Masupa
Masupa is the hidden creator of an Efe (Bambuti) narrative recorded by Paul Schebesta: 'In the beginning there was only Masupa. He was quite alone, and had neither wife nor brother.' He brought forth three children — two sons, ancestors of the Pygmies and of the neighbouring farmers, and one daughter — and dwelt unseen in a great hut by the river, from which the sound of hammering and forging could always be heard. He failed his children in nothing; they lived in ease, without toil, and the daughter's only duty was to set water and firewood at his door, under the one command that none should ever seek to see him. Moved by curiosity, she hid and glimpsed his richly adorned arm; Masupa, enraged, withdrew down the river, leaving his children tools and weapons but bequeathing work, painful childbirth and death, and was never seen again. The narrative is a distinct strand of the Efe record: some retellings assign the hidden god's role to Tore, and modern scholarship cautions that Schebesta's assembly of the Efe names into one creator reflects his monotheistic framework, so the equation is recorded here as an observation about naming rather than as kinship. His three children remain unnamed in the sources, so no genealogical line can be drawn from him.
Domains
- creation
- smithcraft
Powers
- to bring forth the first children while utterly alone
- to dwell hidden, speaking with his children but never letting himself be seen
- to leave toil, painful childbirth and death to humankind at his departure
Sources
- In the Efe narrative recorded by Schebesta, Masupa is the primordial creator — alone at the beginning with neither wife nor brother, father of the first three children, an unseen provider from whose hut came the sound of forging — who withdraws down the river after his daughter's forbidden glance and leaves toil, painful childbirth and death behind.: Paul Schebesta, Revisiting My Pygmy Hosts, trans. Gerald Griffin (London: Hutchinson, 1936) (primary); Paul Schebesta, Der Urwald ruft wieder: Meine zweite Forschungsreise zu den Ituri-Zwergen (Salzburg: Anton Pustet, 1934) (primary)
- Later anthropology treats the unified 'creator-god of the Efe' assembled from such name-narratives as partly an artefact of Schebesta's monotheistic expectations, so Masupa is best read as one distinct narrative strand among the Efe divine names rather than proof of a single structured pantheon.: Masato Sawada, 'Rethinking Methods and Concepts of Anthropological Studies on African Pygmies' World View: The Creator-God and the Dead', African Study Monographs, Suppl. 27 (2001) (secondary)