Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [194]
—from a traditional Yoruba song
The night is black, the sky is blotted out,
We have left the village of our fathers,
The Maker is angry with us…
The light becomes dark, the night and again night,
The day with hunger tomorrow—
The Maker is angry with us.
The Old Ones have passed away,
Their homes are far off, below,
Their spirits are wandering—
Where are their spirits wandering?
Perhaps the passing wind knows
Their bones are far off below.
—a song of the Pygmies of Gabon
Is there an “African” mythology?
Good question! But when you stop to ponder it, it’s a bit like asking, “Is there a ‘European’ mythology?” A Greek and an Irishman are both called “Europeans,” but share little in the way of ancient myth or national history—or appearance. Similarly, Africa is filled with people who fall under the collective nametag “African,” but who look very different and also have an expansive range of traditions and myths.
The wide variety of mythologies that developed among the people living south of the Sahara was a result of constant movement by nomadic populations across enormous geographic barriers in a vast and varied landscape. Occupying a fifth of the world’s land—an area three times the size of the continental United States—Africa is a staggering 11,657,000 square miles of territory, divided by deserts, mountains, rain forests, winding rivers, and a massive savannah. Sheer size alone kept myth-mingling to a minimum. As mythologist Arthur Cotterel notes, “Mythologies abound in Africa. Tribes possess their own traditions, and even where they share a language with their neighbors…it is the diversity of local belief that surprises rather than the evidence of a common heritage.” While Islam and Christianity are widespread today among the more than 850 million Africans, more than 100 million people still practice forms of traditional ethnic religions, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year (2004); other estimates of the number of traditional believers in Africa are twice that.
This rich range of ancient beliefs makes it difficult to draw simple conclusions, but some broad parallels can be found in Africa’s many traditions. “Central to these,” author Chris Romann notes about African religions in A World of Ideas, “is a strong sense of the oneness of creation, in which the interconnection between the natural and the supernatural, the physical and the spiritual, the visible and the invisible, the living and the dead are far more important than the differences between them.” Traditionally, the majority of African people believe that gods exist everywhere in nature, and that such natural presences as mountains, rivers, and the sun contain a deity or spirit. African religions also tend to be more “here and now,” focusing on earthly life instead of an afterlife.
So, put the “oneness of creation” and nature worship at the top of a list of similarities in Africa’s many mythic traditions. And bear in mind these other important common characteristics:
A Supreme God. The existence of a supreme being who is omniscient and omnipresent but often disappears from the scene out of annoyance with mankind is a very common theme. For instance, Wulbari, the creator god of the Krachi of Togo in West Africa, gets tired of people asking him for favors and is annoyed by the cook-smoke constantly getting in his eyes, so he leaves the village of people and sets up a heavenly court composed entirely of animals. Another god, We, is irritated because an old woman cuts a piece of him each day to make a good soup. Nyame of the Ashanti (or Asante) of modern Ghana is constantly disturbed by a woman pounding yams who keeps banging on the overhanging floor of heaven. In a move that any New York apartment-dweller with a noisy neighbor can appreciate, Nyame retreats to the sky, and when the people try to build a ladder of calabash gourds to reach him, they tumble down—another common African narrative which mirrors the Tower of Babel story.
A Pantheon of Gods. In many African