109.

The Withdrawal of the High God in West African Religion: An Essay in Interpretation
Author(s): James O'Connell
Source: Man, Vol. 62 (May, 1962), pp. 67-69
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2796426
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MAY, I962 MAN
3 H. D. Sankalia,'Megalithic Monuments Near Poona,' Bull.
DeccanColl.Res.Inst.,Vol. I (I939-40),pp. I78-84; Vol. 11(I940-4I),
p. I84. The Munjabashrinewas built by people still living, another
'dolmen' two or three years before the learnedauthor visited the
site; a vertical slab described(with photograph)as a 'menhir' was
THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE HIGH GOD IN WEST
AFRICAN RELIGION: AN ESSAY IN INTERPRETATION
by
THE REVD. FATHER JAMES
UniversityCollege,Ibadan,Nigeria
MostWest African religions have a high god
who is alsoa sky god. But he is often a with-
drawn high god, a deus otiosus. There is an apparent
contradictionbetween the supremacyof the high god and
his withdrawalfrom concernwith the world. The attributes
assigned to him heighten this effect of contradiction. He is
said to be at the origin of all things, often as a creator;
he is all-knowing and all-powerful; he introduces order
into the chaos of the universe; he is the final arbiter of
right and wrong. The other gods are under him and share
in his power, though how they do so is not always well
defined. But in spite of these attributesthe high god is not
usually directly worshipped; he has no priests and no
shrines are dedicated to him; people may make a token
offering to him in every sacrificebut hardly ever do they
offer a sacrifice exclusively to him. This absence of ritual
worship is implicit in many myths that describe-and often
try to explain-his withdrawal from close associationwith
the humanswhom he has made. K. L. Little'sdescriptionof
the high god of the Mende people would need little altering
to hold true of other peoples' conceptions of the high god:
In the beginningtherewasLeve,spokenof nowadaysasNgewo,
which may be directlytranslatedas (Supreme)God. All life alnd
activity,in both a materialandnon-materialsense,derivesfrom
him. Ngewo createdthe world and everythingin it, including
not only human beings, animals,plants and so on, but spirits
also. In addition,he investedthe whole universewith a certain
non-material kind of power or influence, which manifests
itself in various ways and on specific occasions in human
beings and animals,and even in naturalphenomena, such as
lightning, waterfalls,and mountains.He is the ultimatesource
and symbol of that power and influence, but though all-
powerful, he is not an immanent being. Like most African
SupremeGods,having made the world, he retiredfar into the
sky... Little is known about the exact nature of Ngewo,
because no one has ever seen Him. He is not entirely
unapproachable,however, and sometimes a prayer may be
addresseddirectlyto Him. Indeed,it is customaryto end most
supplicationswith the expression,Ngewolama-' God willing.'"
Several attempts have been made to explain the with-
drawal of the high god and his neglect in ritual. There is
something to be gained from mentioning briefly two such
attempts, one by Mircea Eliade, the other by Raffaele
Pettazzoni, before venturing a furtherexplanation. In the
67
Nos. io8, IO9
erected to guard the corner of a nineteenth-centurybrick house
from the wheels of passingvillage carts.
4 Sten Konow on the Talegaon (Dhamdhere)copper plates of
KrishnarajaI, saka year 690, in EpigraphiaIndica,Vol. XIII, pp.
275-82.
O'CONNELL, M.A., PH.D.
courseof the expositionit shouldbecome clearthat the
phenomenonof withdrawalthrowsa great deal of light
on the way in which men constructtheir ideas of the
powerthatlies behindthe universeandits forces.
