African Thought and Spirituality

African thought and wisdom, like the wisdom in other powerless communities, is largely unknown. Indeed, when we talk about knowledge, we think of scientific and philosophical knowledge commonly associated with Western thinkers. Regarding Africa specifically, many thinkers in the past have seemed to believe that Africans are incapable of any serious thought, scientific invention or work of art. We see such attitudes in the writings of leading European thinkers like David Hume, who in 1735 said that:

The Negro is naturally inferior to the whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufacturers among them, no arts, no science.1

Such statements no doubt lacked objectivity and were downright racist. In process-oriented thinking, we know that they are outward manifestations of a system that is polarized and is striving towards self-balan cing. The problem is that this polarization has not been amplified and the positions of the two poles are unknown to each other. Unless the polarities are able to state their positions and interact, the system cannot self-balance. The purpose of this article is to speak from one of these poles, the African position. I aim to clarify this polarity by presenting a case for

this world view in an attempt to challenge some of the stereotypes about Africa.

I will demonstrate that African thought was and is deep, rich logical and full of wisdom. Although this wisdom is not written, we know that Africa, like all other parts of the world, has produced great thinkers. Within the area of African thought, which may be referred to as African philosophy, I will focus on two topics: some aspects of African thought and African religion.

Aspects of African thought

A friend of mind once made a comment that really got me thinking. He said, "Well, you know what happened in South Africa. The Boars came there and met Africans who were busy dancing on gold and diamonds. So they told them, 'well, stay aside for a while, we'll get the gold and diamonds and then you can continue dancing/" This was a joke. However, if we look closely, we find it is true that Africans love to dance, to talk and to feast. They will seize every opportunity, whether it is a wedding, an initiation and, in some communities, even a funeral to celebrate and feast. I started asking myself, "Why is it that Africans love dancing, celebrating and feasting?" This question cannot be answered unless we understand one basic fact about the African mind. Of course, we must remember that so-called

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Writers in Politics (Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Books Inc., 1981) 14.

Arnold Mindell, The Year I (London: Viking-Penguin- Arkana, 1989); Arnold Mindell, The Leader as Martial Artist

(San Francisco: Harper3333Collins, 1992).

"African culture" is a diversity of cultures, and there are different patterns of thought in various African communities. In all these communities however, there is a basic emphasis on relationship.

By relationship we mean the fine and tight connections that bind people to each other. As Senghor said,"... the African is tightly held in a tight network of vertical and horizontal communities, which bind and at the same time support him."3 This strict binding is made possible by the high position given to relationships. Generally, Africans hold life sacred. Because of this attitude, all activities are aimed at preserving and propagating life. One activity that enables this preservation is the development of meaningful caring relationships. Due to the emphasis on relationships, all activities are meaningful only to the extent that they improve relationships. Thus, the way time is spent, the way work is done, all daily activities are influenced by the emphasis on relationships. That is why feasting and dancing are so important to Africans. Even when working, there has to be time for eating together, singing together and touching each other. These relationship connections are considered more important than any work.

Having seen how important relationships are to African communities, let us explore what constitutes these relationships. Relationships start with the family, the clan and then the whole ethnic community, or what colonists called "tribes." Individuals exist through and derive their identities from these three units. I will discuss each of these three elements separately.

The family

When we speak of a family, many people from the West may immediately imagine the typical nuclear family consisting of two adult parents, usually a female and a male, and a number of

children. In Africa, however, the concept of the family is different. When we talk about a family, we are talking about parents and their children, the aunts, uncles, grandparents and other relatives. In cases of polygamy, we are also talking about many households in the same compound. Each household consists of the mother and her children, with the husband's hut at the center of the compound. We can begin to see that in African thought the family is a wide and complex unit. It also includes:

... The unborn members who are still in the loins of the living. They are the buds of hope and expectation, and each family makes sure that its own existence is not extinguished.

In this context, the family is a complex unit of numerous interrelationships. These interrelationships provide basic support for the individual and ensure continuation of life. Of course, the disadvantage is that this arrangement tends to suppress individual development. In Africa, the individual is important only as a member of the family. When there is a clash between individual interests and family interests, the family interests prevail. This tends to create, especially nowadays, tension in individuals who feel they want to develop on their own.

The clan

The clan is an extension of the family. In some African communities, after the family there are bigger units known as "gates."5 "Gates" consist of people who belong to or share the same ancestor, going back eight or nine generations. Clans are much larger than "gates." Like members of a "gate," members of the same clan share a lineage. In some cases, they can trace their origin to a common founder, but in other cases, they cannot. Unlike in "gates," where membership is only through blood, clan membership may be by marriage, or some other

Leopolds. Senghor,DeLaNegritudePsychologicduNegro-Africain(Nairobi: Heinemann, 1962)41. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1992) 108. 5Mbiti, 1992.

form of kinship. In most cases, one is born into a clan and cannot change membership.

