Raluvhimba is the high creator-god of the Vhavenḓa, a remote celestial being whose name unites the honorific ra-, carrying the sense of 'father', with luvhimba, the bateleur eagle: he is the one who soars aloft. He is rarely approached directly and has no images; instead he reveals himself in the great phenomena of nature. A shooting star is Raluvhimba travelling across the sky, his voice sounds in the thunder, and comets, lightning, meteors, earthquakes, drought, floods, locusts and epidemics are all read as his workings. He governs the rain on which the people depend and is credited with shaping the world in the beginning, when the mountains around Lake Fundudzi were still soft enough to take his footprints. Sources differ on whether Raluvhimba is wholly distinct from Nwali (Mwali): the Venda themselves commonly identify the two, and both are equated with the Shona high-god Mwari of the Matonjeni oracle.