(i) Eliadestressesthe excessivelyabstractcharacterof
the sky god and suggeststhat this characterallowshim
to be pushedasidein practiceby divineformsthat meet
men'sneedof sensorycontactandtangibleimagery:
What is clear is that the Supremesky god everywhere gives
placeto otherreligiousforms. The morphology of thissubstitu-
tion may vary; but its meaningis in each case partly the same;
it is a movement away from the transcendenceand passivity
of sky beings towardsmore dynamic, active and easily acces-
sibleforms. One might say thatwe areobservinga 'progressive
descent of the sacred into the concrete'; man's life and his
immediatenaturalsurroundingscome more and more to have
the value of sacredthings.His beliefin mana,orenda,wakan,etc.,
animism, totemism, devotion to the spirits of the dead and
local divinities, and so on, place man in a quite different
religiousattitudefrom thatwhich he held towardsthe Supreme
Being of the sky. The very structureof religiousexperienceis
changed. . . . Every substitution marks a victory for the
dynamic, dramaticforms, so rich in mythological meaning,
over the SupremeBeing of the sky who is exalted,but passive
and remote . .. the supremedivinitiesof the sky are constantly
pushedto the peripheryof religiouslife where they are almost
ignored; other sacred forces, nearer to man, fill the leading
role.2
(2) Pettazzoniprefersto move away from the kind of
explanationpropoundedby Eliadeto an explanationthat
does not dependon men's proclivity to find concrete
powers more effectivelyreal than more abstractlycon-
ceived creativeomnipotencebut that dependson this
creativeomnipotenceitself:
How can we explainthis otiositas,which contrastsso strikingly
with the highly dynamiccharacterof the Creator?It has been
supposedthat we have here a secondarydevelopment,a kind
of eliminationof the Creatorin face of other deitieswho in the
end pushedhim into the background.It may however be the
casethat otiositasitselfbelongs to the essentialnatureof creative
Beings, and is in a way the complement of their creative
activity. The world once made and the cosmos established,the
Creator'swork is as good as done. Any furtherinterventionon
his partwould be not only superfluousbut possiblydangerous,
since any changein the cosmos might allow it to fall back into
chaos. Once the world is made, the existentialfunction of the
No. IO9 MAN
Creator could be nothing but prolonging its duration and
ensuringits unalteredand unalterablestability.The otiositas of
the creativeBeing, this wu-wei, so to call this sort of instinctive
presence,is the most favourableconditionand the one naturally
best suited to maintainthe status quo. This, I think, is what the
idlenessof creative SupremeBeings signifies;it is due not so
much to their characteras SupremeBeings as to their being
Creators.3
We can best begin by examining Pettazzoni's explana-
tion. He is undoubtedly right when he insists that the
otiositas is linked with the creative nature of the Supreme
Beings. Securityis vital to human life. Men dare not allow
that a power which threatenedthe stability of the cosmic
order could operate continuously with the all-powerful
arbitrarinessthat was once displayedin the making of the
world. Yet againstthis explanationas a complete explana-
tion is the way in which the high god is conceived of
everywhere in West Africa as the ultimate upholder of the
ethical order of the universe and in which he is thought to
intervene to restorejustice. Furthermore,a constant con-
viction exists that in certain cases of extreme distressthe
high god may be appealedto, and he may well intervene.
Lastly, the lesser gods are associatedamong most peoples
with the power of the high god-a Yoruba legend even
explainsthat the gods are living fragmentsof the power of
Olodumare. The gods are the limited and specific channels
through which men contact the power of the high god.
What these three factors-the ultimate sanctioning of the
ethical order, help in cases of extreme distress and the
gods as the expressionsof the high god's power-suggest is
that he is not completely withdrawn. Pettazzoni'sexplana-
tion consequently proves too much-for it to be correct
he should be completely withdrawn ever since creation.
So we must look for an explanation of the kind of with-
drawal that the high god has made in something more
thanjust his creative activity.
Eliade'sexplanation can be dealt with more briefly. He
is right, at least in the case of popular religion, to point to
the way that worshippersturn to the concrete and accessible
rather than to the abstractand the remote. But while the
lesser gods loom large psychologicallyin people's minds,
people are none the less conscious of the limitations of
these gods. They know that the gods are at the most
associatedwith creation and that they are not responsible
for it. In final instancesof distressand morality appeal has
to be made over the heads of these subordinate beings.
Eliade's explanation would at most account for a pre-
occupation with the gods of human craftsand environment.
