Mukuru is the Supreme Creator (God) of the Himba and

Herero people The Herero () are a Bantu people, Bantu ethnic group inhabiting parts of Southern Africa. 178,987 Namibians identified as Ovaherero in the 2023 census. They speak Otjiherero, a Bantu language. Though the Herero primarily reside in Namibia, there ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

Depiction

The Himba and Herero worship a

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

named Mukuru. Mukuru is the creator of the world, the supreme ruler. The

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

root of the word expresses greatness and power. The deceased ancestors of the Himba and Herero are subservient to him, acting as intermediaries. However, while the ancestors are believed to bless or curse, Mukuru is believed to only bless.

Himba beliefs

The Himba cultivate a cult of deceased ancestors ( ovakuru), with the deceased subject to the god Mukuru and acting as intermediaries between the living Himba and the god Mukuru. Animal sacrifices are not practiced by the Himba; nothing is known about possible human sacrifices in the past. The Himba know the magical system of omiti, which in the context of traditional African religions corresponds to

witchcraft Witchcraft is the use of Magic (supernatural), magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meanin ...

. The Himba fear omiti-wielding sorcerers, and some believe that every death is the result of omiti's influence. Omiti characterizes the attack of an evil force on a person. A Himba healer - close to Mukuru - who knows these powers, can identify them and protect the victim against them in a certain way, but does not use them himself, helps the affected people to discover the source of the omiti. Unlike a sorcerer, a healer is only supposed to help, heal and, with the help of Mukuru, recognize the causes of misfortune. The Herero also recognized the god Mukuru as the creator before their majority conversion to

Lutheran Christianity Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

after the German

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

of the Herero ethnic group.

References

Creator gods African gods Religion in Namibia Names of God in African traditional religions {{Namibia-stub