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Nyame

Akan · supreme creator, sky

Also known as Onyankopon, Odomankoma

Documented traditional beliefs, sourced from real ethnographic and religious-studies scholarship — not a complete pantheon, and not a claim about what any individual believes today.

In Akan tradition, Nyame (also called Onyankopon, "the only great one," and Odomankoma, "the creator") is understood as the supreme being — the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe and the giver of rain and sunshine. Having created the world, Nyame is held to have withdrawn to the sky, governing through the abosom (intermediate deities) rather than acting directly. The name Nyame itself is glossed as "the one who knows and sees everything."

Source: Akan cosmology, cross-referenced across Encyclopedia.com's "Akan Religion" entry and Wikipedia's Nyame/Onyankopon/Odomankoma article (itself citing J.B. Danquah 1952, Edwin W. Smith 1945, Thomas Addae 1970, and Joseph Brookman-Amissah 1986)

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From Nyame ("God") + kyɛ ("to give, a gift"): "gift from God." Given to a child born after a long wait or prolonged childlessness.

This name is built from Nyame's own name: "Nyame" + "gift."

Given to a boy born on Saturday. Saturday's day-spirit is associated with the Supreme Being. Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, was born on a Saturday.

Saturday's day-spirit, for which this name is given, is understood as Nyame.

How Ananse Bought the Sky-God's Stories

Long ago, all the stories belonged to Nyankonpon, the sky-god. Kwaku Ananse, the spider, asked to buy them. The price was Onini the python, the Mmoboro hornets, Osebo the leopard, and a Mmoatia, a forest spirit. Ananse agreed and also promised to give his mother Nsia to the sky-god. His wife Aso advised him on several of his tricks. Following her advice, he persuaded the python to lie along a palm branch to see which was longer, then tied him to it. Next he sprinkled water over the hornets and himself and covered his head with a plantain leaf. Pretending it was raining, he invited the hornets into his gourd for shelter, then closed it. Ananse dug a pit and caught the leopard. He pretended to help him climb out, then struck him on the head with a knife. He fetched a ladder and took the leopard out of the pit. For the forest spirit, Ananse made a wooden doll coated with sticky tree latex and set food beside it. When the spirit asked to eat, Ananse pulled a string to make the doll nod. After eating, the spirit thanked the doll, but it did not answer. The spirit struck it and became stuck. Ananse captured the spirit and brought it to the sky-god along with his mother Nsia. Nyankonpon acknowledged that Ananse had paid the price and gave him the stories. This telling explains how the sky-god's stories came to be known as Anansesem — spider stories.

This story's sky-god, Nyankonpon, is Nyame under another name.

Other documented Akan traditional beliefs

In Akan tradition, Asase Yaa is the earth deity, second only to Nyame, and is held to be the first deity Nyame created. She is invoked in libations immediately after Nyame, and no tilling of the land is permitted on her sacred day — Thursday among the Asante, Friday among the Fante. She is regarded as the upholder of truth and is associated with fertility, farming, and the resting places of the dead. In some tellings she takes two forms: Asase Yaa, an elder figure governing barren land and the deceased, and Asase Afua, a youthful figure of fertile, farmed land.

In Akan tradition, Tano — whose deeper name is held to be Ta Kora — is one of the abosom, the intermediate deities who govern specific domains of the natural world on Nyame's behalf. Tano is associated with war, thunder and lightning, and above all with the Tano River, and some traditions regard him as the foremost of the abosom. He is venerated among the Asante and other Akan peoples of Ghana as well as the Agni people of Ivory Coast, with shrines, priests, and festivals — including the Apoo festival held at the river's sacred grove — maintained into the present.

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