to use, in that the myths and
general orientation of ATRs do seem to communicate a
sense of tremendous uncertainty and futility about the
human prospect since the end of the "Golden Age", or "the
Fall" as Christians style it. Of course, fatalism per se is
found in every culture and it can be a serious impediment
to social reforms in the West as everywhere. The point
Mbiti and others would make is that ATRs are relatively
fatalistic because of the absence of a suggested solution to
humanity’s dilemma.
The creation myth of the Yoruba does not give
humanity any explicitly stated "dominion" over creation,
such as one finds in Genesis 1. This is also generally true
of most other African creation myths; it can be said
however that the position of humanity vis a vis the created
world was generally one of ontological superiority. Mbiti
tells us that animals, plants and inanimate things "are in
an ontological category inferior to that of man, and
cannot, therefore, have the-important role of functioning
as intermediaries..." (Mbiti 1969,71). The ethnographical
literature from a vast number of African ethnic groups
confirms this finding in each case.

The Yoruba, the Hausa, the Ibo, and the scores of

ethnic groups of Plateau and Benue States of Nigeria with
which I have been associated show a sharply negative
reaction against all comparisons of any human to any type
 Ian Ritchie 37

of animal, even in jest. To refer to any human as a

"monkey" is considered the most serious insult one can
make. This could be seen as a reaction stemming from the
colonial past when whites actually referred to Africans in
these terms. But there is a great deal of evidence from a
whole range of groups that the terms "monkey" and "wild
animal" were used traditionally as an insult long before
the coming of Western culture (Achebe 12). The Yoruba as
well as many other groups engage in semi-ritualized verbal
sparring matches which involve the use of names of
animals and body parts of animals in one-upmanship
contests which can go on all afternoon. Much has been
written in the anthropological literature on "Animal
Categories and Verbal Abuse" (Leach).

Anthropologists have noted that ethnic groups in

Africa may organize their life-world in terms of polar
opposites such as right and left, male and female, heaven
and earth, town and "bush" (or wilderness). The literature
on the Hausa people, for example, makes reference to the
distinction in Hausa thought between those things which
are though to be "civilized", containing long lists of Levi-
Straussian polarities (Darrah).

Some groups such as the Igbo pay homage to a "mother

earth goddess" whereas other groups such as the Yoruba do
not. Those groups which pay her homage pour out
libations to her or offer sacrifices. Certain practices are
thought to offend her particularly - for example, having
sexual intercourse on the bare ground. (I noted this taboo
amongst many ethnic groups of Plateau State, as well as
the Igbo.) In such cases special rites must be performed
and fines must be paid to restore her favour. There seem
to be a very few groups where the mother earth goddess is
so prominent as to receive higher status than all the other
divinities. It is interesting to observe that the matrilineal
Akan of Ghana understand God as both male or female
(Bartle).
38 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

To many African peoples trees and forests had special

significance. The Ngombe live in very dense forest and
refer to God as: "The everlasting One of the forest"; "the
One who clears the forest"; "the One who began the forest,"
while a number of peoples set aside sacred groves for
sacrifices, offerings or prayers (Mbiti 1970, 109). A
number of peoples such as the Mamvu-Mangutu feared the
spirits of the forest and of the water (Mbiti 1970, 125).
To the Yoruba the concept of "buying" and "selling"
land was quite foreign though it became commonplace
after the beginning of the colonial period. Land was not
seen as "owned" by anyone, similar to the ideal of the
Hebrew Bible (cf. Leviticus 25) and in contradistinction to
the Canaanite (and modern Western) conception of land as
a saleable commodity.

