Tilo

Tilo is the Tsonga word for the sky and, by extension, the diffuse celestial power that early ethnographers took to be the nearest thing in Thonga religion to a supreme being. Junod described Tilo as at once a place and an agent: it is the physical heaven, but it also acts, striking people dead with lightning, brewing the great storms, and sending the convulsive seizures of small children that are named the diseases of Heaven (mavabyi ya tilo). Twins and their mothers are held to belong to Heaven, and in drought communities addressed Tilo directly for rain. Junod concluded that Tilo was only partly personified, a mysterious force rather than a creator god possessing myths of his own, and later students of Southern Bantu religion have continued to debate whether Tilo represents an indigenous sky-divinity or an impersonal numinous power. Worship centred on averting the sky's violence: specialist doctors of Heaven treated lightning-struck homesteads and worked to still hailstorms.

Domains

• sky
• storms and lightning
• disease
• rain and fertility

Powers

• strikes mortals dead with lightning
• sends the convulsive seizures called diseases of Heaven
• grants or withholds the rain
• makes women bear twins, who belong to Heaven

Epithets

• Tilo ra le henhla — Heaven on highEdwin W. Smith (ed.), African Ideas of God (London: Edinburgh House Press, 1950), on Thonga conceptions of the sky-power (secondary)

Relations

• companion: NdlatiTilo sends the bird of Heaven to earth as the lightning-stroke.Henri-Alexandre Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. 2 (1927), on the bird of Heaven as the agent of the lightning sent by Tilo (primary)

Sources

• Tilo is the Tsonga word for the sky and for the diffuse celestial power that Junod took to be the nearest thing in Thonga religion to a supreme being, acting through lightning, storms, the diseases of Heaven, twins and rain.: Henri-Alexandre Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. 2: Mental Life (2nd ed., London: Macmillan, 1927), section on the Sky and Heaven (primary)
• Junod judged Tilo only partly personified, a mysterious force rather than a creator god with myths of his own, and later scholars of Southern Bantu religion continue to debate whether Tilo is an indigenous sky-divinity or an impersonal numinous power.: Benjamin C. Ray, African Religions: Symbol, Ritual, and Community (Prentice-Hall, 1976) (secondary); Edwin W. Smith (ed.), African Ideas of God (Edinburgh House Press, 1950) (secondary)