EP 1 Mbokomu - She Who Troubles Heaven | Women And Resistance

Mbokomu, the Ancestor Goddess of the Ngombe

What if the first woman on Earth wasn’t a passive creation — but a divine disruptor? What if she were sent down not because she was weak, but because she was too powerful to be contained?

This week on Women and Resistance, hosts Aya Fubara Eneli Esq. and Adesoji Iginla dive deep into one of Central Africa’s most captivating and under-explored mythological figures: Mbokomu, the ancestor goddess of the Ngombe people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Daughter of the supreme creator god Akongo, the first gardener, the mother of all humanity — and, depending on who you ask, the reason time itself sometimes slows to a crawl.

In this enlightening episode, Mbokomu shares profound African creation stories, emphasising the importance of remembering our roots, cultivating harmony, and understanding our spiritual connection to the universe. 

Through rich narratives from the Congo and Yoruba traditions, listeners are invited to reconnect with ancestral wisdom and embrace their role in nurturing life.

We unpack the Ngombe creation myth and ask the questions that Western scholarship often doesn’t: What does it mean that the origin of humanity in this tradition is a woman who caused problems? How do African cosmologies encode ideas of female agency, ecological sovereignty, and ancestral power? And what happens to those stories when colonialism arrives to burn the archive?

From the Congo River basin to the mountains of Venus — yes, Venus — Mbokomu’s name echoes across centuries and galaxies. We also connect her story to the very real struggles of Congolese women today: from Maria N’koi’s 1915 insurrection against Belgian colonial rule, to the extraordinary courage of modern activists like Julienne Lusenge fighting sexual violence in the DRC.

This is mythology as resistance. This is ancestry as armour.

 Takeaways

*African cosmology and creation stories
*The role of Mbokomu as the first woman and gardener
*The spiritual significance of rivers and water in African traditions
*The story of Obatala and the creation of Earth in Yoruba mythology
*The impact of colonisation on African oral traditions and knowledge
*The importance of remembering and reconnecting with ancestral wisdom

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Mbokomu's Legacy
01:44 The Essence of Creation and Nurturing Life
03:39 The Journey from Heaven to Earth
05:44 The First Garden and Humanity's Roots
07:45 Resilience and the Philosophy of Creation
09:49 The Impact of Displacement and Spiritual Exhaustion
11:50 The Role of Memory and Storytelling
13:56 African Cosmologies and Cultural Survival
16:14 The Importance of Understanding Our Origins
22:48 The Sky Kingdom and Olorun's Creation
24:07 Obatala's Quest for Purpose
26:00 The Descent to Earth
28:52 The Birth of Ife
31:21 Obatala's Creation of Humanity
34:36 The Role of the Chameleon and Divine Intervention
37:00 The Dogon People and Their Wisdom
41:22 Yurugu's Arrogance and the Consequences
47:58 The Seeds of Destruction
50:35 The Call to Remember and Reconnect

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

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Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:02.486)
Yes, greetings, greetings, and welcome to Women and Resistance. First and foremost, do apologies for coming a bit late. Finally, geography caught up with me. So after the show, I will explain more. But tonight, we are going to be looking at the

Life of Mbokumu. And if that name sounds strange, there's a reason it does. It's ancestral and heavenly. So we begin.

What if the first woman on earth wasn't a passive creation but a divine destructor? What if she was sent down not because she was weak but because she was powerful to be contained? So tonight, Aya, taking on the role of Mbokumo, would help us understand who and what or what this phenomenon is.

Welcome, Mbokumu.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:19.876)
Thank you. Good evening.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22.338)
Good evening.

Adesoji Iginla (01:28.408)
So the name, Umbokumu, help us situate it, please.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:47.722)
I you for...

taking on.

this task of bringing to the remembrance.

Aya As Mbokomu (02:04.427)
of our people who we are.

Members, remembering, bringing the members together.

The importance of this work cannot be overstated.

Aya As Mbokomu (02:26.575)
I should have been the first before you talked about all my amazing daughters.

You see, before the rivers learned their names.

before the forests stretch themselves towards the sun.

before what we call humanity placed even their footprints upon the earth.

Aya As Mbokomu (03:04.374)
I was.

Aya As Mbokomu (03:09.257)
I am Mbokomu, the first woman of the earth.

Aya As Mbokomu (03:18.553)
First mother beneath the sky.

and the first gardener.

I know the scientists have traced and said an African woman whom they've called Lucy. Where did they even get that name from? But nonetheless, that an African woman named Lucy is the ancestor of all people. But I, Mbokumu, I am the ancestor of all people, male and female.

I am remembered among the Ngombe people.

These are the children of the area now called the Congo.

Aya As Mbokomu (04:14.925)
They live by the Congo River and their memories flow through the area now called Central Africa.

Aya As Mbokomu (04:27.555)
Those memories, like water, are sacred and they cannot be extinguished.

I was born of Congo known as the supreme creator above all spirits, above all people. This was the ancient being whose breath moved through heaven. What we call heaven, I'm using the words that maybe you can associate with the beyond the earthly realm.

Adesoji Iginla (05:01.518)
We will later.

