There are too many primal or early religions to detail all of them. So instead, these religions are generally explained according to geographic region. These regions were mostly in Africa and the Americas, however, the Americas were split up into South, Central, and North America. Central America was defined even further into separate islands such as Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Honduras, and Mexico.
In discussing Africa, one of the most interesting points that the author made about tribal religions is that these religions allow for rich artistic expression in sculpture, song and dance. In addition, the reason much of African sculpture appears elongated is because they were limited to the materials on hand, which happened to be tree trunks. These religions usually had a complex set of taboos and societal rules to keep the people away from harm, and these rules were watched over by either one or several religious specialists (shaman). Oxtoby defines the roles of these shaman further into magic (miraculous happenings), medicine (healing), and witchcraft (harmful practices against enemies).
Tribal religions are not the only religions of Africa, however. There are also many areas that are either Islam or Christian, or mix of all three influences. Many Muslim Africans still keep tribal traditions while some Christian congregations have incorporated some African tribal taboos as well as practices such as song, dance, and art into their customs.
When Africans were brought across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americans, many of their customs mixed together with French Catholicism and native religions to bring about complex religions such as Santeria, Voodoo, and Afro-Brazilian spiritualism. In the case of Afro-Brazilian spiritualism, for example, the personality and function of the orixas, or deities, is similar to that of Catholic Christian saints. Practitioners encouraged this similarity so that authorities would only see it as a...