Aje is the earth-divinity of the Idoma and one of the three pillars of their traditional religion alongside Owoicho and the Alekwu. The word aje means simply 'land,' but the land is revered and worshipped as a goddess: the physical manifestation of the otherwise remote Owoicho and, because of the perceived distance between people and the Supreme Being, the intermediary through whom his life-giving force is transmitted. As the earth she gives shelter, food and the soil that receives the dead, and she is petitioned for fertility and prosperity by a largely agricultural and hunting people. Her cult is administered by a chief priest, the Oche, also titled Ond'aje, 'owner of the land,' who performs periodic sacrifices at earth-shrines; she is closely bound to the ancestral system, since the earth is also the abode of the dead.