In many cases, members of the same clan may not inter-marry, although in certain types of clans (exogamous clans) they can. Clans may be patrilineal, with descent through the male lineage. Many African clans are of this nature. In some communities clan descent is matrilin-eal. Just as in families, membership in a clan includes those who are not yet born as well as those who have died. All are part of the same lineage and clan activities such as sacrifices and ceremonies must take account of the unborn, the living and the dead.

Clans have always been the base of support for individuals and families. Ceremonies such as weddings, circumcisions, the celebration of childbirth and funeral rites were performed with the help of the clan. Currently, in some communities, clans help arrange weddings and funerals and assist in calamities such as the loss of a home due to fire. In some cases, clans also raise money to help pay school fees for children from the poorest families. Even today, clans are very important in African communities.

The ethnic group

Members who share a common language and common culture form one ethnic community, which may have up to several million people. The colonists derogatorily called these ethnic communities "tribes." So-called "tribes" are large communities, divided into clans and, in some cases, subdivided even further into "gates/' The major characteristic of every ethnic group is that its members share a common language, a common myth of origin, common customs and beliefs as well as a definite social and political structure.

Kinship

Kinship is a strong concept in African thought. Kinship is about relationship, be it by blood or by marriage. Simply stated, kinship is a vast

network of relationships which binds all members of an ethnic community. It is both vertical and horizontal, involving those not born, and those who have left the world. This network of relations:

...controls social relationships between people in a given community: it governs marital customs and regulations, it determines the behavior of one individual towards another. Indeed, this sense of kinship binds together the entire life of the "tribe," and is even extended to cover animals, plants and nonliving objects through the 'totemic' system.6

The kinship system demonstrates the African emphasis on relationship discussed above; kinship is the lifeline of the ethnic group. Under the kinship system, everybody is related. Thus, one has hundreds of fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles and so on. Every time two people meet the first function is always to establish how related they are. To understand the African mind, as far as relationships are concerned, it is essential that one understand the concept of kinship well.

Time

The concept of time is another important aspect of African thought. When foreigners come to Africa, often the first thing they complain about is the inability of the African to keep time and the tendency to "waste" time. In the Western mind, time is a commodity to be sold and used. It can be utilized well or mismanaged.

In contrast, to the African mind time does not exist on its own as a commodity. It exists only in the context of an event, which often will include a relationship component. The relationship aspect is so important that it supersedes any other use of time. For instance, if you meet a friend on your way to an appointment, you cannot say, "I am sorry, I am late for an appointment and cannot talk to you now." If you do that, your friend will be offended and will

6Mbiti, 104.

consider you rude. No matter how busy one is, one is required to have time to exchange at least a few words with other people.

As already mentioned, time is contextualized. It is related to events. Thus you will find seasons named according to certain activities such as the time for planting, circumcision season, wrestling season and so on. Another way of conceptualizing time is according to natural events such as a period of flood, drought or invasion by locusts. Thus, if you ask an old African man when he was born, he will not tell you he was born in 1940. Instead, he will tell you he was born during the big famine, or during the big war or during other such events.

Because time in the African mind is related to events, it is not abstract. Events have either occurred, are occurring or are yet to occur. If events have no probability of occurring then they do not exist. Conversely, there can either be "actual time" or "probable time." Time is two-dimensional, with a past, present and no future. The only future available is foreseeable future or what constitutes "potential time."7 Mbiti actually points out that in most African languages, there is no future tense for time extending beyond a few days to two years.8 This means that existence is made of the distant past, the past and the present. All life arises from the past and recedes into the past.

Work

Similar to the concept of time, work is not measurable in terms of time. It is very difficult for an African to see much sense in reporting to work at 8:00 a.m. and singing off at 5:00 p.m. Many organizations in Africa find themselves having to discipline workers who fail to keep time. Because of this, foreigners tend to think that Africans are lazy. This stereotype is

not true. Work in Africa is glorified. Laziness is an offense against other people and against the spirits. Dhinua Achebe brings this out clearly in his novel, Things Fall Apart,10 when he narrates Unoka's encounter with Chika, Ag-bala's Priestess:

"E very year," he said sadly, "before I put any crop in the earth I sacrifice a cock to Awi, the owner of all land. It is the law of our fathers. I also kill a cock at the shrine of Ifejioku, the god of yams. I clear the bush and set fire to it when it is dry. I sow the yams when the first rain has fallen, and stake them when the young tendrils appear. I weed..." "Hold your peace," screamed the priestess, her voice terrible as it echoed through the dark void. "You have offended neither the gods nor your fathers. And when a man is at peace with his gods and his ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm. You, Unoka, are known in all the clan for the weakness of your machete and your hoe. When your neighbors go out with their axe to cut down virgin forests, you sow your yams on exhausted farms that take no labor to clear. They cross seven rivers to make their farms; you stay at home and offer sacrifices to the reluctant soil. Go home and work like a man."

