Akamba are a Kenyan people who speak kikamba and are mostly found in the Central Eastern part of the country (Kitui, Machakos, Makueni, and Mwingi districts). Early pioneers in iron smelting within the region, the Akamba had advanced weaponry (e.g., iron-tipped arrows) that gave them an edgemover surrounding communities and earned them a reputation as gallant warriors, great marksmen, and tradesmen. Trading mainly in ivory, beer, honey, iron implements, and beads, they bartered their wares with neighboring Maasai and Kikuyu, as well as with the Arabs along the coast.

Africism is the term coined by Aloysius M. Lugira to refer to the system of African religious beliefs, ritual practices, and thought concerning the Supreme Being, suprahuman beings, human beings, and the universe. Africism is the autochthonous religion and philosophy of Africa. It is autochthonous because, from time immemorial and independently from developments in other cultures, it intrinsically pertains to Africa.

The idea of the Afterlife first appears in ancient literature in ancient Kemet. In the Maatian tradition of ancient Egypt (Kemet), the afterlife played a central role; the people of Kemet called it wHmanx (wehem ankh), repeating life. It was considered a spiritual and ethical goal and a reward for a righteous life on Earth—in a word, the divine gift of immortality. Moreover, a theology of “coming forth” evolved, which contains several basic concepts and is found in various sources, including funerary texts and autobiographical texts. The funerary or mortuary texts that provide a vivid portrait of the Maatian afterlife include the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts (The Book of Vindication), and the Book of the Coming Forth by Day, commonly called in Egyptology The Book of the Dead. Other sources include the more esoteric texts such as Books of the Underworld.

An Akan term meaning “resting place,” Adae is the most important festival of the Akan. Connected to the meaning of the term, it is a day of rest for the living and the ancestors, and, as such, work, including funerals, is forbidden. As the paramount ancestral custom, it involves the invocation, propitiation, and veneration of ancestral spirits. These are special days on which the ahene (traditional rulers; singular = ohene) enter the Nkonnwafieso (stool house), the place where the spirits of enstooled ancestors rest, and pour libation and offer food and drink on behalf of their people. Every 5 years, the Asantehene (paramount ruler of the Asante) hosts Adae Kese (big Adae), a 2-week period of celebration during which all those enstooled within the Asante nation unite in Kumasi (the capital of Asante) and reaffirm their allegiance to the Asantehene and the Sika Dwa (Golden Stool), the spiritual seat of the Asante nation.