**3. An African spirituality**

The above major themes of the religious tradition depicted in *BES* are not totally unique to the Lakota culture. As will now be shown briefly, the *Costheanthropic* features evident in Black Elk's narrative are shared by the African religious tradition. Like the controversy surrounding *BES*, what is meant by Africa or African is equally contentious. Africa is both geographical and cultural. It is generally conventional to speak of Africa in terms of sub-Saharan Africa [11]. This is because the countries of North Africa are regarded as part of the Arabic culture. This chapter follows that convention by basically drawing from the literature (mostly based on a stockpile of proverbs, tales, legends and cultural practices) of Sub-Saharan or 'Black Africa'.6

<sup>6</sup> Some fellow Sub-Saharan Africans, especially a few who are Egyptologists, would object to the appropriateness of the dichotomy or distinction between the northern and southern parts of the continent. I do not question the validity of their objection. Since I have never done any field research in North Africa, I confine myself here to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Like *BES,* much of the early writings about Africa are in reaction to the colonial experience.7 However, what has seemingly endured are, not the politically driven ideas, but the rich insights from the cultural and religious practices of traditional Africans. The worldview that emerged from such practices is the product of various, more or less ethnographic, works in different parts of Africa. These include Jomo Kenyata's *Facing Mount Kenya* and several others [16–18]. It will now be shown how these have provided a Costheanthropic African worldview similar to that described above in *BES.*

#### **3.1** *Black Africa Speaks* **Cosmos**

A general observation of the ritual practices and belief-systems evident in various traditional African societies would reveal a pattern that corresponds to a sense of relationship to the physical and non-human world. That is why land was for a long time in many parts of Africa never owned [19]. "To people of this kind land was something akin to water or air; it had no owner…" Hence the physical and non-human world was not something to be owned and exploited like the yellow metal in *BES*, but to be regarded as respectable 'beings' in relationship with humans. The preponderance of totems and a generally rural lifestyle in traditional African societies also reflect the close connection that Africans had to the natural world. In many parts of Africa today, one still finds totems, either in the form of specific animals, plants, or any other natural being, which people believe to be ancestrally related to their ethnic group, clan, or family. The particular totem is seen as a tutelary spirit, to which the people attach very deep feelings. It is highly forbidden to kill such a totem. Members of the particular ethnic groups would never trap, torture, kill, nor eat, a totemic animal [20].

#### **3.2** *Black Africa Speaks* **Theos**

Traditional Africans experienced a relationship to a power beyond their control, as experienced in the vision of Black Elk, something beyond what is observable in the rest of the physical and non-human world. This realm of Theos is described variously in terms of gods, spirits and ancestors. Similar to the Platonic world of forms described in *BES,* Africans [21] "subscribed to the existence of two worlds—the human world in which they lived and the spiritual one in which the ancestors dwelled." This was before the advent of institutional religion like Christianity and Islam in Africa. "Among such a people you see little external evidence of religion." [22]. Rather, this awareness of the realm of the Theos [23] "has its roots in African culture before and separate from contact with Christianity or Islam."

<sup>7</sup> In an early postcolonial context of various attempts to restore the African dignity, a variety of indigenous African philosophies emerged from the pen of the first set of Africans to receive Western education [12]. As Mushi notes, this movement took place at a time when more than 70% of the African population could neither read nor write ([13], p. 4). Hence among the several characterizations of the African worldview then, such as Consciencism, Négritude, Authenticité, only Julius Nyerere's *Ujamaa* was practicable [14]. Nyerere was a traditional African and a devoted Catholic of supreme integrity, who had a great vision for his people [15]. Yet even *Ujamaa*, like Black Elk's vision, did not achieve the results desired by the one who had that great socio-political vision.

## **3.3** *Black Africa Speaks* **Anthropos**

As in *BES,* relationship with people was central in traditional Africa. Hence the realm of the Anthropos or community is very important. People in traditional African societies lived in extended family units "based within large households or compounds" ([23], p. 82). For example, in the ancient Zululand, the Nguni peoples lived completely in extended family houses ([21], pp. 35–36).

