African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African folklore 424
calamities. The libations are therefore intended to prevent illness or misfortune, protect
human beings, and facilitate curing.
Background
Libation is a component of traditional African magico-religious belief systems.
Variations in these systems reflect ecological differences, which in turn affect peoples’
experience of the world, their ritualistic activities, and the material aspects related to
various cultural institutions. In sub-Saharan Africa, uniformity abounds in indigenous
belief systems and thought. Inasmuch as societies in sub-Saharan Africa share similar
worldviews, this essay provides an analysis of libation in aspects that can be generalized
to most of the African peoples living in this region.
Traditional belief systems and practices in Africa are centered on predominant modes
of production and the environment. Many ethnic groups are traditionally sedentary
farmers, tending food crops and rearing animals. Some societies are composed of
farmers, pastoralists, and hunter-gatherers.
Different physical and socioeconomic contexts have resulted in some evaluations in
religious orientation, philosophy of life, interpretation of experience and the approaches
to the spiritual and supernatural worlds. Libation is, therefore, an aspect in the expression
of the complex African worldview, made up of such elements as spirituality, values about
the family community, ancestral beliefs, and prayer. The African understanding of
contact between the visible and the invisible worlds is embedded in magico-religious
rituals, in which libation plays a key role.
Libation in African Spirituality
African religious beliefs reflect a deep concern with spiritual matters. A key belief is that
human beings can communicate with the spirits, and that those spirits can bring good or
ill fortune to humans. Since most spirits were once human beings, people attribute human
characteristics, such as anger, hunger, and craving for attention to them. People strive to
appease malevolent spirits with offerings of food, milk, beer, blood, and other forms of
drinks. Libation is, therefore, an integral component of spirit veneration, appeasement,
and general African worship. In popular cultural practices, food and drink create mystical
links between fellow human beings and between human beings and spiritual realities. In
this regard, libation and food offering is a means of sustaining relationships between
people and the spiritual world (Mbiti 1975).
African spirituality is drawn from the popular worldview in which the human and the
spirit worlds are interconnected (Dickson 1984). The indigenous Africans perceive the
world of natural phenomena as part of spiritual reality. Spirits, both good and evil,
populate the universe. Interaction among these spirits may have either positive or
negative consequences for human life. Due to this understanding, people live with one
another in relationships of reciprocal responsibility, which they transfer to their relation
with the other elements in the universe, such as the spirits. Some of the spirits—
especially ancestral ones—may help the living communicate with God and guard the link