Obassi Osaw
Ekoi · deity · Ekoi traditional religion; continuing · deity
Obassi Osaw is the celestial high god of the Ekoi (Ejagham) of the Cross River region. With the earth god Obassi Nsi he creates the world, then takes the sky as his realm, sending light, rain and the alternating gift and threat of drought and storm. He is named as the maker of humankind. In the best-known Ekoi tales he gives the first man Etim 'Ne a calabash of seven stones from which all rivers and lakes spring, and he is the original possessor of fire, which a boy in Etim 'Ne's service steals from his sky-household and carries to earth. Ekoi tradition also names the water-serpent goddess Nimm as his wife.
Domains
- sky and creation
- rain light and drought
Powers
- to create human beings
- to send the rain and to withhold it as drought
- to keep fire withheld from the earth
Epithets
- Obasi Osaw
Relations
- spouse: Nimm
- ally: Obassi Nsi
Sources
- P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London: William Heinemann, 1912).
- Harold Scheub, A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
- Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama, eds., Encyclopedia of African Religion (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2009).