Creation Stories of Africa: The Children of Kings
Africa is a vast continent full of contrasts, and as one would expect, has many and varied stories of creation. Most countries in Africa are made up of different tribes of people, rather than one specific race, so it makes more sense to look at regional stories as opposed to mythologies based on individual nations.
The Children of Oduduwa, West Africa
The Yoruba people from West Africa call themselves the Children of Oduduwa. Oduduwa is held to be the first of all the kings, who came from the east and ruled over ancient Ife, where, with Obatala, he began the creation of the world. Obatala created the first humans out of clay, while Oduduwa became the first divine king of the Yoruba. He sent his sons and daughters out with crowns to rule over all of the other Yoruba kingdoms and all the Yoruba royal families claim descent through them back to Oduduwa.
Statue of Oduduwa at Ile-Ife. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Oduduwa first-born of my sons, to you I give
The five-clawed Bird, the sand of power. Go now,
Call a despairing land to smiling life
Above the jealous sea, and found sure homesteads
For a new race whose destiny is not
The eternal life of Gods. You are their judge;
Yours is the kingship
Crown, Yoruba peoples, Ekiti region, Ikere, Nigeria. “A beaded crown with veil is the defining symbol of divine kingship among the Yoruba and holds the combined powers of the living king and the ancestors. The crown's material, form, pattern and color all proclaim the king's sacred power and authority. The frontal face represents Oduduwa, the divine founder and first king of Ile-Ife, the sacred first city of the Yoruba.” (Flicker/CC BY 2.0)
According to the creation story, in the beginning there was only the sky above, water and marshland below. The supreme deity Oludumare gave Obatala the tasks of creating land out of the water and populating it with living creatures. To do this Obatala needed to gather together in a bag: a gold chain long enough to reach down from the sky, a calabash (bottle gourd) filled with soil, a white chicken, a palm nut, and a black cat. With the bag strapped over his shoulder, Obatala hung the gold chain from the corner of the sky and began his descent, however, before he reached the water below, he ran out of chain.
Statue of Obatala. (CC BY 3.0)
