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Sacrificed animals and other charms were found where enslaved African Americans drew the crossroads symbols, and four holes were drilled into charms to symbolize the Bakongo cosmogram. Other West-Central African traditions found on plantations by historians include using six-pointed stars as spiritual symbols.
Animals are common subjects in African masks. Animal masks typically embody the spirit of animals, so that the mask-wearer becomes a medium to speak to animals themselves (e.g. to ask wild beasts to stay away from the village); in many cases, nevertheless, an animal is also (sometimes mainly) a symbol of specific virtues.
It is part of the same network of religions that include Yoruba religion as well as African diasporic traditions like Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santería, and Brazilian Candomblé. [7] As a result of centuries of interaction between Fon and Yoruba peoples, Landry noted that Vodún and Yoruba religion were "at times, indistinguishable or at least ...
Nine-Night, also known as Dead Yard, is a funerary tradition originating in West Africa and practiced in Caribbean countries (primarily Jamaica, Belize, Antigua, Grenada, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Trinidad, and Haiti). It is an extended wake that lasts for several days, with roots in certain West African religious traditions. During ...
A masquerade ceremony (or masked rite, festival, procession or dance) is a cultural or religious event involving the wearing of masks. The practice has been seen throughout history from the prehistoric era to present day. They have a variety of themes. Their meanings can range from anything including life, death, and fertility.
During the ceremony, around 500 prisoners would be sacrificed. As many as 4,000 were reported killed in one of these ceremonies in 1727. [5] [6] [7] Most of the victims were sacrificed through decapitation, a tradition widely used by Dahomean kings, and the literal translation for the Fon name for the ceremony Xwetanu is "yearly head business". [8]
Five sangomas in KwaZulu-Natal. Traditional healers of Southern Africa are practitioners of traditional African medicine in Southern Africa.They fulfil different social and political roles in the community like divination, healing physical, emotional, and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting witchcraft and narrating the ...
Traditional African religions generally hold the beliefs of life after death (a spirit world or realms, in which spirits, but also gods reside), with some also having a concept of reincarnation, in which deceased humans may reincarnate into their family lineage (blood lineage), if they want to, or have something to do.