Achu Nyande

Achu Nyande, also rendered Acho wa Nyande, is the Jukun god of rain and of the upper skies. Rain held central importance for the agricultural Jukun of the Benue valley, and the divine king himself was believed to mediate rainfall; Achu Nyande personifies the celestial waters within the sphere of the sky god Chido. Modern studies of Jukun theism list him among the indigenous gods whose cults declined under Christian reconfiguration of the pantheon.

Domains

• rain

Powers

• to send rain from the upper skies upon the fields of the Jukun

Relations

• subordinate to: Sky GodAs god of rain and the upper skies, Achu Nyande operates within the celestial domain presided over by the sky god Chido, with whom he is closely associated in Jukun cosmology.C. K. Meek, A Sudanese Kingdom: An Ethnographical Study of the Jukun-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria (1931) (secondary); Nathan Irmiya Elawa, "'The Eliminated Gods': The Christian Reconfiguration of Jukun Theism," Studies in World Christianity 28.2 (2022) (secondary)

Sources

• Achu Nyande (Acho wa Nyande) is the Jukun god of rain and the upper skies, associated with the celestial sphere of the sky god Chido in the agricultural religion of the Benue valley.: C. K. Meek, A Sudanese Kingdom: An Ethnographical Study of the Jukun-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1931) (secondary); Nathan Irmiya Elawa, "'The Eliminated Gods': The Christian Reconfiguration of Jukun Theism," Studies in World Christianity 28.2 (2022), 209-228 (secondary)