Introduction

Summary

When I originally decided on the title of this book, it seemed to me to have two virtues: first, accurate indication of the book's contents; and second, absence of the flashy gimmickry so prevalent amongst modem social-anthropological book titles. Now, looking through the eyes of a sceptical would-be reader, I feel less easy with it. It has overtones of a somewhat nutty attempt to make sense of everything under the sun. So perhaps the best way to introduce the book is with an apologia for its title.

As regards the ‘Africa’ part of the title, little needs to be said. The train of thought pursued in these essays was triggered, in the first instance, by two periods of ethnographic fieldwork in Africa: an early and relatively short period in Nike in northern Igboland; and a later and much longer (indeed still continuing) period in Kalabari in the eastern Niger Delta. In both areas, I was drawn, for a variety of reasons, to the religious aspect of the life of the peoples I encountered. Reflection on my fieldwork findings led me in two directions. First, to comparative reading in the religious ethnography of sub-saharan Mrica, guided by the aim of establishing the representativeness or otherwise of my fieldwork materials. Second, to the search for a theoretical framework which would be adequate to the interpretation of the religious life of the peoples of my fieldwork areas and of other parts of the continent.