Religion in Sierra Leone West Africa has changed and evolved over the last two to three thousand years in many different ways. Religion can be described as set of beliefs that explain the universe; religion is more than spirituality and is complicated in understanding the world. Religion can be described as belief concerning one or more deities and incorporating ceremonies, ethical guidelines and rituals. When I was young I thought that Religion in Sierra Leone was just Islam and Christianity. But now as I did some reaches and found out that I was wrong. There are also other believes going on in Sierra Leone. I would focus on only the basic religions which are popular in Sierra Leone; they are Christianity, Islam, and indigenous believers. (Indigenous: It’s a term used to describe local custom and belief, usually ancestor worship or animism. Beliefs that weren 't introduced by a foreign culture, specifically none of the major religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or Buddhism). Sierra Leoneans has a 60 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 30 percent "indigenous believers." These …show more content…
Members of the indigenous religion believe that after God created them, God taught them how to grow food and perform other tasks, that he provided their first chief, and that he is responsible for all indigenous believers cultural values. For the indigenous believers, religion is combined into all aspects of life. Members believe in ancestor spirits and the supernatural. Sacrifices, rituals and celebrations are important parts of daily life. Witchcraft is something a lot of people practice in Sierra Leone. People uses witchcraft to hurt other people or help people Water is often considered especially important and many religious rituals take place near the edges of lakes, rivers, or
Ordinary religion shows people how to live well within boundaries, and concern themselves with living well in this current world, not in another. Ordinary religion promotes cultures, traditions, values, and common social acts. In contrast, extraordinary religion helps people to transcend beyond their ordinary culture and concerns, crosses the borders of life as we used to know it and seeks to new better place. It is also believed that people have chance to contact God through spiritual ceremonies and get helped by supernatural power. For instance, ceremonies and rituals of baptism and circumcision for infants, and conformations for adolescents, marriage, and funerals for the dead. Through these spiritual ceremonies, people are crossing the physical boundaries and reaching something supernatural that they believe will give them power to encounter challenges and difficulties during stages of life. There are three elements in religious belief developing most religions in America, which are fundamental, ritual, and tradition. The first element is the fundamental structures which are defined with a myth, philosophy, or theology and limited by the boundaries that create the basic ways in which people, cultures and communities imagine, define, and accept how things are and what they mean. A second essential element of religion is ritual. Rituals are a representative set of
The rituals and traditions of the Indians evince their beliefs in spirits and afterlife. Indians believed that there would be a better life for them after they die, because many of them did not see a way out, but people were still fighting for their lives.
"In the 1970s and 1980s Sierra Leone had a thriving tourism industry,” says Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the UK, after his trip to Sierra Leone. Later, however, the economy began staggering to a halt, and a new group rose to power with what many believed were strong and good willed beliefs.
2) There are many rituals carried out by the Indigenous people but in particular there is one called
Religious ceremonies, sorcery, and myths are all prevalent in traditional Hopi culture. These ceremonies are believed to produce rainfall, promote fertility, bring luck in hunting and warfare, or assist the sun in moving from winter to the summer (Brandt, 1954: 18). The Hopi also believe in the supernatural and in afterlife. They have sorcerers who are said to have two hearts, one derived from an animal, which gives them powers, and the other a human heart. Myths are reality to the Hopi; they are both spiritual and practical. (Brandt, 1954: 32)
There are many different religions in the world but they are all capable of doing similar things. Religion plays a significant role in the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In this book religion is important to the people of Umuofia ,which is the village where the protagonist, Okonkwo lives. The people of the village believed there was only one religion ,and when another religion was introduced to them they would not believe in it. This religion was Christianity. During the novel the power of religion both guides and destroys the society of Umuofia.
Many African religions have common tenets. They share a belief in a community of deities, the idea that ancestors serve as a way to communicate with these deities. They also share the belief that society as a whole is organized around values and traditions drawn from a common origin, which was created by one Supreme Being.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Politics was the factor that caused the Sierra Leone Civil War, while ethnicity and years of oppression fueled the genocide in Rwanda. These two causes are vastly different, and caused for two different results. The Sierra Leone Civil War was caused by political corruption, years before the war started in 1991 Sierra Leone’s government and economy was rapidly declining. In 1968 Siaka Stevens was elected into the presidential position and when he stepped down 17 years later, 1985, the country was completely ...
A spiritual ritual would be performed while the ill received medicine. A spiritual ritual would be performed to rid the ill of bad spirits and cleanse the spirit. Native Americans believed that a person became ill when a bad spirit entered the body. It is the shaman’s job to try to purify the ill’s spirit. Every tribe across the nation has a shaman. A shaman or medicine man/woman would perform this ritual. A shaman uses the spiritual world to help heal the sick. Shaman were highly regarded as chiefs and tribal spiritual leaders. Shaman were often born into a family with many generations of shaman. Shamans who were not born into, they had visons that lead them to study medicine. Being the shaman was a full-time job. In return of their services to the tribe, the tribe would provide food, shelter, and any assistance needed to the shaman.
The process of syncretization among the African religions helps to explain why those cults found it relatively easy to accept and integrate parts of Christian religious belief and practice into the local cult activity. Initially this integration was purely functional, providing a cover of legitimacy for religions that were severely proscribed. But after a few generations a real syncretism became part of the duality of beliefs of the slaves themselves, who soon found it possible to accommodate both religious systems.
The common practices within the religious realm can be referred to what is called indigenous religion. There are many regions that are geographically separated along with the cultures and languages that determine how practices are managed. Whether there are specific species or the worship of plants and animals depends upon the country in which indigenous people live. It is very important that the word indigenous is known to be similar with most people would understand as being native.
Their convictions were not comprehended and the intricacy of their religion was not seen. This was somewhat the aftereffect of not having a composed arrangement of rules. In the place of ministers and pastors were shaman and medicine men. These men were sometimes said to speak with the divine beings. They were astute and experienced and they delighted in a larger amount of status among their groups. They had essential parts in choices, functions, and customs. "The culture, values and traditions of native people amount to more than crafts and carvings. Their respect for the wisdom of their elders, their concept of family responsibilities extending beyond the nuclear family to embrace a whole village, their respect for the environment, their willingness to share - all of these values persist within their own culture even though they have been under unremitting pressure to abandon them(Berger, paragraph
Indigenous religions exist in every climate around the world and exhibit a wide range of differences in their stories, language, customs, and views of the afterlife. Within indigenous communities, religion, social behavior, art, and music are so intertwined that their religion is a significant part of their culture and virtually inseparable from it. These religions originally developed and thrived in isolation from one another and are some of the earliest examples of religious practice and belief. The modern world; however, has taken its toll on these groups and many of their stories, customs, and beliefs have been lost to, or replaced by, those brought in as a result of popular culture and the missionary work of Christians and Muslims.
Kaduna: Baraka Press, 2004. Magesa, Laurenti. A. African Religion: The Moral Tradition of Abundant Life. Nairobi: Pauline Pub., Africa, 1998. Mbiti, John S. Introduction to African Religion.
In conclusion, religious beliefs and practices come in many customs and methods; however no matter what or who you decide to worship, it all inspires a connection or association with the divine. The divine can be a person, a space or place, an object as well as any part of nature. Not only does religious beliefs stimulate a relationship with the divine, it also promotes a connection with sacred time, an association with sacred space and the natural world and more importantly it encourages a relationship with each other.