Ndlati

In Tsonga belief the lightning-flash is a living creature, a bird sent down from Tilo. Where the bolt strikes, the bird is said to plunge into the ground and hide; doctors afterward dig at the spot to recover its traces, which are prized as a potent ingredient in protective and weather medicines. Junod records the conviction that lightning is thus caught and its power harnessed rather than merely feared. The bird of Heaven links the impersonal violence of the sky to the practical world of the diviner-healer, and beliefs in such a lightning-bird are shared across the neighbouring Southern Bantu peoples, among whom its name and attributes vary.

Domains

• lightning

Powers

• descends to earth as the lightning-stroke
• buries itself in the earth where it strikes

Relations

• companion: TiloSent down by Tilo as the embodied lightning.Henri-Alexandre Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. 2 (1927), on the bird as the agent of Heaven (primary)

Sources

• In Tsonga belief the lightning-flash is a living creature, a bird sent down from Tilo, which plunges into the ground where it strikes and hides, so that doctors afterward dig at the spot to recover its traces as a potent charm ingredient.: Henri-Alexandre Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. 2: Mental Life (2nd ed., London: Macmillan, 1927), on lightning as a bird (primary)
• Belief in a lightning-bird sent by the sky-power is shared across neighbouring Southern Bantu peoples, and the Tsonga name and details vary in the sources.: Henri-Philippe Junod, Bantu Heritage (Johannesburg: Hortors, 1938), on sky beliefs among the Tsonga and their neighbours (secondary)