the Ancestral Creator

Ancestral creator / first-ancestor source (deity) of the Herero of Namibia. Attested cult-objects carried in materialCulture: the holy fire okuruwo and the ancestral tree Omumborombonga. Functionally paired with, but distinct from, the sky-god Ndjambi Karunga (see herero_ndjambi).

Domains

• ancestral origin
• blessing fertility

Powers

• bring the first people and cattle from the sacred tree
• answer prayer through the ancestral dead

Epithets

• Mukuru

Relations

• ancestor of: the First Man from the Tree

Sources

• Vedder, H. (1928). 'The Herero.' In The Native Tribes of South West Africa. Cape Town: Cape Times.
• Estermann, C. (1981). The Ethnography of Southwestern Angola, vol. 3: The Herero People. New York: Africana.