BBPP: Bubi Tribe: Spirits

In the Bubi religion, the beginning is Rupe (called Eri on southern parts of the island), a supreme being who created all and oversees all.

Spirit layering best describes the spirit/physical world as explained by the Bubi. There are three parts to the other world: "Labakoppua," or heaven and the angels; "Ommo ich'ori," or hell and bad angels, and "Ommo boeboe," or limbo.

After the over-world layers, island life involved the sharing of Bioko between the Bubi tribes and spirits that were both good and bad. The bad ones are always to blame for disease and injuries or bad luck. Father Aymemi describes one way of warding off the spirits' evil plans this way:

"In the better times of the Bubi customs, some five or 10 minutes before arriving at a village, one would encounter an arch built with plain sticks and hung with thousands of amulets -- things such as tails of sheep, animal skulls and bones, chicken and pheasant feathers, horns of antelope, shells of sea snails and land snails, and more. Thus, like the spoils of the dead, they enlived the remembrance of their ancestors who live in Borimo, or the region of the dead. On both sides of this arch they plants sacred "iko" trees, with the goal to impede the entrance of the village by bad spirits and save themselves from their perverse influence. (Father Aymemi also expresses his relief, elsewhere in his book, that the Bubi did not use human bones in any of their rituals, but, rather, held human remains in great reverence.)

"Placed on either side were ferns and earthernware pots. One pot would hold water from a spring, and in a ceremony the Bubi would ask that the good spirits protect the village, just as in the manner that a spring will continue to flow, so too would Bubi births continue to flow, uninterrupted, assuring a population increase.

"Other villages might fill the pot with sea water, and this signifies that, just as the sea receives all the dirt of the earth, it's never corrupted. In this same way, it was hoped the people of the village, however much they might sufffer from sickness and their vices, would never lose the virture of their procreation."

A blending between the spirit world and the physical world on Bioko means nearly every distinctive landmark was associated with a Bubi spirit -- the rivers, the lakes, the mountains -- all considered a point of specific spiritual energy. Ibrahim Sundiata writes of menhirs found throughout the island commemorating sacred events and of trees "considered the great terrestrial wand of the spirits, and their vitality was a sign of continued productivity of the area."

Should you travel to the island, look for :

The energy of the spirit Chiba resonating within Pico Basile
Esaha's power deep within Lake Claret
Lombe in the Balacha lagoon
Moalala in the cavern de Riasaka
Lopelo in Lake Loreto
Jioba in the Rebola grotto
Ole in the Tudela river

And try not to disturb any rock formations you might find in these areas. As author Sundiata tells us, they could be there for a reason:

"Venerated erect-standing stones are, indeed, still found throughout the island. These stones, however, did not serve as the image of a diety, but rather the image of spiritual energy -- energy essential to the fecundity and vitality of the locale. During the nineteenth century many people moved to new zones for reasons of trade and abandoned the menhirs in their region. Later, when many were rediscovered, the Bubi averred that the stones had not been erected by humans, but, instead, were signs from the spirits. Many menhirs were located at commercial crossroads and places for palavers.

"Sacred stones had three functions: they were places where this world encountered the world of the spirits; places that acknowledged the presence of the earth goddess, and places that marked the initial settlement of families. ... Memorial stones are especially abundant in places like Batete, Moka (formerly Riabba,) Ureka and Ombori. At times there was only one stone, which represented the founding male. At times there were two, representing the founding couple. In other cases there was a third, smaller, stone which represented "basoome" (children). Because the menhirs were exposed to the elements, small chapels were built close to them for the maintenance of perpetual fires. The chapel was marked by small stones, and the sacred precinct was protected by rites of purification. The principal function of rites before "earth-mother" monoliths was to insure agricultural and human reproduction."

--From "Equatorial Guinea: Colonialism, State Terror and the Search for Stability."