ABSTRACT
The category ‘non-religion’ is frequently associated with debates over the secularisation process in the West and it has been linked to controversies surrounding the ‘new atheism’ and cognitive approaches within the sciences of religion. Ofien overlooked in this field of study are Indigenous populations. This is partly because it is commonly assumed that traditional, small-scale societies make no distinction between religion and non-religion in the sense that every activity of life possesses some spiritual significance. It is also pointed out that Indigenous populations almost never have a word in their vocabulary which equates to the Western idea of religion. For example, the African theologian and scholar of African religions, John S. Mbiti (1969: ch. 1), famously claimed that ‘Africans are notoriously religious’. Or, the Methodist leader and scholar of Yoruba religion, E.B. Idowu (1962: 5), in his important study, Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief, wrote: ‘The real keynote of the life of the Yoruba … is their religion. In all things, they are religious. Religion forms the foundation and the all-governing principle of life for them.’ E.G. Parrinder, who originally studied West African religion and became a leading scholar in the comparative study of religions during the latter part of the twentieth century, in his important and widely read book, African Traditional Religion, noted that in Africa ‘religion is not just the province of one particular class, though there are specialists in ritual. Nor is it only for those who feel piously inclined, though there are differences of temperament. But religion enters into the life of every individual’ (Parrinder 1974: 27). Such claims are not limited to scholars of African religions. In his book, An Introduction to Maori Religion, James Irwin (1984: 5–6) observed: ‘Maori people do not see the sacred and secular as separated but as parts of the whole. Theirs is a holistic view of life’. And in her Introduction to Primal Religions, Philippa Baylis (1988: 3) argued that everything in primal societies, including work, family relationships, eating and sexual activity are all ‘religious’.
