ANANASI (Various tribes): The spider. A trickster. A creator god. Something of a scoundrel, but quite well-liked. Many amusing and fanciful stories are told of him.
ANYIEWO: The Great Serpent who comes out to graze after the rain. The rainbow is his reflection.
BUNZI (DRC): She was born as a snake to a ‘god’ father and her great mother. The serpent grew up and assumed the role of her mother which was rainmaking. People would see the serpent in the sky in the shape of the rainbow.
DANH also DAN AYIDO HWEDO(Dahomey): Snake god. The Haitians know him as Dan Petro, the Rainbow Snake who encircles the world, Danh is often portrayed with his tail in his mouth as a symbol of unity and wholeness.
DXUI (Bushmen; Hottentots, TSUI; to the Xhosa and Ponda, THIXO): A creator god. In the beginning, Dxui took the form of a different flower or plant every day, becoming himself at night, until he had created all the plants and flowers that exist.
ESHU (Yoruba): A trickster. A shape-shifter, Eshu can change his form at will, and can even seem to be both huge and small at the same time. Eshu confuses men and drives them to madness. But Eshu also knows all human tongues and acts as a go-between for mortals and the gods.
DOONDARI (Mali, Senegal): The creator who descended to the Earth and created a stone, which created iron, fire, water and air. Then he returned and shaped those elements into man. But man became too proud, so he created blindness and also death.
DZEMAWON (Ghana): A powerful and intelligent god who comes and goes as he pleases. He comes like the wind, he walks all over the world. He is omnipotent and can take on any shape. On days of worship he can appear in human form.
GUNAB (Hottentot): The enemy of Tsui-Goab, Gunab lived under a pile of stones. Gunab kept overpowering Tsui-Goab, but the god grew stronger after each battle. Because he killed so many, Gunab is sometimes identified with death. Creator of the rainbow.
GUA (Ga tribe of West Africa): God of thunder, blacksmiths and farmers. Gua's temples are often found at blacksmith's forges.
KIBUKA(Baganda): Awar god, sent to save the Baganda people. The king of the Baganda asked heaven for assistance in war, and Kibuka was sent to aid them. Warned not to have anything to do with the enemy's women, Kibuka nevertheless made love to a woman prisoner. Unwisely, Kibuka confided in her, and after escaping she told the enemy how Kibuka could be killed, by firing arrows into the cloud where he was hiding. Kibuka flew off to a tall tree to die, and a temple was built at the place where his body was found.
LEZA (Central Africa): ‘The One Who Besets’, Leza is the Supreme God who rules the sky and sends wind and rain. Leza sits on the backs of all people, and no one can ever break free of him. Leza is said to be growing old and so does not hear prayers as well as he once did.
MAWU-LISA (Ewe): The great god and goddess of the sun and moon. Lisa is the sun and Mawu is the moon.
MODIMO (Lesotho): Creator god, supreme being, also called Ralapeba. Father of all might and power, feared for his vengefulness and power of fire. He is one of 12 gods with various functions and awesomeness. A comet called Modudusta is honoured in the name of these gods.
MUJAJI (Lovedu-South Africa): Rain goddess, queen of the Lovedu people. Four rain goddesses have ruled over the Lovedu people, all descendants of the original Mujaji. They are all related to the great and mighty Monomotapa of the Karanga empire in Zimbabwe, giving us a direct link to the mystery surrounding the Zimbabwe ruins and the lands of Ophir filled with gold. Mujaji has mysterious powers and is immortal. She has saved many people by bringing rain.
MULUNGU (East Africa): God and the ‘Supreme Being’. The concept of a supreme being and creator is nearly universal in Africa. Although there are few temples to this god, they must have been built sometime after 3,000 BC in the Mozambique and Zimbabwe areas. These temples resemble those of Canaanite origins in the Near East. Mulungu lived on Earth at first, but moved back to the sky because men were killing his children. He told man that they would come up to the sky when they die. So it is believed that when humans die they go up to heaven to be the slaves of god.
NANAN-BOUCLOU (Ewe): The original god of the Ewe tribe, both male and female, Nanan-Bouclou is much too remote for worship. In Haiti, Nanan-Bouclou is remembered as the god of herbs and medicines.
NGAI (Masai): Creator god. At birth, Ngai gives each man a guardian spirit to ward off danger and carry him away at the moment of death. The evil are carried off to a desert, while the good go to a land of rich pastures and many cattle.
