Kyala
Nyakyusa · deity · Nyakyusa traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Kyala is the high divinity of the Nyakyusa and the being whose name the earliest missionaries adopted, from 1891, to render the Christian God. In older testimony he is not a transcendent creator but one of several remote hero-ancestors who receive sacrifice on behalf of clustered chiefdoms, a 'lord' approached for rain, health and increase. Nyakyusa of Monica Wilson's generation differed over where he dwelt: older people placed him below, among the shades, while younger people set him above, in the region called kumwanya, the sky. In the charter of origins he is one of four god-like brothers who came from Ukinga bringing fire, iron-working and new crops, and in some versions the power to model cattle in clay and breathe life into them.
Domains
- supreme divinity
- sky
- ancestral shades
Powers
- dwell both above the sky and below among the shades
- receive sacrifice offered at his cave
Epithets
- Kyala — the LordEncyclopedia of Religion, 'Nyakyusa Religion' (Macmillan Reference, 2005) (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: LwembeEncyclopedia of Religion, 'Nyakyusa Religion' (Macmillan Reference, 2005), on the four god-like brothers (secondary)
- sibling: MbasiEncyclopedia of Religion, 'Nyakyusa Religion' (Macmillan Reference, 2005) (secondary)
- sibling: NkeketeEncyclopedia of Religion, 'Nyakyusa Religion' (Macmillan Reference, 2005) (secondary)
Sources
- Kyala is the high divinity of the Nyakyusa whose name the missionaries adopted in 1891 for the Christian God, though traditionally he was one of several remote hero-ancestors receiving sacrifice.: Encyclopedia of Religion, 'Nyakyusa Religion' (Macmillan Reference, 2005) (secondary); Monica Wilson, Communal Rituals of the Nyakyusa (Oxford University Press, 1959) (primary)
- Nyakyusa disagreed on whether Kyala dwelt below among the shades or above in the sky (kumwanya).: Monica Wilson, Rituals of Kinship among the Nyakyusa (Oxford University Press, 1957) (primary); 'Divinity or divinities? The religious role of ancestors in Nyakyusa belief,' Journal of Humanities (Zomba) 18 (2004) (secondary)
- Kyala is named among the four god-like brothers who came from Ukinga with fire, metal-working and new crops.: Encyclopedia of Religion, 'Nyakyusa Religion' (Macmillan Reference, 2005) (secondary)