Nyamwezi · deity · Nyamwezi traditional religion; continuing · deity
Limatunda, 'the Creator', is the Nyamwezi name for the Supreme Being in the act of making the world; he is credited with creating all things. He is one of several names of the one High God, who is also called Likube ('the High One'), Limi ('the Sun') and Liwelelo ('the firmament'). Like other African high gods of the withdrawn-creator type, Limatunda is remote from daily life, which is conducted through the ancestral spirits (masamva); some accounts additionally gloss the name as 'the watcher of everything', stressing his continuing oversight of creation.
Domains
creation of the world
Powers
to create all things at the beginning of the world
R. G. Abrahams, The Peoples of Greater Unyamwezi, Tanzania (Nyamwezi, Sukuma, Sumbwa, Kimbu, Konongo). Ethnographic Survey of Africa, East Central Africa Part XVII. London: International African Institute, 1967.
Fr. Bösch, Les Banyamwezi, peuple de l'Afrique orientale. Bibliothèque-Anthropos III/2. Münster: Aschendorff, 1930.