Thangba Yu, the withdrawn sky creator

Thangba Yu, 'the sky above,' is the supreme creator of the Lobi of south-western Burkina Faso, northern Côte d'Ivoire and north-western Ghana. He shaped the world and ordained the behavioural laws that govern human life, then withdrew to the remote heavens, becoming a deus otiosus with whom people have no direct dealings. In his place he set the tutelary spirits to mediate between the divine and the human; hardship, illness and death are read as the consequence of human transgression of his original order. Because he is distant and approached only through intermediaries, he receives little direct cult of his own, yet he remains the acknowledged source of all existence at the apex of Lobi cosmology.

Children

• The thila, tutelary nature deities of the Lobi

Domains

• sky and creation
• moral law

Powers

• to create the world and all its beings
• to set the laws of right conduct for humankind

Epithets

• Thangba Yu

Relations

• creator of: The thila, tutelary nature deities of the Lobi

Sources

• Henri Labouret, Les tribus du rameau Lobi (Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie, 1931).
• Piet Meyer, Kunst und Religion der Lobi (Zürich: Museum Rietberg, 1981).
• Madeleine Père, Les Lobi: tradition et changement (Laval: Éditions Siloë, 1988).