Pita
Konso · numen · Konso traditional religion; continuing · numen
Pita is the earth, the middle of the three Konso worlds between the sky (waaqa) above and the underworld (xatikela or pitakela) below, and the female chthonic power that Konso religion sets opposite the male sky god. Where Waaqa sends rain and moral law from above, the earth receives the dead and makes the soil and the womb fruitful, so that fertility and increase are felt to rise from below. Sources differ on how far the earth was personified: some describe a distinct female chthonic deity of fertility paired with the sky, while others treat the ground as an impersonal sacred principle rather than a named goddess. Either way the earth forms the female half of a pervasive sky-earth dualism that orders Konso ritual and thought.
Domains
- earth
- fertility
Powers
- Quicken the soil and the womb
Relations
- companion: Waaqa
Sources
- Hallpike, C. R. (1972). The Konso of Ethiopia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 222-304.
- 'Perceptions of health and illness among the Konso people of southwestern Ethiopia', PMC6389056.
- 'Traditional Konso Culture and the Missionary Impact' (ResearchGate publication 315299662), citing Hallpike 1972: 222-304.