The Meaning, Spiritual Foundation, and Mythology of African Sacred Landscapes
The Case of Sacred Forests among the Bena of Njombe, Tanzania
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4759963 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Edward Simon Mgaya (0000-0002-2680-3464, Mkwawa University, College of Education Iringa Tanzania, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 289-316 |
| Publication date | 2023-01-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15700666-12340253 |
| OpenAlex | W4328007058 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 12 |
In various cultures around the world, past and present, many natural and cultural sites are deemed sacred. What are sacred landscapes? What are the spiritual foundations for their formation? How are they formed? How are they protected? The answers to these questions help frame a discussion of sacred landscapes within the context of their meaning, origin, and management processes as lived experiences of specific societies. In Tanzania the linkages between biodiversity and the worldview of a society have partly been acknowledged but remain unexplored. This paper applies a mixed research approach to studying sacred forests among the Bena community of Njombe in Tanzania. Rather than looking exclusively at the sacred forests in themselves as places, the paper underscores the linkage of human-nature-spirituality as key in explaining the history of sacred forests. It establishes that, among the Bena, the sacredness of a place was founded on the relationship between the visible and the invisible worlds - relations that led to the formation of various mystical-religious homelands' sacred places that are protected through mythologies
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Context (archaeology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethnology · Meaning (existential · Mysticism · Mythology · Sociology · Spirituality · Tanzania · Theology · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Philosophy
Social Taboos
Sacred forests of India
Sacred Ecology
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
Communicating African Spirituality through Ecology
Tourism, Religion, and Spiritual Journeys
African sacred groves
Secular pilgrimages and sacred tourism in the Indian Himalayas
Whose Knowledge, Whose nature? Biodiversity, Conservation, and the Political Ecology of Social Movements
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |