Using the Akan in Ghana as a paradigmatic African representative group, African Spirituality: On Becoming Ancestors, Third Edition offers a unique African developmental praxis to eternal life immortality. Indeed, this way of life is predicated on the awareness and application of certain intrinsic values, which, if followed, lead to eternal life. As a way of living, African spirituality begins when an individual becomes morally and ethically responsible for one's own actions while engaged on an ethical path (Obra Bc) in pursuance of one's unique career endeavor (Nkrabea). Though an individual quest, society is, however, the arbiter of one's ethical and moral life, when society confers on the person adjudged a success the stage title of Nana. At old age, Obra Bc ends as an active endeavor. However, as repositories of wisdom, senior elders continue to inculcate in succeeding generations the principles, art, and mastery of ideal life (Obra pa). Then upon death, senior elders are transformed into deities, bequeathing to living descendants names worthy of evocation and worship. Indeed, this book is the first study of its kind to draw on the experiences of an entire people, their psychological dispositions and effects on the Akan during adulthood. Thus, this book brings a unique perspective to the study of spirituality, religion, developmental psychological theory, what it means to achieve perfection as an elder on earth, and upon death join the esteemed company of the Nananom Nsamanfo (Ancestors).
Anthony Ephirim-Donkor is professor and former chair of the department of Africana Studies at Binghamton University and State University of New York.
Preface Guide to Third Edition Pronunciation Notes on Third Edition Part I: Personality Formation Chapter 1: The First People Chapter 2: Theoretical Perspectives Chapter 3: Abosom in Flesh Chapter 4: Okra Part II: Stages of African Spirituality Chapter 5: Twim Chapter 6: Osaman Chapter 7: Ntsitsi Chapter 8: Obra B Chapter 9: Nananom Mpanyinfo Chapter 10: Owu Chapter 11: Nananom Nsamanfo Glossary Bibliography Index About the Author
As a traditional African ruler and Western educated scholar, Dr. Ephirim-Donkor draws on his personal experience growing up in Africa, key informant interviews, his research, and scholarship to weave together a tapestry of personality development as practiced and understood in West Africa. His weaving of personal stories with philosophical and theological understanding plus scholarly references creates a complex cosmology with ancient roots and modern interpretations. Often, he examines the roots of key Akan words to offer a deeper understanding of their true and more spiritual meaning. Although he makes comparisons to Western concepts of human personality development, he expands them to include the non- corporeal phases of development-before conception and after death-and interweaves those phases with a person's physical existence. He lays to bed any notions of "primitive" about African notions of spiritual development and theological understandings, pointing out ways that missionaries have denounced and sought to deny Africans their traditional beliefs and ways of life in order to impose Western values. In his role as a traditional African ruler, he is privy to rituals and rites reserved for royalty, which give him greater insights into the full import of theological concepts and implications for living. He also expresses the imperative to document traditional practices and their meanings and purposes before they are lost completely to a "modernizing" influence in Africa. This book provides such documentation and should be a valuable resource for those wanting a better understanding of traditional west African spiritual practices, of the origins of many African American practices, and of the relationship between the physical and spiritual worlds as embodied in the human experience. This entirely revised third edition presents new insights and addresses some criticisms of earlier editions, as well as introduces a new chapter that extends the discussion of human development to an additional phase. -- Susan F. Goekler, RMCHES, Emeritus CEO, American School Health Association As a scholar, Anthony Ephirim-Donkor's metier is African religious life. The critically- acclaimed African Spirituality: On Becoming Ancestors, now in its third edition, is among his best-known and well-thumped books, for very good reasons. For an accessible window onto the rigor and depth of Ephirim-Donkor's scholarship, its deep learning and immersion in the subject matter, its observer-participant panache and engaging ethnography, one needn't look any further than African Spirituality. Grounded in empirical data from the Akan peoples of Ghana, the book offers a spirited meditation on African indigenous religious life, at the core of which are two interrelated quests: to attain eldership in this world, including through veneration of the ancestors, and to attain ancestorhood in the world to come. It remains the case that discourses on African life, not least African spiritual life, often must include a vindicationist affirmation-that is, a defense of African belief systems and ways of doing and thinking, the integrity and rationality of which continue to be questioned by non- African observers, and even by African ones. In this regard, African Spirituality doubles as an exercise in African vindication. For mastery of the topic and moral commitment to the cause, to say nothing of his insider knowledge as a traditional ruler, there are few scholars, in or out of Africa, capable of matching Ephirim-Donkor's authority and credibility on the question of Akan spiritual and cultural life. By dint of its deep interdisciplinarity-its seamless crossing of the boundaries that separate the social sciences from the humanities, religion from philosophy, the sacred from the secular-the book also lends itself to comparative cosmological and cultural studies, which is yet another example of its vindicationism. Seasoned scholars of African spirituality no less than those new to the subject, such as undergraduate students, have much to learn from Ephirim-Donkor's book. African Spirituality is a work that has already endured many seasons. It has many more still to go. -- Michael O. West, Penn State University
