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African Mythology. African mythology covers a large area. There are so many countries, regions, languages, tribes, cultures within the continent!. Even though there are so many cultures, there are common themes in mythologies, due to the many migrations throughout the continent.
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African mythology covers a large area. There are so many countries, regions, languages, tribes, cultures within the continent!
Even though there are so many cultures, there are common themes in mythologies, due to the many migrations throughout the continent. • About 7,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Hottentot and Bushmen began moving from the Sahara toward southern Africa. • Five thousand years later, people who spoke Bantu languages began spreading out from Cameroon, on Africa’s west coast, until they eventually inhabited much of sub-Saharan Africa. Such migrations caused myths and legends to spread from group to group and led to a mixing of myths and legends. The migrations also gave rise to new stories about events in the history of those peoples.
The peoples of Africa did not use written language until modern times. Instead, they possessed rich and complex oral traditions, passing myths, legends, and history from generation to generation in spoken form. • In some cultures, professional storytellers—called griots (picture on right) preserved the oral tradition. Written accounts of African mythology began to appear in the early 1800s, and present-day scholars labor to record the continent's myths and legends before they are lost to time and cultural change.
Misc. African Mythology Tidbits: • Spirits. African mythology is filled with spirits, invisible beings with powers for good or evil. Spirits are less grand, less powerful, and less like humans than the gods, who often have weaknesses and emotions. Many spirits are associated with physical features such as mountains, rivers, wells, trees, and springs. Nations, peoples, and even small communities may honor local spirits unknown outside their borders. • All humans, animals, and plants have spirits, as do elements such as water and fire. Some spirits are helpful, others harmful. People may worship spirits and may also try to control them through magical means, usually with the aid of a skilled practitioner—sometimes called the medicine man or woman or the witch doctor—who leads rituals. People thought to have evil spirits are considered dangerous witches.
Common Themes in African Myths: • Survival issues dominate many myths, suggesting the origins of land, the ability to cultivate land, and the benefit of existing off of what one has cultivated. Questions of where land came from, the purpose of man, and the relationship between the creator and the created are evaluated. • A predominant theme among African creation myth is the people's relation to the land, as a means of survival and origin. The shilluk myth, "An African Story of the Creation of Man" and the Yoruba people's myth, "The Creation of the Universe and Ife" state that man was first made from clay. Both creation myths indicate an awareness and a need for explanation of the physical differences among human beings. The Shilluk myth claims that there are different colored people because of the varying colors o f clay that Joak, the creator according to this myth, encountered as he wandered the world. The Yoruba people's myth explains the differences in the shapes of humans as a result of the god Obatala being drunk when he shaped man out of clay. In both myths, the action of the creating god caused the variation in man's physical characteristics. • The Shilluk myth attempts to explain why man's body is designed as it is. Each part of the body is designed, according to this myth, to fulfill a purpose related to survival. The legs, arms, eyes, and mouth all work toward man being able to survive off the land by growing crops and eating what he has grown. The ability to dance, speak, sing, and shout, through the use of a tongue, is provided after man can survive off the land. The order of creation indicates the importance of certain aspects of the body to societal standards of importance.
Yoruba You are reading the Yoruba Creation Myth….. “Yoruba” refers to the Yoruba people, a West African Ethnic group. It is also a language. Regins in Africa with significant populations: Benin, Ghana, Togo, and the Ivery Coast.
