Hi, I’m John Green, welcome to Crash Course Religions.

So, in 1791, the enslaved people   of Haiti started a revolution and when it  culminated in 1804, Haiti became an independent   state — the first and only Black republic born from a successful revolt of enslaved people.

One of the events cited as sparking this  revolution was a religious ceremony in   the woods.

Two hundred Haitans gathered and called upon Iwa,   which are like spirits or deities in the  Vodou tradition, to guard over them as   they armed themselves against the French.

So, just as much as this gathering was religious,   it was also political, as the group organized and prepared to fight for their freedom.

And this is just one snapshot of a particular religious ceremony in a particular country   of the African Diaspora.

So, what are  African religions?

Well, there’s way,   way, way more than one answer to that question… [THEME MUSIC] So now might be a good time for a couple reflections.

Uh, first off, religion and   politics have always been intersecting.

Secondly, let’s take a moment and reflect on just how big   Africa is.

I mean, look at this.

Or this.

Or  this.

Just kidding, that last one was a meme.

Seriously, though, when we talk about Africa’s size — which is 20% of Earth’s landmass and 18%   of its population — it really sets the stage for the diversity and complexity of its religions.

This is a continent that contains over  two thousand living languages and a   hugely diverse set of religious beliefs and practices and political and economic systems.

And today we’re also talking about  religions of the African Diaspora.

See,   during the time of the transatlantic  slave trade that began in the 1500s,   largely European colonizers removed  millions of African people from their   homelands.

This type of global scattering of populations is known as a diaspora.

And many of these people took  their religions with them,   which spread a variety of indigenous African traditions to North America, Latin America,   and the Caribbean, where they evolved and blended with other cultural traditions.

Many of these are still practiced, such  as Santería in Cuba, Candomblé in Brazil,   Vodou in Haiti, and Orisa-Vodun in… South Carolina?

Let’s go to the Thought Bubble… As a 15-year-old growing up in Detroit  during the 1930s, Walter King asked his mom,   “Who is the African God?” and she  wasn’t sure how to answer.

So, King   set out on what would become a life-long mission to bring African religion to African Americans.

He read everything he could about  African traditions and eventually   changed his name to Ofuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Adefunmi the First.

And it was   actually from a National Geographic  magazine that he finally learned   about the religion of one of the largest  ethnic groups in Africa, the Yoruba people.

Because of the diaspora, this religion  now goes by a variety of different names,   including Orisa-Vodun, the branch  Adefunmi created that’s unique to a small,   traditional African community in South Carolina.

At its peak in the 1980s, a few hundred people lived and practiced Yoruba traditions in Oyotunji   African Village.

Today, the site continues to produce educational programs, host festivals,   and offer spiritual services.

Practitioners worship the orisa—spiritual entities that can be   thought of as deities, energy fields, or features of the natural world, like rivers and thunder.

They also honor their ancestors through  Egungun festivals, where people don vibrant   masks and clothing, drum, dance, and sing to welcome them as they visit the human world.

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

So scholars estimate that thousands of people around the world   have become Yoruba leaders through their connections to Oyotunji, which literally   means Oyo — a Yoruba empire — rises again.

And this is just one example of how seemingly   disparate parts of the world come together through the religions of the African diaspora.

Now, in Africa today, it’s true that most  people practice either Islam or Christianity,   but many also practice an indigenous religion.

And, while Islam and Christianity aren’t,   like, "indigenous" in the sense that they  didn't originate on the African continent,   their history in Africa is a little more  complicated than just "because colonialism."

Like, plenty of Islam and Christianity’s  influence in Africa does come down to   that.

But not all of it.

For example, the  Ethiopian Orthodox Church was founded as   early as the 300s, after an Ethiopian bishop was baptized by the biblical apostle Philip.

And some West African communities converted to Islam as early as the 700s when they encountered   Arab-speaking Muslims through trade.

So, Islam and Christianity have been around   for a long time in parts of the continent,  even longer than some indigenous religions.

So, back in episode 7, we explored  a bunch of indigenous religions,   and we learned that it’s really tricky  to generalize about them because,   they’re from all over the world and made up of all different types of people.

It’d be like saying pizza made in Italy is  the same as pizza made in New York or Chicago   or Turkey or Japan.

Similar elements, different dishes.

Personally, I’m a Pizza John’s kinda guy.

It’s more of a metaphysical pizza place.

You can’t actually eat at Pizza John’s,   but there is still some kind of sustenance on offer.

Wait a second… is Pizza John a religion?

No, it’s not a religion.

You can sell  T-shirts with your mustachioed face   on them and that’s not… that’s not a religion.

Okay, back to African indigenous  religions.

