African Religion: GOD and MAN

You will see that many African traditions describe God as an "old man." As I discuss in Imhotep (2009, 2011, 2013), often the same word for "Man" is the same word for "God." The very word "Man" (Nostratic *mana) is the same word for God in many central and east African traditions (e.g., Imana in Uganda). The problem is people take certain myths literally when they are not meant to be. An example stating: "from which reed you torn off?" This is in the same spirit as what happens in Ghana. The following is from my upcoming book on /nTr/: ******************** [Reevaluation of the word /nTr/, Asar Imhotep (2013)] "Philip Bartle, in his article The Universe Has Three Souls: Notes on Translating Akan Culture, informs us that God among the Akan, can be seen as the patrilineal grandfather of the river gods (which of course include the clouds and rain that fill the rivers with water). He goes on further and expands his analysis by stating that in the water category is the essence of fertility, the ability to penetrate and cleanse something that can then bring forth. "Rain is the semen of the universe; when it falls on Earth, She becomes fertile. Water baptizes. The symbolic uses of the colour white indicates His [Gods] further characteristics: purity, victory, and joy. In other words, water purifies and fertilizes. The main function or activity of the Akan gods is making women fertile. Other activities include the cleansing of evil spirits and curing the results of evil: alcoholism, disease, bad luck, poverty, bad crops, and so onThe rivers, patrilineal descendants of God, are used to cleanse people in a defiled state, and many conservative rural people will refuse to boil their drinking water because the heat will kill or annoy the purifying spirit." The ntr are described by Bartle as the children of the abosom (gods) and there is an obvious association between patriliny, purity, and fertility. The connection between ntr, water, purity and family lineage can be gleaned from the charge: Wo guare ntr ben? (which ntr do you wash?). It is asking what clan do you belong to. Each of the major clans is associated with a river, so what river do you wash in (out of what river, spirit were you born?). " ******************** One should start thinking in a greater Niger-Congo/Nilo-Saharan context because the same ideas we find in south Africa, we find in central and west Africa. They all ultimately come from the same tradition. This is how we know /nkulu/ was not made up by the Zulu because the same associations with this term is found all throughout the Bantu world. Even Jordan Ngubane, a Amazulu who wrote the book _Conflict of Minds (1979)_ had to recognize the same spirit and ideas of the Zulus found in West Africa. As he notes: ********************* "Simultaneous validity was given added significance when I traveled in West Africa in

1958 and the United States in 1969. I discovered that the West Africans saw reality from perspectives I had, in my ignorance, regarded as peculiar to the Buntu teaching in my part of the continent. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the common factor in Southern and Western African experiences was our evaluation of the person, which gave identical rhythms to our different cultural experiences." (Ngubane, 1979:90) <<The other Nguni groups, the Xhosa speaking Xhosa, Thembu, Pondo, Mpondomise etc all use Dali (creator) which can also be dala (create, old), (dalula - stretch out), dalwa (be created) and so on. >> This is why linguistics helps clarify certain things. This very /dali/, for example, derives from the same -r- or -l- root spoken of earlier. This root in ciLuba (Kongo) is /eela/ to exit from the self (sound, idea, word, object ...) make, build, construct, express. This root is reduplicated and becomes /Lela/ birth, give birth, produce; cause, source, generate; a family, a home; adopt, educate, raise; subject, submit. This gives way to words like: ************ baledi parents : buledi to engender, maternity, paternity : bulel relationship; relationship characterizing those who cannot marry them [think mAat among Kalenjiin]; charity, kindness, generosity : ciledi cause, origin, source : cileledi matrix : cilelelu Time of Birth, date of birth : Ndedi cause (syn.: ciLedi) : ndela prolific person, with many children : ndelngny offspring, descendants, generations : ndelelu descendants, generation; ndelelu Mulenga family planning : ndelu generations, offspring, progeny : Tanda bring into the world, give birth, born/rise." ************ CiLuba /ndela/ = Egptian /nTr/. ciLuba /tanda/ = Egyptian /nTr/. This same root is what gives us /mdw/ in Egyptian. That's a different topic. The point is, this root is also in /nkulu/ which is why it means "big, old, etc." and refers to a "father" or "ancestors" who came before "us" and gave "birth" to us. God (nkulu) is that spirit who gave birth, created all things. He is an /ndela/ "prolific person with many children." Much much more could be said and is the reason I had to write a book on it because people were over simplifying the concept. People don't know what a God is.