Page "Christopher Ehret" Paragraph 15

According to Ehret, the religious beliefs of the proto-Cushites were a mixture of two distinct religious traditions.

Probably as early as the seventh millennium BCE, the Cushites in parts of eastern Africa blended their traditional Afro-Asiatic religion with aspects of the religious tradition of their Sudanic neighbours.

Specifically, they exchanged their belief in a clan deity with the Sudanic concept of " Divinity ", expanding the use of the old Cushitic root for " sky " ( waak ' a ) to also extend to " Divinity ".

However, they retained their older institution of a clan priest-chief ( or * wap ' er ), with the * wap ' ers religious duties now re-directed toward Divinity.

The Cushites also retained the old Afrasan practice of ascribing unfortunate occurrences to maleficent spirits, but also sometimes viewed evil as Divine retribution.