Anẹ, the Earth Deity
Igala · deity · Igala traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Anẹ is the personified and venerated earth, ranked in Igala religion immediately below the supreme being Ọjọ. As the power of the land she governs agricultural fertility and enforces the moral order: offences against the earth are her concern, and her name is invoked in oaths. Her altars are found in nearly every traditional Igala compound, and at the kingdom's capital, Idah, the sacred earth-cult is in the keeping of the Igala Mela, the college of nine priest-chiefs who are custodians of the land. The earth is sometimes named Ọjọ-anẹ, binding the cult of the soil to the supreme god, and Anẹ forms with the sky-god Ọjọ the earth–sky pairing that frames the Igala cosmos.
Domains
- earth and land
- fertility and agriculture
Powers
- to guard the land and uphold the moral order
Epithets
- Ọjọ-anẹIsaiah Aduojo Negedu, 'The Igala Traditional Religious Belief System: Between Monotheism and Polytheism', OGIRISI: A New Journal of African Studies 10 (2014): 116–129. (secondary)
Relations
- consort of: Ọjọ (Ọjọchamachala)The earth deity Anẹ stands in complementary opposition to the sky-creator Ọjọ, forming with him the earth–sky polarity of the Igala world.J. S. Boston, The Igala Kingdom (Ibadan: Oxford University Press for the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1968). (secondary)
Sources
- Anẹ is the deified earth of the Igala, the great land-and-fertility deity whose shrines pervade Igala compounds and whose cult underpins the kingdom's earth-priesthood.: J. S. Boston, The Igala Kingdom (Ibadan: Oxford University Press for the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1968). (secondary); Martin Ahiaba, 'Retrieving Ẹbọ as Spirit: The Foundation of Authentic Christian Pneumatology Among the Igala, Nigeria', Cross-Cultural Communication 11, no. 3 (2015). (secondary)