African Culture
The traditional cultures of Negro peoples of Africa (or black Africa) have the specificity which will consist in their orientation to the past. It means that the traditional African intellection separates only the present and the past perceived, however, differently, than in modern European culture.
This orientation to the past, constant interpenetration of sasa and zalgani finds the expression in various spheres of traditional cultures of black Africa: in the sphere of religious convictions and ritualism, in the sphere of the oral literature, in sphere of art and so forth. The Basic element, making order in the knowledge about zalgani within the framework of the African mentality, is a myth present in implied sense of each of these spheres. In unwritten cultures the myth plays the same role, as a tenet in religions of written cultures. The African myths explain the origination of the world, the relations between the person and supernatural forces, a parentage of first peoples, strains, nations, consecrate a social order, etc.