Tore

Bambuti/Efe forest god and lord of game; thunder/storm god (storm, rainbow, leopard); original owner of fire. In the fire-theft myth his mother dies while he pursues the thieving Pygmies, and he decrees human death, becoming god of the dead — recorded as a lifecycle transition. The molimo trumpet/festival (Turnbull) is noted as the cult of the forest religion, not a figure. RELATION: 'identified with' Arebati (band-level equation), reciprocated in-batch. SOLITARY otherwise: the only kin attested in the fire-theft myth is his unnamed (old) mother, so no named parent edge is asserted. CAUTION (see header): Turnbull (1965) held that the net-hunting Mbuti worship divinity AS THE FOREST (ndura) rather than as the named, anthropomorphic Tore of Schebesta's Efe accounts; both readings are in the record.

Domains

• the forest
• the hunt
• thunder and storm
• fire
• death and the dead

Powers

• Gives and withholds the game of the forest
• Decrees that humankind shall die
• Manifests as storm, rainbow and leopard

Epithets

• god of the forest
• god of the dead

Relations

• identified with: Arebati

Sources

• Paul Schebesta, Die Bambuti-Pygmäen vom Ituri (1938–48), on Tore the forest/fire/death god
• Mircea Eliade, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion, 'Pygmy Religions' (Tore, the fire-theft and the origin of death)
• Colin M. Turnbull, Wayward Servants: The Two Worlds of the African Pygmies (1965), on Mbuti forest-divinity (recording the dissent from a named anthropomorphic god)