Traditional Practices and the Environment

It is in the examination of agricultural and hunting

methods that one is particularly warned against the
romanticized picture of the "primitive living in perfect
harmony with his environment." Archaeological evidence
indicates that even as early as 50,000 B.C.E. Africa
suffered an extinction of 30% of its wildlife species,
primarily due to human technology -- fire and the use of
neolithic tools (Vos 102-103). The practice of burning off
crop residue and burning the bush to clear new land has
prevailed in Africa from the time that cultivation first
began there up to the present (Yudelman 229 ff.).
Traditional farming methods generally included cutting
down and burning trees and using the wood ash for
fertilizer, with no use of manure. Under these conditions
the land was generally useless for agricultural purposes
within four years at the very best, and the family would
then move on to virgin fields. Amongst the Yoruba, the
time of burning the bush in preparation for the coming
planting season is in January. In Northern Nigeria the
 Ian Ritchie 39

bush-burning season is generally in November and

December. The religious significance of the yearly setting
of bush fires has been explored by J.M. Schoffeleers.

Bush-burning does not always have a destructive

ecological impact however. Some studies indicate that
under certain conditions where the average climate is
relatively humid and where overgrazing does not coincide
with burning, then burning the bush actually stimulates
and encourages new growth. Here then we would find
that traditional ecological practices were beneficial.
Unfortunately the percentage of the African continent in
which the land is on the borderline between the humidity
level wherein bush burning is beneficial and that in which
it is harmful is a very large one and the practice is
consequently one of the major factors contributing to the
galloping desertification and famine in the continent.

We have already noted the urbanized nature of

Yorubaland. Here human activity had meant the
elimination of larger game animals from the region. The
only area of Nigeria in which elephants are still known to
roam freely (apart from game parks) is in the northeastern
tip of the country on the border with Northern Cameroun.
Giraffes are how extinct in Nigeria even in the game
refuges where protection from poachers has proven
inadequate. The last giraffe sighting in Yankari Game
Reserve, Bauchi state, was in 1973.
Turning to East Africa we find today an area noted
for its wildlife refuges. But it may not always have been
so; one reporter states,

There is strong evidence that East Africa in the

nineteenth century was not the wildlife paradise
which it is today with approximately one fourth of
its land area set aside as national parks and game
sanctuaries in Tanzania alone. The nineteenth
century [pre-colonial] situation was quite
40 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

different. Whenever man and animals came into

conflict over the occupation of land, the animals
were inevitably driven out (Kjekshus 70).

Visitors to East Africa in this period reported seeing a

large number of huge game pits and brushwood fences
three to four miles long for organized game hunting
(Kjekshus 71-2). Contrary to the generally prevailing
misconception then current in Europe, game in the
nineteenth century was almost impossible to find in the
coastal areas and was greatly reduced even in the areas
now containing major game sanctuaries (Kjekshus 72). In
this case, the incursion of Western culture actually brought
about the possibility of a conservation ethic which seems
to have been previously lacking.

Possession, Totemism, Magic

Possession by certain spirits within nature should not

be confused with harmony or unity with it, as the spirits
which possess the devotees of these cults are personal in
nature and do not represent nature as a whole nor even
usually one aspect of it (see Mbiti 1969, 187 ff.). Nor
should such practices as the use of totems be seen to
indicate affinity with the whole of "nature" as such, as at
best it expresses a relationship only to a minor part of it.
Furthermore many ethnic groups in West Africa such as
the Yoruba seem to lack totem animals completely. There
is an extensive anthropological literature focusing upon
"totemism," much of it seeking to understand how it
functions within symbol systems. In his noted work on the
Nuer of Sudan, Evans-Pritchard pointed out that Nuer
totems are an "odd assortment" in that they are not the
animals and objects which are most useful to the Nuer and
those that are valuable are absent from the list of totems
(Evans-Pritchard 1956, 80). He hesitates to suggest any
rationale behind the choosing of totems but says that the
totem animals are respected by all the Nuer: the Nuer are
 Ian Ritchie 41

friendly to birds and will not harm them. He proposes

that

Nuer totems tend to be creatures and things which

for one reason or other easily evoke the idea of
Spirit in any Nuer and are hence suitable symbols
for Spirit in relation to lineages. . . (Evans-
Pritchard 1956, 82).

