Prophetism in precolonial Africa was evidenced by a small number of well-documented cases, although the majority of instances known to scholarship occurred later, during the colonial era in areas of the most extreme social and economic dislocations (Hastings 1979).
Prophetism, a term derived from Greek with referents to Near Eastern religious traditions, has some parallels in precolonial Africa, with common characteristics being: that such persons conceive of their activity as the result of a personal divine commission; that the religious traditions they founded were uniquely heaven-sent, sacred, and binding in perpetuity; that the prophets’ proclamations later became universal truths; that the prophets were social critics; and that they helped both to maintain and reform religious tradition (Eliade 1987).
John Mbiti rejects the idea of precolonial African prophets, because of the lack of a long dimension of the future in African concepts of time (Mbiti 1969). V. Y. Mudimbe suggests...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Booth, Newell. 1977. The view from Kasongo Niembo. In African religions, ed. N. Booth, 48–49. New York/London/Lagos: Nok Publishers, Ltd.
Eliade, Mircea, ed. 1987. Encyclopedia of religion. Vol. 12, 8–14. New York: Macmillan.
Hastings, Adrian. 1979. A history of African Christianity 1950–1975, map of principal areas of “religious independency”, xi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Janzen, John M. 1977. A tradition of renewal in Kongo religion. In African religions, ed. Newell Booth, 69–116. New York/London/Lagos: Nok Publishers.
Lewis, Ian M. 1986. Religion in context: Cults and Charisma, 43–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mbiti, John. 1969. African religions and philosophy, 190–193. New York: Frederick A. Praeger.
Mudimbe, V.Y. 1991. Parables and fables: Exegesis, textuality and politics in central Africa, 24–25. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Rigby, Peter. 1975. Prophets, diviners, and prophetism: The recent history of Kiganda religion. Journal of Anthropological Research 31: 116–148.
Schoffeleers, Matthew. 1985. Oral history and the retrieval of the distant past: On the use of legendary chronicles as sources of historical information. In Theoretical explorations in African religion, ed. Wim van Binsbergen and Matthew Schoffeleers, 164–188. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature B.V.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Janzen, J.M. (2021). Prophetism, Precolonial African. In: Mudimbe, V.Y., Kavwahirehi, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2068-5_319
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2068-5_319
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-2066-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-2068-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities