Mboze
Mboze, called 'the fertile', is the Great Mother of the Woyo serpent pantheon at the mouth of the Congo. With her husband Kuitikuiti she bore the children Makanga and Mbatilanda, and she later conceived again by her own son Makanga. When Kuitikuiti discovered the pregnancy he beat her to death with a club, but as she died she gave birth to the serpent daughter Bunzi, who took over her mother's rain-making office. De Heusch reads Mboze's transgressive maternity as the mythic origin of the fertility and sacral kingship complex of the coastal Kongo kingdoms; encyclopaedic surveys of African myth summarize her as the Great Mother of the Woyo. Her mythic death notwithstanding, she remains a divine being of the primordial generation rather than a mortal ancestor.
Children
Domains
- motherhood
- fertility
Powers
- to bring forth the spirits who give rain and fertility to the coast
Relations
- spouse: KuitikuitiMboze is the wife of the creator serpent Kuitikuiti, with whom she dwelt in the whirlpool at the mouth of the Congo.Jan Knappert, Myths and Legends of the Congo (Heinemann, 1971) (secondary)
- mother of: BunziAs she lay dying under Kuitikuiti's blows, Mboze gave birth to the serpent daughter Bunzi, fathered by her son Makanga.Jan Knappert, Myths and Legends of the Congo (Heinemann, 1971) (secondary); Luc de Heusch, Le roi de Kongo et les monstres sacrés: Mythes et rites bantous III (Gallimard, 2000) (secondary)
Sources
- Mboze is the Great Mother of the Woyo of coastal Kongo, the primordial serpent whose death in childbirth produced the rain goddess Bunzi.: Jan Knappert, Myths and Legends of the Congo (Heinemann, 1971) (secondary); Patricia Ann Lynch and Jeremy Roberts, African Mythology A to Z, 2nd ed. (Chelsea House, 2010) (secondary); Luc de Heusch, Le roi de Kongo et les monstres sacrés: Mythes et rites bantous III (Gallimard, 2000) (secondary)