ABSTRACT
The religious beliefs and practices of the Nupe differ considerably in different parts of the country. The people who call themselves Nupe are internally divided in various ways—by ethnic descent, by tribal segmentation and, partly, political allegiance, by the cleavage between urban and peasant population, and by the barriers of social class. The varieties of belief and practice found in Nupe are at least roughly akin, both in their content and in what might be called their style; though they exhibit no conspicuous uniformity or even consistency, they yet hang together in relevant respects and also reflect an identical psychological tenor. This chapter outlines the basic categories in which the Nupe frame their transcendental knowledge and thus expresses the crucial distinction between things religious and profane. These basic categories will embody already an essential part of the dogma or doctrine of the religion.