NYAME (Ashanti): Supreme god of Heaven, both the sun god and the moon goddess. Nyame created the three realms: the sky, the Earth and the underworld. Before being born, souls are taken to Nyame and washed in a golden bath. Nyame gives the souls their destinies. The soul is then fit to be born.
NYASAYE (Maragoli, Kenya): Chief god of the Maragoli. Spirits are said to aid Maragoli's work, and they are represented by round stones circling a pole which represents the god.
NZAME (Fan people, Congo): He is a vague and shadowy god whose likeness cannot be captured in wood, stone or metal. Nzame lived on Earth with his three sons, Whiteman, Blackman and Gorilla. At some stage Blackman and Gorilla with all their kinfolk sinned against Nzame. As a result Nzame took all his wealth and went to live with his other son Whiteman, in the west, while Gorilla and his kin went to live in the jungle. Without the knowledge, wealth and power of Nzame, Blackman and his family live a hard life of poverty and ignorance, constantly yearning for the land where Nzame lives with his favoured son, Whiteman.
OBATALA (Nigeria): Was the creator of land. He was summoned by the supreme being, to create land where there was only water. Then he made man out of clay. This is virtually identical to the activity of Enki upon arriving on Earth, as described in Sumerian tablets.
RUHANGA (Uganda): Creator of all things and living conditions on Earth. He retired to the sky but could not prevent the rise of evil and death. He established the unequal roles of society: the king, the herdsmen, the farmers.
SAGBATA (Dahomey; the Yoruba, Shagpona): God of smallpox. Sagbata's shrines were painted with a design of small spots. In Mayan culture such small spots represented the decomposing bodies of those struck down by the god of death. Sagbata's priests fought small pox with both prayers and medical knowledge, and wielded great power over the people.
TANO (Ashanti): The second oldest son of god, and god of the river, who had the same name. The gods of the other rivers and families in the same region are all his family. Long ago Tano lost a singing match with Death. Tano and Death sang defiance to each other for over a month, but neither could win so they had to compromise. When someone is injured or falls ill, whichever god arrives first will claim him. If Tano arrives first, the person will live, but if Death arrives first the patient is lost.
TSUI' GOAB (Hottentots): ‘Wounded Knee’and ‘Father of Our Fathers’. Arain god who lives in the clouds who is a great chief and magician. Tsui' Goab made the first man and woman from rocks. Several times Tsui' Goab died and rose again, to great joy and celebration. Men invoke Tsui' Goab with the first rays of dawn and recite oaths in his name.
UNKULUNKULU (Zulu): ‘Old, Old One’– Unkulunkulu was both the first man and the creator, a god of the Earth who did not travel between Earth and the heavens. Unkulunkulu showed men how to live together and gave them knowledge of the world in which they lived.
WELE XAKABA(Luyia-Kenya): Supreme being who created the world and is the giver of all things. First created his own home in heaven, which was a place “ever bright” supported with pillars. The first human couple lived in a place called Embayi, a house in the air supported by poles. Mainly because there were monsters called Amanani on Earth. The first humans did not know how to have intercourse and lived many years without children. Later Mwambu and Sela did have intercourse and had a son called Lilambo, and so humans multiplied on Earth. This god was also known as the Sun god who takes an Earthling girl into heaven and makes her his wife.
YO (The creative spirit, Bambara/
Mali): This creative spirit used three beings to create all things. This included seven heavens corresponding to the seven parts of the Earth. First they created men, and after some time the woman from dust and saliva. Men are immortal, becoming 7-year old children each time they reach the age of 59. They live unclothed, have no needs, they don't speak or work.
ZIMU (Ndebele, South Africa): Is the supreme being. He sent a chameleon with a message to tell the people that they will “die and rise again”. But the lizard got to the people first and told them that they would “die and not rise again”. By the time the chameleon delivered his message of hope the people did not believe him and chose to believe the lizard.
