Supreme Creator God
Shona · deity · primordial / pre creation · Recorded classification
High god of the Shona of Zimbabwe; classed as deity. Genderless/sexless in Shona conception, hence sex='none'. Worship centred on the Matonjeni (Matopos) shrines, chiefly Njelele.
Children
Domains
- creation
- sky rain
- fertility of land
Powers
- speaks decrees from the cave-oracle to the people
- withholds or releases the rains over the land
Epithets
- Musikavanhu Creator of the People (maker of humankind)M. L. Daneel, The God of the Matopo Hills: An Essay on the Mwari Cult in Rhodesia (1970) (secondary); Michael Gelfand, Shona Religion (1962) (secondary)
- Nyadenga Owner/Lord of the Sky (he of the heavens)Michael Gelfand, Shona Religion (1962); M. L. Daneel, The God of the Matopo Hills (1970) (secondary)
- Sororenzou Head of the Elephant (Great One)M. L. Daneel, The God of the Matopo Hills (1970) (secondary)
Sources
- Mwari is the single Supreme Being of Shona religion, a remote creator approached through ancestral intermediaries and the Matopos shrine-oracle.: Bourdillon, M.F.C., 'The Shona Peoples: An Ethnography of the Contemporary Shona, with Special Reference to their Religion' (1987) (secondary); Daneel, M.L., 'The God of the Matopo Hills' (1970) (secondary)
- Mwari bears the praise-names Musikavanhu (Creator of People), Nyadenga (One of the Heavens), and Dzivaguru, and is conceived as genderless.: Gelfand, M., 'Shona Religion' (1962) (secondary)