The underlying philosophical principle in this realm of the Anthropos has been described in the non-Cartesian terms of "we are, therefore, I am" ([17], p. 109). The original expression is Zulu [24], "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" or "I belong therefore I am." Therefore, the realm of Anthropos situated Africans in a relationship of mutuality and complementarity. A colleague and professor of African Theology at Hekima College in Kenya sums it up perfectly, stating that life in traditional Africa is a "Relationship Imperative":

*The realization of sociability or relationships in daily living by the individual and the community is the central moral and ethical imperative of African Religion. Relationships receive the most attention in the adjudication of what is good and bad, what is desirable and undesirable in life. Not only is the view of the universe at the service, so to speak, of the formation of and execution of good relationships, but relationships make possible the continuing existence of the universe [25].*

#### **3.4** *Black Africa Speaks* **Costheanthropic**

The three realms described above exist interconnectedly, as observed in *BES.* In the African's lived experience, there is similarly a unity of relationship and deep interconnectedness in the realms. Through images and ritual practices this worldview permeates all aspects of the individual's life. Zuesse [26] writes:

*"The African who unself-consciously and humbly bends, sweating in the brilliant sunlight, over some 'medicines' and dirt mounds at the edge of his field to invoke the ancestors and God, is not just praying for the maintenance of his family and fields. In the deepest level of himself, he is praying for the preservation of the entire astonishing fruit-bearing reality he moves in and knows so well, from the celestial spirits to the textures of the wild grasses in his fingers."*

The above quotation sums up well the Costheanthropic unity, the relationship or interconnectedness with the Divine, with one's community and with nature. Zuesse shows the traditional African simultaneously relating to the Cosmos, Theos and Anthropos in a unity of relationship – which is also deducible from *BES*. Like the Lakota holy man (Drinks Water) who dreamed of what was to be, the African Oracle is a medium within the realm of the Anthropos connecting the Cosmos with the Theos: "The elders consulted their Oracle and it told them that the white man would break their clan…It said that other white men were on their way." ([3], p. 97).

## **4. Relevance of both traditions**

The traditional African beliefs and ritual practices as well as those of *BES* should not be dismissed as primitive or fetish. In the current context of a pending ecological crisis, tensions surrounding globalization and cosmopolitanism, both the African and Lakota traditions offer some alternative ways of relating with the environment and with other human beings. This relevance is best captured by McCluskey ([8], p. 242): "The forces that defeated Black Elk and the Sioux are the same that many Americans revolt against today: technological rape of environment and soul, progress without humanity, values too materialistic, and individualism too sterile."

#### **4.1 Ecological relevance**

In `The encyclical *Laudato Si*′, Francis [27] emphasizes the same theme of relationship with the rest of creation as observable in *BES*: "Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth."

Unfortunately, this type of relationship to the physical and non-human world in *BES* and in traditional African societies was often misinterpreted as animism, nature worship or earth cult. Such cults/nature worship are on the contrary not true in the African context. Parrinder [28] observes: "It might be expected that cults of the sun and the moon would play a large part in the life of African peoples, since such cults were of great importance in ancient Egyptian religion. But in fact such worship is rare even in the pantheons of West Africa."

That Black Elk was a Catholic (even a Catechist) at the time he provided his narrative is evidence that his perspective on holding nature in great esteem is not at the level of worship or religion.8 Rather, in both *BES* and the African tradition, it reflects the unity of relationship that the people experienced with both the divine and other non-human realities.

#### **4.2 Relevance for social relationship**

In a more recent encyclical *Fraterlli Tutti*, Francis [30] calls humanity to fraternity and the value of social relationship. As evident in the prayer by Black Elk, quoted above, all are created and exist in relationship to the one Creator. By virtue of that relationship to the Creator, all are called to a fraternal relationship with others and the natural world. An acknowledgement of such interrelatedness is important in today's context of sterile individualism and for the recognition of the inherent worth of everyone.

At the heart of this perspective on social relationship is an understanding of the human person. As mentioned in the traditional African worldview, a person is understood in terms of *Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu*, "I belong therefore I am".9 The Holy Father has rightly invited humanity to such a universal fraternity based on a common Creator.

<sup>8</sup> The religious hybrid (Christian–Lakota) in *BES* is beyond the scope of this paper. Others have dealt adequately with that theme [1, 29].

<sup>9</sup> This is not to say that modern Africa lives by this perspective. Nor does this presuppose that there was a commonality of perspective among the people of traditional Africa and of Black Elk's Lakota. The ideal remains a noble one.