It does not account for the carefulhanding on of myths of
beginning and creation and for the reciting of these myths
so as to guarantee the stability and the order of things.
The high god retiresnot-as we shall see-simply because
he is abstractbut because he is creative and abstract.But
even when we say that he is abstract,we mean far less that
he does not belong to a 'system permeated by a full-
blooded sense of personality'4 than that he has not been
adequately conceptualized. People cannot allow that his
intervention should continue beyond the moment of
creationor the work of conservationof order becausethey
cannot read his featuresand know his intentions. In other
68
MAY, I962
words, contrary to Eliade's thesis we want to hold that
the lesser gods come forward not because they manage to
push the high god into the background but because he
himself withdraws and leaves the scene to these beings
whose naturesare known and whose interventions can be
predicted.
What Pettazzoni has done well is to show that with-
drawal is connected with the dangerous threat that the
power of the high god holds for the order of the world.
Eliadedrawsattentionto how hardit is for men to conceive
the features of the high god. But it is a conjunction of
relative indiscernibility of features and almighty power
that offers a first basic explanation of withdrawal. His
immense power could not be utilized-and this is what
withdrawal means-because no one could read his inten-
tions, predict his constant interventions and so utilize his
power. It was too hazardousto have his power come into
play when men were unsure of what it was going to do.
Hence it was better that the high god should retire from
active part in creation, except at those desperatemoments
when human order and security were in any case col-
lapsing and when his intervention could be risked since he
alone was powerful enough to restore the situation.
This intellectualistway of explaining why people are
reluctant to cope with the frequent interventions of the
high god in their affairs needs to be supplemented by
another explanation that is suggested by the constant
pattern of the withdrawal myths. In nearly all these myths
the high god withdraws because mankind (usually
representedby a woman) has spoiled his work by commit-
ting some reprehensible deed. What these descriptions
bring out is that people were uneasy not only about the
all-power of the high god but also about his all-purity.
They were aware with uneasy anguish that they strayed
from his stringent code ofjustice. It was easierto own up
to having made him angry once for all than to have him
constantly preoccupied with human shortcomings. This
explanation joins with our intellectualist one because
human limitations in both knowledge and virtue, though
by no means absolutely identified with one another, are
none the less closely linked in human experience.
The other gods of the pantheon take on their meaning
in this context where men cannot adequately discern the
nature of the high god and so cannot cope with his power
or with his purity. They do not push him away (though
like the Catholic saints they sometimes offer him a
competition in popular religion that travesties the meta-
physics of the system), but they come forward to provide
the sacred force behind the universe with features, to
enable it to be approached and to channel it to men.
Through the gods the Absolute takes on a face-a
countenance that can be read in cosmic and craft symbols
(thunder, rock, iron) that reveal the power behind the
universe. The gods of each people carry everyday life into
the domain of the sacred. Hence they take their character
from the forces with which in a particular region man
lives in existential relation and which seem to man to
transcend him in some way. The well-nigh irresistible
human urge to attribute sacred personality or will to the
MAY, I962
cosmic and craft symbols of existential power and
causalityleads each people to fashion its pantheon and to
patternit on their own social structureand crafts.
If it is important that the gods give names and a face to
the Absolute, they also reveal this sacred power in a
limited and controllableway. The featuresof each god can
be read in the symbols of his personalityand power. Since
he is known, he can be dealt with: worshipped, begged,
placated. His power can be channelled through ritual,
though the uncertainty of the world is not eliminated
becausethe right ritual cannot be infallibly found for each
particularcase,or necessaryprohibitionshavenot sufficiently
been observed. These gods are warm-blooded, and some-
timeswanton. Theirpersonalitiesinvite humansto enterinto
intercourseandeven familiaritywith them. Though they are
connected with the creatorgod, they do not-unlike him-
involve the kind of all-purity that shows up the anguish of
human guilt and makes it too difficultto bear. So they can
become the intermediariesthat they are consideredto be in
most of the religions.
