Khuzwane
Lobedu · deity · Lobedu traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Khuzwane is the remote creator of the northern Sotho world recognised by the Lovedu, a maker linked with the sky who is said to have shaped the land while it was still soft and to have left his footprints pressed into rock. He is a distant figure who receives no organised cult. Lovedu religion is centred instead on the royal ancestral spirits, the badimo, and above all on the living rain-queen through whom the ancestors act upon the weather. Sources differ on how firmly the creator idea is held: the Kriges found the conception vague and peripheral, while comparative studies of Sotho worldview treat the creator name as a genuine, if inactive, element of belief.
Domains
- creation
- sky
Powers
- shaped the world while it was soft
Sources
- The Lovedu recognise a remote creator, Khuzwane, associated with the sky, though religious life is dominated by the royal ancestors and the divine queen rather than by a developed high-god cult.: E. J. Krige & J. D. Krige, The Realm of a Rain-Queen (Oxford University Press, 1943). (primary); W. D. Hammond-Tooke, Boundaries and Belief: The Structure of a Sotho Worldview (Witwatersrand University Press, 1981). (secondary)