Onyankopon
Onyankopon AfricaLiteral meaning: ‘the great one’. According to the Ashanti, the universe is ‘full of spirits’, but as Bore-Bore, ‘the creator of all things’, Onyankopon was the god who made them all. Below the pantheon of gods, abosom, and minor deities, asuman, are the lesser spirits which animate trees, animals, or charms; and then there are the ever-present nsamanfo, the spirits of the ancestors. Onyankopon is Otumfoo, ‘the powerful one’; Otomankoma, ‘the eternal one’; Ananse Kokroko, ‘the great wise spider’; and Onyankopon Kwame, ‘the great one who appeared on Saturday.’
At first the sky god Onyankopon lived very near to men. He was obliged to remove his abode to the top of the sky because a certain old woman used to knock her long pestle against him when she pounded yams. As soon as the crone realized what had happened, she instructed her many children to collect all the mortars they could find,...
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