The History and Significance of the god Abassi

African mythology and the deities that were worshipped today in Africa have not received much attention from the general public. The west has appeared to focus on the mythology from ancient Greece, Rome, China and Japan. One of the reasons for this is that we seem to have more sources of information from these ancient cultures which is more easily available to the public.

Another reason for the lack of information or even understanding could be attributed to the way the African people were seen when the Europeans started to become a permanent presence in Africa. The Europeans, especially the British, French and Portuguese, subjugated the African people and tried to convert them into the Christian religions. This conversion destroyed the religious and to a large extent, the social way of life that the African people once enjoyed.

Only a few missionaries and scholars during the European history in Africa noted down the native deities. As the missionaries were more interested in ‘civilizing’ the people in the Christian way, a lot of their rich religious history has been lost to us. However, we are still able to gain a small insight into the religious history of the African people.

Abassi is a native god of the Anang (also spelt the Annang and Anaang) who are an ethnic group in south-eastern Nigeria on the west coast of Africa. Unlike the majority of Africans who continue to worship their native gods, the Anang are monotheistic. In this then, Abassi is the supreme god, the only god that they worship.

He was seen to be a sky god who “who is assisted in his task of governing the universe and man-kind by over thirty spirits residing on earth in shrines, and by souls of the dead awaiting reincarnation in the underworld. Most shrines are diminutive replicas of the Anang hut, but individual trees, groves, rocks, and ant hills serve to house spirits, and it is before these [shrines] that prayers and sacrifices are offered to the deity to be carried skyward by the [thirty spirits] residing within. Although Abassi is thought to be both omniscient and omnipresent, either directly or through the earth spirit, he lacks ultimate omnipotence, for ghosts, witches, and the spirit of evil magic possess powers over which he sometimes exerts no control. The Anang do not know where these malignant forces originate, and they must be combated with preventive magic”.

The certainty that Abassi will punish freewill behaviour contrary to the tenets of his moral code is the most powerful mechanism of social control in Anang society and it is said that he gives permission for souls of the dead to be reincarnated.

It is wonderful that despite the European subjugation and ‘civilization’, there is still the worship of ancestral deities worshipped in Africa today. For the study of these gods, goddesses and spirits give us a valuable insight into African religious history.

Bibliography:

Messenger, Jnr., John C. (1960) Reinterpretations of Christian and Indigenous Beliefs in a Nigerian Nativist Church, American Anthropologist, Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association.

Who is Otshirvani in Mythology

Mythology has always played an important role in the history of the cultures in this world. Not only were they the explanations of how the world and everything in it came to be, they were moral guides to live your life by, the means to record the history of your culture and a form of entertainment.

In all of the cultures in the world, ancient Greek myths are probably the best well-known, with Egyptian, Roman and Norse myths coming in behind her. However, if we look at the mythology of other places, like Siberia, we find not only similarities, but fascinating accounts of gods, goddesses, monsters, men and divine creatures.

In Siberian mythology, Otshirvani was a god of light. He was sent by the supreme god to fight Losy, a serpent of monstrous appearance and temperament who killed all mortal beings by covering the world with poison. Taking the form of a gigantic bird, Otshirvani swooped down and seized Losy in his claws and threw him against the world mountain, killing him instantly.

Another myth that concerns Otshirvani is regarding immortality amongst mortals. This myth is found among the Buriats of Siberia. In it, Otshirvani “wished to sweeten life for mankind and animals, so he let the sun and the moon prepare the water of life, but Arakho drank it up and soiled the cup. Having inquired the beast's dwelling place from the moon, Otshirvani hurried there and cut him in two. The forepart, having thus become immortal, pursues the moon. The Arakho who causes eclipses of the sun and the moon and who has only a head but nobody is known also among the Mongols”.

The logical implication of this story is that in illo tempore Otshirvani made the sun and the moon prepare a cup of the waters of life, a drink of which would make men immortal, but probably on the way down from heaven the waters of life were drunk and the cup soiled by Arakho, so that men lost the precious chance to obtain immortality.

Like with many deities, Otshirvani has his roots in another culture. He was a distortion of the Indian Bodhisattva Vajrapani and originates in India where the monster's name is Rahu. Arakho and Alkha are corrupt variants of this name. Despite this, Otshirvani is an interesting character in the mythology of the world and deserves attention.

Bibliography:

Waida, Manabu (1977) Symbolisms of the Moon and the Waters of Immortality, History of Religions, The University of Chicago Press.

The Mayan Religion

For the Mayan people, the universe was essentially chaotic yet predictable; living creatures subject to predetermined positions in the world and its people were thought to exist within an alternating pattern of life and death, each cycle lasting 5,200 years. It is this model, this pattern, which comes to identity Mayan religion.

According to sources available, the realm of heaven in Mayan cosmology was one of permanence. To ensure its constancy, colossal cosmic trees secure heaven in its place. It was then divided into thirteen distinct levels, which were each overruled by a god. Mayan society believed that a person had to have met a violent end if they were to enter heaven in the next world. Each stratum was meant for a specific type of violent death. This meant that sacrificial victims occupied a different realm to that of people who had been struck by lightning or drowned, for example.

The destination of the majority of the Mayan people was Xibalba, the “Place of Fright”. It had nine levels and its own collection of gods, who, for the main part, represented or resembled particular characteristics of deities of the Earth and sky. In Mayan society, as with other Mesoamerican cultures, there was no concept of human morality. The underworld was the ultimate destination for all people who had not met a violent end, and not reserved for sinners. The Temple I at Tikal and the Castillo at Chechen Itza in the Yucatan peninsula are nine-layered pyramids, where kings, priests and elite men were interred, symbolising the nine layers of Xibalba.

