TOWARD AN EMPIRICAL INQUIRY OF RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE IN THE INTERFACE OF LIBATION RITUALS IN AFRICA: EXPERIENCE FROM IBIBIO, NIGERIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.16.521Keywords:
Religious language, Libation, Worship, Ibibio Rituals, CommunicationAbstract
Experience to date has highlighted the importance of language in the relationship between God and man as exemplified in the matrix of all human endeavour. This is because prior to its being a tool that is used by humans; language had been the foundation which supports human beings for the purpose of communicating his intentions. This paper examines religious language of libation in Ibibio indigenous knowledge system with special focus on its problems of traditional equivocation and analogy in an attempt to provide a meaningful vehicle by which God can be expressed. This paper discovers that in most recent findings on libation, it is more creative, spiritual, dogmatic, linguistic and imaginative medium for religious assertions through incantation and invocations which manifest beyond an empirical base. The paper concludes that libation rituals are meaningful medium of communing with the spirit.
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