African Humanism: Between the Cosmic and the Terrestrial

This chapter explores the anthropocentrism of African indigenous religions, with a focus on the religious traditions of the Yoruba peoples (south-west Nigeria). In doing so it hopes to disclose an alternative vision of the human to that of what Sylvia Wynter calls “Man,” the figure at the heart of colonial modernity. While the humanistic orientation of African indigenous religion could be understood in a Feuerbachian sense, this chapter argues that such an approach fails to address the Eurocentric assumptions in Feuerbach’s anthropological analysis of religion. Drawing on ritual studies and recent efforts to rehabilitate the idea of “animism,” the chapter goes on to sketch what it calls an “animist humanism.” The aim here is to articulate a religious anthropocentrism that indicates how thinking with African indigenous religions might enable us to think beyond the doctrine of Man.