Ancient Africans were probably the first people to develop a theory of personality (Ozumba, 2004, p. 123). They had the idea of a polypsychic model of self, which was built on their polytheistic spiritual beliefs (Unah, 1992, p. 101). Their psychological beliefs held that the self consists of five interconnected parts: the Ren, Ba, Sheut, Ka, and Ib (Ozumba, 2004, p. 123).
The Ren was the name someone was given at birth, and it was thought to have a life of its own, making it a very important part of a person (Budge, 1904, p. 101). When used in religious rituals or written on the tomb, the Ren could even be used to keep a person alive after their death (Faulkner, 1969, p. 123).
The Ba was the part of the self that encompassed a person’s apparent personality, making it closest to the modern Western idea of the soul (Ozumba, 2004, p. 123). It is the part that makes a person unique and lives on after the body’s death (Budge, 1904, p. 101). The Sheut, on the other hand, was a person’s shadow, which contained a hidden part of their personality (Ozumba, 2004, p. 123).
The Ka was a person’s life essence or energy, which indicated a person’s death when it left the body (Faulkner, 1969, p. 123). It could be reanimated into a spirit body after death and was thought to be sustained through food and drink (Budge, 1904, p. 101). The Ib referred to the heart, which was thought of as the emotional and cognitive center (Ozumba, 2004, p. 123). The Ib was weighed by the god of death, Anubis, after the body died, and you would either be allowed to live on in the afterlife or be destroyed and consumed by another god called Ammit (Faulkner, 1969, p. 123). All these parts sometimes were at odds with each other, explaining a person’s internal conflicts (Ozumba, 2004, p. 123).
References
Ozumba, G. O. (2004). African metaphysics. Calabar: Jochrisam Publishers.
Unah, J. I. (1992). The nature of African metaphysics. The Journal of Philosophy.
Budge, E. A. W. (1904). The Gods of the Egyptians.
Faulkner, R. O. (1969). The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts.
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