The Yoruba and other groups often speak of "fear" and

"awe" with regard to natural phenomena: one reads of the
fear associated with sacred groves and the "evil forest."
The plays of the Nobel prize-winning Yoruba playwright,
Wole Soyinka and the novels of Chinua Achebe are replete
with references to the fear associated with that part of the
forest known as "the evil forest" or "the bad bush."
One may see the practice of magic in Africa (the only
group known to lack witchcraft are the Kalahari
Bushmen) as a response to a threatening environment, an
attempt at mastery in a world so often unpredictable and
devastating to humans. In this it is not so very different
from science, but its "way of seeing" is totally different
and therefore leads to a totally different method. The
anthropological literature on magic is vast and we cannot
begin to scratch the surface here. Much of it has sought to
explain the function of magic practices in African groups
as the attempt to attain "mastery over nature" (James 41-
67). In fact, some scholars such as Robin Horton have
sought to emphasize the similarities between modern
science and magic in African thinking insofar as they
both have a problem-solving rationale which moves from
one possible cause of given problem to another when the
first hypothesis is proven false (Horton). The debate
which this thesis spawned has proven a gold mine for
philosophers who examine the conception of "rationality"
and challenges any western ethnocentric notions of the
superiority of modern scientific technical rationality. At
42 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

the same time it cautions us against understanding African

groups as striving for "harmony with nature."

In light of the above evidence, it would seem that

within the life-world of the Yoruba and the other groups
under study fatalistic tendencies and magical influences
and forces made humanity’s relationship to nature more
conflictual than harmonious.

Conclusion

We have seen that the relationship between humanity

and the material world is variegated and diverse in Africa.
We shall have to resist the temptation to make generalized
statements about that relationship and approach carefully
single groups to understand them in their social and
ecological context. To the Yoruba, Hausa, and others,
humanity stands in a superior relationship to animals,
plants and natural phenomena, while natural forces such
as thunder and rivers are understood as ministers of God.
The proper role of humans is as a civilizing influence in
contrast to the wildness of the bush. The creation myth of
the Ewe people gives us a tantalizing starting point in the
search for ecological wisdom, as our willful creation of
smoke from too many fires threatens our modern world
with a tragic loss of intimacy with the source of life itself.

Bibliography

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Astor-

Honor Inc, 1959.

Adegbola, E.A. Ade, ed. Traditional Religion in West A frica.

Ibadan, Nigeria: Daystar, 1983.
 Ian Ritchie 43

Awolalu, J. Omosade. Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites.

London: Longman, 1979.

Bartle, Philip F. "The Universe Has Three Souls: Notes on

Translating Akan Culture." Journal of Religion in Africa
14, 2 (1983), 85-114.

Beier, Ulli, ed. The Origin of Life and Death: African

Creation Myths. London: Heinemann Educational Books,
1966.
Darrah, Allan C. A Hermeneutic Approach to Hausa
Therapeutics: The Allegory of the Living Fire. Ann Arbor:
University Microfilms International, 1980.

Donders, Joseph G. Non-Bourgeois Theology: An African

Experience of Jesus. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1985.

Drewal, Henry J. and Margaret T. Drewal. Gelede: Art and

Female Power Among the Yoruba. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1983.
Eckholm, E.P. Losing Ground. New York: W.W. Norton,
1976.
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among
the Azande. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937.

________. Nuer Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.

Fitzjohn, Willie. "Animism in Yoyemo." In Traditional

Religion in West Africa. Ed. E.A. Adegbola. Ibadan:
Daystar Press, 1983, pp. 234-237.

Horton, Robin. "Af rican Traditional Thought and Western

Science." In Rationality. Ed. Bryan R. Wilson. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1977, pp. 131-171.
44 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

Hountondji, Paulin. African Philosophy, Myth and Reality.

