Odomankoma
allyThe Shaper
In the Akan theology of Ghana, Odomankoma is the name that speaks of the act of creating rather than of the power that commands it. Where Onyankopon is the sky and Nyame the expanse of the universe, Odomankoma is the one who shapes: the stories credit him with the making of things, the ordering of the world and even the invention of death. His name is rendered sometimes as the Creator of all things, sometimes as the Infinite, the Inexhaustible, the one whose abundance never runs dry. The Ashanti talking drums name him in their opening formulas, alongside the earth and the ancestors, which ties him less to the distant sky than to worked matter, to the wood, clay and metal that the craftsman brings into form.
Powers & Attributes
Role in the ROHO universe
The Shaper. He does not give the Breath, he gives FORM: what Onionkupón animates, Odomankoma gives a body. Third term of the cosmological summit, he holds the NZA side of creation, crafted matter, while Nyame holds its expanse and Onionkupón its breath. Patron of all that is carved, sculpted and forged, he is the spirit to whom the art of the mask goes back.
Sacred Mask
A craftsman's mask with sharply cut planes that show the facets of the adze. One side stays raw and rough-hewn, the other is polished to a shine: form in the act of being born.
Era
10,000 to 8,000 BCE: Cycle of Origins
Words of the Spirit
“What is breathed must still be shaped, or nothing holds.”
Related spirits
Further reading
Sources and references
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