In February 2010 I joined a party travelling in Burkina Faso. This was my first time in that country although I have travelled extensively in other parts of East and West Africa. In most other parts of Africa I have noted that the dominant religious discourses are clearly either Christian or Islamic. Most people assert that they follow one or other of these traditions, whatever other beliefs may exist alongside the more formal understanding of the monotheistic religion. In Burkina Faso, however, we were told, both by the guide and by those we met, that a significant proportion of the population were “animists” and we were introduced on more than one occasion to those who defined their own tradition as “animist”.

Having been brought up in the English anthropological tradition I found this very disconcerting. Animism was, for me, a word from the origins of the discipline, a word, and a concept, that had been thoroughly discredited and rejected in favour of “traditional African religions” or some such similar phrase. To describe people as “animist” was tantamount to describing them as “savages” and for people to lay claim to this term for themselves appeared degrading. In Burkina Faso, however, with its French traditions, the term “animist” was used widely, and it appeared with pride. Many of the French tourist guides for the area also use the term “animiste” as a description of the religion of the people without raising any specific concerns (e.g. De Gonneville et al. 2010: 70–71).