Hairy Hero-Ancestor and Rainmaker
Lugbara · demigod · mythic age · Recorded classification
Hero-ancestor / culture-hero tier: typed demigod. Paired with Jaki (who died at Mount Liru); together they are the founding hero-ancestors of the Lugbara who introduced rain-medicine.
Domains
- rainmaking
- founding of clans
- magic medicine
Powers
- calls and controls the rain
- fathers the founders of the present clans
- Receives fire and medicine-knowledge from the woman of the land
- Devours his own children and is driven into exile
Epithets
- Dribidu the hairy oneWikipedia, 'Lugbara mythology' (secondary)
- Banyale eater of menWikipedia, 'Lugbara mythology' (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: Jaki
- descendant of: First Woman Who Bore the AnimalsHairy hero-ancestor and rainmaker; the later descendants of the first-woman Meme produce the founding hero-ancestors Dribidu and Jaki.J. Middleton, Lugbara Religion (1960); the hero-ancestors Jaki and Dribidu descended from the line of Gborogboro and Meme (secondary)
Sources
- Dribidu ('the hairy one', also Banyale 'eater of men') is one of the two Lugbara hero-ancestors and first rainmakers, who fathered clan founders and was exiled for cannibalism, dying at Mount Eti.: Middleton, John. Lugbara Religion: Ritual and Authority among an East African People. London, 1960, pp. 233-236. (primary)