Waja

Obarè B. Bagodo, PhD.
Maître de Conférences (Reader/Associate Professor)
Université d’Abomey-Calavi, République du Bénin–Email :
[email protected]

The present review is the third emanated version from two precedent texts more or
less differentiated by the titles and contents. The first text was accepted for the 5th
Congress of the Association of African Historians to be held in Ouagadougou in
November 2011 initially, and postponed sine die finally. The second was presented
at the 13th Conference of the West African Archaeological Association held in
Abidjan in February 2013. However the three texts refer to the same cartographic
problems in both the UNESCO’s and Cambridge’s series.
General History of Africa is the UNESCO’s series. The first eight volumes
are published between 1980 and 1999. The publication of a ninth volume into three
tomes from 2015 onwards is not concerned with the present study. The contents of
the precedent eight volumes are allocated among twenty-eight and thirty chapters,
with editors submitted to the intellectual authority of thirty nine members of an
International Scientific Committee.
The Cambridge History of Africa is the second series, with also eight
volumes. The contents are allocated among nine and thirteen expanded chapters
(e.g. volumes I, II, III, IV and V referred to in the review). The series publication
started earlier in 1975 with volume IV, followed by volumes V (1976), III (1977), II
(1978), and I (1982), under the intellectual authority of volumes’ editors in close
collaboration with two general editors only.
Both in history and archaeology, as well as in geography and geology, the
map consists of not a simple illustrative decoration, but first and foremost of a
visual, active, and powerful enlightenment (Wood and Fels 1992; George et al.
1974). In this regard, the cartographic illustrating of the two series referred to above
shows lax and faulty technical, locational and graphic lacunas. Such problems
persisted up to nowadays because of an accommodating and conniving silence
Abstract
observed by scholars and advertised users. A critical review is then required as a
matter of scientific commitment and professional awareness, for due statement and
expectation of corrections.
For such a review, the methodological approach has selected the Gulf of
Guinea region, in focusing the illustrative review on volumes III, IV, V and VI of
UNESCO’s series, and comparatively on volumes I, II, III, IV and V of Cambridge
University’s series. Critically comparative and mainly centered regionally, the
review reveals more lacunas in the UNESCO’s series. Amongst others, publications
such as Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa (Vogel et al. 1997), with thirty one
maps, and History of West Africa Vol. I. (Ajayi, Crowder et al. 1976), with twentynine
maps, are put aside for a future complementary review.
Taking into consideration the consistence of the problems in the UNESCO’s
series and the mandate of this UN organization to ensure qualified research and
education, the emphasis concludes, accordingly with a precedent call for required
corrections and subsequent revised editions of the height precedent volumes
(Bagodo, 2009a: 10-13), as well as on the benefit for the drafting/editing illustration
of the three tomes of volume IX started since 2015 onwards.

Paul-Kolade Tubi, Ph.D*
Federal University, Lokoja, Kogi State,

Abstract
“Colonial and indeed all European anthropologists working in Africa and Asia
interpreted and still interpret behaviour in relation to their own interests and
experiences; their ideas are not truths self-evident in the cultures they studied”
(Bassey W. Andah, 1988:10). It is incumbent on African anthropologists,
archaeologists, historians and social scientists to become seriously preoccupied
with deconstructing African cultural studies. This task was eminently championed
by scholars like Cheik Anta Diop, Walter Rodney, Bassey W. Andah and Chinweizu
amongst others. Professor Andah is said to be the first African doctoral
anthropologist with specialization in Archaeology. He taught at universities in
Ghana and Nigeria. He became a professor in 1978. He was the founding president
of the Archaeological Association of Nigeria and secretary of the Pan-African
Association of Pre-History and Related studies. He was the first African editor of
the West African Journal of Archaeology (WAJA).The writer assesses what he
considers the major contributions of Andah to African Anthropology.

Alex Ikechukwu Okpoko
Department of Archaeology and Tourism,
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
and
Augustine Onyekwelu Onu
Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Introduction
As noted by Okwueze (2003), religion can be understood as a regulated pattern of
life of a people in which experiences, beliefs and knowledge are reflected in man’s
conception of himself in relation to others, his social world, the physical as well as
the metaphysical world. In sociology, there are broadly two approaches to the
definition of religion. The first, following Durkheim (1912) defines religion in
terms of its social function. According to Durkheim, religion is a system of beliefs
and rituals with reference to the sacred which binds people together into social
groups. In this sense, some sociologists have extended the notion of religion to
include nationalism. The second approach in line with Weber’s view, religion is
defined as any set of coherent answers to human existential dilemmas: birth,
sileness or death-which make the words meaningful. In this sense religion is the
human response to those things which concern us ultimately.
The implication of this definition is that all human beings are religious,
since we are all faced by the existential problems of disease, aging and death.
Drawing from Okwuese (2003), a major concern which has emerged in the study of
religion is the examination of its relationships with economic, political, cultural and
social institutions as well as its diverse functions and dysfunctions in the life of
society. The universality of religion manifest itself in the ease with which we see in
virtually all societies, certain sacred ritual and belief which obtain in circumstances
with unpredictable outcome and in which people more often than not appear
subjected to forces beyond their own control (Okuweze, (2003). These events bring
with them uncertainties and anxieties concerning so many questions about life,
death, success or failure in human endeavour. The answers, which come to allay
these anxieties, are often couched in supernatural and transcended values that make
religion the only source, which can provide the succor that can help man cope with
the frustrations, anxieties and vicissitudes that characterize human life (Oyo,
1988:127, cited from Okwueze, 2003:5).
From the above it becomes apparent that Africans are intensely religious. The basic
tenets of their indigenous religions hold a belief in a supreme deity. The supreme
being is a divine creator, a being who is the essence and the total of goodness and
benevolence. He is the light and life, the creator of law, order and all that is good in
the world. He is the universal cosmic energy, the unity behind all things.
Below the Ultimate Reality are the minor gods. These are personifications
of natural phenomena. They constitute a power external to man and society and
beyond man’s understanding or control. The family consists not only of living
individuals but also of the ancestors and those who are not yet born. The forbears are
thought to have great power over the conduct of the living. This they exercise from
the sacred realm, the other world which seems to mirror the organization of the
material world very closely. These unseen personalities (God, gods and ancestors)
receive attention from man in terms of sacrifice and offering.
Today, as a result of Christian missionary enterprise in western education
and modern medicine, many Africans are Christians. Many have become Moslems
or adherents to some other historical religions. Besides, the pressure of overpopulation
and the growth of urban centres are forcing many Africans to migrate
seasonally in search of new ways of making a living, and those who do not settle,
return with alien beliefs and customs. All this notwithstanding, the traditional
religious beliefs and practices still play an important part in their lives and are
powerful unifying force as was the case in the days of those. And the future appears
bright for the indigenous religious beliefs and practices for it will be some time
before the effects of the absorption of alien customs in many African societies can
be fully appreciated.