Aya As Mbokomu (05:09.473)
in those days.

humanity did not walk upon the earth. In fact, what was earth?

The people, to use that terminology, we everyone resided with a Congo in the realms. And in this space, there was abundance. There was peace. And there was a oneness with spirits. For humanity.

does not exist outside of spirits. You understand that.

But it is said that I was restless.

Aya As Mbokomu (06:00.331)
I questioned too deeply, moved even in that abundant space a little too freely, and folklore has it that I disturbed too much silence.

Now if you're listening to my words and you're finding it difficult to comprehend what I'm saying or to want to embrace it, I have a question for you.

When you read what you now consider your holy books, do you not take in all of that information?

If I'm a myth, so is your Jesus. So is the notion of.

Aya As Mbokomu (06:57.935)
A woman being made out of the rib of a man.

Adesoji Iginla (07:03.246)
Eve.

Aya As Mbokomu (07:04.035)
But let me continue with my story.

So my father, a congo, he lowered me from heaven in a basket with my son and my daughter.

Aya As Mbokomu (07:23.577)
kind of reminiscent of how even on earth, a woman questions too deeply, moves too boldly, we say we cannot contend with this one.

Adesoji Iginla (07:30.894)
This is Buddha.

Aya As Mbokomu (07:41.124)
But inside of that basket with me, my father had given me some seeds. This supreme being that in translation has been called a father. But we really say supreme being without any gender assigned.

Aya As Mbokomu (08:07.417)
Depending on the people and the time in which you hear my story. The names of the seeds vary. Some say cassava, maize, sugarcane. Hmm. Sounding like some colonial crops, don't they? Mm-hmm. Could it be?

Adesoji Iginla (08:29.602)
they do.

Aya As Mbokomu (08:34.573)
that these oppressors came and heard the story and then told it in their own way. Because these were all items that were introduced to Africa. But we had sorghum and millet and beans and many other crops.

But the beginnings of what we call cultivation, the beginnings of nourishment, the beginnings of civilization itself began with me and my son and my daughter. When we descended onto what we now consider earth, there were no kingdoms, no borders, no empires.

only earth and spirits.

and possibility.

Hold on to that word possibility because I tell you my sons and my daughters that possibility is always within your reach.

Aya As Mbokomu (09:57.38)
And with that possibility in my heart, I and my children, we planted the first garden.

Adesoji Iginla (10:09.067)
Mmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (10:10.553)
Humanity did not begin with conquest.

Humanity began with cultivation. Humanity will end when we stop cultivating because then how do we nourish ourselves? With my hands in the soil, with seeds pressed into the darkness, I was a woman nurturing the life from the earth itself.

I became the first gardener because survival requires, survival requires relationship with creation.

But you must always ask yourself, what is it that we are creating?

Aya As Mbokomu (11:14.703)
For you can create that which nourishes and gives life. And you can also create that which extinguishes life.

Adesoji Iginla (11:24.11)
you

Aya As Mbokomu (11:28.611)
This first garden was sacred.

Aya As Mbokomu (11:36.32)
Now, one might consider that being cast down from a place of abundance to a place where I had to find the possibilities of my surrounding, that I could have become bitter.

Huh? Learned lessons, but I answered not with bitterness or unforgiveness. I answered with creation. Some people ask, how is it that Africans, the people you call Africans, how did they allow themselves to be conquered?

to be enslaved, to be slaughtered, to be colonized, to be ruled by others. And I tell you it is because they had and still have the essence of who I am, which is that.

we create for life, not for death. But the ones that came did not have that philosophy. And as I share time with you today, I will explain how that other essence came to be and has remained on the earth.

Men, yes. Go, go ahead.

Adesoji Iginla (13:20.686)
I mean, without really... Go on. I was going to pose the question. Some would argue that your presence here has contributed to the greater deal to maybe it's the upheaval of you being sent down from heaven that continues to live with us. What would you say to that?

Aya As Mbokomu (13:43.951)
Ask the question again?

Adesoji Iginla (13:46.092)
Some would say, I mean, you were kicked out of your former home and when you made Earth the home, some would argue looking at the state of the world today that maybe that presence continued.

Aya As Mbokomu (13:55.701)
Mm-hmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (14:03.349)
that presence continues. It continues and I pray after spending some time with me, all of you will be quickened in your spirit to connect with that spirit, with that essence, with that presence that continues. To embrace the possibilities of life.

of abundance of peace.

Aya As Mbokomu (14:38.799)
so that regardless of the oppression that you experience, your resilience connects you not to the emotions tied to displacement,

but to the emotions that will allow you to create life where you are.

So I was in your words banished to earth.

and my offspring have been flung across the span of the earth and in a way also banished to homes that were not initially of their own choosing. But we transform anyway.

Aya As Mbokomu (15:43.839)
See, you cannot heal while chained to bitterness.

You cannot heal while chained to what could have been.

Aya As Mbokomu (15:59.812)
You cannot cultivate life while feeding only on sorrow.

Aya As Mbokomu (16:09.667)
Because then you begin to fight war within yourself and then war with everything around you.

Aya As Mbokomu (16:22.071)
I answered your call tonight because too many of my children are spiritually exhausted.

