Récits fondateurs et construction de discours religieux : la question du temps des commencements en Afrique subsaharienne

• Main Author: Érick Cakpo
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Centre interdisciplinaire d’Études du Religieux (CIER) 2019-05-01
• Series: Cahiers d'Études du Religieux- Recherches Interdisciplinaires
• Subjects: african myths; religions; sub-Saharan Africa; cosmogony; ethnogonie; the founding narratives
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/cerri/2692

Compared to Ancient Near East’ founding narratives, the myths of the African traditional societies are not very well known, but they are very useful to understand the deep structures of the African way of thinking, but also the relations between the Africans and the world, the divine and the sacred. This mainly religious "world view" is delivered to us by founding narratives which, by their capacity to recall the origins of things, are the main source of religious knowledge within the continent black. Through the question of beginnings, this contribution suggests to study the way founding myths structure the faiths and the religious rites in sub-Saharan Africa. It aspires to show that the myth is a present reality, experienced through the religious life in this part of the continent.