Offering

Two acts of piety and devotion represent the core expression of fidelity and loyalty to traditional African religion: offering and sacrifice. Offering is the purest act of gratitude to the ancestors and deities. It is usually motivated out of desire to demonstrate humility and respect to the ancestors for the maintenance and well-being of community. One may see daily offerings of food or drink in the form of a libation given to express the understanding that the ancestors are also present and must be acknowledged. However, the ancestors or the deities require sacrifice as a response to some act, misdeed, or violation of taboo within the society by one or more of the members of the traditional religious community. Thus, sacrifice is motivated by the community's interest in reestablishing the cosmic balance in the universe. Violations and transgressions alter the relationship between humans and deities and between the living and the ancestors. To rearrange the structural, spiritual order, the deity requires of humans sacrifice. In most cases in Africa, the idea of sacrifice is accompanied by blood, which means that an animal has to be killed for propitiation.

Offerings are among the most prominent acts of worship shown on the walls of the ancient African temples in Egypt. As early as the Old Kingdom, there are examples of Africans bringing gifts to Ptah and Atum. Throughout the history of ancient Kernet, one sees evidence of the offerings made to Ra and Amen as well. Sometimes offerings are received by the per-aa (pharaoh) in his position as a deity, as in the representations of Ramses II as god.

Sacrifice is usually related to the letting of blood. In such instances, animals are killed, prepared in a special way, and offered as a sacrifice to God or the ancestors. Always in sacrifice the idea is to give life, even to the point that some have been willing to give their own lives to the deity to safeguard the rest of the community. Such selflessness is regarded as one of the supreme forms of sacrifice. It has been demonstrated and celebrated throughout African traditional culture. For example, during the 18th century, among the Asante, the king of Mampong offered himself in sacrifice to go with the Asantehene in death to seal the covenant between the living Asante community. There have been other examples, formidable in nature, because of the unadulterated belief on the part of the sacrificing persons that they were, in effect, by giving their lives saving the entire community from calamity.

The Yoruba Odu Ifa says that when there is imbalance in the spiritual universe, God requires only one thing: sacrifice. Therefore, prayers, colloquial solicitations, praise songs, invocations, and incantations may be correct and useful, but in the end, to make the cosmic and communal order correct and in harmony, it is necessary for sacrifice. Sacrifices of lambs, goats, chickens, and other domesticated animals are the type that are usually [Page 478]accepted as influential in the cosmic order. On special occasions among some African groups, the sacrifice of a cow or bull represents the greatest possible offering to the ancestors and God.

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