Somewhere along the line, African traditional medicine was dismissed as witchcraft, spiritual systems were labeled demonic,and healers were reduced to criminals. At the same time, Greek gods such as Zeus, Athena, and Apollo were preserved, studied, fictionalized and celebrated as mythology. One belief system was granted dignity through distance while the other was stripped of it through force. 

This difference was never about truth, science, or morality. It was about power.

Before colonization, African traditional medicine was not folklore, it was knowledge. It was observation passed down through generations, refined by experience, rooted in land and memory. Healers understood plants, seasons, the body, and the spirit as connected systems. Long before clinical trials, there was trial and error. Long before pharmacies, there were forests. Yet when Europeans arrived African medicine was not studied, it was outlawed.

What did not come from Europe was framed as inferior. What could not be controlled was branded dangerous.

But the erasure did not stop at medicine. It went deeper, as far as belief, identity and the divine.

We were told that the gods we had worshipped for centuries were evil. That the spirits we spoke to were demons. That the ancestors we honored were cursed. Conversion was not offered as a choice, it was enforced through violence, humiliation and fear. We were beaten, imprisoned, and even killed for refusing to abandon our faith. Our shrines were destroyed, rituals were banned, sacred spaces were renamed. Spiritual violence walked hand in hand with physical brutality, and don’t even get me started on the “ discovery” of landmasses such as Mount Kenya by explorers.

It is important to say this plainly : many Africans did not convert because we were convinced, we converted because we were threatened.

And yet we are told to speak of this history politely.

There is a cruelty in how this erasure was justified. We were promised heaven, a glorious, eternal reward for obedience. But one has to ask : if heaven were truly real, if it were truly as magnificent as described, why would those in power give it away so freely? Why would colonizers, who hoarded land, labor, and life itself, suddenly become generous with eternity? 

Questioning this is not bitterness, its rational.

Colonial christianity asked us to accept suffering now for salvation later, while Europeans lived comfortably in the present. Faith became a tool that made injustice feel holy. Submission became a virtue. Resistance became sin.

And while African spirituality was demonized, European belief systems were spared of that fate. Greek mythology was not erased, it was rebranded. Zeus was not labeled satanic, he was labeled symbolic. Athena was not feared,she was intellectualized. European gods were allowed to become stories while African gods were criminalized into silence.

This double standard remains intact today.

White religious leaders are rarely asked to prove that their faith is not harmful. Christianity is assumed to be neutral, even benevolent. Its history of violence is treated as an unfortunate footnote. Meanwhile, African traditional practitioners are forced to constantly prove that their work is not “ dark magic,” that their knowledge is not dangerous, that their beliefs are not evil. The burden of innocence rests entirely on the colonized.

The same inequality exists in medicine. Western medicine is tested by default, even when it harms. African medicine must justify itself endlessly, even when it works. One is called science, the other is called superstition.

And then there is the erasure of African names.

Names tell stories about birth, lineage, circumstance, and hope. Yet we were stripped of our names and given European ones, John, Mary, James, names easier to pronounce, easier to control, easier to baptize. Renaming was not administrative, it was symbolic. It was a declaration that African identity needed correction.

Our names being changed showed that who we were as a people was unacceptable.

The damage of all this did not end with colonization. It lives on in how we speak about ourselves, in the shame attached to traditional practices, in the instinct to seek western validation before trusting indigenous knowledge. The most effective erasure is the kind that convinces the abused to participate in it.

This is not an attack on Africans who are christian. Faith is personal, complex, and evolving. Many of us have found genuine meaning, community, and comfort in christianity. 

What deserves scrutiny is the way the religion was brought. Through coercion, violence, and the systematic destruction of African worldviews. You cannot beat people into belief and then demand gratitude. You cannot erase cultures and then claim moral authority.

Reclaiming African traditional medicine and spirituality is not about rejecting modern science or personal faith. It is about refusing the lie that our knowledge is inferior. It is about acknowledging that what was called evil was often simply African.

Until we confront how our culture was erased, renamed,and demonized, we will continue mistaking survival for consent and silence for acceptance.