Mebege

Last updated

Mebege (also called Nzeme and Mbere) is the Supreme God of the Fang people of the Central African Republic. [1] [2]

Contents

Cosmology

First oral tradition

Nzeme (or Mebege) is believed to have created everything in the universe and blew life into the Earth and Zambe, the first ancestor. It is also said that Nzeme created three spirits: Nzame with strength; Mbere with leadership, and Nkwa with beauty. [3]

Second oral tradition

According to oral tradition, Mebege is the Creator God. He was originally alone in the universe, with a spider named Dibobia as his only company. Mebege created the earth on the suggestion of Dibobia. He gave several strands of his hair, a part of his brain, and a smooth stone and turned them into an egg. Then, Dibobia put the egg into the sea. After some time, the egg cracked open and three deities came out, and the firstborn, Zame ye Mebege, became the leader of the pantheon. [1] [2]

Zame ye Mebege was associated with masculine energy and the sun. Nyingwan Mebege, the secondborn and his sister, was associated with fertility, feminine energy, and the moon. Nlona Mebege, the youngest and his brother, was associated with evil. [2] [4] Mebege gave Zame instructions on how to create the earth and once he succeeded, Mebege and Dibobia left Zame in charge of the earth, while they both ascended to the heavens. [1] [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

A creator deity or creator god is a deity responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatristic traditions separate a secondary creator from a primary transcendent being, identified as a primary creator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atum</span> Ancient Egyptian creator deity

Atum, sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is the primordial god in Egyptian mythology from whom all else arose. He created himself and is the father of Shu and Tefnut, the divine couple, who are the ancestors of the other Egyptian deities. Atum is also closely associated with the evening sun. As a primordial god and as the evening sun, Atum has chthonic and underworld connections. Atum was relevant to the ancient Egyptians throughout most of Egypt's history. He is believed to have been present in ideology as early as predynastic times, becoming even more prevalent during the Old Kingdom and continuing to be worshiped through the Middle and New Kingdom, though he becomes overshadowed by Re around this time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindu deities</span> Gods and goddesses in Hinduism

Hindu deities are the gods and goddesses in Hinduism. The terms and epithets for deities within the diverse traditions of Hinduism vary, and include Deva, Devi, Ishvara, Ishvari, Bhagavān and Bhagavati.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prajapati</span> Vedic deity identified with Brahma

Prajapati is a Vedic deity of Hinduism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World egg</span> Common motif in mythology and cosmogony

The world egg, cosmic egg or mundane egg is a mythological motif found in the cosmogonies of many cultures that is present in Proto-Indo-European culture and other cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe or some primordial being comes into existence by "hatching" from the egg, sometimes lain on the primordial waters of the Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religious cosmology</span> Religious explanation

Religious cosmology is an explanation of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe from a religious perspective. This may include beliefs on origin in the form of a creation myth, subsequent evolution, current organizational form and nature, and eventual fate or destiny. There are various traditions in religion or religious mythology asserting how and why everything is the way it is and the significance of it all. Religious cosmologies describe the spatial lay-out of the universe in terms of the world in which people typically dwell as well as other dimensions, such as the seven dimensions of religion; these are ritual, experiential and emotional, narrative and mythical, doctrinal, ethical, social, and material.

<i>Deva</i> (Hinduism) Male celestial being in Hinduism

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 word is a cognate with Latin deus ("god") and Greek Zeus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vishvakarma</span> Hindu architect of the gods

Vishvakarma or Vishvakarman is a craftsman deity and the divine architect of the devas in contemporary Hinduism. In the early texts, the craftsman deity was known as Tvastar and the word "Vishvakarma" was originally used as an epithet for any powerful deity. However, in many later traditions, Vishvakarma became the name of the craftsman god.

In Greek mythology, the primordial deities are the first generation of gods and goddesses. These deities represented the fundamental forces and physical foundations of the world and were generally not actively worshipped, as they, for the most part, were not given human characteristics; they were instead personifications of places or abstract concepts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ra</span> Ancient Egyptian solar deity

Ra or Re was the ancient Egyptian deity of the Sun. By the Fifth Dynasty, in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon-day sun. Ra ruled in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld. He was believed to have ruled as the first pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. He was the god of the sun, order, kings and the sky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vishnu</span> One of the principal deities in Hinduism

Vishnu, also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brahma</span> Creator god in Hinduism

Brahma is a Hindu god, referred to as "the Creator" within the Trimurti, the trinity of supreme divinity that includes Vishnu and Shiva. He is associated with creation, knowledge, and the Vedas. Brahma is prominently mentioned in creation legends. In some Puranas, he created himself in a golden embryo known as the Hiranyagarbha.

Nyambe is the Supreme God, Sky Father, and God of the Sun across numerous traditional Bantu religions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Akan religion</span> Traditional religious beliefs and practices of the Akan people

Akan religion comprises the traditional beliefs and religious practices of the Akan people of Ghana and eastern Ivory Coast. Akan religion is referred to as Akom. Although most Akan people have identified as Christians since the early 20th century, Akan religion remains practiced by some and is often syncretized with Christianity. The Akan have many subgroups, so the religion varies greatly by region and subgroup. Similar to other traditional religions of West and Central Africa such as West African Vodun, Yoruba religion, or Odinani, Akan cosmology consists of a senior god who generally does not interact with humans and many gods who assist humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deity</span> Supernatural being

A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship. 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".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agni</span> Fire deity of Hinduism

Agni is a Sanskrit word meaning fire and connotes the Vedic fire deity of Hinduism. He is also the guardian deity of the southeast direction and is typically found in southeast corners of Hindu temples. In the classical cosmology of the Indian religions, Agni as fire is one of the five inert impermanent elements (pañcabhūtá) along with space (ākāśa), water (ap), air (vāyu) and earth (pṛthvī), the five combining to form the empirically perceived material existence (Prakṛti).

Ngewo is the supreme creator god of the people of Mende from Sierra Leone.

Nzame is the supreme creator god featured in the mythologies of the Fang people of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Cameroon. The name is used to refer to a trinity of deities, which included Nzame, Mebere and Nkwa and is also used in reference to Nzame, one of the members of this trinity.

Bemba is the creator god in the traditional religion of the Bambara people of Mali. The name is used to refer to Bemba, who is portrayed as a god consisting of four distinct beings and is sometimes used to refer to one of its members, Pemba. Although Bemba is often referred to as male, the union of these four beings as Bemba is hermaphroditic, with the male aspects represented by Pemba and Ndomadyiri, while the female aspects are represented by Nyale and Faro.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lynch, Patricia Ann; Roberts, Jeremy (2010). African Mythology, A to Z. Infobase Publishing. ISBN   978-1-4381-3133-7.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Mebege Creates an Egg". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  3. Scheub, Harold (2000). A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller (1st ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. xxiii, 90, 108–110, 165–166, 185, 260–261, 288, 379, 430, 464–467, 747–748. ISBN   9780195124569.
  4. Fernandez, J. W. (2019-01-29). Bwiti: An Ethnography of the Religious Imagination in Africa. Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-19628-2.