The African God Bumba Bumba is an African Creator God of the Bushongo people of the Congo. He was believed to be the mighty creator god of vomit. In the beginning, it was dark and Bumba emerged from the darkness. He was a pale-skinned giant figure. He was ill and had been for millions of years. He was lonely, and it was making him ill. He was bothered by a bellyache, and he staggered around, moaned and vomited up the Sun. Light now came to the Universe. He next chocked out the Moon. The stars were next and then with a great amount of effort he threw up the Earth. His nauseating display was concluded when he vomited up 9 animals and several humans as a conclusion. Bumba was exhausted from all his vomiting. He sat and watched as …show more content…
He finally became content. Nyonye-Ngana, Chonganda and Chedi-Bumba were Bumba's sons. Bumba had kind things to say to his human creations before he headed for heaven never to be seen again. The African God Olorum Olorun is the African Supreme God. He is the Sky God of Peace, Justice and the Yoruba way. Olorun's people and area are the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin. Olorun is the great king of the Universe and the center of Yoruba mythology. Olorun is like the Christian Jehovah in that he is also a three-in-one trinity god. They are Olorun the Lord of heaven, Olodumara, the Ultimate Creator and Olefin the Messenger. Olorun was good at passing duties off to someone else. His plans for the planet Earth were amazing and ambitious. He decided to give the job to someone else as usual. He called in his son Obatala, who was the greatest among the Orishas to do the job. This caused many complications before life as we know it was completed. Olorun's fame reached the Caribbean. It was thought he led a double life as Yansan. The fourth king of the ancient Oyo Empire was Shango. The ancient Oyo Empire was the West African culture and political center for the Yoruba people. From the fifteenth century until 1835 the Oyo Empire
The creature’s reflections over his own existence are penetrating and reach to the heart of the matter:”My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come?
The Dagomban and Ewe People of Africa While studying the various cultural societies in Africa, one feature that stood out the most was that of rhythmic dependance and integration, particularly in the Ewe and Dagomba people. These two cultures, living not vastly far apart from one another geographically, both use drumming, dancing, and singing as a way to bring together their communities, fulfill spiritual practices and beliefs, and even instantiate individual power in their overall societal structures. Though they certainly have their own differences from one another, such as their overall uses for music and the acceptance of whom can even perform it, their similarities stuck out to me like a sore thumb. The regions of Togo and Volta,
He killed his senses, he killed his memory, and he slipped out of his self in a thousand different forms. He was animal, carcass, stone, wood, water, and each time he reawakened. The sun and moon shone,
The Igbo and Christians hold contrasting views about the spiritual world, which cause strain. The Christians believed that there was one God manifested in three individuals. When a Christian missionary and his translator arrive in Mbanta they talk to the Igbo people about the Christian faith because they view the Igbo conceptions of gods as wrong. The narrator states, “He told them that the true God lived on high and that all men when they died went before him for judgment” (Achebe 111). The narrator says that the missionary tells the Igbo people that the authentic God dwells above and that every man who died went in front of him for discernment. Chinua Achebe shows that the Christians refused to see the similarities between Christianity and the Igbo religion because they saw the Africans ...
Obatala, symbolized by a white cloth, is the god of purity, morality and the overseer of mankind. Obatala was originally given the dignified task of creating the Earth, but is said that on his way to Earth, he strayed into a party and became drunk and failed his task of creating the Earth. Obatala’s brother Oduduwa, jumped at the opportunity to succeed at his brother’s drunken and failed attempt. Oduduwa stole the tools given to his brother and created the Earth. Their father, Olorun, was so pleased with his creation, that he deemed Oduduwa as the god of the Earth, and ordered Obatala to begin creating man kind.
One way of examining the values and traditions of a people is to look at their explanations for how the world came to be. These stories make such wonderful tools for analysis because all cultures have some sort of ‘creation’ story. Thus to compare groups of people we may start by looking at their creation mythology. It is important to note that the downfall of comparing mythologies is that in a way it is like comparing apples to oranges. This is because not every myth portrays and explains the same elements.
