Europeans told our ancestors to accept enslavement or die. Those that did submit found that they lived under the authority of a savagely violent system. Such an understanding guided the maroons, who truly lived the ideal of freedom or death as they fought an oppressive system.
Month: July 2020
Reaping the bounty of one’s own traditions
All peoples constructs their spiritual practice on the basis of their own indigenous traditions, which enables them to reap the bounty of those traditions. I suggested the following materials to a brother who expressed a desire to reclaim his own ancestral traditions. Perhaps some of you might find this list enlightening.
General
Marimba Ani, Let the Circle Be Unbroken
Dalian Adofo, Ancestral Voices
Dalian and Verona Adofo, Ancestral Voices (film): https://ancestralvoices.co.uk/
Akan
Kwame Gyekye, African Philosophical Thought
Igbo
Ogonna Agu, The Book of Dawn & Invocations
Kemetic (Ancient Egyptian)
Jacob H. Carruthers, Essays in Ancient Egyptian Studies
Jacob H. Carruthers, Mdw Ntr: Divine Speech
Theophile Obenga, African Philosophy: The Pharaonic Period: 2780-330 Bc
Kongo
K. Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Self-Healing Power and Therapy
K. Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau, African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo
K. Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Mbôngi: An African Traditional Political Institution
Fu-Kiau, K. Kia Bunseki, and A.M. Lukondo-Wamba. Kindezi: The Kongo Art of Babysitting
Mende
Adama and Naomi Doumbia, The Way of the Elders
Yoruba
Wande Abimbola, Ifa Will Mend Our Broken World
Kola Abimbola, Yoruba Culture: A Philosophical Account
Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy: Traditional Yoruba Philosophy and Contemporary African Realities