Deities
Sogbo
Fon Deities
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Sogbo is the Fon deity of thunder, lightning and storms, another of Mawu-Lisa's children in Fon cosmology, ruling the sky and the violent weather that crosses it. Worshippers historically held that a person killed by lightning had been struck for wrongdoing, and Sogbo's priests performed rites over the body and the site of the strike before burial could proceed.
Facts
Cult
Attributes and IconographySogbo, like the wider family of West African thunder deities, is associated with thunderstones, the polished stone axe heads found in the ground after a lightning strike and kept as relics of where he touched down. His priests historically retrieved these stones from the site of a strike as evidence of his passage. 1 Function
Domain / Function Attributions
Mythic AssociationIn the Dahomean division of the world myth, Mawu is said to have granted Sogbo, also called Xevioso, dominion over the sky and its thunder when she apportioned the realms among her children, the same account used to explain why his brother Sakpata was left the earth below. 1 Belief
TheologyHenotheistic: a supreme being above served lesser divinities 1 A child of the creator pair Mawu-Lisa in Fon cosmology, matching the henotheistic reading already carried by Mawu-Lisa, Gu and Loko. Attestation
HistoricityNot a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Related To
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.