Introduction to Indigenous Traditions

Indigenous religion has been recorded throughout human history, starting from African religious through to Native Americans. {1.} Indigenous Religion have existed throughout human history. But scholars have regarded IR as “primitive”, conjuring images of savaging, superstition, childish simplicity, etc. (Baum, 2012, p.30). This indigenous religion has been recorded across the globe and is from Africa to Native Americas, to Asia, etc.

Across the globe stories defer in regards to the worship of deities, rituals and their ethics, as well as social organizations. According to the lecture notes (REF), the aboriginal traditions in African can be viewed as practices of communities, which has been isolated from major world religious view. The African indigenous religion has contained similarities as well as differences.

{3.} Indigenous religion has existed in Australasia and has been influenced by Hindu and Buddhist traditions, for well over 1000 years. In many places, they have coexisted with Islam for about 800 years and with Christianity for about 500 years. {4.} In Africa, the indigenous religion has been handed down from generation to generation by the forbearers of the present generation of Africans (Awolalu, 1976). As part of the tradition, Africans have made their lifestyle by living and practicing the religion.

The people exploring Africa and traders on the continent, collects information from uneducated people who lack proper terminology to describe what the practitioners are doing at that time. However, missionaries gave better narratives of indigenous traditions because they stayed long enough to understand them.

Collecting historical information, through multi – faced approach like writers often depend on oral text a...

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...enemies.

Conclusion

The responses to European colonialism in Africa is not the same as the one that took place in the Americas and Australia, because endemic diseases such as malaria and yellow fever where unfavourable to Europeans, while in Americas the disease such as small-pox are not a treat.

Overall both the Africans and Americans suffer abuses from their colonial rulers, with revitalization movements believing that the European conquest is a punishment for not fully observing their old indigenous traditions (p66 – 67)

References:

Awolalu, J. O. (1976). Sin and Its Removal in African Traditional Religion. JAAR, 44/2, 275 – 287.

Baum, R. M. (2012). Indigenous Traditions. In. A Concise Introduction to World Religions. Oxtoby, W. G. and Segal, A. F. (Eds.). Second Edition, Oxford.

Wikipedia (2014). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_religion