African mythology is so rich and colourful that one could go on forever. The link that we have created in this book to our original ancestors in Africa, draws much support from these tales. As one reads them they seem to be more naïve and more ancient than all the other civilisations. The relationship between gods and humans was more simple, more defined and unquestionably obedient. There was also mysteriously no real need for worship and hardly ever any mention of sacrifices to the gods. These characteristics separate African mythology greatly from all the others, where sacrifice and temple worship form a major part of the rituals. In prehistoric Africa, gods and men seem to have lived side by side with very little friction. There are many tales which include a supreme deity with two sons or a daughter, who go down to Earth to make it habitable and to create man. They inevitably begin a feud which results in many clashes between the gods, and divides their human followers. Controversial South African mystic and Sangoma (medicine man), Credo Mutwa, talks about the Zulu legends of the most ancient gold mines of Monomotapa in Zimbabwe. In his book Indaba My Children, he points out the legends that speak about “artificially produced flesh and blood slaves, created by the First People”. The legends recount how the slaves “went into battle with the Ape-Man” when “the great war star appeared in the sky”. As we delve deeper into these stories it becomes very clear that the continent of Africa was a hive of activity in the early days of pre-history, long before the civilisations of the Near East and the Americas blossomed. Man was an infant finding his way in the world and the gods had their hands full, trying to control these human slaves.
Chinese mythological gods.
Chinese history and religion are inextricably linked to their mythology. According to ancient tradition, the Chinese were savages until a sage came along and taught them how to construct shelters. Some time later wise men taught the original Chinese the use of fire, music and the cultivation of crops, in succession. The last of these sages was the Yellow Emperor Huangdi, the father of Chinese civilisation. Where Huangdi suddenly appeared from is not known, but he bestowed all knowledge on the Chinese people. Could he have been one of the Anunnaki gods on their expansion road to the East? If we accept that the gods of Sumer, or Anunnaki gods, were actually the progenitors of civilisation in other parts of the world, then the same should apply in China. Huangdi carries all the mystical attributes which place him squarely in the realm of Anunnaki gods. The discovery of Homo erectus fossils called ‘Peking Man’ in 1921 near Beijing led to claims that the earliest humans evolved in China, and that the Chinese were the earliest modern humans who evolved into a unique indigenous race. This has subsequently been proven not to be true and the accepted place for the cradle of Humankind has been established in southern Africa. The Chinese Human Genome Diversity Project, a collaboration among 12 researchers from seven institutions, scrutinised DNAsamples from 28 of China's 56 ethnic groups and then compared the samples with genetic material from other Asian and non-Asian groups. The outcome was that, just like the rest of humanity, the Chinese evolved in Africa. This may have been the case, but the huge influence the Aryans had on the development of the entire Asian civilisation has somehow been overlooked. It is said that the early humans migrated eastward along the Indian Ocean and made their way to China via Southeast Asia. The report linked to the Genome Project further mentions “It is now safe to conclude that modern humans originating in Africa constitute the majority of the current gene pool in Asian populations”. I find it interesting that the report says “majority” of the current gene pool. If all humans originated in Africa, was there another genetic pool source? If so, where did this ‘other’ gene pool originate from? Did the elusive and influential Aryans who were responsible for populating Europe, and whose influence spread across Asia, have something to do with it? Or was the Yellow Emperor Huangdi possibly the other gene pool contributor? The gods whom the Chinese people worshipped at the dawn of their civilisation may have had different names, but their functions and their powers were identical to the deities from other civilisations. Chinese religious practice calls on great and powerful divine ancestors. Could those ancestors who are deified in Chinese mythology have been the early Aryans who had special powers and technology way beyond the primitive local earthlings of the time? Or were these ancestors even more powerful than the Aryans… could they have been the omnipresent Anunnaki gods who were taking control of the rapidly expanding world towards the East? The Sumerian tablets certainly seem to suggest such expansion by the Anunnaki gods, mainly driven by Inanna. But her relatives and siblings were all in on the act, trying to snatch a piece of the world for themselves and establish their own group of loyal, obedient human slaves.
Dragons play a central role in all of Eastern mythology, sometimes crossing over into popular religion. Their origins and backgrounds are amazingly close to stories of biblical and Sumerian origins. There are a number of dragons that differ slightly as you move further east. The one thing that strikes me, is that the image of the Chinese dragon is very close to the flying serpent of the Mayas, and other cultures. In many depictions, the dragon is long and thin, more closely resembling a ‘serpent with wings’ rather than a flame-spitting monstrous dragon. Could this be another influence of Enki, the serpent of the Garden of Eden fame, and the ‘flying serpent’ of the Mayas? Because kings in China were appointed by sanction of the supreme being, they also became deified and often worshipped. Is it possible that just like in Egypt, the Chinese emperors were also half-god, half-man, and therefore often worshipped, becoming ‘gods’ unto the people like the Pharaohs? The subtle differences between the Chinese, Korean and Japanese dragons raise a curious link to the possible expansion towards the East, by the supporters of Enki and Inanna, and the lower ranks assigned to the lesser gods who were placed in charge of those new lands. Chinese dragons have 5 toes, Korean have 4 toes and Japanese dragons have 3 toes. Could this represent the diminishing ranks of the Anunnaki gods far away from Sumer and their commander Enlil? But the stories surrounding the origins of some of the dragons are remarkably similar to many Sumerian and biblical tales.
