among the Basaa people of Cameroon from the text _Li-Koda Li-Mbog: The World-View and Social Organization of the Basaa People of Cameroon (2012)_, written by Mbeleck Mandenge, Phd. I continue that dialogue with another excerpt that helps us to better understand how God is contextualized by his smaller parts and how God takes on a new name depending on the aspect of nature or causal force for which It is manifesting itself at the moment. This provides clarity and a framework for understand ancient Egyptian “pantheons” as it operates under the same milieux. Therefore, Amen = Ra.w = Aset = Kheper = Ptah = Sekhmet = Osir = Geb, etc. These aren’t different “gods” (per-se). They are God in the form of Amen, Ra.w, Aset, etc. The indigenous Africans have the ONLY true Monotheistic ‘religion’ or conceptualization. For the African, there isn’t a battle between One God vs Multiple Gods like in the Abrahamic traditions. For the African, God is the ONLY thing. This is reaffirmed by excerpt below.
<< The kernel of this thinking is the idea of filiation considered as a mode of thinking, and as a mode of organization. Like in every system of descent, in this instance, equally we have a community of Ancestors and of parents at several levels – a genealogical tree we should say: Ŋyambe is at once a superposed and a juxtaposed unit on one’s parents among themselves. According to whether he is considered in his transcendence, or in his omnipotence, he bears the name “Ŋyambe.” In his aspect of creator and primal ancestor, he who has always been, he is “Hilolombi.” Otherwise still, as the generator, he is “Bel” (Amato, 1967). But God in Basaa thinking, being neither of the outside nor of the inside is thought of as permeating these very beings, by means of one of the elements, namely, “ŋam,” an enshrouding and a life-giving essence.
Being in every single being, the originator monitors the evolution of creation. . . These various forms of God in the manner the Basaa people conceive of him always depend on one another: a study of any given form always takes one to the other form. The triplet we have just considered reverts to another triplet and the set of triplets to the entirety of which is Ŋyambe. We thus have a disposition of parts of a whole, some times abstract, concrete at other times, of a complex system generally envisaged as a set and as a permanent given. This would amount to a curiosity – a form for God, of the set divine triplet, and of the totality Ŋyambe. Analysis and reanalysis would reveal a God conceived thanks to his multiple ramifications and derivatives, as a macrocosm with numerous intermediary realms, which may be thought of as mesocosms. . . (Mandenge, 2012: 354-355)
<< The kernel of this thinking is the idea of filiation considered as a mode of thinking, and as a mode of organization. Like in every system of descent, in this instance, equally we have a community of Ancestors and of parents at several levels – a genealogical tree we should say: Ŋyambe is at once a superposed and a juxtaposed unit on one’s parents among themselves. According to whether he is considered in his transcendence, or in his omnipotence, he bears the name “Ŋyambe.” In his aspect of creator and primal ancestor, he who has always been, he is “Hilolombi.” Otherwise still, as the generator, he is “Bel” (Amato, 1967). But God in Basaa thinking, being neither of the outside nor of the inside is thought of as permeating these very beings, by means of one of the elements, namely, “ŋam,” an enshrouding and a life-giving essence.
Being in every single being, the originator monitors the evolution of creation. . . These various forms of God in the manner the Basaa people conceive of him always depend on one another: a study of any given form always takes one to the other form. The triplet we have just considered reverts to another triplet and the set of triplets to the entirety of which is Ŋyambe. We thus have a disposition of parts of a whole, some times abstract, concrete at other times, of a complex system generally envisaged as a set and as a permanent given. This would amount to a curiosity – a form for God, of the set divine triplet, and of the totality Ŋyambe. Analysis and reanalysis would reveal a God conceived thanks to his multiple ramifications and derivatives, as a macrocosm with numerous intermediary realms, which may be thought of as mesocosms. . . (Mandenge, 2012: 354-355)
