“above” live those gods, goddesses, and spirits in
charge of the sky, rain, and thunder. For some
peoples, mountains and hills are thought of as the
homes or resting places of these entities. Among
many peoples of the Great Lakes region, moun-
tains are viewed as the home of the creator god.
For example, the Kikuyu believe Mount Kenya to
be the home of Mogai, who told humans that if
they sacrificed toward the mountain and raised
their hands in prayer, he would come to their
assistance. The Barotse (Lozi) hold that Nyambe,
the creator, retreated atop a mountain to find
refuge from destructive humans. The Barotse pray
toward the mountain in an effort to get close to
Nyambe again. In Yorubaland, the spirits of hills
are prayed to for fertility in the surrounding
region, such as Olúmo. in Abe.òkúta and Orósun in
Ìdànrè. Similarly, the hero Mbona is worshipped
on the site of his deification, by many ethnic
groups in the Matundu Hills of southern Malawi,
to provide fertility to the region. Some holy sites
involving mountains and hills, like the shrine to
Mbona, have the ability to transcend ethnicity.
In other cases, mountains and hills serve as ritual
spaces, a means of getting closer to the deities of the
“above,” even if it is not considered their dwelling
place. Among the Zulu, a hill might be known as
inthaba encwele yeNkosi yamazulu(the holy hill of
the Lord-of-the-Sky), where priests might pray for
rain or healing. Numerous peoples of the Upper Nile,
such as the Nuer, Dinka, and Lou, construct sizable
artificial earthen mounds or hills. The mounds are
designed to pull the might of a divinity to Earth and
empower the prophet who spoke for him or her.
In summary, many followers of the African reli-
gious traditions believe mountains and hills to be
home to divinities, whereas others use them as rit-
ual and sacred spaces.
Joel E.TishkenSeealsoEarth
Further Readings
Kenyatta, J. (1965).Facing Mount Kenya:The Tribal
Life of the Gikuyu. New York: Vintage.
Schoffeleers, J. M. (1992).River of Blood:The Genesis
of a Martyr Cult in Southern Malawi,c.A.D. 1600.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
MOUNTCAMEROON
The sacred Mount Cameroon is the tallest moun-
tain in Western Africa, and it rises straight from
the ocean through tropical rainforests to a cold,
windy summit. Indeed, snow sometimes falls at
the mountain’s top, a rare occasion in the tropics.
Because of its uniqueness, the people around the
mountain have considered it to be holy, sacred, a
living mountain that has to be treated with great
deference. In the town of Debuncha, the second
wettest place on Earth, at the southwest corner
of the lower slopes, there are many stories of the
mountain’s miracles. Indeed, the Bakweri people
have told narratives of power about the mountain
for years. When the Germans, English, and French
visited the area, they discovered a heightened
awareness of ancestral forces among the people.
Mount Cameroon is a formidable physical
presence. The mountain has no water above the
forest line and is fairly barren and humid above
the clouds until one reaches the top, where it is
cool. Mount Cameroon is a volcano, and it is
the only volcanic mountain outside of the
Mediterranean area to have had a documented
eruption before the birth of Jesus Christ. It is an
active mountain, having erupted 14 times since
450 BC. The first one to record its eruption was
the African navigator Hanno, traveling from
Carthage around West Africa. No African moun-
tain has been as active as Cameroon. The last
major eruption was October 16 to November 12,
1982, when a lava flow went down the mountain
for 12 kilometers.
The people who live at the foothills of the
mountain are the Bakweri, who have been living in
the region, according to their traditions, for 4,000
years. The Bakweri have a long history of relating
to the green hills, drenched by rain and often cov-
ered by fog, as the abode of many spirits. Because
the Bakweri are a patrilineal people, the religious
leaders are mostly men. These men are trained to
communicate between the almighty deity and
humans. The Bakweri people practice ancestral rit-
uals and believe that the Bakweri are protected by
spirits who dwell on Mount Cameroon. Inasmuch
as they have inhabited the same territory for thou-
sands of years, the Bakweri have created numer-
ous traditions based on the rich agricultural430 Mount Cameroon