There’s just so much   variety.

But across a number of them,  you’ll find overlap in their cosmology,   or beliefs about the creation  and structure of the universe.

Many African indigenous religions see creation as existing in three tiers, or levels.

At the top,   there’s the spirit realm, where the gods and goddesses are.

Those often include a supreme   deity or creator God — in addition to minor gods, goddesses, and powerful ancestors.

All   of this makes up a pantheon of deities with complicated connections and family ties.

In the middle, there’s our human world,   which also has lots of complicated  connections and family ties.

You and   I live here, also puppies.

And then there’s the underworld, which is where the ancestors are.

Now, it might be easy to imagine these tiers as three separate islands: hard to traverse   unless you have some sort of rainbow bridge.

But it’d be more accurate to picture them as   one town with three groups of people in it: a busy town, where gods and goddesses, humans,   and ancestors are constantly bumping into each other and getting into each other's' business.

The   lines are blurry between the worlds, and there’s a lot of influence going up, down, and all around.

Like, one might participate in specific rituals or offerings to interact with these gods,   goddesses, and ancestors.

And if they’re pleased,   they might help you with anything from tough life decisions to making the rain fall.

It’s   considered a reciprocal relationship: offer good things, get good things in return.

For the Ga people of Ghana, for instance, pleasing the ancestors sometimes includes   designing incredibly elaborate coffins for the recently deceased.

These can be extremely   specific; they’re customized to honor the deceased’s career and interests.

Think,   coffins in the shape of sneakers, or  animals, or cell phones... It’s one   way the living can ensure their relationship with the new ancestor is off to a good start.

I would make a joke about what kind of coffin I’d want to be buried in, but then I worry   that it would contradict my will and make for a bunch of problems, so back to camera one we go.

There are also a number of different coming-of-age   ceremonies across African indigenous  traditions, which mark the transition   from childhood to adulthood.

These  often have religious significance,   but they also teach young people about what it means to be an adult in the community.

For example, the boys of the Nandi people in Kenya go through a grueling coming-of-age ceremony:   at one stage, they have to stare, without  flinching, at a masked figure shaking a spear   at them while the other initiates try to distract them.

By overcoming this challenge, the boys can   prove their bravery and concentration,  earning their place in the community.

The performance of sacrifices is also a  common element in many African indigenous   rituals.

Take the Oromo people of Ethiopia, who use a ritual called buna qalaa—literally,   “coffee slaughtering”—to honor the supreme god, Waaqa, from whose tears they believe the   coffee tree first sprung.

Coffee is a sacred substance to the Oromo, used as medicine,   as well as consumed as a food or drink, and it’s carefully prepared by women in the community.

Not only does the sacrifice bring  blessings and prosperity from Waaqa,   but during the ceremony, elders pass on  stories and instructions to younger people   to instill their beliefs and cultural heritage.

Oromo people as far as the U.S. and Norway   partake in this practice to maintain their  connections to their god and their community.

Now, if you want to know how the three-tiered universe got to be… well, it depends on who you ask.

Like, ask the Bambara people in Mali and they’ll tell you that in the beginning,   there was just one sound: yo.

And from that sound, all living things and forms of matter emerged.

Other creation stories explain something important about the way the human world works.

Like, to the   Basari people in Togo and Ghana, the creator first made a human, a snake, and an antelope.

When the snake convinced the human and antelope to eat some off-limits fruit, the creator simply   made new food for them: antelopes got grass, and humans got yams, sorghum, and millet.

Meanwhile,   the snake got venom, which they applied to further terrorize humans and animals.

God, cross-culturally, we really blame a lot on snakes, don’t we?

Why not spiders?

I dislike   spiders so much more than snakes, but spiders, they get a pass.

I mean, you read Charlotte's Web,   you’d think that spiders are downright lovely, but you… you hang out with a brown recluse!

Anyway, the story explains that humans started eating their new food in small groups around   separate bowls.

And that separation  was the start of different languages.

And similar to these new languages that formed through both connection and difference, African   diasporic religions continue to diversify  and find new communities.

In this way,   the deep roots of African indigenous traditions spread around the world, overlapping and blending   with other traditions and cultures.

Which is kind of an epic origin story on its own.

Africa is made up of over fifty  countries, hundreds of ethnic groups,   and more than a thousand languages.

And when  we talk about African religions, we mean the   beliefs that are central to all of that, plus  their influence on the rest of the world.

And I’d argue that we need to consider the  beliefs and practices of Islam, Christianity,   and African indigenous traditions as not mutually  exclusive, but often overlapping, only then can   we begin to glimpse the unique flexibility  and dazzling intricacy of African religions.

In our next episode, we’re jumping over to another