The Time before Time: Reevaluating Mbiti and African Notions of Sacred Time

This paper reframes--rather than refutes--Mbiti's seminal argument that African societies had no notion of the "future" by demonstrating how Yoruba religion and philosophy articulate different notions of time which function in relationship as "past" and "present". Through an analysis of language, myth, ritual, and divination, the paper argues that the Yoruba have a clear notion and verbal tense for the "future" but also a more "real" sense of time called igba iwasẹ or metaphorically "Ifẹ"--the source of the Yoruba world. This sacred time/place exists before/outside of time and contains the transcendent archetypes for everything in existence. Thus, Mbiti can be reinterpreted as documenting the interplay between different types of time rather than a perceived lack of a future in African societies.