Hence far from therebeing contradictionsin the religious
situation that admits the creative supremacyof a high god
together with his withdrawal and the approach of the
lesser gods to the forefront of worship, these are simply
differentelements that complement one another. We have
to do with peoples who have sensed a unitary causality
behind the world but who lost the thread of that unity as
the creative power diversified itself in the various spheres
of natural environment and skills. An occasional myth is
relatedneverthelessthatremainsawareofthe unity ofpower
and that describesthe personsandpowers ofthe lessergods as
manifestationsof the personand power of the high god. But
such awarenessis obscure at best and is also fairly rare.
These considerationslead to a final point that brings in
the often discussedquestion of primitive monotheism or
primitive polytheism. Though we have used the accepted
term of 'withdrawal,' it is important to insist that the
imagery that the term evokes is misleading. It tends to
confirm the misapprehensionthat the god was once much
more veneratedthan he is at presentand that he was to the
forefront of religious consciousnessat an earlier period-
after which his worship declined or he withdrew.But if
the analysis made here is correct, chronology does not
enter into the way that peoples construct their ideas of
ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL
PROCEEDINGS
'The Mankind Quarterly': A Writ Issued against the
Royal Anthropological Institute
110 A writ of summonsfor damagesfor libel has been
issued against the Royal Anthropological Institute,
Mr. W. B. Fagg, Honorary Editor of MAN, and ProfessorBozo
Skerlj,by Lt. Col. R. Gayre of Gayre,Editor, andProfessorHenry
MAN Nos. IO9, IIO
sacredpower. The high god and the other gods com-
plementone another:he gives them existentialmeaning;
and they lend him featuresand makehis power available
in a controllableway. Polytheismis not a late corruption
of monotheismi. The most thata chronologicalstudywill
serve to do is to show that at differentperiodsof the
historyof a particularWest Africanpeoplethe high god
was not alwayswithdrawnto the same extent. In other
words,the proportionbetweenthe cultandrepresentation
of the creatorgod and the othergods is apt to vary. This
differencein proportionis what is in fact suggestedby a
comparativestudy of the place of the high god in the
religioussystemsof differentAfricanpeoplesat the present
time.
Pettazzoniis quite right to insist that monotheismis
neithertheendof a purifying'evolution'northebeginning
of a degenerating 'evolution.'Itcomesfroma 'revolution.5
Thegreatproponentsof monotheism-Moses,Zarathustra,
Mahomet-upset the entirepatternof worshipthat they
found beforethem. They were profoundlyreligiousmen
who propagatedan idea that carrieda powerfulefficacy
withinit and thatfundamentallv alteredmen'snotionsof
the power behindthe existenceandstabilityof the world
and of the interventionof this power in the events of
humanlife.
The religiousstrengthof both Christianity andIslamin
WestAfricahasbeenthattheyhavebroughtwith themthe
revolutionarymonotheisticidea. In practicethey have
acceptedthehighgod whom theyfoundtherebeforethem.
But they have given him features-Christianitythrough
the full meaningwhichit managesto give the Fatherwho
is in heavenandIslamthroughits divinenames.And they
have shownthatthis God is a mercifulProvidencewhose
power can be approachedimmediatelyand who has no
lneedof intermediaries.
Notes
I The Mendeof SierraLeone,London, 19I, pp. 2I7f.
2 Patternsin Comparative
Religion(Englishtrans.),London, I958,
Pp.$2, 43.
3 Essayson theHistoryof Religions(Englishtrans.),Leiden, I954,
pp. 32f.
4 Robin Horton, The Gods as Guests:An Aspect of Kalabari
Religious Life, Lagos, I960, p. i 8.
5 Op. cit., pp. 8-io.
INSTITUTE
E. Garrettand ProfessorR. Ruggles Gates,AssociateEditors, of
The MankindQuarterlyin respect of Professor Skerlj'sletter pub-
lished in the November issue of MAN for I960 (I960, 2I5).
Solicitors' Counsel has been instructedon behalf of the Institute
and the Honorary Editor.
69