Mvelinqangi (the First to Appear)

Mvelinqangi, also Mkhulumnqande ('the great-great one'), is the remote high god of the Swazi (emaSwati), a Nguni people of Eswatini. As among other Nguni, he is the self-created first being and origin of all, but he is distant and impersonal; the active religious life of the Swazi is directed not to him but to the royal and family ancestors (emadloti).

Domains

• supreme creator
• origin of the peoples

Powers

• to bring the earth and its peoples into being
• to remain remote and beyond direct worship

Sources

• Hilda Kuper, An African Aristocracy: Rank Among the Swazi (London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1947).
• Molefi Kete Asante & Ama Mazama (eds.), Encyclopedia of African Religion (Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2009), s.v. 'Swazi'.