If what I'm saying to you now, whether I know with your technology now, because we had a different kind of technology, some are watching now, some would watch later, tell me what resonates in your spirit as you hear my words, these words from Bokomo.

Aya As Mbokomu (17:01.323)
So many of you are carrying grief in your very bones. Oppression in your memory you can't think see straight. The pain of what has been done overwhelms and paralyzes you. Generational wounds in your spirit like a cancer eating you from inside.

Adesoji Iginla (17:08.782)
Mm-mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (17:35.663)
And yet I say...

Aya As Mbokomu (17:46.407)
Love anyway. Create anyway. Survive anyway.

Aya As Mbokomu (18:05.557)
sit beside these waters, these sacred waters, the same waters by which my people sat as the elders told these stories to the young ones.

Aya As Mbokomu (18:23.535)
Tonight, I will speak to you of creation, memory.

balance.

and the very sacred responsibility of tending this garden that I call humanity.

Aya As Mbokomu (18:57.583)
and through remembering my story, which for some of you is the first time that it should connect with other things that you already know.

Perhaps you will remember yourself.

Aya As Mbokomu (19:21.923)
remain alive in the consciousness of some because the Ngombe people they remembered.

Aya As Mbokomu (19:35.172)
Dengombe, these are Bantu people in the area now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo. the stories of oppression of this part of the world. Even now, as disease attempts to rampage through, but we survive it all. We will survive it again.

Aya As Mbokomu (20:05.891)
Do not ever underestimate rivers. I'm pulling your ear like the grandmothers of old used to pull the ears of the children. Listen. Do not underestimate the rivers. Because rivers, remember what I'm.

Pire tries to erase. Rivers will remember what the pain inside of you will try to suppress.

Adesoji Iginla (20:37.976)
cover.

Aya As Mbokomu (20:42.637)
The Congo, ha. They have witnessed kingdoms, trade, colonial violence, extortion, extraction, missionaries. You must ask them what was their mission. Robert Terror War. But they also know resistance.

They also know resilience. They also know how to tend humanity.

Aya As Mbokomu (21:26.795)
Let me tell you something because I will tell my story but I will tell you two other stories tonight They are African creation stories Because creation stories matter Understand me See these oppressors these colonizers they often mocked

African cosmologies because they were carried through oral traditions rather than through their own writing systems. Although of course if you study you will see that of course the people of Kemet had a writing system. The Igbo people, the Insebide, they had a writing system. There were many writing systems in Africa as well. But oral traditions and living libraries.

And tonight I impart a library to you for you to carry it on. The grandmother beside the fire, the elder beneath the moonlight, the storyteller, the jolly by the riverside. They too are archives.

Aya As Mbokomu (22:48.909)
These are the archives that even after they destroy the written word, if we have done our job to tell those stories, then those stories will never die. Even when the sacred groves were destroyed, ancestral shrines were decimated.

even when missionaries condemned any ancestral practice, even as they are practicing their own ancestral rituals. Even when African spirituality was called primitive and still some call it primitive today. My name survived. I stick the names of many others in our creation stories.

Adesoji Iginla (23:43.63)
Mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (23:46.444)
So while I resided with my father, I carried a powerful energy. I challenged boundaries. I questioned the silence. I disturbed the stillness. And my father, this supreme being that they call father, but a supreme being, no gender.

lowered me from heaven in a basket. Imagine the sky opening, clouds parting, and a basket descending slowly towards what we now call Earth with my seeds. Food, sustenance, continuity, the seeds of civilization. We were the first family, me and my children.

Adesoji Iginla (24:22.455)
Seeds,

Aya As Mbokomu (24:35.789)
The first witnesses to earthly creation, I told my children, you must procreate. And when my daughter was heavy with child, she went into the forest and she saw a strange being with hair all over it, his body.

And she, in the spirit of generosity, took this bean in and cleaned this bean up and even shaved the bean.

But this being was a trickster, was a sorcerer. And what this being did was curse the child in my daughter's belly.

Aya As Mbokomu (25:30.519)
And when this happened and my daughter had her child, into the world came not just the scenes and the spirit of what we came with, but now the curses of this sorcerer, dissension, quarrelsomeness.

Aya As Mbokomu (26:00.525)
always been in conflict.

Aya As Mbokomu (26:10.351)
Some of the children that continued to be born were born with the spirit of peace and abundance, but some had now been corrupted. What was this corruption? It was an imbalance. Ebenga, the beginner, brought imbalance into the world, disruption into the world.

Because humanity was never evil, but humanity through that curse became vulnerable to imbalance. So when you study African cosmology, we do not divide existence into the simplistic terms of good and the evil, absolute good, absolute evil. No.

Adesoji Iginla (26:54.958)
Okay.

Aya As Mbokomu (27:04.503)
what we teach and go back even to the Kemet people. My art balance.

Adesoji Iginla (27:11.886)
Mmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (27:14.467)
When humanity breaks their harmony with creation, that is when suffering enters. That is when greed overtakes stewardship. That is where conquest replaces community. Is there not enough on earth for all of us to coexist?

Adesoji Iginla (27:41.602)
There is. is.

Aya As Mbokomu (27:43.107)
Of course there is.

