nzambi-a-npungu

Updated: May 4, 2025

It is the rudimental idea of the great Zeus, which the Greeks worked out, the God of AEther, the eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient, "who was, who is, and who is to come," the Unknown and Unknowable, concerning whom St. Paul quoted Aristaeus on Mars' Hill. But the African brain naturally confused it with a something gross and material: thus Nzambi-a-Npungu is especially the lightning god.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2