Africans do not allow any excuses for laziness, but the idea of being driven by time is alien to the African mind. An African is more used to being given a certain amount of work to do, such as a field to clear. He can begin to work early and work until late, or may begin work late and work until he is through with the task. The number of hours he works do not count. It is the amount of work accomplished that matters.

Work is not an end in itself. It is a means to a better life for the whole community and is also a way of enhancing relationships. So, very

Mbiti, 17. Mbiti, 7-18.

often, people will be found working together. The usual practice was, and in some places still is, to work on each other's fields, build each other's houses, and work collectively on all tasks of living. This was the origin of Kenya's "Harambee" clarion. "Harambee" literally means, 'let's pull together." There was no individual work; like everything else, work was shared.

Work was never measured in terms of time. Therefore, when people met to work they would work until the work was finished or until they felt tired. Then they would sit down to drink and eat together. Eating and drinking together was an essential component of work, which included the emphasis on relationships. This is why, even today, many Africans will find it difficult to work in a place where they are supposed to sit alone quietly and work.

People will often visit each other in offices and other places of work and take time to chat. A Western minded person will think such people are wasting time. But actually, when relationship supersedes everything else, this is a natural behavior. Even work is a means of enhancing relationships.

African religion

An examination of the African way of thinking is never complete without considering the religious/spiritual aspect. This is because Africans are extremely spiritual people. Religion permeates the whole of their lives, from birth to death.12 What this means is that, to the African, religion is not acquired. You are born into a spiritual world and spiritualism permeates your whole existence.

Religion is not practiced on certain days. It is a part of each person's life. The very act of birth is a religious experience, and the name one is given has a religious meaning. When a person

wakes up, he or she wakes up into a religious world. Everything you do, eating, working, relating, has a religious quality. Christianity may not have truly taken root in Africa because it did not take into account this aspect of the African mind. The Christian dichotomy between spiritual and worldly things is alien to the African mind. To the African, there is no dichotomy between what is heavenly and earthly or what is physical and spiritual.

Everything is spiritual. It is not possible to understand African religious thought without understanding the African concept of God and the spirits. Many scholars have portrayed Africans as people who pray to animals and spirits.13 Nothing could be further from the truth. Africans had the concept of one all powerful God; however, their spiritual world was onto-logically constructed. In this ontological structure, God was at the top followed by the spirits, marv animals and non-living objects, in that order.

This ontology mirrors the African's strict hierarchical social structure based on seniority. Seniority is determined by age and social status. In this structure, the higher one is in the hierarchy, the more weight her word carries. At the bottom of the hierarchy are children. Children depend on adults for guidance and also for nurturing and protection. Next are mature adults. Next in line are old people. Adults look to elders for guidance and even for intervention in spiritual matters, such as when a sacrifice has to be made. Old people are considered very powerful, since they are about to enter the spiritual world.

After the old are the "living dead." The living dead are those who are dead but are still remembered by their family members. The living dead are believed to have some interest in what is happening to their families on earth.

Mbiti, 1992.

Mbiti.

Mbiti.

Mbiti, 16; Senghor.

Therefore, whenever there are difficulties, family members consult their living dead for guidance. They offer them sacrifices and share their meals with them through the pouring of libations. Some people believe that their dead relatives would occasionally appear to them or visit their families.

The living dead were consulted because they were seen as best placed to intervene with the spirits on behalf of their relatives on earth. This is because they were able to speak the language of the spirits while still understanding the language of the living. Once the dead had passed out of the memory of the living, they slid back into the past, into the world of the spirits. This happened when the last person who could remember the dead relative also died. Once one joined the community of the spirits, he or she became a spirit and no longer had ties with earthly relatives. After the spirits came God. Africans were seen to be praying to the spirits because they prayed to the spirits to intervene on their behalf to God. Even in ordinary life, in Africa, a subordinate never spoke directly to a superior. He spoke to his or her superior through an emissary. A son would send an elder to his father when he wanted to tell him something. One could not be expected to speak to God directly but would have to speak to him through a spirit. Naturally, one prayed to the living dead, who in turn conveyed the message to the spirits, who would then convey the message to God.

Conclusion

In this article, I have tried to briefly outline the key aspects of African thought and religion. Contrary to some previous Western impressions, African thought is rich, logical and full of wisdom. In African thought, the emphasis is on relationships and enhancement of community. Africans are fundamentally a religious people in the whole of their existence. Contrary to the common belief that Africans pray to animals and spirits, they have a clear concept of one powerful God. Spirits are simply intermediaries in people's communication with God. It is not possible to exhaustively examine African thought and religion in an article of this scope. Many details have been left

out, and certain concepts have not been raised and explained. This article is an attempt to sensitize the reader to the nature of the African's mind and his or her religious system.

Bibliography

1. References
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27. studying for his master's degree in psychol- Worldwork skills to his colleagues in Kenya.