When Creator Comes Visiting…

…this is one of his domains – the craggy summit of Kere-Nyaga, Mountain of Brightness, better known outside East Africa as Mount Kenya.

And the supreme being concerned is Ngai, maker of earth, the cosmos and everything. And it was to Ngai that the Kikuyu farmers of Mount Kenya’s southerly foothills once offered their sacrifices and prayers. Although they only did this in times of great crisis, since it was generally held that Creator was a remote figure, little concerned with human affairs. When his help was sought, he was addressed as Mwene-Nyaga, possessor of brightness (Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya 1938). Nyaga also has figurative connotations, meaning ostrich, but in this context suggestive of the white plumes of the male ostrich, a visual analogy for the glaciated zones among the dark mountain peaks.

You’ll see the thinking in this next photo:

This shot of a retreating male ostrich also…