above image: African Gods/Goddesses. Abassi 4th from right bottom row.

Exploring World Mythology:

Abassi: Creator God and Sky God of the Efik (Africa).

     Like I said yesterday, I want to spend a few posts exploring different more obscure myths and mythology from around the world. I am using The Dictionary of Mythology an A-Z of themes legends and heroes, written or compiled by: J.A. Coleman. I just decided to start with A and go from there and by the end of this I would like to see if I can draw any comparisons from the obscure myths we have looked at and other more popular myths and legends to see if they connect. (Hint, I think they will). Well today I have chosen an African creator God, it has a peculiar ending than most creation myths you’ll see what I’m saying after you read about him. So let us learn more about this African Creator God.

     The story says he reluctantly allowed his two children to descend to Earth but imposed conditions that they neither mated nor engaged in agriculture, returning to heaven for their meals. Inevitably, the pair mated and soon the Earth was fully populated. Abassi endowed these people with the gift of argument and instituted death, so that, since then, men have quarreled and killed each other.

Well, there you have it! This is a little different when it comes to the gifts he bestowed upon his people. Most creator Gods gave the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, love, or other happy things, not this guy, this guy gave his people, the people he didn’t even want, argument and death. Wow! I should also note that there is one common theme here as with more popular mythology, incest. Many myths perpetuate the incest theme when it comes to the creation of the world or certain heroes. That is just one of the many common connectors we shall see while we dive into these obscure ancient myths and legends. I am really excited for this Chapter of my blog and hope you guys are too.

I decided to Google the Efik people and this is some of the more interesting points I discovered about them:

They reside in Southeastern Nigeria, manily.

They claim to be descended from people from Egypt and/or Palastine.They migrated three different times in about 500 years before settling in their present location.

Each time they moved because of arguments with other tribes. (See the above creation myth).

They have a SECRET SOCIETY called the Ekpe, that holds considerable power over other tribes. The society invented Nsibidi, an ancient African language.

In 1884 the Efik kings and the chiefs of the Efik placed themselves under British protection, these treaties and attendant territorial rights are documented in CAP 23 of Laws of Eastern Nigeria, captioned “Comey subsidies law”. They are still in effect in some areas.

As of 2006, the Efik king, known as the Obong of Calabar, is still a political power among their people.

the above info in bold face was taken directly from Wikipedia.

 above image: Modern Efik women in ceremonial dance attire.

Interesting, especially about how they moved so many times because of arguments with other tribes. I like how it links with their creation myth. I found it fascinating that they created a Secret Society that still holds power in their area. I will be doing more research into that in the future! I love what we can find just looking at one cultures mythology, this is fun! Well that’ll be it for now, I hope you enjoyed our first look at some obscure Myths, I can’t wait for the next chapter. Until then, have a great day and as always: PEACE!!!!!!!

 above image: Efik royalty late 19th Century