212.241.98.39

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Again, welcome! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:41, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Hello, thank you for your information, I will read the research again. 212.241.98.39 (talk) 13:49, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

I have now read it over and over, the term "first wave out of africa" is not mentioned in the research at all. I will create a talk page section on Dravidian people. 212.241.98.39 (talk) 16:36, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Editor's Barnstar
	For citing policies in your edit summary and removing original research. Are you sure you don't want to create an account? :) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:54, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

June 2019

Hello, I'm Path slopu. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —specifically this edit to Reincarnation— because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the Help desk. Thanks. PATH SLOPU 14:04, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

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Copying within Wikipedia requires attribution

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you copied or moved text from Ṛta into Historical Vedic religion. While you are welcome to re-use Wikipedia's content, here or elsewhere, Wikipedia's licensing does require that you provide attribution to the original contributor(s). When copying within Wikipedia, this is supplied at minimum in an edit summary at the page into which you've copied content, disclosing the copying and linking to the copied page, e.g., copied content from [[page name]]; see that page's history for attribution. It is good practice, especially if copying is extensive, to also place a properly formatted {{copied}} template on the talk pages of the source and destination. The attribution has been provided for this situation, but if you have copied material between pages before, even if it was a long time ago, please provide attribution for that duplication. You can read more about the procedure and the reasons at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Thank you. If you are the sole author of the prose that was copied, attribution is not required. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 21:13, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I will keep that in mind.212.241.98.39 (talk) 22:06, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

June 2019

Welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate your contributions, but in one of your recent edits, it appears that you have added original research, which is against Wikipedia's policies. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. Thank you. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 16:16, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

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Re monotheism in sub-Saharan Africa.

@212.241.98.39:, Regarding your addition of the Hexham source which states that monotheistic concepts are not native to subsaharan Africa, it seems to me that it, as I mentioned in an edit note, is too broad a statement to be included in a review of traditional African religion (which is extremely ancient an diverse), when it is contradicted by the opinions of other scholars who specialize in Africa (Hexham does not seem to be a specialist in African history, culture or religion, but rather a professor of religious studies generally). And although he, as you mention, is speaking broadly off Africa, the study does not seem to be an in depth study of subsaharan religion n general (which is, as mentioned, extremely ancient and diverse) The issue of weight (WP:WEIGHT) seems to apply here; the article should reflect general scholarly opinion, and his statement/opinion seems a little sweeping, broad, and absolute as to be misleading (as it pertains to general scholarly opinion on the subject). Skllagyook (talk) 11:47, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree, in this case (in the article Sub-Saharan Africa), WP:WEIGHT is clear. I will try to find more references and if I find reliable sources I will include them or mentioned them at the talk page before. It is a complex and interesting topic. Greetings.212.241.98.39 (talk) 12:01, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I will thus also remove the new paragraph added to Traditional African religion based on Hexham's opinion (per WP:WEIGHT and WP:UNDUE). I will try to find more references as well. Thanks again, Skllagyook (talk) 12:07, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I think Hexham’s view should be mentioned in this article, as it is still informative and does not violate WP:WEIGHT in its form. Both views should be presented, as both are likely correct if we look at the age and diversity of the Niger-Congo cultures and religions. Thanks.212.241.98.39 (talk) 12:11, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

In what way should Hexham's views be included? They seem to conflict with other view (it would be hard for them both to be correct), since they state in an absolute sense that monotheistic concepts were originally absent from sub-Saharan Africa (when other sources suggest that they were a part, along with the worship of lesser deities, spirits, and ancestors, etc., of early Niger-Congo religions) — monotheistic concepts may have originally been absent from some sub-Saharan African religions/cultures before Abrahamic influences (they likely were in some cases), but it does not seem that they were absent from all of them. Skllagyook (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

It is not only Hexham, I included other authors also discussing this topic. They also suggest that polytheism was present before monotheism. I will try to find more about that, but both viesw should be mentioned per WP:Neutrality. Also this article is about all native religions, not only Niger-Congo religions. Thank you.212.241.98.39 (talk) 12:22, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

The sources that support the view that monotheistic concepts are new in sub-Saharan Africa seem to be by theologians (rather than anthropologists, historians or ethno-linguists) and (except Hexham) to be fairly old (1950s-60s) — many views regarding sub-Saharan African history and culture (and comparative religion) have become obsolete since then. It still seems undue to include them alongside more recent sources such as Ehret (who specializes in the analysis of African cultures and their ancient histories). Also, Busia does not say that monotheistic elements in African religions are due to Abrahamic influence, but seems to posit a theory of how polytheistic religions evolve into monotheistic ones, based heavily in inferences from their view of biblical/Near Eastern and Egyptian history (which also seems possibly outdated). Skllagyook (talk) 12:36, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I do not think so, it is quite common to suggest that monotheism evolved from polytheism. It is an important element. Also this article is about all African religions not only Niger-Congo ones. Thus it must be mentioned here. I will try to find other recent studies too.212.241.98.39 (talk) 12:40, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

