Naba Zid-Wende, Chief of Everlasting Truth
Mossi · deity · Mossi creation myth (primordial); recorded oral tradition · Recorded classification
Entered as a deity (the creator under his royal name) rather than a separate figure from Wende; kept distinct because the named Naba Zid-Wende creation cycle is its own attested narrative. The myth was set down by the Mossi author Frédéric Guirma (Tales of Mogho, 1971), who learned it from his own tradition. 'Naaba' = chief/king in Mooré, echoing the Mogho Naba.
Domains
- creation cosmic order
- kingship divine
Powers
- to fashion the earth and test it fit for life
- to set day and night in their courses
Sources
- Naba Zid-Wende ('Chief of Everlasting Truth') is the personified Mossi creator-king, an expanded form of the sky-god Wende, who in the recorded creation narrative makes the earth, tests it with a chameleon and snakes, and populates it with animals and people.: Frédéric Guirma, Tales of Mogho: African Stories from Upper Volta (1971), the principal published recension of the myth (secondary); Elliott P. Skinner, The Mossi of the Upper Volta (1964), on Wende/Naba-Zid-Wende as supreme being (secondary)