“IGWEBUIKE”: The Key to Understanding African Traditional Religion

Abstract

Mbiti (1970) understands African ontology as a religious ontology, which is heavily anthropocentric. In this ontology are God, the spirits, animals and plants and objects; however, at the centre is the human person. If this ontology would be understood, he argues that there is the need to penetrate its unity. Mbiti, therefore, avers that the African concept of time is the key to understanding the African religious ontology.