The Igbo Creation Story Compared with the Biblical

The Igbo of southern Nigeria have a common creation story comparable with the Biblical story of creation. In the mythical lore of the Igbo creation story, it is believed that the general God ‘Chukwu abia ama’ or ‘Eze enu’ floated in the air. In this regard, the biblical account has also made us believe that the almighty God floated in the air as well, in that there was nothing that existed before him. Hence, he created the heaven and the earth in the beginning. Inductively, for God to create the heaven and the earth in the beginning means that both the heaven and the earth were not and the almighty God existed. Existence means to be; for something to be is for such thing to exist, and for the almighty God existing without the heaven and the earth means he had only the air to exist upon.

The Igbo account also talks about ‘Chukwu’ having no beginning and end. The book of Genesis records that ‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth,’ the gospel of John also records that ‘In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.’ Invariably, the two quotes point to the fact that God, as the Igbo believe, had no beginning, and as such has no end. Something to note on this, the Igbo account, though as mythically complicated as it is, implies that when there was no earth ‘Chukwu’ swam in the air the and only had birds for food. And in the bible, it says ‘And the earth was without form and void.’ Let’s draw an analogy from the Igbo account that says ‘there was no earth’ and the biblical account that says ‘the earth was without form.’

The point in this analogy is to bring out the basic of formlessness that exists in the two creation stories. It is similarly comparable to note that there is a factor of formlessness in creation – a factor which is seen in both creation accounts. In creation, there exists a form that is amoebic in nature, a form that has no form, and to create is to transform this formlessness into something.

The two creation stories involve a set of complication about the entity of God. The Igbo account reveals that Chukwu had the appearance of a pair of Siamese giants one of which had a masculine figure and was called Mmuo, while the other figure had a feminine appearance and was called and was called Agwu. The bible reveals that God had and has ‘God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit.’ This trinity of God is believed to be the said God that said, ‘Let us make man in our own image.’ The complication in the two creation story is that, were these Mmuo and Agwu of the Igbo creation and the Father and son and Holy Spirit of the bible all existed from the beginning with Chukwu abia ama and God respectively?

This simply shows that creation stories present a situation that either can’t be unraveled or that requires one to go over ones head before one grasps the concept implied therein.