Khonvoum

Bambuti sky-creator and 'great hunter': bow of two snakes seen as the rainbow; renews the sun each day from star-fragments; made humankind from clay of three colours; speaks through the elephant Gor (the thunderer) and a chameleon. Authored as a deity, era 'primordial'. SOLITARY: no individually named divine kin is attested (the elephant Gor and the chameleon are his messengers, not kin); no parent/sibling/consort edge is asserted. CAUTION (see header): Schebesta's image of a single supreme creator is partly conditioned by his primitive-monotheism programme, and Turnbull found the net-hunting Mbuti to identify divinity with the forest rather than with a named sky-god; the specific Khonvoum mythemes recorded here are nonetheless securely in the ethnographic record.

Domains

• sky
• creation
• the hunt
• the sun

Powers

• Carries a bow of two snakes that appears as the rainbow
• Remakes the sun each day from fragments of the stars
• Shapes humankind from clay of three colours
• Speaks to people through the elephant Gor and the chameleon

Epithets

• the great hunter

Sources

• Paul Schebesta, Die Bambuti-Pygmäen vom Ituri (1938–48), on the Bambuti high god Khonvoum/Khvum
• Mircea Eliade, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion, 'Pygmy Religions' (synthesis of Schebesta and Turnbull on the Mbuti/Efe high gods)
• Encyclopedia.com / standard folklore handbooks, s.v. Khonvoum (creator, great hunter, serpent-rainbow bow, sun-renewal, tri-coloured clay, elephant Gor and chameleon)