Lightning
Songhai · deity · Songhay/Zarma oral tradition; living holey cult · Recorded classification
Spirit-class figure (a Tooru) entered as a deity. 'Cirey' means 'red' in Songhay, evoking the lightning flash; sources give him alongside/under Dongo. Scholarship: Stoller (1989); Rouch (1960/1989).
Parentage
- parent: River Mother of the Niger
Domains
- lightning
- wisdom
Powers
- to flash red lightning across the storm
- wield the lightning and (in some accounts) wisdom
Epithets
- Cirey the Red One (the lightning-flash)Paul Stoller, Fusion of the Worlds (1989) (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: ThunderReciprocal of songhai_dongo.sibling — Tooru brothers among Harakoy Dikko's children: Cirey's lightning flashes before Dongo's thunder strikes; Dongo is youngest or adopted.Jean Rouch, La religion et la magie songhay (2nd ed., Brussels 1989) (secondary)
Sources
- Cirey (also Kyirey, 'the Red'), a son in Harakoy Dikko's Tooru lineage, is the Songhay spirit of lightning, paired with the thunder-god Dongo in the holey storm cult.: Paul Stoller, Fusion of the Worlds (1989) (secondary); Jean Rouch, La religion et la magie songhay (1960/1989) (secondary)