So today, when you look around you, imbalance everywhere, poisoned rivers.

HONGA WAR

exploitation.

and the one that some of you may know something about. In a world with how many billion now? Nine billion?

Adesoji Iginla (28:17.624)
about just on the.

Aya As Mbokomu (28:19.509)
loneliness.

Adesoji Iginla (28:22.414)
Mmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (28:27.279)
So now humanity, instead of focusing on balance and harmony, has created systems that worship prophets while people languish. That loneliness in you, that feeling of the world is against you, that anxiety.

That thing that causes your blood pressure to rise? Imbalance.

Aya As Mbokomu (29:07.439)
But I did not stop teaching my children. I have not stopped teaching my children to remember, to go back to the beginnings and to reconnect to the spirit of harmony and peace. And so let me tell you a story.

a creation story. And you say, why do you need to tell us these stories? Besides my own as the mother of the earth, I will tell you why you should know these stories, why it is imperative that you know these stories.

Adesoji Iginla (29:51.534)
Right.

Aya As Mbokomu (30:03.747)
And the reason is, if you don't understand your source, you can't understand who you are.

Adesoji Iginla (30:17.814)
Mmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (30:19.607)
If you can't understand who you are, then it is easier for people to give you a different identity. And then you accept the identity and you start to live out that identity without understanding that when they corrupt,

your sense of who you are.

Aya As Mbokomu (30:55.383)
You have lost yourself.

Aya As Mbokomu (31:00.449)
so many of you, you know the fictional superheroes better than you know your ancestors. Am I lying or am I telling the truth?

Adesoji Iginla (31:14.19)
That's true.

Aya As Mbokomu (31:16.579)
This is not an accident. It is the result of cultural conquest. For a people disconnected from their memory become easier to control. If you do not know your story, someone else will write you into theirs. So reclaiming African cosmologies, and we have many. It is not nostalgia.

Adesoji Iginla (31:35.694)
Mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (31:45.72)
It is not an exercise in entertainment. It is not to have nothing else to do. It is resistance. It is psychological liberation. It is cultural survival. Because you existed before the conquest and you had your own creation stories before they told you their own.

I told you that God is only in their own image.

Adesoji Iginla (32:20.311)
Hmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (32:22.329)
So the first story I want to tell you, this is.

I love how he put it. David A. Anderson, said, retold, he did not say written by. He said retold by David A. Anderson. The origin of life.

Adesoji Iginla (32:38.158)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (32:44.91)
So there on F.

Aya As Mbokomu (32:49.175)
I will try to go quickly because I am mindful of your time.

Now the Eurobots say that long before there were people, all life was in the sky.

Olorun lived there with many Orishas, both male and female. Olorun understood both male and female Orishas, yet Olorun was more than male and female. See that thing I'm telling you. To be sure, each Orisha had powers, but Olorun was all powerful. Olorun was supreme, like my father.

Everything the Orishas needed was in the sky and close by the young baobab tree. Do you know that people have come to Africa now to put a patent on that tree that we have forgotten? We must remember. We must remember.

Aya As Mbokomu (33:50.828)
Olorun called the Orishas to that tree. They came in fine clothes, jewelry made of gold because everything we already had.

The sky stretches in all directions and far beyond this baobab tree. The sky and even beyond the sky is yours to explore, said. She said, the supreme being said, but everything the Orishas wanted was close by the baobab tree and all the Orishas save one was content.

Adesoji Iginla (34:11.47)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (34:24.142)
Hmm

Aya As Mbokomu (34:24.463)
Obatala was the Orisha that was not content. Obatala was the Orisha that was like me that said

Aya As Mbokomu (34:35.511)
He wanted to put his powers to use. He often gazed out into space, thinking, wondering. He spent even more time peering down into and through the mist that swirled beneath the sky kingdom, the thing that they now call heaven. Thinking, wondering, he studied the area beneath the mist and came to understand that far below was empty, endless water.

Obata La Toh Do Lorong how troubled he was. Here in the sky we Orishas have everything we need. We even have powers but there is never a need to use these powers. Yet below the mist there is only a watery waste. If there was something firm upon the water then we could create a world and beings to take care of that world. Such beings would need our help. We could use our powers to help.

We, my children today, those who still have my essence, they are still looking for how to use their powers to help, not to destroy. Oloron was moved by Obatala's concern and said, very well then, prepare yourself, for I am sending you down to the watery waste to begin the work. So Obatala went to Orumila.

The Orisha with the power to see into the future, Obatala said, the one who is supreme over everything, no gender, has told me to go down below the mist and create a place where life can take root and bloom. Not what you people are doing now. Let me go to Mars to destroy it. Do you know how much garbage human beings have already put in the outer space? Let me continue with the story.

Adesoji Iginla (36:15.469)
Mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (36:30.295)
Obatala said, please tell me what I must do to get ready for this task. Orumela agreed. He uncovered his divining tray and sprinkled it with a powder that was made of the baobab roots. Onto it he cast 16 palm canals. After the knots rolled to a stop, Orumela started the marks.

they had made in the powder. He gathered up the palm kernels and he cast them again. He studied the new marks. Only those who really have eyes can see. He began to see trails and patterns. He studied these two. In all, he cast the palm kernel eight times and he read the meanings each time. At last, he to Obakala, you will need a chain of gold to stretch from here to there.

