In African Traditional Religion, there is the belief in the Supernatural Being (God Almighty). This belief is also accompanied with other belief systems which form the structure of African Traditional Religion. These other beliefs include: belief in; divinities, spirits, ancestors, and magic and medicine. It is under the belief in divinities that ‘Ala’ deity belongs. ‘Ala’ commonly means ‘land’ in Igbo language, otherwise, popularly known as the earth goddess. The problem that bothers this research is that African traditional religion has been viewed by many people as polytheism, where many gods are worshipped without considering differing ecological variations in the belief to various spiritual beings by people of divergent geographical settings. ‘Ala’ deity for instance, and particularly, is recognized by the Igbo of South East Nigeria only, and is only worshipped in Igbo land, by Igbo people. More so, all these other deities, divinities, spirits, ancestors, etceteraetera serve as intermediaries to Supreme God whom they call Chukwuokike. The article aims at addressing the problem associated with generalizing African peoples’ spiritual ecology, without paying reasonable attention to independent environmental attachment to particular spiritual being with special interest on ‘Ala’ / ‘Ani’ deity which is specifically recognized by Igbo people, installed and worshipped by Igbo people in Igbo ecological settings. It has been discovered that other Africans could be aware of ‘Ala’ deity, but could only be installed and worshipped in Igbo land. It recommends among other things that the Igbo should be proud anywhere to express the relevance of ‘Ala’ deity. The research adopts historical method. Data were gotten from primary and secondary sources. Data are analyzed with phenomenological and descriptive styles of data analysis.
Written By
Emmanuel Ikenna Okafor
Department of Christian Religious Studies
Peaceland College of Education, Enugu,
Enugu State, Nigeria.
08062384595
agbudugbu@gmail.com
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