Wahya Cirlce
Jumanne

ALKEBULAN TRADITIONAL BELIEFS

We will begin our World Studies here. Although a currently major Path, which we know as Christianity, it only came to the continent of Alkebulan (Africa) in the 1st or early 2nd century CE, oral traditions and tribal practices have reigned supreme for tens of thousands of years before that arrival. The first of the Islamic Path appeared while the prophet Mohammed was purported to still be alive (He is reported to have died in 632 CE). Thus, both religions have only been on the continent of Africa for around 1400 years. As we look deeper into the continent, we can see the tribal beliefs go back much further.

 While Egypt receives most of the attention for this continent, we will not begin there. We will also not begin with the oldest known Tribe in Alkebulan, the San, either. We will begin here with the Yoruba.

Why?

Because they are extremely prevalent due to their culture being distributed by those who chose to exploit them. While we acknowledge older belief systems and stories of oral tradition amongst the tribes that live in many other places, we will look at the Ifa of Yoruba.

HISTORY
The Traditional “religion” of Alkebulan can be traced back to between 200,000 and 100,000 BCE. We can look at many aspects and see why a book indoctrination such as Christianity or Islamism took root. The tradition of Alkebulan (African) spirituality, both Magick and Medicine ALREADY included a “supreme being”. This left the proselytizing door open for one of the Abrahamic, or Patriarchal, oriented dogmas such as Christianity or Islamism to easily overpower a tribal belief system. Especially when there were rampant cases of fear mongering, “killing” of tribal deities, and Ego running rampant amongst those who wished to colonize the land. Much confusion comes from these two “book religions” and their lack of understanding of both the Yoruba culture and its long found indigenous traditions that existed long before.

SWAHILI
The names of the days of the week are in Swahili this week as we look at the Medicine and Magick of this land. Beginning around 3,000 years ago, speakers of the proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of migrations. The Swahili people originate from Bantu inhabitants of the Southeast Coast of this continent in Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. They are mainly united under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language, which is an Alkebulan native language of Bantu origin which had been in existence before the arrival of Arabs in the Northeast of the continent, approximately in the 8th Century or so. Known as the Swahili Coast, it is located along the shores of Eastern portions of Alkebulan. This land began to take shape as a developed society. This was a region where Africans and Arabs mixed to create a unique identity often referred to as Swahili Culture. This is also where many were taken from to enslave and how the imported practices of things such as Vodou and Santeria began.

IFA
To look at practices that predate those two, we will look at Ifa in Yoruba culture. It is considered to be very Earth oriented in its approaches. Ifa has more connection with the divine cosmic energy for such practices as Divination and Yoruba’s “folk magick” - Earth energy - with major herbal components. It is the opinion of many Practitionersthat Yoruba Folk Magick is the more predominant in that land but its culture is in jeopardy as “those of faith” have mixed up “dogma” with “culture”. Using the plants that Mother Earth gave us is not “pagan”, it is HUMAN. The words and their meanings have been basterdized by those dogmas that are in control, Evangelical and Pentecostal to be exact. But, you decide.

The following link is a presentation by Cambridge Unitversity on Yoruban Prehistory to Present studies. The research for this book was completed by Dr. Aribidesi Usman of Arizona State University African Studies and Dr. Toyin Falola of University of Texas African Studies. The presentation is a breakdown by Toyin.

Watching this video will take an hour of your time and it is well worth the knowledge you will gain. It has purpose in dispelling the corrupted information passed around in the “pagan” community seeded and perpetuated with its falsities by Wiccan, Christian and Islamic sources. We do hope you are able to take some time with this video.

However, we cannot fault others for that misinformation. We must “rise above” and educate and inform ourselves so that we only deal in truths and not hearsay as Practitioners of Arcane Arts.

 In the video, the beginning 20 minutes are a great breakdown of the book for study of the differences between Yoruba culture and Yoruba practice in magick. You are not asked to go and purchase or read this book, only try to listen to Dr. Falola’s presentation. He is of Nigerian descent and of the source. It may be a difficult listen for some of you but who better to hear the truth from? The source. Lastly, there are no less than two specific pearls of wisdom, or magickal morsels, in this presentation for you. We do not purport any particular Path, but the knowledge of this one will help you study others as you will learn their “root” or parallels, current science points to all human life beginning in Africa.

VIDEO:  THE YORUBA: From Prehistory to the Present

Presented by: Dr. Falola and Cambridge University