Otiose Sky Creator

Tiv high god, a deus otiosus; the name simply means 'sky'. The English descriptor leads name.primary, native term in `term`. Typed deity (creator).

Children

• Mystical Forces That Govern the World

Domains

• creation
• sky

Powers

• creates the world and then takes no further interest in it
• sets the akombo forces in the sky to regulate the world
• roars and flashes as thunder and lightning

Epithets

• Aondo latin · Aondo · cultThe Sky; the supreme god of the Tiv, remote source of allTiv (Nigeria) ethnography (R. & L. Bohannan) (secondary)
• Aôndo kume Tiv · Aondo kume · colloquialGod roars (said of thunder)R. C. Abraham, The Tiv People (1933) (secondary)

Relations

• ancestor of: Mystical Forces That Govern the WorldAondo (sky), the otiose high god, is the source of the akombo mystical forces, which already register him as origin; mirrored as ancestor-of to preserve their deity-class tier. Distinct from the human ancestor Takuruku, who is not divine progeny.Downes, R. M., 'Tiv Religion' (1971); Bohannan, P. & L., 'The Tiv of Central Nigeria' (1953) (secondary)

Sources

• Aondo (literally 'Sky') is the Tiv otiose creator god who made the world and its forces of good and evil, then withdrew, taking no continuing interest in human affairs.: Bohannan, Paul, and Laura Bohannan. The Tiv of Central Nigeria. London: International African Institute, 1953, pp. 84-86. (primary); Downes, Rupert M. Tiv Religion. Ibadan, 1971. (secondary)
• Tiv ritual life centres not on Aondo but on the akombo (mystical forces/emblems) activated by tsav (mystical power).: Akiga. Akiga's Story. Trans. Rupert East. London, 1939. (primary); Wegh, Shagbaor F. Between Continuity and Change: Tiv Concept of Tradition and Modernity. Lagos: OVC, 1998. (secondary)