Trans. Henri Evans and Jonathan Ree. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1983.

Howell, E. Clark, ed. A frican Ecology and Human Evolution.

London: Methuen, 1964.

Idowu, Bolaji. Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief. London:

Longmans, 1962.
________. African Traditional Religion: A Definition.
London: SCM Press, 1973.

Ikenga-Metuh, Emefie. God and Man in African Religion.

Geoffrey Chapman: London, 1981.

Imasogie, O. African Traditional Religion. 2nd ed. Ibadan:

Ibadan University Press Limited, 1985.

James, Wendy. The Listening Ebony: Moral Knowledge,

Religion, and Power Among the Uduk of Sudan. Oxford: The
Clarendon Press, 1988.

Kangdim, Jotham. "The Angas Creation Myth in a

Christian Perspective." Theological College of Northern
Nigeria Research Bulletin 11 (November 1981), 113-118.

Kato, H. Byang. Theological Pitfalls in Africa. Kisumu,

Kenya: Evangel Publishing House, 1975.

Kjekshus, Helge. Ecology Control and Economic

Development in East African History: The Case of
Tanganyika 1850-1950. London: Heinemann, 1977.

Leach, Edmund E. "Anthropological Aspects of Language:

Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse." In Reader in
Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach. 4th ed.
 Ian Ritchie 45

Eds. William Lessa and Evon Vogt. New York: Harper and
Row, 1979, pp. 153-166.

Lewis, L.A., and L. Berry. African Environments and

Resources. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988.

Lovin, Robin W. and Frank E. Reynolds, eds. Cosmogony

and Ethical Order: New Studies in Comparative Ethics.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Mbiti, J.S. African Traditional Religions and Philosophy.

London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1969.

________. Concepts of God in Africa. New York: Praeger,

1970.

Mubabinge, Bilolo. "African Religion Face to Face with

the Challenge of Christianity and of Techno-Science."
Interculture 16, 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1983), 16-31.

Norris, E.G. and P. Heine. "Genealogical Manipulations

and Social Identity in Sansanne Mango, Northern Togo."
BSOAS 45 (1982), 118-137.

Oduyoye, Modupe. The Vocabulary of Yoruba Religious

Discourse. Ibadan: Daystar Press, 1972.
______ . "Polytheism and Monotheism - Conceptual
Difference." In Traditional Religion in West Africa. Ed.
E.A. Adegbola. Ibadan: Daystar Press, 1983, pp. 244-257.
Opoku, Kofi Asare. West African Traditional Religion.
Accra: FEP International Private Limited, 1978.

Parrinder, E.G. African Traditional Religion. London:

S.P.C.K., 1962.
46 ARC XVIII Spring 1990

________. West African Religion. 2nd ed. London:

Epworth Press, 1961.

________. "Monotheism and Pantheism in Africa."

Journal of Religion in Africa. 3, 1 (1970), 81-95.

Rattray, R.S. Hausa Folklore and Proverbs. 2 Vols.

Collected and Transliterated with English Translation and
Notes by R.S. Rattray. 1913; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1969.
Raum, O.F. The Human Factor in the Development of the
Kilombero Valley. Munchen: Ifo-Institut Fur
Wirtschaftsforschung, 1965.
Richards, Paul and Nicola Harris, eds. African
Environment: Problems and Perspectives. London:
International African Institute, 1975.

Schoffeleers, J.M "The Religious Significance of Bush

Fires." Cahiers des Religions Africaines 10 (1971), 271-81.

Tylor, E.B. Primitive Culture. 2 Vols. 6th ed. 1871; rpt.

London: John Murray, 1920.
Vos, Antoon de. Africa, the Devastated Continent?: Man’s
Impact on the Ecology of A frica. The Hague: W. Junk, 1975.

Yudelman, Montague. Africans On The Land. Cambridge:

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964.