Limatunda, the Creator
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 Like other African high gods of the withdrawn-creator type, Limatunda is remote from daily life, which is conducted through the ancestral spirits (masamva); some accounts additionally gloss the name as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
- to watch over all that he has made
Epithets
- Limatunda
Relations
- subordinate to: Likube, the High One
- creator of: Liwelelo, the Firmament
Sources
- 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.