African Creation Stories
African Creation Stories strongly reflect the mind of the People
that created them
"Man created God in his own image"
Santeria is a religious cult that originated in Cuba and spread to neighboring islands and the United States, principally among blacks and Hispanics.
It developed out of the traditions of the Yoruba people (of modem Nigeria and Benin), who were transported to Cuba to work as slaves on the sugar plantations, from the 16th to the 19th century.
Santeria blended elements of Christianity and West African beliefs, as Voodoo of Haiti and Macumba of Brazil.
The belief is in one Supreme Being and saints or spirits, known as Orishas. In Orishas are found a force of nature and a set of humanlike behavioral characteristics. Priests or advocates known as
Santeros are said to possess ache, the magical power of the Orishas.
Ritual devotions involving musical rhythms (usually drumming and dancing), offerings of food and animal sacrifice, divination with fetishes made of bones or shells, trancelike seizures, and other rites are thought to reveal the sources of day-to-day problems and point the way to their resolution.
Supposedly, Orishas, can intervene on one's behalf , Or may even enter into one's being, becoming part of one's personality.
In Santeria, elements of Roman Catholicism are mixed with African traditions. To a Santeria believer, St. Peter is Oggun, the Yoruba patron of miners and workers. St. Barbara, the Christian patron of artillery, is the warrior Orisha Chango (compare with the Santa Barbara of Curacao).
Blending of beliefs enabled Africans to retain their native faith while appearing to convert to Roman Catholicism; it is the most important cultural and religious bridge between the Old (African) and New World...
Voodoo is the religious cult of Haiti
From the French colonization of Haiti, Voodoo developed as a mixture of Roman Catholicism and religions of African slaves.
Voodoo comes from the word vodun--- a god or spirit--- in the Fon language of Benin (formerly Dahomey).
Voodooists belief in a distant supreme God. Spirits, called the Ioas, represent African gods, ancestors, or Catholic Saints. An lea attaches itself to an individual or family though rituals.
Believers congregate with a priest--- or houngan--- or priestess--mambo--- who leads them in ceremonies with song, drumming, dance, prayer, food preparation, and ritual sacrifice of animals
(compare with the name "Mambo Beach" in Curacao).
The houngan or mambo solicits the help of Ioas. An lea can take possession of a believer in a trance state. While the believer, performs dances, gives supernaturally advice tQ people, or performs medical cures, he is the incarnation of the Ioa.
'Haitians believe in good Ioas--- Rada Ioas---, and bad ones-Petrci Ioas. Wild rituals call up Petro Ioas, quiet ones, Rada Ioas.
Note: A Zombie is either a dead person's soul used for magical purposes, or an actual corpse raised from the grave by magic. Supposedly, Zombies are used as slaves in the fields.
In a few documented instances, with a poison of frogs, Voodoo priests created zombies who appeared dead for hours or even days.
In most African religious Creation Stories, Death was caused by:
a devious and stupid messenger, who mistook the message of God, by announcing Death over men. In the beginning. God had agreed to give man eternal life.
The Fon of Benin (Note: not the present country Benin--- the former Dahorneh--- but the Benin district of Nigeria) and the Yoruba of Nigeria give their Gods, Orisha or Vodun, praise names like, Oriki, Mien-mien, that express their powers over the old and the new world.
Orisha Chango (St. Barbara in Santeria), the warrior God, is also the God of thunder, and the railroad.
African religions are very much alive and incorporate the modern world, much like their sister religions in the Americas.
Santeria, Voodoo and Macumba are also experiencing an enormous revival in the USA, the Caribbean and South America, mostly amongst Blacks and Hispanics.
The Fulani of Mali, Mauritania and Niger
Cattle-herders and river people, base their Creation story on the cow (compare with Hinduism) and milk. These stories could easily be "translated" into Christianity, as in Santeria.
At the beginning there was a huge drop of milk.
Then God Doondari came and created the stone.
Then the stone created iron;
And iron created fire;
And fire created water;
And water created air.
Then God Doondari descended the second time.
And he took the five elements;
And he shaped them into man.
But man was proud.
Then Doondari created blindness and blindness defeated man.
But when blindness became too proud,
Doondari created sleep, and sleep defeated blindness;
But-when sleep became too proud,
Doondari created worry and worry defeated sleep;
But when worry became too proud,
Doondari created death, and death defeated worry.
But when death became too proud,
Doondari descended for the third time.
And he came as Guano, the eternal one,
And Guano defeated death.
African Creation Stories strongly reflect the mind of the People
that created them
"Man created God in his own image"
- The Kono of Guinea believe that the creative force in the world was Death. Death motivated life through the repro-creation of children and therefore Death must have been the mother of God.
- The Lozi of Zambia see God as a loser, retreating helplessly from the cruelty of man.
- Most of the Niger Delta tribes, cultures and People at least one hundred---, see Mother-Earth as God, thus woman, who allows evety a person to choose his own fate before birth.
