Ngöbö

Ngöbö is the Ngäbere word for God and, in the living religion of the Ngäbe, the name of the supreme being. Recorded by the missionary-linguist Ephraim S. Alphonse in his Smithsonian grammar of 1956, the term is venerated as the creator of the universe who fertilises the mother earth (Döbö) and from whom water, life and well-being flow; he is central to the Ngäbe ideal of la Vida Plena ('the Full Life') and is addressed in sacred song. In ethnographic discussion Ngöbö is closely associated with, and frequently identified with, the benevolent creator Nubu, and modern scholars note that the high-god conception of Ngöbö/Nubu has largely displaced the older Noncomala name in vernacular tradition. He should be distinguished from the twentieth-century syncretic Mama Tata (Mama Chi) movement, in which the name also figures.

Domains

• supreme creator god
• fertility of the earth

Powers

• to create and uphold the universe
• to send water that makes the earth fruitful

Epithets

• Njöbö-Mama Tatda

Relations

• ally: Nubu

Sources

• Alphonse, Ephraim S. Guaymí Grammar and Dictionary, with Some Ethnological Notes. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 162. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1956.
• Fitzgerald, José C. M. Danzar en la Casa de Ngöbö: Resiliencia de la Vida Plena ngäbe frente al neoliberalismo. Quito: Abya-Yala, 2018.