Pub. date: 2009 | Online Pub. Date: January 26, 2009 | DOI:
10.4135/9781412964623 | Print ISBN: 9781412936361 | Online ISBN:
9781412964623| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this
encyclopedia Tracey Michael Lewis The Ijaw people of the West
African country of Nigeria who practice traditional religion
indigenous to their culture believe that the Earth was created
by a female deity named Woyengi, the “Great Mother.” The
creation story of Woyengi testifies to her standing fiercely on
the edge of the universe and observing an Earth filled with
animals and vegetation, but nothing else. In the void, Woyengi
descended to the Earth on a ray of lightning. At the end of her
journey, the goddess stood before a table, chair, and flat stone
and, with the mud of the Earth, created human dolls that were
neither male nor female. She then filled their lungs with the
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