Gather up all the sand you can find in the sky. Take palm nuts and maize too. Do you see the similarities? Also, take the egg. It contains personalities of all the other Orishas, both male and female.

Adesoji Iginla (37:29.6)
Origin story, yes?

Adesoji Iginla (37:38.528)
Mm. And female, yeah.

Aya As Mbokomu (37:43.288)
or Batala Tanto or Rumela. He then went to eat Orisha and he asked them for their gold. Both male and female gave him everything they had that was made of gold. This he gave to the goldsmith who melted them down and began to forge the melted gold into links.

While the goldsmith worked Obatalagada the other things he would need, he scooped up all the sand he could find and placed it in a snail shell. To the sand he added a pinch of baobab powder. Not far from the baobab tree he found palm nuts and maize and other seed. He placed these and the snail shell full of sand in his shoulder bag. But he wrapped the egg

carefully in the cloth of his own clothing and then he bound it to his chest where it would stay warm.

Aya As Mbokomu (38:39.687)
The goldsmith showed the chain to Obatala who said, but there must be a hook at one end. The goldsmith replied, but I have used all the gold. There is no more gold.

Aya As Mbokomu (38:55.449)
Obatala said, nevertheless, make a hook for the chain. Use some of the links. The goldsmith melted down some of the links and made a hook for the chain. Obatala was pleased. And with his bag hanging from his shoulder, he hooked the chain onto the sky. Then gripping the chain with his hands, he began lowering himself. He was lowered by the chain. I was lowered in a basket.

Adesoji Iginla (39:21.933)
skits. Yeah.

Aya As Mbokomu (39:24.941)
He went down, down, down through the swirling mist after traveling for seven of what we now call days. He reached the end of the chain and hung there, not knowing what to do. From far off in the sky came Orumila's voice. The sand! Obatala reached into his bag and pulled out the snail shell containing the sand and the baobab powder he poured out.

all of it and as it touched the water it spread and became frown. He looked toward the sky kingdom. He listened. Except for the beating of his heart there was silence. Obatala felt alone. He was cold and yet he was sweating. He was tired and he began to lose his grip on the chain. His heart beat, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,

Sankofa. The bird clutching the personalities of all the Orishas flew down and attacked the sand, which flew in all directions, piling into mounds and dunes and hills. Thus Sankofa sowed personality into the soil from which people would come. When the storm was over,

Adesoji Iginla (40:38.018)
Yeah.

Aya As Mbokomu (40:54.231)
Obatala let go of the chain and came down on land and he named this place Ife.

Adesoji Iginla (41:03.726)
Mmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (41:04.919)
the place where the waters were divided. Ha! You think that the waters first parted in the Bible? Before that origin story, we had our own.

Aya As Mbokomu (41:23.009)
Obatala, he set off to explore the place that he had made. And as he walked, he spilled seeds, palm kernels and maize from his bag onto the soil, the soil that had been made rich and dark by the baobab powder. All that came from his bag took root and began to grow even as Obatala walked. We always created.

Obatala walked for many hours and he became thirsty. At length, he stopped at a pool of water to refresh himself. He looked into the pool and the water like a mirror reflected his face and form. He was so pleased with what he saw that he scooped up some of the soil from the edge of the pool and began to shape and fashion it according to the image mirrored in the water.

He made arms, legs, toes, fingers, ears, a head and connected them just as his own body parts were connected. He made another body and another and another. He worked carefully and lovingly and the many bodies he made from the rich dark earth were like him, beautiful to behold, dark and beautiful. Now when Obatala was making these bodies, he grew even more thirsty.

By now, many of the seeds had grown into palm trees. So he went to the trees and released the juice they held. It soon fermented and became palm wine. The palm wine did quench Obatala's thirst, but it was also quite pleasing to his taste. So he continued to drink. Ah, and he drank a long time. My daughters and sons, if you have never tasted fresh palm wine, you must live longer.

to experience that. It is an experience all children of God should have at least once in their life.

Adesoji Iginla (43:24.684)
Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (43:29.921)
Obatala went back to making bodies, but this time with the palm wine in his body, he was not so careful. He made some figures that were poorly shaped, some legs twisted, some fingers fell off, some ears were plugged, eyes covered over. Much later when Obatala saw what he had done, he vowed to never again take strong drink.

Adesoji Iginla (43:55.288)
Drunk drink,

Aya As Mbokomu (43:58.478)
We now know that he became the Orisha, the guardian of the people with handicaps, people with disabilities. But on the day that Obatala made the bodies of people, he saw all of them as beautiful, but he was not satisfied. Now at about that time, all around the sky, God sent the chameleon to see how things were going at Ife.

Obatala showed the chameleon all that he had made. I have done the best that I can, but these bodies, they do not live. The chameleon climbed the golden chain and went back into the sky, God's domain. He told Olaron all that he had seen and heard. Olaron then stretched one hand out into the deep space and stirred up the gases there.

and the fingers of that mighty hand snapped off a spark that exploded the gases. Oloron grabbed that explosion and shaped it into a ball of fire that gave light and heat to everything beneath it. The heat began to dry up the wet places at Ife, and the clay bodies began to harden. Indeed, they would have hardened into brick.

