First published in 1985. This collection of papers on theoretical and methodological perspectives in the study of African religion is the outcome of a conference which the editors were asked to convene on behalf of the African Studies Centre, Leiden, in December 1979.

1 Introduction: Theoretical explorations in African religion 2 Perspectives on divination in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa 3 Towards a semantic approach to the principle of transformation: An analysis of two myths concerning the origin of circumcision among the Komo of Zaire 4 From waste-making to recycling: A plea for an eclectic use of models in the study of religious change 5 Religious pluralism: An ethnographic approach 6 Oral history and the retrieval of the distant past: On the use of legendary chronicles as sources of historical information 7 The historical interpretation of myth in the context of popular Islam 8 The consequences of literacy in African religion: The Kongo case 9 The argument of images: From Zion to the Wilderness in African churches 10 Religious studies and political economy: The Mwari cult and the peasant experience in Southern Rhodesia 11 Dini ya Msambwa: Rural rebellion or counter-society? 12 Prophets of God or of history? Muslim messianic movements and anti-colonialism in Senegal.