page_title: Traditional African religions
section_title: Spread
hierarchical_section_title: Traditional African religions / Spread
caption_attribution_description: G.T Basden "A medicine man with his stock in trade"
context_page_description: The traditional African religions or traditional beliefs and practices of African people are a set of highly diverse beliefs that includes various ethnic religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural and passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs and festivals, include belief in an amount of higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme creator, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of magic and traditional African medicine. Most religions can be described as animistic with various polytheistic and pantheistic aspects. The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonizing nature with the supernatural. According to the author Lugira, "it is the only religion that can claim to have originated in Africa. Other religions found in Africa have their origins in other parts of the world."
context_section_description: Adherents of traditional religions in Sub-Saharan Africa are distributed among 43 countries and are estimated to number over 100 million. 
  Although the majority of Africans today are adherents of Christianity or Islam, African people often combine the practice of their traditional belief with the practice of Abrahamic religions. The two Abrahamic religions are widespread across Africa, though mostly concentrated in different areas. They have replaced indigenous African religions, but are often adapted to African cultural contexts and belief systems.
  Followers of traditional African religions are also found around the world. In recent times, traditional religions, such as the Yoruba religion, are on the rise. The religion of the Yoruba is finding roots in the United States among African Americans and some others.
caption: An early-20th-century Igbo medicine man in Nigeria, West Africa
exif: {}