Waaq
Waaq (Somali also Eebbe; cognate with Oromo Waaqa) was the high god of the pre-Islamic, pre-Christian sky-god religion shared across the Cushitic-speaking Horn of Africa. Conceived as a single all-powerful creator dwelling in the heavens, he governed rain, fertility, peace and the order of nature, and was held to have made humankind to revere him. His cult is materially attested by the wagar, carved figures of the sacred wild-olive tree kept by women for fertility, and by antique shrines and phallic stelae such as those at Aw-Barkhadle in Somaliland. His name survives across the region in place-names such as Ceelwaaq ('well of God') and Caabudwaaq ('worshipper of God'), and in the everyday Somali word Eebbe, even after the adoption of Islam.
Domains
- sky and rain
- fertility
- sacred trees
Powers
- to send rain upon the pastures
- to grant fertility to people, herds and land
- to create humankind to revere him
Epithets
- Eebbe
Relations
- subordinate to: Ayaanle
Sources
- Sada Mire, 'Wagar, Fertility and Phallic Stelae: Cushitic Sky-God Belief and the Site of Saint Aw-Barkhadle in Somaliland', African Archaeological Review 32 (2015): 93-109.
- Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi, Culture and Customs of Somalia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), pp. 65-67.
- I. M. Lewis, Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho (London: International African Institute, 1955), pp. 138-141.