Adesoji Iginla (45:12.952)
So.

Aya As Mbokomu (45:23.843)
had not a whisper of O'Lauren's breath rocketed down into earth, onto Iphe, and sent the earth spinning and rotating in space even as it does today. If you cannot believe this creation story, bet you can't believe the other one. You must remember. Then O'Lauren's breath became gentle and sweet.

Adesoji Iginla (45:44.11)
Mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (45:51.924)
That gentle sweet air washed across and into the bodies Obatala had made, nudging them into life, the breath of life. One by one, they arose from the earth and began to do the things that people do. They could do what people do because as the Yorubas say, those who came from the clay and dust of Ife were the first people on earth.

That is our origin story.

Adesoji Iginla (46:26.466)
What's the name of the book, please?

Aya As Mbokomu (46:27.639)
retold by David A Anderson.

Adesoji Iginla (46:31.328)
the origins of the life on earth.

Aya As Mbokomu (46:34.713)
But I'm not done. I told you we have many stories. You can take the time to study your own people. Not a Spider-Man, Hercules, Superman, Aphrodite, Wonder Woman, but you know nothing about it. My children.

Adesoji Iginla (46:38.486)
origin stories.

Adesoji Iginla (46:44.024)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (46:47.662)
Keep on superman.

Aya As Mbokomu (46:59.993)
How will you liberate your physical bodies if you don't first liberate your mind and your spirits? So I will tell you one more story. in the simplicity, following the simplicity of our people, when we would tell these stories orally and everybody could understand. A two-year-old child

Adesoji Iginla (47:25.326)
in language then

Aya As Mbokomu (47:28.801)
and an 80 year old man, all can understand. I love that my children are remembering and telling these stories in a form that you can read to your little babies. You don't have to go and get all the degrees in the world to understand this. So this one is called The Creator and Yorugu. Pay close attention to this one because it will help you understand.

who Yorugu is so that when you see Yorugu you will recognize Yorugu and you will know how to mind Yorugu because Yorugu is very active.

Listen we have kinetic ancient creation stories We have your robot creation stories. I just told you one we have Zulu creation stories go and read a Credo mutua we have ban to creation stories Every people have their own story How do you abandon all of your own stories and go and collect the white man story the very person who came to oppress?

and take your life. You now buy their own story.

Adesoji Iginla (48:43.738)
Mmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (48:47.585)
Let me tell you, these creation stories as we told them, they are meant to teach lessons about the world. They are meant to give us guidance. They are meant to show us the difference between right and wrong. They are meant to teach you a truth.

Aya As Mbokomu (49:11.895)
And if you listen carefully, you can hear the lessons. So this one is from the Dogon people.

Aya As Mbokomu (49:25.123)
The Dogon people, they were great astronomers, the kind of scientists who study space and celestial bodies like stars, planets, and moons.

Do you know that me, Mokombo, there is a celestial body named after me? These people are funny. I am the celestial body myself. Anyway, let me carry on with the story. Dogon elders then put this information into stories that they told the children so that they would understand the lessons they were taught. The amazing thing about the Dogon people is that they made all their astronomical

discoveries without telescopes or satellites. They knew that the planets in our solar system orbit around the sun almost a thousand years before Yorugu, the Europeans, realized this. They also knew details about the size, rotation, and distance of all three of the stars in the Sirius star system.

Today's learned these things almost 5,000 years after the Dogon people and only with the help of satellites and telescopes. So whose stories should you be listening to?

Adesoji Iginla (50:54.744)
Mmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (51:01.199)
How could the Dogon people know things about the universe?

without all of this modern technology. According to the Dogon people, they did not need these instruments because they communicated with the universe, because they were still connected with their essence.

Adesoji Iginla (51:21.548)
Not that, yeah.

Aya As Mbokomu (51:26.093)
Remember when Sankofa scattered the earth and scattered the powers, the understanding of the rishas. You see all the connections?

Adesoji Iginla (51:40.024)
Yeah.

Aya As Mbokomu (51:43.322)
Today's scientists only believe that they can see with their eyes, but the Dogon people use special dances and rituals to connect with the vibration of the universe and receive information directly with their minds. Now, somebody will tell you, come to my workshop so I can teach you how to vibrate higher. And the person who is trying to teach you,

don't know anything about your people. What are they going to teach you?

Adesoji Iginla (52:13.55)
you

Aya As Mbokomu (52:19.469)
Remember, the elders then put this information into stories they told the children so that they would understand. The Dogon people believe that everything in the universe was created by Amma, which is their word for God. You think God is only God? God has many names. Chuku.

Adesoji Iginla (52:36.162)
that.

Aya As Mbokomu (52:51.457)
As many people and as tongues as they exist on the earth, have names for God.

Aya As Mbokomu (53:01.561)
The word Amma means it who rests upon nothing because it is the most intelligent and powerful force in the universe. Amma created the universe and began creating living things. Amma placed eight asili or seeds inside of a black hole.

