20/11/2025
de-myth-yfying part 2
KEMET FORUM PUBLICATIONS Article No. 2:
HOW MONOTHEISM DISTORTED AFRICAN COSMOLOGY: UNDERSTANDING UMENZI AND THE DIVINE PRINCIPLES OF CREATION
Modern scholarship often misrepresents African cosmology because it attempts to interpret it through a Western theological lens or worldview—one dominated by supernatural gods, angels, demons, and moral dualism. But African knowledge systems were not theological constructs; they were complex scientific frameworks encoded in story, song, symbol, and cosmological language.
This is especially clear when we study the structural parallels between Kemetic cosmology and Bantu cosmology. Where Kemet expressed the fundamental forces of nature as Netcheru (cosmic/divine principles), the Bantu-speaking world expressed the same scientific logic through concepts like izithunywa zikaMenzi—the emanations, functions, or operating principles of Menzi uMdali, the Creative Source.
Both traditions describe how nature works, not who to worship.
Across much of the African continent, the story of creation has never been a tale of a single, isolated being commanding the universe into existence. Instead, African cosmologies describe relational creation—a dynamic collaboration of forces, principles, energies, and divine essences that collectively bring life into being. This is reflected in the stories and legends, where creation emerges through coordinated spiritual functions, not a solitary omnipotent ruler.
However, centuries of exposure to Abrahamic monotheism—through colonialism, missionary education, and state religion—have reshaped how Abantu understand their own cosmological narratives.
Concepts that were originally plural, dynamic, and interdependent are now often interpreted through a rigid foreign lens that demands a singular “God” at the top of a hierarchy.
This article attempts to clarify how monotheism, as a foreign framework, created misunderstanding and why African thought must be understood within its own spiritual logic.
Monotheism Assumes a Single Supreme Ruler—African Cosmology Does Not.
Abrahamic theology centers on:
• One ultimate deity,
• Absolute authority,
• Centralized power,
• Creation by command.
But in African metaphysics:
• Creation is not the work of one being.
• Divine power is distributed, not centralized.
• Existence emerges through harmonized principles, not unilateral decree.
Terms like uMdali, uMenzi, uMvelinqangi, Qamata, Mmopi, Muendli or the much more controversial words like Xikwembu, Modimo and Nkulunkulu are often interpreted as “God,” but in the original worldview they either refer to:
• A function (One That Brings Forth),
• A principle (the First Emergence),
• A process, not a personified monarch.
MISREPRESENTATION: FROM COSMIC LAWS TO “SPIRITS”
Western anthropology, dominated by religious categories, flattened African metaphysics into “gods”, “spirits”, “angel & demons”, “ancestral worship”, and “mythology”
This reduced scientifically encoded cosmology to primitive superstition. What were once descriptions of natural processes became misunderstood as beings floating in the sky.
The same distortion happened in Kemet:
Sekhmet became a “lioness headed goddess of war,” instead of a purgative force of thermodynamics and biological correction. Het-Heru became a “cow headed goddess of love,” instead of an emotional, aesthetic, reproductive, and harmonic principle. Ma’at became a “feather goddess,” instead of the architecture of cosmic equilibrium, order and structure. Just to mention a few!!
African cosmology was scientific philosophy encoded as symbol, not supernatural religion.
Early missionaries and colonial anthropologists misunderstood or deliberately mistranslated these forces:
• izithunywa became “spirits” or “angels & demons”
• uMenzi was recast into a Christianized “God the Father”
• Nomkhubulwane was depicted as a “rain goddess” instead of a regulatory ecological principle
• Mvelinqangi became “a sky/sun god” rather than the principle of emergence
This flattened a scientific cosmology into supernatural folklore.
IZITHUNYWA ZIKAMENZI: THE SCIENTIFIC STRUCTURE BEHIND BANTU COSMOLOGY
There are several traditional renditions of the creation story of uMenzi noMazibuthe / uMenzi noMhlaba / uMenzi nezithunywa, but they differ across regions (Zulu, Swati, Ndebele, Xhosa, and broader Nguni-Bantu cosmologies). None are written as a single “canonical” story like in Western religions; instead, they appear as philosophical fragments, oral metaphors, praise poems (izibongo), initiation teachings, and ecological proverbs.
In Bantu metaphysics, izithunywa zikaMenzi were never “spirits” in the Western sense. They were functional agents of nature, each responsible for a particular dimension of cosmic organization. This framework mirrors the operational logic of the Neteru, which represented forces, processes, and laws, not personalities.
