CRITICALAPPRECIATION OF AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION AND AFRICAN LITERATURE

Abstract

African Philosophy remains a discipline in its own right sharing in the tradition of world philosophical heritage. Hence, it is adorned with beauty exhuming from the nature of African differential lifestyles, properly expressed in many of her indigenous religions and autochthonous cultures craftily recited in oratures and recorded as literatures. However, African religion and literature, two of the oldest human practises, dating back to the chequered history of Africa as the cradle and mother of ancient civilization, need a philosophy, an African Philosophy as such. The unique African heritages, appreciated in religion and literature, have given room to many African legacies through proper appreciation of her traditional worship of a divine being and literary works or genre. Nevertheless, the exploration that lead to the consumptive partitioning of Africa Nations in Berlin in 1884 and later turned into exploitation of Continental Africa left her deeply wounded as she lost her indigenous languages and literary genre to the colonial masters as well as her traditional religion to the white-man's supremacy and imperialism, all in the name of colonization which was nonetheless renewed in all forms of neocolonialism and debt strategies. Using the method of critical analysis the researchers find out that even though African literatures and religions were so much demonized yet some of those African literatures as well as African religious artefacts not only dot European history but adorn European literary world and museums in their profound sacrality and awe. However, an attempt at critical look at African philosophy of religion and literature will definitely help in this needed understanding and appreciation.