ABSTRACT
The essential model of life in traditional African society was based on rites of passage and their accompanying rituals. An examination of the philosophy of religion and spirituality that determined and infused African life can add to a deeper understanding of the traumatic rupture caused by slavery. Rites of passage are not insignificant. The relationship between these rites and their survival or loss to the African diaspora is important in defining group cultural identity as well as individual psychological and spiritual development. Within the Beng culture, children enter the world as spiritual beings. A. Gottlieb writes that part of the birth ritual among the Beng was hastening to get the umbilical cord to fall off of the newly born infant so as to create the power of strength for leaving the wrugbe or else the child might die soon after birth.