Below are the key emanations and their functional domains:
BEFORE TIME: UBUNYAMA OBUKHULU (THE GREAT UNMANIFEST)
Before even the notion of space, time, or matter existed, there was uMenzi (aka Khulukhulwane) — not a “person,” but energy at rest, a field of potentiality, pure intelligence and intention. This parallels to the waters of Nun, in the Kemetiyu story of creation.
It is described as:
• Umhlanga ongachazeki — the indescribable root
• Umqondo ongenasithunzi — thought without shadow
• Umthombo ongapheli — the inexhaustible source
MA (MAZISAKAZI / MAYE / MA’)
Principle: Primordial balance, feminine order, equilibrium
Function: The stabilizing structure of the universe—similar to Maat in Kemet.
It represents the laws that maintain coherence: gravity, symmetry, polarity, rhythm.
Ma is not a being. It is the foundation of cosmic stability.
MVELINQANGI
Principle: The First Emanation / Primal Emergence
Function: The spark of becoming—the moment the unmanifest becomes manifest.
This parallels Atum or Ptah, the self-generated origin in Kemet. It expresses the scientific idea of initial conditions: the emergence of matter, energy, and form.
NOMKHUBULWANE
Principle: Generativity, fertility, ecological balance
Function: The adaptive, evolutionary aspect of nature.
She encodes the processes of diversification, growth, seasonal transformation, rainfall, and environmental equilibrium. This parallels to Mut or much more accurately Auset in Kemet.
Nomkhubulwane is the ecological engine of the universe.
NOMHHOYI
Principle: Dissolution, reincarnation, transformation
Function: The system of decay, recycling, entropy, and ancestral transition.
Comparable to the “dissolving” functions attributed to Sekhmet in her purgative aspect or much more closer to Nebt-Het. Isichazamazwi sesizulu defines Nomhhoyi as the same entity as Nomkhubulwane. This could be that they are almost Identical in nature and therefore could be taken metaphorically as twins, just like how Auset & Nebt-Het are portrayed.
Nomhhoyi ensures nature can reset, purify, and renew.
SOMANDLA
Principle: Power distribution, virility, vitality, dynamic force
Function: The regulating field of energy that permeates all systems.
In physics, this aligns with life force, kinetic dynamics, and distributed power mechanisms.
Somandla is not “God’s power”—it is power as nature’s inherent currency.
SONZWAPHI
Principle: Investigation, cause and effect, pattern recognition
Function: The force that governs clarity, intelligence, questioning, and the discernment of natural order.
It encodes systems logic: how and why things work.
MLENZEMUNYE
Principle: Cohesion, unity, binding complexity
Function: This describes the structural forces that hold systems together—molecules, communities, ecosystems, social bonds and the facilitation of vitality & change.
It is the unifying field enabling complexity and cooperation
So, as these forces interact:
Particles form - Matter condenses - Stars ignite - Worlds stabilize - Biological life emerges.
African storytellers encoded this scientific emergence in metaphors:
• uNomkhubulwane edlala ngothuli — “Nomkhubulwane plays with dust” (symbol of forming matter)
• uMa ehlaba imingcele — “Ma traces the boundaries” (symbol of laws and constants)
• uMvelinqangi eshaya isikhwehlela — “Mvelinqangi strikes the spark” (symbol of energetic ignition)
Monotheism forces these words into foreign categories they were never meant to occupy.
Monotheism collapses these multidimensional systems into a single figure, erasing the sophistication of the original philosophy.
It replaced principles with personalities: Where African cosmology sees “the principle of fertility,” monotheism demands a single “God of fertility.”
It introduced hierarchical thinking: African cosmology is horizontal and relational; monotheism is vertical and authoritarian.
It moralized neutral forces: African principles (e.g., destruction, purification, illness, transformation) are natural; monotheism labels some as “evil.”
It erased feminine and plural aspects, African creation includes: Masculine forces, Feminine forces, Neutral forces, Cyclical forces.
Monotheism replaces all with one masculine deity, flattening the richness of the system.
African cosmology does not fit Western categories, and that is precisely its power. Our worldview is Interconnected, multi-layered, functional, scientific and symbolic.
To understand stories like uMenzi nezithunywa, we must return to indigenous logic:
Creation is a network of cooperating forces. Divinity is distributed, not centralized. Existence is relational, not authoritarian. No single being is “in charge.”
Izithunywa zikaMenzi, like the Kemetic Neteru, were frameworks for understanding the mechanics of existence. They represent nature’s functional architecture, not mystical beings. Restoring this knowledge allows African people to reclaim a worldview built on science, observation, balance, and natural law—a worldview that sustained civilizations long before colonial religion rebranded it as superstition
- Ba-Neb-Djedu
