The contributors to this investigation of dreaming in a diversity of African cultures and settings have each approached the matter with a respect for an indigenous discourse which does not necessarily subscribe to Western evaluations of the objective and subjective. The matter of dreaming is not so much a psychological constant as ultimately sociological and historical.
Dream discourse as a strategy deploys contingencies in the elaboration of social relationships and the defence, restoration and promotion of identities. Dreaming is therefore prominent in such critical settings as sickness...

Prophet Harris, The "Black Elijah" of West Africa offers the only comprehensive study of the thought of William Wade Harris, the Glebo (Liberia) loyalist whose prophetic mission from 1910-29 moved tens of thousands of West Africans out of traditional religion into the stream of Christianity and modernization, particularly in the Ivory Coast. It reviews that unparalleled breakthrough, thoroughly examines traditional African, Western missionary and colonial influences which helped determine religious innovation and shape his vocation as prophet of Christ's reign of peace and prosperity....

The spontaneous and rapid growth of indigenous African Christianity, especially in South Africa, has undermined the appropriateness of the term "mainline" for the traditional, denominational churches in the area. Some of these churches lost more than twenty-five percent of their membership in the period 1980-1990, while membership of the indigenous churches increased by a similar percentage in the same period. The contributions to this volume are based on grassroots research and each one treats some significant aspect within the life and work of this vast, self-motivating movement, a movement...

This volume focuses on the role Christian churches have played in Africa's democratisation movements since the late 1980s. In some cases churchmen have presided over national conferences; in many, Christians comprise arguably the most significant segment of civil society. In some countries pastoral letters have challenged dictators; in others, churches have provided an essential support for the status quo.
The book comprises both theoretical analyses and case studies. The theoretical discussions include the history of Church-State relations; theology and democracy; Pentecostalism and...

Ingessana presents the results of field research carried out in the Ingessana Hills area of Sudan, between the White and the Blue Niles, among a people who maintain a proud tradition of cultural independence. The book examines the religious institutions of the Ingessana people, attempting to understand how their history and development has been affected by interaction with powerful neighbours, such as the Islamic Sudanese, Nilotics and Ethiopian groups. The Ingessana have always sought to define this engagement in their own terms and in such a way as to preserve their distinctive...

The common charge laid against missionaries that they are destroyers of African culture is shown to be untrue of the missionaries treated in this book, who worked with considerable success to integrate Christianity and African culture. The author examines the endeavours of the missionaries from the perspective of the local Christians, who were not themselves interested in Africanization as such. One can thus find some missionaries defending - against the elected African Church leadership - the right of the Chagga Christians to circumcise their daughters, and Nyakyusa Christians refusing to...

Asante Catholicism focuses on the interaction between post-conciliar Roman Catholicism and Asante religion of Ghana, with its implications for self-definition and cultural renewal. It begins by exploring Asante cultural history, and depicting how their religo-political institutions were affected during contact with European traders, missionaries, and colonial authorities. It further highlights the mutual shaping between Catholicism and the indigenous Asante worldview. The fusion between Christianity and Asante ways creates conflict, innovation, and modification as the Church...

By using primary sources, this case study seeks to shed new light on the nature and extent of European (in this case Scottish) educational pioneering work in Africa (in this case, eastern Nigeria). It examines the essential differences between (a) the pre-colonial period, (b) the colonial period, and (c) the pre-independence period. It argues that non-formal community and political education were continuously as central to the Christian (here, Presbyterian) missionaries' work as was the formal schooling of the young - females as well as males.
While the curricula reflected the...

Orisha worshippers who were not subjected to forced migration to the Americas in the nineteenth century remained their own masters, inhabiting cities, towns and farm villages in their West African kingdoms. This study uses documentation from Yoruba writings and from the written record of European missionaries to describe the various facets of their religious life. Arranged in the form of a phenomenology, the work deals with such matters as the veneration of the environment; carved images of the divine; the orisha celebrated in festival, worship and sacrifice; systems of...

The peoples of Madagascar are renowned for the prominence they give to the dead. In this edited volume, regional specialists reassess the significance of ancestors for changing relations of power, emerging identities, and local historical consciousness. Case-studies include The Royal Bath of 1817 (Pier Larson), Succession in an Urbanized Sakalava Kingdom (Lesley Sharp), The Antankaraia Ritual Cycle (Michael Lambek, Andrew Walsh), Nineteenth-Century Norwegian Missionary Culture (Karina Hestad Skeie), Sacrifice on the East Coast (Jennifer Cole), Violence among the Zafimaniry (Maurice Bloch),...