Brief History From the 1500s to the 1700s, African blacks, mainly from the area of West Africa (today's Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Dahomey, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon) were shipped as slaves to North America, Brazil, and the West Indies. For them, local and tribal differences, and even varying cultural backgrounds, soon melded into one common concern: the suffering they all endured. Music, songs, and dances as well as traditional food, helped not only to uplift them but also quite unintentionally added immeasurably to the culture around them. In the approximately 300 years that blacks have made their homes in North America, the West Indies, and Brazil, their highly honed art of the cuisine so treasured and carefully transmitted to their daughters has become part of the great culinary classics of these lands. But seldom are the African blacks given that recognition.
Religion and the Igbo People The Igbo are a profoundly religious people who believe in a benevolent creator, usually known as Chukwu, who created the visible universe (uwa). Opposing this force for good is agbara, meaning spirit or supernatural being. In some situations people are referred to as agbara in describing an almost impossible feat performed by them. In a common phrase the igbo people will say Bekee wu agbara.
Okonkwo wanted to become one of the greatest men in the Ibo tribe, but three unfortunate events occur bringing him closer to his end. Okonkwo was a proud, industrious figure who through hard work was able to elevate himself to a stature of respect and prominence in his community. The one major character flaw was that he was a man driven by his fear to extreme reactions. Okonkwo was petrified of inadequacy namely because his father was a complete and utter failure. This fear of shortcoming made him hate everything his father loved and represented: weakness, gentleness, and idleness. Who was Okonkwo, well Okonkwo was a hero and also he...
Nwoye – In the eyes of Okonkwo, his oldest son, Nwoye, is weak and lazy from an early age. He dislikes his father because he beats him so often to make him more masculine. After the death of Ikemefuna, Nwoye becomes very depressed and later converts to the Christian faith, which makes Okonkwo disown him.
Buchi Emecheta’s literary terrain is the domestic experience of the female characters, and the way in which these characters try to turn the table against the second-class and slavish status to which they are subjected either by their husbands or the male-oriented traditions. Reading Buchi Emecheta informs us of the ways fiction, especially women’s writing, plays a role in constructing a world in which women can live complete lives; a world that may provide women with opportunities for freedom, creativity, self-expression, friendship and love. Welesley Brown Lloyd believes that; “of all women writers in contemporary African literature Buchi Emecheta of Nigeria has been the most sustained and vigorous voice of direct feminist protest” (35)
Traditional African Religion The Religious Sphere There is widespread belief in a supreme God, unique and transcendent. Africans have a sense of the sacred and a sense of mystery; there is high reverence for sacred places, persons and objects; sacred times are celebrated. Belief in the afterlife is incorporated in myths and in funeral ceremonies. Religion enfolds the whole of life; there is a difference between life and religion.
The Ibo people had a very different religious lifestyle and culture. They believed in many gods; they were a polytheistic tribe. The Ibo supreme god was Chukwu, and the people believe "he made all the world and the other gods" (Achebe 179). They believed that everything has a spirit and that ancestral spirits called the "egwugwu" kept the law. The Ibo...
unfolded, he realized that the cosmos was devoid of providing evidence of God. Similarly, in a
There are many similarities among most African creation stories. Likewise certain differences are also noticeable. For example, I chose four creation stories to make the comparisons between them. The first one is "An African Cosmogony." Here, Bumba is the creator. He created nine living creatures, after vomiting the sun and the moon, from which all other animals emerged. The second one, "An African story of the Creation of Man", is a story among the Shilluks of the White Nile which basically explains the different complexions among the various races on Earth. They believed Juok molded all men of earth while he wandered the earth creating the rest of the world. White men were created from white sand which Juok found in the land of the white. Red or brown men were created out of the mud of the Nile in Egypt. Black men were created from black earth found in the land of the Shilluck. According to this creation story, man was given all necessary parts to function. Each part had a reason for being. For example, Juok gave man arms in order for man to work. The third one, "God and the Five women" states the myth of the origin of earth, fire, water and woman, from the Thompson Indians of North Pacific Coast. This creation story states that Earth was created by Old One or Chief. He came down from the upper world in a cloud and created five Perfectly formed young women. To each of them he asked what they wished to be. The first one wished to be "bad". The second one wanted to be "good". The third one wanted to become Earth. The fourth one wanted to become Fire. And the fifth one became water. Finally, the fourth story, "Creation by Thought" states that man was created out of a thinking process by which he first created the Earth and then created man in resemblance of himself. The Earthcreator designed man out of clay. He gave man mind and thought, tongue, soul, and the ability to talk. All of these features came about out of a thought process.