These are silly were actually Amma's words. Amma used its words as seeds because they were powerful enough to grow life. Hey, are you listening? Let me draw your ear. Are you listening? Are you listening? Hey, it says words were powerful enough to grow life. My children, what words are you speaking?

Adesoji Iginla (54:01.454)
Mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (54:01.711)
Are you growing life or death for yourself? Let me continue with the story. The Asili gathered together in pairs and began to form living beings, one male and one female in each pair. Balance. What were these words? Haki, justice. Usowa, balance. Usahihi.

Fair exchange. Ustodi, skillfulness. Maliyowano, harmony. Heshima, respect. Ukweli, truth. Utaratibu, order.

Adesoji Iginla (54:32.622)
trade

Aya As Mbokomu (54:56.079)
Amma created the first pair, first forming the male and female, then shaping them together. Once the pair was fully formed, they went off into the universe together and created beautiful galaxies and stars. Amma then created the second pair, first forming the male and then shaping the female as it grew. Once the second pair was fully formed, they went on to the universe and created planets and moons. They created in balance and harmony.

began creating the third pair. First forming the male and then shaping the female as he grew. But the third pair never got the chance to fully form. While the male was growing, he looked out at the universe and thought to himself, I can create a world much better than the world, the one that Ama has created. He started to become impatient and wondered, why do I have to wait?

I am already a great creator. Ama says to wait for my female companion, but why? I don't need her. I don't need her and I don't need Ama. Aha, you don't need God. He tore himself away from the creative process, stole the placenta that connected him to Ama and ran off into the universe alone. Because of his arrogance and his theft, Ama called him Yurugu.

First, Yorugu created a bright red planet and it was beautiful. He laughed aloud and said, ha, I knew I could do it. This is more beautiful than anything the others have made. As he moved forward to make his next creation, Yorugu looked back at his planet and something was terribly wrong. It was exploding. He did not know what had gone wrong, but he quickly moved out of the way of the blast. He was upset that he had failed and was determined to try again.

Adesoji Iginla (56:32.974)
.

Aya As Mbokomu (56:51.757)
Yorugu was determined to make something even more amazing than his red planet. This time he made an entire solar system. Yes! He screamed. That red planet was nothing compared to this. This is definitely the most beautiful thing in the universe. But before he could fully celebrate his accomplishment, he heard a loud rumbling. He looked at his creation and it was falling apart. The planets were crashing into each other and the sun was about to explode. Yorugu ran from the blast and went back to find Ama.

Yorugu went to Ama and began yelling at her.

Adesoji Iginla (57:25.358)
Mmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (57:25.833)
You did this, he screamed. You destroyed everything I created. Why? Amma just looked at him as he threw an angry tantrum. And then she said, you did this to yourself. It was not me. Yorugu was confused. What do you mean I did this to myself? He yelled. Why would I destroy my own creations? Amma replied, you did not have the ability to create by yourself. Creation requires balance.

Adesoji Iginla (57:52.534)
Hmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (57:52.656)
And your female compliment provides that balance in your selfishness, impatience, and arrogance. You chose not to wait for her. Yorugu screamed angrily up at Ama. Well, give her to me. I cannot do that, Ama said. You and me to be in partnership, one male and one female. And when you left, I gave her to someone else so that she would be complete.

Yorugu looked out into the universe and saw the woman who would have been his compliment walking away hand in hand with someone else. But what about me? Yorugu said. That is your problem, Ama said. You have only been thinking about yourself this whole time. Because of your selfishness, you are incomplete. Everything you create will always be incomplete because you, Yorugu, are forever incomplete.

Forever incomplete, Yorugu thought about that and yelled out, no, no, I'll show you. Yorugu stormed out into the universe and began creating object after object. Every planet exploded. Every star blew up and burned everything around it. Every moon, every galaxy, every solar system, everything he created looked beautiful at first. And then the object seemed like they were good. Each time Yorugu thought this one is going to work. This one is going to last.

But it never did. Who in your world keeps creating things that destroy?

Aya As Mbokomu (59:29.007)
Not only did all of his creations fall apart, but they destroyed everything around them. Yorugu was throwing the whole universe out of balance, and Ama knew he must be stopped. Ama sent the other beings she'd created to stop Yorugu. Find him and bring him to me, she said. They found Yorugu and surrounded him. Yorugu put his hands up and pretended to cry when they let their guard down.

Like my African children did, Yorugu escaped before the others could arrest him. He tricked them and fled to Earth to hide. To prevent Yorugu from coming back out into the universe, Amma put a seal around the Earth. Yorugu was trapped on Earth, but he was determined to keep creating. To hide from Amma, Yorugu transformed into the animals that he saw around him. First, he changed himself into a pale white fox.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:13.608)
Zulay.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:00:25.613)
and then into a white snake.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:28.662)
Okay.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:00:30.819)
Finally, Yorugu transformed himself into the shape of a white man and found a village of people to try to blend in. The people in this village were not like Yorugu and he became very lonely. He said to himself, I created stars and galaxies. I will simply create a companion for myself. He remembered the placenta he stole from Amma.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:52.302)
Hmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:00:56.707)
The placenta was the life-giving object that Amma was using to make him, so he figured that he could use it to make his own companion. He tried to use the placenta to make a living being, and he failed. But he also realized that the placenta is how Amma fed him, not how it created him. Yorugu said to himself, Amma created me with a silly, with seeds.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:24.526)
Thanks.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:01:26.019)
He remembered that Amas as silly were words. So he spoke the words that would create beings just like him. And the words he spoke were deception, individuality, power, mental superiority, hate, war, control, consumption, disorder, detachment.

