Studies of African religious leaders provide many descriptions of priests, diviners, healers, and witch finders, although relatively few have focused on the role of prophets within African religions. Although historians of religion debate about what constitutes a prophet, it is possible to distinguish two distinct visions: (1) the Greeks envisioned a prophet as a cultic figure who spoke on behalf of a god, and (2) ancient Israelite religion translated the term prophet from the Hebrew word navi, thereby defining prophets as spokespersons only for a supreme being. The role of these prophets was eventually narrowed to those leaders who played an oppositional role within the society in which they taught. It was this image of the prophet that captured the imaginations of scholars of religion.

Given Western commentators' assumptions that the supreme being played a relatively unimportant role in African religions, this category of prophets was rarely applied...