Nyami Nyami

Nyami Nyami also referred to as the God of the Zambezi River Zambezi or snake spirit is one of the most important deities of the people of Tonga, which lives mostly on the north side of the Zambezi River in Zambia, but also on the south side of the river in Zimbabwe.

Importance

Nyami Nyami is usually represented as a male figure that protects the people of Tonga and gives him support in difficult times. Its external form is a snake that has the head of a fish. The God had provided, according to his story that the Tonga centuries, cut off from the world, on the banks of the Zambezi could lead a good life. He made ​​sure that enough water was available to irrigate the fields and plenty of fish in the river. A connection to God and his wife, who both lived in the underworld in the Kariba Gorge, was held by the tribal elders.

This idyll changed only when the planning and construction of the Kariba Dam in the 1950s, the old spiritual relations were disrupted. The locals led the flooding of their country and the deaths back to the road works on the influence of the water spirit. Today, the Tonga of the opinion that Nyami Nyami had withdrawn from the world of men.

Today's meaning

The Tonga were displaced by the rising waters of the reservoir and settle today in higher -lying areas near the water. Some of them hope that Nyami Nyami she will return one day lead to the old homes. Representations of the water of God as a pendant, made ​​of various materials, and walking sticks with knobs in snake form with fish head are now a possibility to take by selling to tourists some cash to be able to.