Chaos, confusion, arrogance, selfishness, separation, domination, destruction. Yorugu transformed these words into a silly and they became the seeds of thought that he then planted in the minds of humanity. Once Yorugu planted their silly into the minds of the people, they began to change.

Remember my children, remember. They used to work together, but now it seems more logical for them to compete with their neighbors. They used to help those who had less, but now people only thought about themselves. They argued and fought and became confused about what was right and what was wrong. When Yorugu came among them again, many of them welcomed him and he felt at home. The people even voted to make Yorugu their leader.

But some of the people knew something was wrong. What is happening to us? The people asked. They cried and they thought we should go back to our own ways. Some of them had been thinking and behaving like Yorugu for so long that they could not remember their ways. But they remembered that they were connected to the universe, to their ancestors who had lived before them and to the creator. The people gathered together for a connection ceremony.

to communicate with Ama. They asked, what has happened to us? Ama answered, Yorugu has invaded your minds with his asili, and you now think that his thoughts and ways are your own. His seeds of thoughts can be rooted out. But in order to do that, you must remember who you are and remember or reunite your community.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:44.43)
Hmm.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:03:51.662)
You are black like the universe because I made you. You know there is a better way because you are still connected to those who came before you. Remember me, remember them. You can live in balance and harmony again, but you must remember who you are and remember your community. And that is from the book, The Creator and Yorubi.

So I know I took you a little over your time, but I know that this is important and that you wanted to hear what I had to say. So let me say these final words to you because they too are important. I hope they will be water to the seeds that I have attempted to plant within you today.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:32.046)
.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:04:44.281)
Tonight, I have spoken to you.

because I never disappeared.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:04:54.563)
but I had been forgotten because many stopped listening.

But the rivers, they remember me.

The soil still remembers my hands. The garden still waits for humanity to remember its covenant with creation.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:05:22.455)
Remember this above all, humanity did not begin with empire, but with a woman carrying seeds. A woman cultivating life after displacement. A woman transforming sorrow into nourishment. Have you not heard?

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:42.19)
Mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:05:50.98)
that the architect of the thing you people call Project 2025 spent years studying the Black woman.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:59.278)
start.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:06:08.041)
am Mbokomu, the first woman, first goddess, first gardener, your ancestor goddess. I am the keeper of resilience. I am the mother of sacred memory. I am the one who invites you to remember, to forgive, and to cultivate. And I ask you now.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:34.958)
Mm.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:06:36.749)
What gardens are you planting for those yet unborn?

Will you leave them bitterness or healing, strife or harmony, conquest or stewardship, destruction or balance? For every generation chooses whether to protect the garden or to poison it. Thank you for allowing.

to share with you tonight.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:13.64)
Thank you. And in the spirit of what you just told us, we have to be mindful of the fact that, like you said, in the creation story, the Yoruba creation story, is the river that forgets its source will dry up. And in Yoruba, will say, omitobakbagwiorisunyo yogbe, which is essentially what I just said in English.

So it's about remembering who we are, the essence of our being, being thought right, being just, being fair, being sincere. I mean, the good values, as it were. So that said, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for coming through. And to the audience, thank you for sticking by us, although it was rather late today.

Like I said earlier, Geography played the first one on me. And it was about time, actually, we'll catch up. But that said, we were here and we'll continue to be here. So next week, it will be the turn of Monemeer. We'll be looking at the life and times of Monemeer. Again, the name might seem strange to you, but next week you would learn more. And like somebody said in the chat, learning is something each episode we do here. So we continue to learn.

And we have to thank Mbokomo for coming through. Thank you again. Thank you. Any final thoughts?

Aya As Mbokomu (01:08:56.545)
I love you. I love you all. And I...

I see beyond what you can see.

Remember my beginnings.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:09:17.151)
Nothing existed. All looked dark.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:09:25.305)
But if you hold on to the possibility.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:09:31.759)
carried in your heart. In the seeds, yes, represented as plants, but for you, think of the Dogon story I just told you, the words, and you plant the right seeds. In yourself, in others, the possibilities are endless.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:00.022)
love you too and audience extension of love as well and so until next week at 7 p.m eastern standard time we we come again for another episode

Aya As Mbokomu (01:10:16.813)
You know, you know, you know, let me, can I say this? One of the things that is known about me, you just brought it to my remembrance. I was known for being able to manipulate, control time. So I do not see it necessary for you to give any explanation.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:19.952)
Sure you can.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:10:46.671)
for my presence today being at a different time. Because I control even time. Everything happened in divine order.

Aya As Mbokomu (01:11:03.865)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:06.24)
You've heard it. So next week, see you all next week. I need to be mona mia next week. Good night and God bless.