African Traditional Religion and Its Relevance to the Present: A Study of Yoruba Traditional Religion

Abstract

Religion is the primary, and perhaps the most important, influence in the lives of most Africans; Religion is involved in every aspect of Africans' lives, and it cannot be studied in isolation. His study must go hand in hand with the study of people who practice religion.

Traditional African religion means the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of Africans. It is the religion that resulted from the firm faith of the ancestors of present-day Africans, and which today is practiced by a very large number of Africans in different forms and with different strength and intensity. We need to explain the word "traditional". This word means the indigenous people or the founders, and it also means passing on from generation to generation, and what Africans practice today is the legacy of the past, but it is not treated as something of the past but as linking the past to the present and the present to eternity. This is not a "fossil" religion, a thing of the past or a dead religion, it is a religion practiced by living men and women. (Awolalu, 1975).