Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum

'Jesus Hasn't Saved Us': The Young Black Women Returning to Ancestral Religions

by Yomi Adegoke

Sep 13 2016

Michelle Yaa does not feel she converted to Comfa, the Afro-American religion practiced in Guyana. "I call it an awakening." she says. "It's just waking up."

Yaa, like increasing numbers of the African diaspora, decided to stop practicing Christianity in favor of a religion of African heritage. Raised a Seventh Day Adventist, she spent her childhood questioning Christian doctrine. When she didn't receive the answers she sought from church, she stopped attending.

It wasn't until the end of university that Yaa reconnected with any form of religion. One day, she says, she began hearing voices. Rather than call her doctor, she called on her ancestors, writing down the names of those she could remember and surrounding herself with the slips of paper. She claims that this took place before she knew what the practice of ancestral worship was.

"I just did it automatically. And I cannot explain to you why I knew what was happening to me was not a negative thing," she recalls. "When I went back to finish my studies, I [wrote about] spirituality for my dissertation because I wanted to understand what happened to me. I didn't believe I was mad—so what was it?"

She began communicating with her ancestors frequently through rituals; her research eventually led her to Comfa, a religion where contact with ancestors is commonplace. "Everything started falling into place. I was trusting myself all the time and I wasn't doubting for once."

Verona Spence-Adofo, a 30-something year old filmmaker from London, describes a similar sense of clarity after her decision to engage with indigenous spiritual practices. "It was like somebody had taken a veil off my eyes," she recalls.

The past few years have seen the black community express similar sentiments of "awakening"—or "wokeness," if you prefer. From university education to beauty standards, there have been widespread calls to decolonize our ideas and institutions, and shake off old colonial beliefs and strictures. Traditional African religions appear to be the final and most controversial frontier.

Emboldened by her new found faith, Spence-Adofo decided to shoot Ancestral Voices, a documentary debunking the myths surrounding African spirituality. But people didn't receive her project with the same enthusiastic response that meets most attempts to demystify elements of black history.

"I received a lot of hostility from both friends and family members," Spence-Adofo laments. "To this day I have people who kind of distanced themselves from me—they're scared I might try and put some sort of hex on them."

Full article: https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/jesus-hasnt-saved-us-young-black-women-returning-ancestral-religions