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T he P ortland O bserver • J anuary 19, 1994
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African American Spirituality,III
by
P rof . M c K inley B crt
I appreciate your interest in this
series and hope to even further in­
crease your aw areness o f the docu­
mented contribution o f those o f A fri­
can descent to the essential spiritual­
ity o f mankind. As 1 quoted the an­
cients last week, “ In the beginning
was the w ord...” , a phrase that many
in lands beyond Africa incorporated
into their theologies; how fortunate
our forefathers w rote in stone.
I never tire o f reading the gem s in
my extensive religious library 1 m en­
tioned; w hether about the more struc­
tured facets o f theology (doctrines,
canonics, hierology, apologetics and
so forth), or the less dogm atic expres­
sions o f piety and unw orldliness. As
I did several years ago, let me rem ind
you again o f that “w ord” as it cam e
down from A frican A ncestors, even
thousands o f years before clem ent
and dionsius o f A lexandria, A frica -
- or Cyprian o f C arthage, A frica (that
is the coast o f the fertile continent that
was home to so many o f the early
black Popes).
In particular, I w ould reco m ­
m end, for some rather enjoyable and
enlightening reading, the th ree-vol­
ume set by M iriam L ichtheim , “ An-
cientEgyptian Literature”, 1973,U .O f
Cal. Press @ Berkeley (I got m y set
from Barnes & Noble, m ail order, 126
Fifth Ave., N.Y. 10011). T he beauty
about reading in literature w ritten by
A fricans thousands o f years before
the tribes to the north becam e literate
is that one is able to see how and
where other peoples of the world got
their ideas about the nature of things
- creation, cosm ology, the soul, Gods
and angels, grace, redem ption, codes
ofconductetc. It is no wonder that the
Greeks, marveling at the peoples of
these lands (collectively, they named
Ethiopians), called them “the m ost
pious and godly o f the earth” .
Then, too, I would have you find
further enlightenm ent and revelation
in a famed text, “T he Egyptian Book
o f The Dead”, translation by Donald
Budge, Dover Publications Inc., 31
East Second s t , Mineola, N . Y . 11501.
Between these books you will find the
traditional African deities, panthe­
ons, eschatology, doctrinesand creeds
that the less developed people o f J udea
and G reece used in structuring their
own religions . You will find saviors
and M oses’, heavens and hells, judge­
ments and salvation. Yet, today, many
A frican A m ericans celeb rate the
themes and cerem onies, unaware of
their true origin.
Much o f w hat the Jews carried
aw ay in the Exodus (to write their
own versions) is memory o f extremely
high levels o f organized religious
practice in Ethiopia/Egypt thousands
o f years earlier. I especially like to
read in this literature the m yriad ac­
counts of the African deities, nearly
alw ays characterized by the principal
icons they carried - The “rod and the
staff” , Biblical-type images o f statue
and painting. Further eludication in
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respect to Israel’s inheritance from
A frica is to be gained by examing a
copy o f “A dictionary O f The Bible’,
by Fleming (Note, Israel just brought
15,000 Ethiopians from A frica to
Palestine. W hy?)
This illustrated classic, first pub­
lished last century at the close o f the
Civil W ar, reveals in startling detail
how much of Israel, its religion, cus­
toms and traditions was and is A fri­
can. From the religious icons to the
architecture, from the household uten­
sils to the toiletries (even mirrors are
exact replicas of the Egyptian 'ankh ’,
symbol of life), from the “ Ark o f the
C ovenant”, an exact model o f the
Egyptian ships’ designed to accom ­
pany the dead Pharaohs to glory, to
“ Solom on’s Tem ple”, carefully de­
signed in Egyptian m easurem ents
(The Royal Cubit).
A m odem version o f this book
may be ordered through the Looking
G lass Book Store, 318 S . W . Taylor in
Portland (227-4760). I would also
recom m end for further docum enta­
tion and research in respect to the
African precedence in technology,
architecture and cosmology, “Secrets
o f the G reat P yram id” by P eter
Tom pkins. (All books m entioned in
this article can be ordered through
Looking Glass).
