Mebege

See also: Nyambe

Mebege (also called Nzeme and Mbere) is the Supreme God of the Fang people of the Central African Republic.[1][2]

Cosmology

First oral tradition

Nzeme (or Mebege) is believed to have created everything in the universe and blew life into the Earth and Zambe, the first ancestor. It is also said that Nzeme created three spirits: Nzame with strength; Mbere with leadership, and Nkwa with beauty.[3]

Second oral tradition

According to oral tradition, Mebege is the Creator God. He was originally alone in the universe, with a spider named Dibobia as his only company. Mebege created the earth on the suggestion of Dibobia. He gave several strands of his hair, a part of his brain, and a smooth stone and turned them into an egg. Then, Dibobia put the egg into the sea. After some time, the egg cracked open and three deities came out, and the firstborn, Zame ye Mebege, became the leader of the pantheon.[1][2]

Zame ye Mebege was associated with masculine energy and the sun. Nyingwan Mebege, the secondborn and his sister, was associated with fertility, feminine energy, and the moon. Nlona Mebege, the youngest and his brother, was associated with evil.[2][4] Mebege gave Zame instructions on how to create the earth and once he succeeded, Mebege and Dibobia left Zame in charge of the earth, while they both ascended to the heavens.[1][2]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Lynch, Patricia Ann; Roberts, Jeremy (2010). African Mythology, A to Z. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-3133-7.
  2. ^ a b c d "Mebege Creates an Egg". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  3. ^ Scheub, Harold (2000). A Dictionary of African Mythology: The Mythmaker as Storyteller (1st ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. xxiii, 90, 108–110, 165–166, 185, 260–261, 288, 379, 430, 464–467, 747–748. ISBN 9780195124569.
  4. ^ Fernandez, J. W. (2019-01-29). Bwiti: An Ethnography of the Religious Imagination in Africa. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-19628-2.