Muisa
Nyanga · deity · Nyanga traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Muisa is the divinity who rules a subterranean realm of the dead, encountered by Mwindo when he pursues his father beneath the earth. Greedy and treacherous, he demands that the hero perform impossible labours, such as cultivating and harvesting a banana grove in a single day, and sends killing devices against him, slaying Mwindo more than once. Each time the hero's conga-scepter revives him, and at last Muisa himself is struck down and compelled to yield up Shemwindo. His daughter Kahindo, the goddess of good fortune, aids Mwindo against her father's snares. In wider Nyanga belief Muisa is counted among the lords of the underworld, associated with death and the fate of the deceased.
Children
Domains
- underworld
- death
Powers
- set deadly trials on the dead-lands
Relations
- child: KahindoKahindo, goddess of fortune, is his daughter.Biebuyck & Mateene, The Mwindo Epic from the Banyanga, 1969. (primary)
- enemy: MwindoBiebuyck & Mateene, The Mwindo Epic from the Banyanga, 1969. (primary)
Sources
- Muisa is the divinity of the subterranean world of the dead who sets Mwindo lethal tasks and twice kills him, but is himself overcome by the hero's conga-scepter; he is the father of the fortune-goddess Kahindo.: Biebuyck & Mateene, The Mwindo Epic from the Banyanga, 1969. (primary); Biebuyck, Hero and Chief, 1978. (secondary)