It goes without question that it is
only this m illennium s - old spiritual
foundation and tradition that has en­
abled the African psyche to survive,
both on the hom e continent and in the
4
phers).
So while this country and even
nations wonder if the world can sus­
tain further psychological, spiritual
and philosophical damage without
collapse, the African American may
have a definite ray o f hope. After all
he has a “home court advantage”.
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Assurances given much earlier
than the 23’rd Psalm that the Lord is
my shepherd...he restoreih my soul...I
will fear no evil for thou art with me...
thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me”. Thais right, thousands o f years
ago we have the earlier African mode
of pleas and petitions to the deity and
icons and paintings of “good shep­
herds who tended human flocks.
These powerful pleas to heaven
came during century-long period of
“alienation” and despair as just de­
scribed — they were called “ Interme­
diate Periods” , and sustained the
populace until enemies were thrown
out and the cultural infrastructure
restored.
But today, in an allegedly ‘mod­
em ’ world where man seems over­
whelmed by his evil and arrogance,
by the bloody scenes and reports of the
media, the crim e in high and low
places and the world-wide phenom­
enon o f a crushing disillusionment
and uncertainty about life - we find
that the best his favorite religious
philosophers and intellectuals can
offer is the observation that “God Is
Dead!” (Jean Paul Sartre and the
“E xistentialist” religious philoso­
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The ‘church’ has persevered in
the New W orld, the ‘W ord” has been
shouted from a thousand pulpits, and
the praises have been sung — the
spirituals o f black sacred music, the
choirs like the “Fisk Jubilee Singers’ ,
or the acapella praises o í a “ Sweet
Honey In The Rock” . It is indeed
unfortunate that the black race has
not been given credit; its contribution
of the spiritual glue holding the “End
Times” at bay.
And how much louder are the
shrill cries that today’s violence and
amorality must surely be the precur­
sor to the Biblical “ Apocalypse”, the
cosmic catastrophe in which God
destroys evil and raises the righteous
to life in a messianic Kingdom. There
is something familiar, startling and
ironic about this current era of “enor­
mous fragmentation of the human
spirit” as I put t in the first article (1/
4/94). Like the message on the “buzz­
ing w ings over Ethiopia” described in
Isaiah there is a particular memory of
the strong voices that have always
spoken out of Africa to comfort her
alienated children.
W ebster’s dictionary describes
“alienation” as a withdrawal or sepa­
ration of a person or his affections
from the values o f one’s society or
family. And we refer you to a time in
Egypt and Ethiopia a thousand years
before the prophets wrote the “Good
Book” - when the violent and bar­
baric “Sea people” o f Asia had swept
down upon the devout cultures of
Africa, wreaking a pathological de­
struction of the highly developed so­
cial and cultural fabric. As is the case
today we find a “literature of de­
spair”; institutions fail, no one can be
trusted, thieves run amok, the young
people rebel and fight in the streets as
w e are told on papyrus and stelae. The
23 ’ rd Psalm arises. But in the m idst of
all this chaos and desolation came the
“ word” - and all through the authen­
tic African literature recommended
here, you will find sustaining prayer
for times of woe:
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Americas, All, o f course, has not been
a traumatic journey, one step ahead of
extinction. We so well know, now, of
the many times the Africans have led
the world to the wellsprings o f reli­
gion, culture and education; from
Akhenaten and his concept o f “ A
single G od” to the Tem ple Schools
and the m athem atics that the prim i­
tive and avaricious G reeks first ad­
mired, then stole.
But in each time of adversity and
trauma there has com e to the fore that
salvation, that sustaining pow er that
W.E.B D ubois referred to as “The
Soul O f Black Folks” . And like the
Phoenix bird o f the ancient fable, the
black psyche has risen from the ashes,
even literally. During the horrors of
colonialism, the tortuous passage to
the slavelands o f the Am ericas, and
the racism and discrimination inflicted
upon the descendants, that indestruc­
tible “ Soul” has always burst the chains
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