Obassi Osaw
Ekoi · deity · Ekoi traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
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 OsawMolefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama, eds., Encyclopedia of African Religion (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2009). (secondary)
Relations
- spouse: NimmEkoi informants interpreting traditional decorative designs identified the paired figures as Obassi Osaw and his wife Nimm, the water-serpent goddess shown in her several shapes.P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London: William Heinemann, 1912). (secondary)
- ally: Obassi NsiThe two co-creators form the central Ekoi sky-earth pairing: Osaw the sky-father above and Nsi the earth-mother below, between whom all things were made.P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London: William Heinemann, 1912). (secondary)
Sources
- Obassi Osaw is the Ekoi/Ejagham sky and creator god of light, rain, drought and storms, who fashioned human beings and from whose sky-household fire was first stolen for the earth.: P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London: William Heinemann, 1912). (secondary); Harold Scheub, A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). (secondary); Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama, eds., Encyclopedia of African Religion (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2009). (secondary)