Religion, History and the Supreme Gods of Africa: a Contribution To the Debate

The status of the Supreme Being in precolonial traditional African religious thought has been the subject of innumerable studies within the fields of anthropology and religious studies. Of particular concern in this paper is the debate that has raged between the so-called 'Devout' scholars and the 'De-Hellenists. The former emphasize the notion that there existed among all African peoples before contact with Islam and Christianity a Supreme Being with approximately the same attributes that one currently associates with 'universalistic' world religions: the Supreme God as conceptualized by Africans was omnipotent, and defined as the creator of the world. The 'De-Hellenists,' among whom is the well-known scholar, Okot p'Bitek, argue that 'Devout' scholars have generated this concept of a Supreme Being out of a non-reality and that they had done so, in part, 'to defend Africa from the intellectual arrogance of the West.' This arrogance p'Bitek associates with 'eighteenth century philosophers and... nineteenth century anthropologists [who] used African and other non-Western religions to demonstrate their theories of progress.'2 p'Bitek argues that early Western studies of world religions divided the history of religious practices into three evolutionary phases: Fetishism, Polytheism and Monotheism. The supposed religion of African peoples was defined as fetishism, the lowest form of religious thought.3 Even after scholars began to reject these evolutionary theories, leading Western anthropologists are said to have continued 'to use insulting terms when describing African institutions.' In reaction to this racist scholarship, African scholars began to claim that African peoples knew the Christian God long before the missionaries introduced this new religion. In p'Bitek's words, African scholars robed their deities in 'awkward Hellenic garments [in order] to show to the world... that the African deities are but local names