ABSTRACT
The social anthropologist is sometimes depicted as a kind of archaeologist, digging through the topsoil of modern, westernized behaviour down to the authentic level of unadulterated tradition. Such a picture is most frequently drawn in connection with the study of religion, and there is a popular idea that religious beliefs and practices have overlaid and obscured one another like archaeological strata. On the surface lie the imported or established religions—the various forms of Christianity and Islam, for example—while at the bottom lies all that remains of the once flourishing traditional religions. Somewhere in between lie the middle strata of the African Independent Churches, offering a mixture of elements from both upper and lower levels. It is assumed that the anthropologist must ignore the topsoil, and must interest himself only in what is original, authentic or traditional.