- The Pangwa of Tanzania take their story from the complexity of termite hills; Pangwa created the world from termite dung (compare to Solomon's fascination with ant hills in the Judeo-Christi an cuiturc).
- The Creator of the Yoruba of Nigeria got drunk on palni wine and so created cripples and albinos.
- In the 1930's, a French anthropologist described, from the mouth of a blind griot, Qgotomeli of the Dogon of Mali (see Ogotemeli's house in the exhibition); the most extensive cosmology recorded. It is so extensive that seven days for its recitation are required.
Santeria is a religious cult that originated in Cuba and spread to neighboring islands and the United States, principally among blacks and Hispanics.
It developed out of the traditions of the Yoruba people (of modem Nigeria and Benin), who were transported to Cuba to work as slaves on the sugar plantations, from the 16th to the 19th century.
Santeria blended elements of Christianity and West African beliefs, as Voodoo of Haiti and Macumba of Brazil.
The belief is in one Supreme Being and saints or spirits, known as Orishas. In Orishas are found a force of nature and a set of humanlike behavioral characteristics. Priests or advocates known as
Santeros are said to possess ache, the magical power of the Orishas.
Ritual devotions involving musical rhythms (usually drumming and dancing), offerings of food and animal sacrifice, divination with fetishes made of bones or shells, trancelike seizures, and other rites are thought to reveal the sources of day-to-day problems and point the way to their resolution.
Supposedly, Orishas, can intervene on one's behalf , Or may even enter into one's being, becoming part of one's personality.
In Santeria, elements of Roman Catholicism are mixed with African traditions. To a Santeria believer, St. Peter is Oggun, the Yoruba patron of miners and workers. St. Barbara, the Christian patron of artillery, is the warrior Orisha Chango (compare with the Santa Barbara of Curacao).
Blending of beliefs enabled Africans to retain their native faith while appearing to convert to Roman Catholicism; it is the most important cultural and religious bridge between the Old (African) and New World...
Voodoo is the religious cult of Haiti
From the French colonization of Haiti, Voodoo developed as a mixture of Roman Catholicism and religions of African slaves.
Voodoo comes from the word vodun--- a god or spirit--- in the Fon language of Benin (formerly Dahomey).
Voodooists belief in a distant supreme God. Spirits, called the Ioas, represent African gods, ancestors, or Catholic Saints. An lea attaches itself to an individual or family though rituals.
Believers congregate with a priest--- or houngan--- or priestess--mambo--- who leads them in ceremonies with song, drumming, dance, prayer, food preparation, and ritual sacrifice of animals
(compare with the name "Mambo Beach" in Curacao).
The houngan or mambo solicits the help of Ioas. An lea can take possession of a believer in a trance state. While the believer, performs dances, gives supernaturally advice tQ people, or performs medical cures, he is the incarnation of the Ioa.
'Haitians believe in good Ioas--- Rada Ioas---, and bad ones-Petrci Ioas. Wild rituals call up Petro Ioas, quiet ones, Rada Ioas.
Note: A Zombie is either a dead person's soul used for magical purposes, or an actual corpse raised from the grave by magic. Supposedly, Zombies are used as slaves in the fields.
In a few documented instances, with a poison of frogs, Voodoo priests created zombies who appeared dead for hours or even days.
In most African religious Creation Stories, Death was caused by:
a devious and stupid messenger, who mistook the message of God, by announcing Death over men. In the beginning. God had agreed to give man eternal life.
The Fon of Benin (Note: not the present country Benin--- the former Dahorneh--- but the Benin district of Nigeria) and the Yoruba of Nigeria give their Gods, Orisha or Vodun, praise names like, Oriki, Mien-mien, that express their powers over the old and the new world.
Orisha Chango (St. Barbara in Santeria), the warrior God, is also the God of thunder, and the railroad.
African religions are very much alive and incorporate the modern world, much like their sister religions in the Americas.
Santeria, Voodoo and Macumba are also experiencing an enormous revival in the USA, the Caribbean and South America, mostly amongst Blacks and Hispanics.
The Fulani of Mali, Mauritania and Niger
Cattle-herders and river people, base their Creation story on the cow (compare with Hinduism) and milk. These stories could easily be "translated" into Christianity, as in Santeria.
At the beginning there was a huge drop of milk.
Then God Doondari came and created the stone.
Then the stone created iron;
And iron created fire;
And fire created water;
And water created air.
Then God Doondari descended the second time.
And he took the five elements;
And he shaped them into man.
But man was proud.
Then Doondari created blindness and blindness defeated man.
But when blindness became too proud,
Doondari created sleep, and sleep defeated blindness;
But-when sleep became too proud,
Doondari created worry and worry defeated sleep;
But when worry became too proud,
Doondari created death, and death defeated worry.
But when death became too proud,
Doondari descended for the third time.
And he came as Guano, the eternal one,
And Guano defeated death.
