Ẹbọ in Igala religious thought is at once the divine spirit — the creative and sustaining principle with which the supreme being Ọjọ makes and re-makes the universe — and the general designation of the named class of tutelary and nature deities through which that spirit is encountered. By means of ẹbọ, Ọjọ reveals himself in the earth deity Anẹ, in the ancestral Ibegwu and in the spirits of particular rivers, groves, hills and human pursuits; individual ẹbọ are honoured with their own shrines, priests and seasonal observances across Igala country. The term thus names the second tier of the Igala spirit-world, mediating between the transcendent Ọjọ and the everyday concerns of the living. It is entered here as the single, named spirit-principle the Igala themselves articulate, rather than as bush-spirits in the abstract.