Waaqa (also Waqa or Waga) is the supreme sky god of the Konso and the pivot of their religion, which lies nearer to monotheism than to a populous pantheon. He is the sky itself, the uppermost of the three Konso worlds above the earth (pita) and the underworld (xatikela or pitakela), and the maker of humankind, forming the first people and shaping each child at conception. Waaqa governs rain, thunder and war and, above all, the moral order: he originated justice and social order and answers human conduct, sending sickness, sterility and death upon wrongdoers and withholding rain from towns consumed by quarrelling. Tradition relates that he once lived on earth among people but, offended by a woman, withdrew to the sky, from where he still watches human affairs. He stands in complementary opposition to the female power of the earth, the male sky answering to the female ground. The divine name belongs to a wider Cushitic family, recurring among the Oromo, Hadiyya, Gurage and Afar.