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African creation myths

Parchment-style artwork of Unkulunkulu emerging from reeds and forming the first humans.

Unkulunkulu: Primeval Creator of the Zulu (South Africa)

Unkulunkulu, “The Great-Old-One” and the first ancestor of all humanity, is the primeval creator in Zulu cosmology. He is said to have risen from a vast reed bed (isihlahla), or in some traditions, from a rock or mound, before shaping humans, animals, and the earliest forms of life. His hands molded the world’s first people, giving them breath, language, laws,
A symbolic Fang creation scene showing two men receiving different destinies from Nzamö in ancient Gabon

The Legend of the Nsas

Before wealth had a colour and before people compared one person’s possessions with another’s, the world was believed to have been different. People lived without knowing that some would one day have great riches while others would struggle for the necessities of life. The earth was there for everyone, the
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