Christine M. Venter is a teaching professor and an affiliate in the Global Human Rights Clinic at Notre Dame Law School and is an affiliated faculty in the Gender Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame. This post is based on her presentation at the ICLRS 32nd Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 7 October 2025, at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School.
A nation, David Chidester tells us, is “made out of sacred stuff.” Nowhere is that more apparent than when examining the rich religious diversity of South Africa. According to the most recent (2022) South African census figures, approximately 73% of the population identifies as Christian, 14% report affiliation with “unspecified” religions, while affiliates of African Indigenous Religions (AIRs) make up 7% of the population. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Bahá’ís respectively account for 1–2% or less of the population. Although the census has been criticized for its methodology and questionable accuracy, it provides some insight into the myriad religions that comprise the South African population. However, it fails to fully capture the fact that some adherents of AIRs combine indigenous beliefs and practices with those of Christian or other major religions, seeing no incompatibility between the two.
One danger in writing about AIRs is that outsiders may be tempted to think of them as one religion, when in actuality there are multiple AIRs, with specific regional, tribal, linguistic, and even familial differences. It may be difficult for outsiders to fully grasp the nuances of these religions, as they have no sacred texts, rely on oral tradition, and largely eschew dedicated buildings for worship. Adherents of AIRs are essentially born into these religions and assume the practices and rituals associated with them merely by being African and members of a specific tribe, ethnic group, locality, or extended family (kinship group). As a result, it is often difficult to ascertain where cultural practices end and religion begins, hence the blurring of other major faiths and AIRs.
The conflation between cultural practices and religion can be attributed in part to the fact that AIRs are “imagistic” rather than doctrinal. In other words, adherents “learn” the religion by engaging in ritual and cultural practices with family members, or contemplating the cave paintings of the San and Khoi people, not by reading and absorbing the doctrine from texts or lessons. Despite its reliance on oral tradition, an AIR, Awolalu argues, is “‘written’ everywhere for those who care to see and read. It is largely written in the peoples’ myths and folktales, songs and dances, liturgies and shrines, proverbs and pithy sayings.”
Many of those ritual practices associated with AIRs are carried over by individuals, even if they formally adopt another “doctrinal” religion, such as a form of Christianity. For example, ancestral worship, or worship of the living dead, is a widely accepted practice among many Africans. The ancestors, who, in some AIRs, encapsulate family members who have died, no matter their age, “speak the language of men with whom they lived until recently; and they speak the language of the spirits and the God to whom they are drawing nearer ontologically,” according to John S. Mbiti. As such, their influence is vast. They are the guardians of morality for the family and the clans, and they play a disciplinary role, while also working to ensure the well-being of the family. Other AIRs restrict the term ancestors to include only those who had children before their death, while some limit it only to males, or males who were heads of their families. Ancestors may experience emotions like anger and wrath and may punish a family or clan for wrongdoing by imposing drought or other misfortune on the group. It is important for many Africans to continue acknowledging their ancestors as a way of strengthening bonds in the community. Therefore, the bereaved perform rituals associated with the passing of ancestors, such as breaking their cherished items after death to release their spirits, engaging in ritual cleansing, as well as eating specific foods and preparing food for the ancestors.
Additional commonalities and variations exist across regional religions. Although the name of God varies from region to region and among linguistic groups—Nkulunkulu (the Highest One) according to the Nguni people, Qamata (the First One) to the Xhosa people, and Modimo (the Creator) to the Tswana, among others—the concept of God as being the Source or the Alpha/Omega seems widely accepted. God has no gender. God is closely tied to creation, and living in harmony with creation is therefore an important value espoused by many AIRs. Chidester refers to AIRs as “natural” religions because they seek harmony between the natural environment and human beings. He also describes them as “universal,” not only because South Africa is associated with the birthplace of humanity and cradle of humankind but also because these religions see God as the Creator, the source of the universe.
The renewed interest in AIRs comes at an interesting time for South African religions as a whole. After experiencing religion being used by some in the National Party to “justify” apartheid, the post-democratic government took time to formulate its religious policies. While Article 15 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, belief, and opinion, and permits the observance of religious practices at state or state-aided institutions with some limitations, some religious groups believed this protection to be inadequate and have drafted a Charter of Religious Rights and Freedoms that they hope Parliament will adopt. This comes in the wake of the 2003 National Policy on Religion and Education. The then–Minister of Education pointed out that “we do not have a state religion. But our country is not a secular state where there is a very strict separation between religion and the state.” The policy rejected a theocratic state as well as a secular one and encouraged discussion in schools of all South Africa’s diverse religions, including indigenous religions, in a “co-operative model.” Acknowledging the country’s rich indigenous religious heritage, the policy posited religious diversity as one of South Africa’s strengths, noting that in crafting its national coat of arms, “South Africa drew on the rich heritage and almost obsolete language of the Khoisan people to proclaim ‘unity from diversity.’”
The timing of this document coincided closely with then-President Thabo Mbeki’s speech in 2003, “I Am an African,”proclaiming himself descended from the ancestral Khoi and San people, the migrants who left Europe, the Malay slaves brought over on ships, as well as the great African warrior leaders. This was viewed as an endorsement of the African Renaissance, which not only encapsulated a vision of a period of economic, social, and cultural renewal but also posited a unique new African identity, comprised of South Africa’s myriad racial and cultural heritages. Indigenous religions fit smoothly within this framework, particularly if one acknowledges that, unlike most major religions, they do not seek converts or proselytize. One adheres to an AIR because it is so closely aligned with one’s cultural background, traditional heritage, and very identity as an African.
AIRs, like many other religions, have undergone periods of upheaval and scandals, as well as positive developments, including attaining recognition for traditional healing practices, closely associated with AIRs. For example, traditional healers were afforded official recognition by the government in 2008 with the enactment of the Traditional Health Practitioners’ Act; many practitioners have done much to assist women in childbirth. However, unsafe practices,particularly related to the treatment of HIV and AIDS, and violence perpetrated by some practitioners resulted in new regulations being issued in 2025, in an attempt to ensure that traditional health practices were standardized and subjected to safety measures and registration. Additionally, the belief of some sangomas (witchdoctors) that human body parts create powerful medicines (muti) has led to the deaths or disappearances of hundreds of people, particularly women, children, and people with albinism. Moreover, accusations of witchcraft, which may be leveled against women when unfortunate events or deaths occur in the community, still take place with relative frequency, often resulting in the women being killed for their alleged sorcery.
Like AIRs, Africa too is in a period of upheaval, poised between the old and the new. Just as South Africa seeks to heal the past and forge a new society, AIRs are rooted to the ancestors and committed to traditions but are also desirous of “negotiating a human identity, which is poised between the more than human and the less than human in the struggles to work out the terms and conditions for living in a human place oriented in sacred space and time.”[1]
Reference:
[1] David Chidester (2012). Wild Religion: Tracking The Sacred In South Africa (University of California Press), ix.