We can see the notion of a stratified cosmos among the Mayan in the construction of temples and shrines. These were predominantly built on top of the pyramids or the peaks of mountains, so that rituals could be performed as close to the heavenly realms of the sky as close as possible.

A broad pantheon of deities was worshipped by the Mayan. Some of these deities are hard to differentiate due to the fact that some deities possessed both male and female characteristics. Some had the ability to be both young and old, and assume either spiritual or corporeal form. Some possessed animal characteristics, or had combined human and divine attributes. However, in considering the nature of Maya gods, we may first rid ourselves of certain misconceptions by noting that in our field the term pantheon should not be taken in its strictly Greek sense.

According to such scholars as Morley and Brainerd, during the Classic Period the Maya were not worshippers of images. Most scholars relying on ethno-historic sources and archaeological information from Yucatan agree that 'idolatry' was introduced into Yucatan by the Nahua speakers of the Post-Classic era (950-1520 CE), who brought with them the practice of making idols.

The Maya had a full-time priesthood with an internal hierarchy, who performed important ceremonies in enduring temples of various kinds. The community temple was known as ‘ku’ or ‘kuna’. According to scholars there were differences between temple structure from the domestic structures, although rites, offerings, and prayers were made in both; “we see evidence for public religion and private religion, and communal rites versus household ritual” (Marcus, p.181). Priests controlled calendrical knowledge (such as the timing of festivals of the 260 day ritual calendar) as well as various methods for divination and prophecy. The ordinary priests were known as ‘ah kin’, and below them were religious functionaries with more focused functions.

The religion of the Mayan is a complicated knot of mythology and symbolism, but the study allows great insight into one of the most fascinating cultures of the world.

Bibliography:

Coe, Michael D. (1956) The Funerary Temple Among the Classic Maya, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, University of New Mexico.

Marcus, Joyce (1978) Archaeology and Religion: A Comparison of the Zapotec and Maya, World archaeology, Taylor & Francis Ltd.

The History and Significance of the god Ninigi

Ninigi, who is also known as Honinigi, is one of the great ancestral deities from the Japanese Shinto belief system. He was the son of Ame-no-Oshiho-mimi and the grandson of Taka-mi-musubi and the sun goddess Amaterasu.

According to mythology, Amaterasu had been desperately trying to find someone worthy of ruling over earth. Initially, she sent her son, Ame-no-Oshiho-mimi, to rule but as he looked over the Floating Bridge of Heaven, he saw the many disturbances on earth and refused to go.

The gods gathered and decided that Ame-No-Hohi should be sent. However, after three years the gods had not heard from him so they decided that his son, Ame-No-Wakahiko, should investigate. Before he left, they gave him a bow and arrows.

Ame-No-Wakahiko went to earth and eventually married Shitateru-Hime, the daughter of Okuninushi, the god of medicine and magic. This time, eight years passed without any word to the rest of the gods. Determined to find out, they sent a pheasant down to watch him.

The pheasant perched outside a tree of the god’s house. When one of the women of the house saw it, she told Ame-No-Wakahiko that it was a bad omen and immediately, the god shot it. However, the arrow passed straight through the bird and entered heaven, falling straight at the feet of Amaterasu. Recognising the arrow, she flung it back at the direction it came in fury, where it killed Ame-No-Wakahiko.

Two of the gods then visited earth themselves and came before Okuninushi, who told him that they had come on the sun goddess’ orders to bring peace and prosperity to the land under her control. Okuninushi spoke to his sons; the elder son agreed to worship Amaterasu but the younger son refused. The two gods then overcame the younger son who then promised not to resist the goddess. Okuninushi also agreed to recognise the sun goddess’ rule, on the condition that a place should be reserved for him amongst the major deities worshipped at the Izumo shrine. This Amaterasu agreed to.

The great sun goddess finally sent her grandson, Ninigi, to earth. Before he left, he was given many divine objects, including the mirror that Amaterasu had gazed into when she first emerged from the cave. He was also given the jewels that had produced Amaterasu’s sons and the storm god Susano-Wo’s sword, Kusanagi. It was these signs that would become the emblems of Japanese imperial power in later years.

On earth, Ninigi married Kono-Hana-Sakuyu-Hime, the daughter of a mountain god. When she conceived their child on the first night of their marriage, Ninigi suspected that she had been unfaithful to him. He built her a house with no doors and when she was ready to give birth, she entered it. She stated that if she had been unfaithful then her child would die. Eventually, Kono-Hana-Sakuyu-Hime gave birth to three sons; one of them, Hikohohodemi, would later go on to father a child who, upon his death, would be known as Jimmu-Tenno. It would be Jimmu-Tenno that would be the founder of the imperial line of Japan.

Looking at the history and significance of the god, one scholar states that Ninigi was the “exemplary ‘archetype’ of the historical Japanese emperors who, based on the richness and abundance of the rice harvest, maintain the cosmic order overarching the three cosmic zones”. His myth also establishes the most important event in the traditional, official myth structure of early Japan, accentuating the divine derivation of the imperial family line and the kinship theology, established in the Kojiki (compiled 712 CE) and the Nihongi (720 CE).

Bibliography:

Waida, Wanabu (1976) Sacred Kingship in Early Japan: A historical Introduction, History of Religions, The University of Chicago Press.

Waida, Wanabu (1973) Symbolism of “Descent” in Tibetan Sacred Kingship and Some East Asian Parallels, Numen, BRILL.