ABSTRACT
Indigenous religions may be the best option among all the alternative terms since it seems to be free of any value judgement. Leading scholars in the field have reflected carefully on the definition of this concept, taking as the essential features of indigenous religions that they are kinship-based and tied to a location. A conflict of norms, kinship obligations clashing with some kind of higher' obligations, has been discussed already in ancient Greek tragedy and philosophy. One may think of Sophocles' Antigone', the tragic end of the drama resulting from Antigone's refusal to obey a law that gives priority to political obligations over traditional religious obligations based on kinship relations. The autobiography of Uriel da Costa, written in the seventeenth century, provides an example of an open critique of the universal claims of world religions like Judaism and Christianity. The theology of Josiah Shembe, as found in the hymns he had composed himself, has been critically designated as syncretistic.
