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13 Popular Gods of Igbo Culture
More than 1,000 gods but these popular are prime to the culture of the Igbo people.
The ancients Greeks were polytheistic — that is, they worshiped many gods. Their major gods and goddesses lived at the top of Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece, and myths described their lives and actions. In myths, gods often actively intervened in the day-to-day lives of humans. Myths were used to help explain the unknown and sometimes teach a lesson.
For example, Zeus, the king of the gods, carried his favorite weapon, the thunderbolt. When it rained and there was thunder and lightning, the ancient Greeks believed that Zeus was venting his anger.
Many stories about how the Greek gods behaved and interacted with humans are found in the works of Homer. He created two epic poems: the Iliad, which related the events of the Trojan War, and the Odyssey, which detailed the travels of the hero Odysseus. These two poems were passed down orally over many generations.
In human religious experience, manifestations of sacred power (hierophanies) provide centers of meaning, order, worship, and ethics. Humans have always felt that real life is in close contact with sacred power, and that sacred power is often encountered in the form of divine beings. Ideas and experiences of these goddesses and gods thus are not so much intellectual reflections as existential concerns, revolving around the fundamental human questions of life in this world. The manner in which the divine beings are imagined and experienced, and the particular types, functions, and personalities of the divine beings, depend on the cultural context of the particular community of people.
Gods and goddesses fit most aptly into what have been called polytheistic cultures, where the divine reality has not been unified into monistic or monotheistic systems. Monistic views still allow for goddesses and gods as manifestations or emanations of one divine reality, whereas a monotheistic worldview absorbs their functions as attributes of the one God, or downgrades them to helpers, such as angels or saints.
This article will focus on the major types of gods and goddesses in the cultures of the Igbo people in which has been a mystery to the newer…
