Abstract
Strating with experiences originating in the main religions of salvation, one could tend to believe that pilgrimage is a constant factor within the anthropology of religions. However, such a belief is based more upon a particular inventory of the more or less `modern” times of the history of Europe and Asia than on a typical if not exhaustive knowledge of all religious traditions. There is a double question: does pilgrimage exist in the so-called archaic or traditional religions?; and is there everywhere a move to a sacred place, with performance of specific rites? The author produces some elements of an answer to both questions, based upon his knowledge of traditional Africa.
Although this knowledge is only fragmentary, and restricted to Guinea and Togo, it is nevertheless possible to define some stimulating guidelines on the topic of pilgrimage within the framework of a conception of the universe which differs both from the traditional Christian perspective and from the space representation developed from Euclidean geometry. In Africa, gods and goddesses are carried away by people to areas where myths and rites may vary considerably from one place or group to another. Religions have predominantly commemorating, initiating or healing functions. The question is whether such a concept gives birth to so-called “memory places” analogous to the pilgrimage places familiar to our societies, and if one of the main objectives of religion was to dominate wide geographical areas by pinpointing sanctuaries.