Nzambi
Nzambi (a Mpungu) is the supreme creator high god in the religion of the Kimbundu-speaking Ambundu of Angola. The theonym is part of the common Bantu inheritance shared with the neighbouring Kongo, among whom the fullest creation cosmology was recorded; Mbundu attestation rests on the Kimbundu lexicon and ethnography (Chatelain 1894; Miller 1976) and the wider Angolan record (SAGE Encyclopedia of African Religion, 2009). Like many West-Central African high gods, Nzambi is conceived as remote and otiose, the maker and moral guarantor of the world rather than a deity of everyday cult, which centres on ancestors and the local nature-spirits (ilundu). Note that Miller records nzambi/jinzambi also being used of ancestral spirits in Mbundu speech, so the high-god identity is given here conservatively. No surviving Mbundu source assigns Nzambi kin, consort, or descent.
Domains
- creation
- sky
Powers
- Supreme creator and ordainer of the cosmos
- Speaks the cosmos into being and then withdraws
- Holds ultimate authority over rainfall, life and health
Sources
- Molefi K. Asante & Ama Mazama (eds.), Encyclopedia of African Religion (SAGE, 2009), s.v. 'Nzambi'
- Joseph C. Miller, Kings and Kinsmen: Early Mbundu States in Angola (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976)
- Héli Chatelain, Folk-Tales of Angola (1894)
- Asante & Mazama (eds.), Encyclopedia of African Religion (2009), s.v. 'Nzambi'