Protestant missions

This quotation from Oyekan Owomoyela’s African Literatures: An Introduction , cited in a student paper, got me to wondering: “whatever was the official attitude to African cultures, the missionaries, in the British areas as well as in the French saw in everything African godless heathenism that must be wiped out. Not only did they seek to destroy shrines and belief in traditional religions, they also forbade their converts to participate in such traditional ceremonies as naming, initiation, marriage, and burial. They banned drumming, dancing, the wearing of African clothes, and the bearing of African names – biblical names were substituted. And the newly Christianized Africans could no longer participate in story-telling sessions.”