Lion Royal Ancestor-Spirit
Shona · demigod · founding ancestral era; mediums active into the 19th century · Recorded classification
Classed as demigod: a royal ancestor-spirit (mhondoro) of supratribal significance, in some traditions held to be a child of Mwari (hence parentIds includes shona_mwari) who is more-than-mortal. vitalStatus='spirit' (an ancestral spirit, not a living mortal). Often paired with Nehanda.
Parentage
- parent: Supreme Creator God
Domains
- national guardianship
- prophecy
- rain
Powers
- descends into and speaks through a chosen human medium
- foretells war, drought, and the fortunes of the nation
Epithets
- Chaminuka great mhondoro (lion spirit) and national rain-and-prophecy mhondoro of the central Shona, hailed as the one who 'makes the rain fall' and foretells the future; senior spirit-medium oracleLan, David. Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe, James Currey/Univ. California Press, 1985 (secondary scholarship); Gelfand, Michael. Shona Ritual, Juta, 1959 (primary ethnography)
- Mutsiwemvura the one who is given rain / rainmakerShona oral tradition; Encyclopedia of African Religion, 'Chaminuka' (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: Female Lion Royal Ancestor-SpiritReciprocal of shona_nehanda.sibling — Paired supratribal mhondoro; in the traditions that make each a child of Mwari they are sister and brother spirits.D. P. Abraham, 'The Roles of Chaminuka and the Mhondoro Cults in Shona Political History', in The Zambesian Past (1966) (secondary)
Sources
- Chaminuka is the senior mhondoro (royal lion-spirit) at the apex of the Shona national hierarchy of ancestral spirits, a renowned prophet who manifests through successive mediums.: Bourdillon, M.F.C., 'The Shona Peoples' (1987) (secondary); Gelfand, M., 'Shona Religion' (1962) (secondary)
- Chaminuka and Nehanda are in some traditions described as mhondoro dzematenga ('lions of the heavens'), children of Mwari who never had a fully mortal existence.: Encyclopedia.com, 'Shona Religion' (citing scholarship on mhondoro of supratribal significance) (secondary)