The African Experience: A Curse or Blessing :: Research Papers

The African bear A Curse or Blessing The native African places an commodious amount ofimportance and respect on temper. Its effects determine plastered predicaments that control and direct African lives,and how outsiders, especially Westerners, perceive them.Never in advance has a group of people followed so religiouslyand faithfully a baffling phenomenon such as nature. Natureworship has deep grow in the African tradition and is now afull and vital branch of the African heritage. Naturedefines Africa to the world as the Cradle of Mankind. To theAfrican, Nature also spells as a mediator between the gods inthe bena and humans on earth. This relationship, I feel, hasbeen greatly misinterpreted by the vacuous and ethnocentriccivilized world it has been tagged as black magic, voodoo,and other measly figments of unfortunately parochialimaginations. What an insult Oh may the gods forgive them,for they know non what they do.In the beginning was the water, and the waterwas with g od, and the water was god. This quote clearlydefines how the native elements such as land (earth), sun,moon, lightning, and, in this case, water are considered notjust as the vital necessities that help sustain life only when as thegods of life. They are built honorary shrines as an act of tasting and appeasement. In Egypt, in northeast Africa,a great temple was built for Isis, the water god. This templewas built so flamboyantly as an assay to try and reflectarchitecturally how important the Nile is to the people ofEgypt. Without the Nile, Egypt would have been a barren,desolate place, incapable of supporting life just an eastern supplement of the Sahara Desert. Therefore, the great river isconsidered a miracle, a miracle from the gods, given in order that man may continue to exist and not be annihilated. Hencethe genius of the Temple of Isis.African peoples had a lot of mysteries in theircontinent which they try to explain. And once again,they turned to their superiors in the supernatural world, thegods. For example, if lightning should strike, that would bean ominous sight, implying that the gods are angry withthe people an extraordinary harvest or rain subsequently a long,intolerably dry season would be considered as an act offavor towards man by the gods. All this was the Africansway of trying to witness the unexpected and to explainthe inexplicable, functioning much as science does incontemporary Western society. Why, then, does this entiresystem connote barbarism or a rustic, undeveloped mentalitywhen used in its original context, or when approached by the