Includes bibliographical references (p. 443-483) and index.

Contents:-Introduction / Walter E.A. van Beek & Thomas D. Blakely -- Translatability in Islam & in Christianity in Africa : a thematic approach / Lamin Sanneh -- Beginnings & encounters : Islam in East African contexts / Azim Nanji -- Cultural change & religious conversion in West Africa / Jon P. Kirby -- Christ in African folk theology : the &1Nganga&2 paradigm / Matthew Schoffeleers -- African religion & Mormon doctrine : comparisons & commonalities / Dennis L. Thomson -- Ifá : a West African cosmological system / Wándé Abímbó̮lá -- The promise of greatness : women & power in an Edo spirit possession cult / Paula G. Ben-Amos -- Candomblé : a socio-political examination of African religion & art in Brazil / Mikelle S. Omari -- Drums of affliction : real phenomenon or scholarly chimera? / John M. Janzen -- Archaeological & other prehistoric evidence of traditional African religious expression / Pierre de Maret -- The innocent sorcerer : coping with evil in two African societies (Kapsiki & Dogon) / Walter E.A. van Beek -- Myth & epic in Central Africa / Luc de Heusch -- Kimbanguism & the question of syncretism in Zaïre / Wyatt MacGaffey -- Jamaa : a charismatic movement revisited / Johannes Fabian -- Protestant missions in Africa : the dialectic of conversion in the American Methodist Episcopal Church in eastern Zimbabwe, 1900-1950 / Terence O. Ranger -- Prophetism, democharisma, & social change / Asmarom Legesse -- Gola womanhood & the limits of masculine omnipotence / Warren L. d'Azevedo -- Male & female secret societies among the Bafodea Limba of northern Sierra Leone / Simon Ottenberg -- Bringing the extraordinary into the ordinary : music performance among the Kpelle of Liberia / Ruth M. Stone -- Ancestors, "witchcraft," & foregrounding the poetic : men's oratory & women's song-dance in Hêmbá funerary performance / Pamela A.R. Blakely & Thomas D. Blakely -- Bibliography / compiled by Mark L. Grover.