African culture myth - Tanvee N

I’m a young woman in an African tribe. Our land is rich with trees and populated by many animals. The forests are thick and in some places you cannot see the sky. The forests are to be respected and feared, they will provide you food, but sometimes they could kill you.
We were made in the image of the three who are one –Nzame, Mebere and Nkwa. Even Nzame had to create the world two times, because even Gods make mistakes and the immortal Fam was one of them. He was unkind to the forests and the animals and did not respect them this angered Nzame who destroyed Fam’s earth. So we must remember to take only what we need from the forest.
As a woman I am expected to care for the young, cook and keep house while the men hunt and gather food. I must listen to everything my husband says, even if I do not like it, because men always know what to do. After all it was the first man Sekume who fashioned the first woman Mbongwe, and that was a wise thing – otherwise who would have cooked for him and kept his bed?
We have a sacred tree. It is beautiful and all the tribe worship and respect it. It is a huge and old tree – we believe it is the first tree. Every living thing – animals, forest, fish are children of this tree. Except man, Nzame made the first man in his own image. Unlike Fam, first man Sekume is governed by nissim (soul) and gnoul (body), and gnoul is doomed to die so does man know death but Nissim lives forever.

I am a young woman in the 21st century from India and this ancient African creation myth is not relevant to me. This myth suggests that even Gods make mistakes; this humanizes ‘Nzame’. The myth however easily explains many truths about the earth that Africans must have encountered. It would have explained to them where the layer of coal and oil under the top layer of soil came from, for instance. At the same time, this story provides clear cultural statuses. Firstly, human beings are greater than all animals as the creator himself created them. Secondly, women are subservient to men as it was the first man who made the first woman. Infact this gives men an almost god-like status. This was definitely a patriarchal culture.
I was also a culture that respected life, their own as well as those of the trees and animals around it. Part of their myth talks abut how an angered Nzame obliterated the world of Fam when he grew arrogant and performed a ‘do over’. Another part of the myth talks of the tree that was the beginning of all other life on earth, so they probably worshipped wood like many pagan cultures. As a culture they may have feared the rolling thunder and lightening seeing it as representative of Nzame’s anger.

End.