Asis
Kalenjin · deity · primordial · deity
Asis (Asista) is the supreme Kalenjin/Nandi deity, identified with the sun: a distant, omnipotent sky-and-sun high god and giver of all good things, prayed to at dawn and dusk. Authored as a deity with era 'primordial' (the cosmic, timeless high god). SOLITARY: the sources attest no individually named divine parent, spouse or child for Asis; the surrounding beings (the oiik ancestral spirits as a class; Ilat/Ilet) are not given as his blood-kin, so no kin edge is asserted rather than inventing one.
Domains
- sun
- sky
- creation
- justice
Powers
- Shines upon the world as the sun by day
- Gives all good things and blessing to the living
Epithets
- Cheptalil (Cheptalel) — 'the shining one / the one that glitters'
- Chepkelyensokol
- Chepopkoiyo
Sources
- A. C. Hollis, The Nandi: Their Language and Folk-lore (Clarendon Press, 1909)
- G. W. B. Huntingford, The Nandi of Kenya: Tribal Control in a Pastoral Society (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953)
- 'Nandi and Other Kalenjin Peoples', culture summary (HRAF / Encyclopedia.com): 'They believed in one god, with many names, identified with the sun.'