Adroa is the supreme god or spirit of the Lugbara people of central Africa. [1]
Adroa is a god they worship, and this aspect of the god was known as Adroa 'ba o'bapiri ('God the creator of men'). [2] Adroa was said to have created the first man, Gborogboro, and the first woman, Meme. Gborogboro and Meme were also twins, and they were considered the ancestors of the Lugbara. [3] Adroa is also credited with the establishment of social order, by communicating his laws to the tribal ancestors of the Lugbara. [4]
Adroa has two main aspects, Adroa the good (Lugbara: onyiru), and Adro the bad (Lugbara: onzi). [4] These two dual aspects can be further broken down into different smaller aspects. Adroa, the good aspect, is transcendent and far-removed from mankind. [3] [4] This aspect is sometimes called Adronga or Adrogoa. [5] This aspect includes Adroa in different roles, including Adroa 'ba o'dupiri ('God the taker away of men') as a death deity and Adroa 'bija ('God in the sky'), a sky deity. [2] Adro, the bad aspect, was described as tall, white and only having half a body, and he travels by jumping around on one leg. He is described as earthly, and dwells on the earth along with mankind, especially in rivers. Adro is usually invisible, but will appear to those who are close to death, and is thus also associated with death. Adro was worshiped through child sacrifice, but since the 1930s a ram was substituted as the victim. [3] [4] Some versions do not consider Adro to be the evil equivalent of Adroa, but as a class of earthly spirits who are "refractions" of the good aspect. [5] [6] Both Adroa and Adro are part of a Lugbara man, as a sign of divine creation. In this aspect, the Adroa is also known as Tali. Women are thought to have no Tali. Upon a man's death, the Adro aspect was thought to leave his body, rejoining with Adro in the rivers and becoming Adroanzi. Meanwhile, Tali rejoins Adroa in the sky. [2]
The Lugbara live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan. In Lugbara mythology, Adroa appeared in both good and evil aspects; he was the creator god and appeared on Earth as a man who was near death. He was depicted as a very tall white man with only one half of a body, missing one eye, one leg, etc. His children were called the Adroanzi.
Hadad, Adad, Haddad or Iškur (Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where he became known as the Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) god Adad. Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram 𒀭𒅎dIM—the same symbol used for the Hurrian god Teshub. Hadad was also called Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal (Lord), but this title was also used for other gods. The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, as well as the Hittite storm-god Teshub.
Orishas are spirits that play a key role in the Yoruba religion of West Africa and several religions of the African diaspora that derive from it, such as Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican Santería and Brazilian Candomblé. The preferred spelling varies depending on the language in question: òrìṣà is the spelling in the Yoruba language, orixá in Portuguese, and orisha, oricha, orichá or orixá in Spanish-speaking countries,
Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in preliterate societies – scholars of comparative mythology have reconstructed details from inherited similarities found among Indo-European languages, based on the assumption that parts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans' original belief systems survived in the daughter traditions.
A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world.
Deva means "shiny", "exalted", "heavenly being", "divine being", "anything of excellence", and is also one of the Sanskrit terms used to indicate a deity in Hinduism. Deva is a masculine term; the feminine equivalent is Devi.
The Inca religion was a group of beliefs and rites that were related to a mythological system evolving from pre-Inca times to Inca Empire. Faith in the Tawantinsuyu was manifested in every aspect of his life, work, festivities, ceremonies, etc. They were polytheists and there were local, regional and pan-regional divinities.
The mythologies in present-day France encompass the mythology of the Gauls, Franks, Normans, Bretons, and other peoples living in France, those ancient stories about divine or heroic beings that these particular cultures believed to be true and that often use supernatural events or characters to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. French myth has been primarily influenced by the myths and legends of the Gauls and the Bretons as they migrated to the French region from modern day England and Ireland. Other smaller influences on the development of French mythology came from the Franks.
Traditional African Religion is an overarching term for the highly diverse beliefs and religions of traditional African cultures. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural and passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs, and festivals, include belief in an amount of higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme creator or force, belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of magic and traditional African medicine. Most religions can be described as animistic with various polytheistic and pantheistic aspects. The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonizing nature with the supernatural.
Adroanzi ('Adro-children') are a group of nature and guardian spirits in Lugbara mythology.
Asase Ya/Afua is the goddess of fertility, love and the earth of the Akan of Ghana and Ivory Coast. She is also known as Mother Earth or Aberewaa.
Polytheism is the belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular God, in most cases transcendent. In religions that accept polytheism, the different gods and goddesses may be representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles; they can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator deity or transcendental absolute principle, which manifests immanently in nature. Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally; they can be henotheists, specializing in the worship of one particular deity, or kathenotheists, worshiping different deities at different times.
Bantu mythology is the system of beliefs and legends of the Bantu people of Africa. Although Bantu peoples account for several hundred different ethnic groups, there is a high degree of homogeneity in Bantu cultures and customs, just as in Bantu languages.
The di inferi or dii inferi were a shadowy collective of ancient Roman deities associated with death and the underworld. The epithet inferi is also given to the mysterious Manes, a collective of ancestral spirits. The most likely origin of the word Manes is from manus or manis, meaning "good" or "kindly," which was a euphemistic way to speak of the inferi so as to avert their potential to harm or cause fear.
A deity or a god is a hypothetical supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life".
Kalenjin mythology refers to the traditional religion and beliefs of the Kalenjin people of Kenya.
Shams, also called or Shamsum or Dhat-Ba' dhanum, is a sun goddess of Arabian mythology. She was the patron goddess of the Himyarite Kingdom. Her name meant shining, Sun, or brilliant. She was the South Arabian equivalent of the North Arabian sun goddess Nuha.
The Binou is a Dogon totemic, religious order and secret ceremonial practice which venerates the immortal ancestors. It can also mean a water serpent or protector of a family or clan in Dogon. It is one of the four tenets of Dogon religion—an African spirituality among the Dogon people of Mali. Although the Dogons' "Society of the Masks" is more well known, due in part to Dogon mask–dance culture which attracts huge tourism, it is only one aspect of Dogon religion, which apart from the worship of the Creator God Amma, a rather distant and abstract deity in the Dogon world-view, is above all made up of ancestor veneration. The Binou serves as one of the four aspects of Dogon religion's ancestor veneration. Other than the Binou and the worship of Amma, the other three aspects of the religion includes the veneration of Lebe, which pertains to an immortal ancestor (Lebe) who suffered a temporary death in Dogon primordial time but was resurrected by the Nommo; the veneration of souls; and lastly, the Society of the Masks, which relates to dead ancestors in general. These myths are in oral form—known to us in a secret language. They form the framework of Dogon's religious knowledge, and are the fixed Dogon's sources relating to the creation of the universe; the invention of fire, speech and culture.
Gborogboro and Meme were twins and the first man and woman in Lugbara mythology.
Kwoth, also known as Kwoth Nhial, is in African mythology the supreme omnipresent god and creation god of the Nuer people of South Sudan.
