African
singing is also marked by the frequent use of a leader and a chorus
response technique. African dance, like its music, builds on highly
complex rhythmic patterns. It too is closely related to all parts of
the African's daily life. There are dances for social and for ritual
occasions. The most common use of the dance was as an integral part
of African religious rites.
African religion has usually been defined as fetish worship-the
belief that specific inanimate objects are inhabited by spirits
endowed with magical powers. While this view of African religion
is partly true, it obscures more than it clarifies. The fetish is
believed to have some powers of its own, but, in general, it derived
them from its close association with a dead ancestor. Behind the
fetish was the religion of ancestor worship, and the fetish is better
understood as a religious symbol. Ancestor worship was also part of
the African's strong family ties and his powerful kinship patterns.
Behind the realm of this fetish and ancestor worship lay another
world of distant and powerful deities who had control over the
elemental natural forces of the universe.
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