Bonaab
Talensi · numen · Talensi traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Bonaab, an ancestral 'grandfather' title, is one of the three principal earth-god shrines of the Tong Hills, standing beside Tongnaab Yaanɛ and Nyoo. It is reckoned a benevolent, protective, and curative power, sought for healing and for the safety of the community, and like its companion shrines it sends out boarbii, 'children of the shrine', to distant petitioners. Its standing in the regional cult made it a target of colonial suppression: a British punitive expedition destroyed a main Bonaab shrine in 1915, after which ritual life in the hills continued through the Yaanɛ shrine. Related earth-god shrines of the same complex, such as Kusanaab, are named in the ethnographic and archaeological record alongside it.
Domains
- earth
- healing
- protection
Powers
- shelters and safeguards its people
- heals sickness and affliction
Sources
- Bonaab is one of the three great earth-god shrines of the Tong Hills, a benevolent, protective and curative power that also franchises boarbii shrines; a main Bonaab shrine was destroyed by the British in 1915.: Jean Allman and John Parker, 'Tongnaab: The History of a West African God' (2005); Timothy Insoll, 'Substance and materiality?', 'World Archaeology' 43 (2011). (secondary)