The Baluba are one of the Bantu peoples of Central Africa. Their creation deity's name is Kabezya-Mpungu.
Creation myth of Kabezya-Mpungu
The Baluba creation story makes a connection between God's invisibility or unavailability, and the endowment of humans with a soul or divine component longing for God.
In the creation story, Kabezya-Mpungu decides to become invisible after creating the world and the first humans who did not yet have a heart. After balancing the rain, sun, moon, and darkness, he leaves. To replace the visible god, he sends the people Mutshima ("heart"), the life-giving or divine part of humans.
..I don't want that humans will see me any more. I return into myself and send Mutshima...Then Kabeza-Mpungu disappeared. Thereafter, the heart appeared, in a small, hand-sized vessel. The heart cried and turned towards Sun, Moon, Darkness and Rain: "Kabezya-Mpungu, our father, where is he!" "Father is gone, we don't know the way he went". "Oh how much I am longing to see him" the heart replied, "to talk to him. Since I cannot find him, I will enter into this man. So I will wander from generation to generation".
Since then all humans have been endowed with Mutshima, the heart.
Notes
References
- Carl Einstein (Ed.) 1925: Afrikanische Märchen und Legenden; Rowohlt, 1925. Neuausgabe (1980) MEDUSA Verlag Wölk + Schmid, Berlin. (in German)
- Charlotte Leslau, Wolf Leslau (Ed.): African Folk Tales; Mount Vernon, 1963, N.Y. : Peter Pauper Press
External links
- Creation Myth of Kabezya-Mpungu