Kinabalu: The Eastern Dragon, lived at the top of Mount Kinabalu in Borneo and was in possession of a splendid pearl which was desired by the Chinese emperor. Many men tried to capture the pearl from the dragon but they were all killed in the process. Then the emperor sent out brothers Wee Ping and Wee San to get the pearl from the dragon. They waited until the dragon went to find food, then they flew onto the mountaintop with a kite and replaced the pearl with a fake pearl. But the dragon was not fooled and gave chase to the thieves as they were escaping in a ‘boat’. As the dragon approached, Wee San launched a cannon ball at him. The dragon thought the cannonball to be his pearl and swallowed it and died. Wee Ping wanted to take the pearl and the glory and lied by saying he was the one who managed to steal it from the dragon. Wee San wanted no more trouble over the pearl and left China. He later became the happy leader of Brunei. Wee Ping on the other hand, was not so lucky, for his lying brought him nothing but sadness.
The symbolism of this story is clearly linked to ‘pearls of wisdom’ tales. One such story which carries many similarities, is the Sumerian tale of Inanna stealing the tablets of wisdom or ME from her uncle Enki. She flew to his mountain retreat and seduced him. She also escaped in her boat, but th
is was a ‘boat of heaven’ which could fly. Is it coincidence that Enki was the ‘flying serpent’ of the Sumerian culture and probably other cultures too? So the ‘flying serpent’ or dragon gave chase to retrieve his ME tablets of wisdom from Inanna, but was unable to do so. The similarities in the storyline are remarkable. We must remind ourselves that the Chinese stories were written many thousands of years later than the Sumerian tablets, but it is quite possible that they may have existed in oral form for millennia. The symbolisms surrounding the dragons are very intriguing. Enki was the serpent who could fly and therefore could be seen as the ‘winged serpent’. His flying machines created a noise and so did the fire dragons while flying and spitting fire. Is it not possible that the different eastern dragons were just representations of the different Anunnaki gods in their flying machines during the early days when they were colonising Asia and keeping their human ‘slaves’ obedient and fearful? There are several stories about dragons, their sudden appearance and lessons they brought to the people, the fear they spread, and control they had over many aspects of Chinese life. Most, if not all of the stories, resemble Sumerian stories regarding the activities of the Anunnaki gods, long before China became civilised.
Another dragon story reminds me in its symbolism of the story around the birth of Christ, where a young virgin falls pregnant to a stranger, or angel, who disappears. During the birth of Jesus the cave was filled with magnificent light, brighter than the sun. The child grows up as an outcast, but he eventually becomes the ‘white prince of peace’ slaying evil everywhere, eventually rising into the ‘sky’. The young girl Mary, became revered by millions and worshipped in prayer. Now see the remarkable resemblance:
It is interesting that this particular dragon was called ‘The White Dragon’ or Pai Lung. The legend of Pai Lung begins on a stormy night, when a young girl answered the door to a stranger who came calling looking for shelter from the storm. He was an elderly man, while she was a virgin. The next morning the stranger was gone, but the young girl was pregnant. Her parents were enraged by this and threw her out of the house. When the child was born, it appeared to be a small white ball. They discarded the white ball into the ocean. To everyone's surprise, this ball grew into a magnificent white dragon. The young girl, terrified and shocked, fainted and never again woke. Another variation of this story says that she was killed in a great storm, after which the ‘white dragon rose into the sky’. She was revered for being the mother of this magnificent dragon, the only White Dragon King. She was buried at the foot of a hill, where people ask for favours, pardons, and other blessings. A temple was erected on the summit of this hill, and a tablet is there which records this legend. It is also important to note that the White Dragon was a five-toed dragon; brilliantly white, the same way the appearance of ‘angels’ or the many ‘gods’ is described in the Bible and Sumerian tablets. Could the 5 toes represent the highest order of the divine Anunnaki hierarchy?
Slave Species of god Page 48