The fact that it is about all African religions is part of the problem (this is a broad and sweeping claim about an ancient and diverse continent — Niger-Congo cultures alone are very ancient and diverse in themselves, not to mention the extreme and deep diversity of other cultures in sub-Saharan Africa). The fact that there is evidence that monotheistic concepts existed in Niger-Congo religions conflicts with the absolute and sweeping claim (by some theologians) that no native sub-Saharan religions had monotheistic concepts prior to Abrahamic influence. Whether or not monotheism evolved from polytheism is not really relevant; it may have, and that could have happened in some African cultures, but Busia does not seem to state that monotheistic concepts were exclusively (in all cases in Africa) brought by Abrahamic influence. Skllagyook (talk) 12:44, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Right, I will reword it to be more neutral and accurate. Thank you!212.241.98.39 (talk) 12:45, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

It still seems misleading to include that section, since it is not known whether monotheistic elements were present from a very early stage or evolved later from polytheism. And the more recent research of Christoper Ehret suggests that both monotheistic and polytheistic elements were present on Niger-Congo culture from a very early period, along with the belief in a creator god, and that the Niger-Congo concept was at the beginning/originally significantly different from the Abrahamic one (which makes claims that the concept either evolved later or was introduced by Abrahamic religion somewhat misleading in light of recent research). Ehret also posits that Nilo-Saharan cultures tended to a kind of pantheism or monism possibly also with elements of monotheism — or panentheism (I believe there may be some evidence of native monotheistic tendencies among some other African cultures/groups including the Khoisan, but I would have to find references). From Ehret:

"Let's look at the realm of spirit for Niger-Congo people. It seems that anciently linguistically we can demonstrate this back 6,000 or 7,000 years anciently there was a Creator God, a single god that created the world. On this level, it looks like God the Creator was much like the Deist god of the 18th century. Got his world going, or got her world going, and then sat back to look at it. Interesting thing about Niger-Congo thinking, by the way: they have a single pronoun for he, she, and it. They don't make gender distinctions in the third person. So you don't know whether they're talking about the Creator God as a female or male. They've got subordinate names for God attribute names that may be female. And they've got other subordinate names that may be male. They don't see God as inherently gendered. For them, God is male in this context and female in that context. But the earliest term we have isn't only non-gendered, it's not even human. They're not thinking of the Creator God as analogous to human beings." https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/2.1/ehret.html Skllagyook (talk) 12:58, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I will again reword it to be clear about that and I will include another reference pointing to an polytheistic origin for most traditional religions.212.241.98.39 (talk) 13:03, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

It is better that you added "most" (rather than implying "all") so the section does not seem as absolute regarding all African religions, but it still seems that it may likely be undue to include it (Since Niger-Congo cultures alone make up a very significant faction of African cultures). Except for Hexham, and a theologian from the mid-20th century, none of the sources seem to state that monotheistic elements were originally absent in any (or even most) sub-Saharan religions. Many sources mention polytheistic and animistic elements being old, but that is not controversial (Ehret mentions that as well — see my new addition to the Ehret quote below), and does not conflict with the evidence, based on more recent, as well as older, research, that monotheistic elements also were present natively in Niger-Congo cultures.

The rest (the continuation) of the Ehret quote that I included above (which I should have originally included above and am now adding here:

"The case of this oldest word for God in Niger-Congo is instructive. This word for God was nyambe. The amb was the verb. The e was a suffix you needed in order to make the verb into a noun. The category of noun, the singular/plural marker, was the ny-. In the Ashanti kingdom, it was nyame. In the kingdom of Kongo, it was zambe. These were sound changes, but it was the same word. Now, ny- signified a category for animals and things that don't fit into any other category. So we have here is a word that means "the beginner of things." Literally, God is the origin of things. The verb it comes from tells us these people already had the creator god concept. Other terms for God come later. You get a term which means "the one who arranges and puts everything in order" in eastern Africa. In some languages, the word for God is the same word as for "potter"; the idea is of someone who molds human beings out of clay. It sounds like the Biblical story, though there's no historical connection. Something that we don't have as well pinned down linguistically, but it seems to be across the area, is a second level of spirit, a spirit who had a territorial region of authority: some sort of lesser spirit, but not God. That particular spirit may originally have been associated with a particular watershed or with the source of a particular stream. Sometimes, though not always, this idea exists in an area where there aren't so many streams. The third and most important level was the level of the ancestors. They were the people you had to show respect for. They were the people you might go to for help. God is distant. When Catholicism comes in, the ancestors may be viewed as saints. They were, in some sense, intermediaries. But they weren't only intermediaries. They had their own power. You had to pay respect to them and conduct rites to them, both communally and individually." https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/2.1/ehret.html Skllagyook (talk) 14:14, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I have reworded it again. Now it should be ok. Thank you for the second quote of Ehret. Greetings.212.241.98.39 (talk) 14:19, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you I suppose it may be more or less alright now. Skllagyook (talk) 14:22, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

November 2019

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This must be a mistake. It is from a direct quote of Moorjani et al. 2013. Here the quote from the study: “Such a pattern would be expected if there was ancient gene flow into the Andaman Islanders from a group more closely related to the ASI ancestry of some present-day Indian groups than others.”. —212.241.98.39 (talk) 17:02, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

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