Asis

Also Known As: with the article, Asista, “the sun”; among the Kipsigis also called Cheptalil or Cheptalel, with Ngolo recorded as an old synonym
Region/Culture: East Africa
Mythos: Nilotic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Asis is the supreme being of the Nandi and Kipsigis of the Kenyan highlands, named with the ordinary word for the sun and asked for health, milk, children, cattle and strength.
Role in Mythos: He is the god who came down to set the young earth in order, the husband of the moon, and the one power that Nandi prayer addresses morning and evening.
Relation to Humans: People spit blessings of beer and milk toward him at sunrise and call on him when a house goes up, when pots come out of the fire, when warriors are away and when cattle sicken. He is held to care for every living thing, though the Kipsigis also blamed great droughts and epidemics on his anger.

Every morning at about seven, while their sons were away raiding, the mothers of Nandi warriors stepped out of their huts, spat toward the sun and called out two words: *Asis! kon-ech sapon.* God, give us health. Each of them had tied four knots in her belt on the day the young men left. The spittle was not an insult. Among the Nandi, as among many of their Nilotic neighbours, to spit was to bless, and the blessing went east, toward the light coming up over the ridge.

Asis is the ordinary Nandi word for the sun. Add the article and it becomes Asista, the sun, and that is also the name of God. A. C. Hollis, who collected Nandi customs, prayers and stories in the first years of the twentieth century and published them in *The Nandi: Their Language and Folk-lore* in 1909, wrote that the supreme deity “dwells in the sky”, made man and beast, owns the world, and is the giver of all good things. Sir Charles Eliot, who wrote the book’s introduction, noticed something odd about the language used of him. Nobody praised the sun’s splendour or described its rising and setting. The god who carried the sun’s name was spoken of as a benevolent, powerful and somewhat vague presence, interested above all in whether the children were fed. No one could give Eliot a native derivation of the word, and he could find no neighbour language to borrow it from. He did point out that the Luo name for God, Chieng, also means sun, and so does Ruwa among the Chagga of Kilimanjaro.

The Kipsigis, close kin of the Nandi to the south, used the same word and drew a sharper line. Ian Orchardson lived among them for many years, and his account, abridged and edited by A. T. Matson, was published as *The Kipsigis* in 1961. His informants usually spoke of God as Asis or Asista and turned to the east in their ceremonies, but they insisted that the sun was a symbol and nothing more. Their own private name for him was Cheptalil, a word whose origin nobody could explain. The children had a proof that it could not simply mean the sun. At dusk the guinea-fowl calls, and children put words to her call: who will look after us? Let God look after us. A bird asking for protection through the night is not asking the sun.

The Nandi kept one story about what Asis did at the beginning, and it is short. Everything came from the union of sky and earth. The sun, who had married the moon, went down to the earth one day to put things in order. He found three creatures already living there together: the thunder, an elephant and a Dorobo, one of the forest hunters the Nandi regarded as the land’s first people. The thunder was frightened of the Dorobo, because the man could roll over in his sleep without waking up. That was enough. The thunder left the earth and went to live in the sky. The elephant refused to go with him and was shot by the Dorobo, who became lord of the earth.

The marriage did not go smoothly either. At night the sun slides into his scabbard and travels home to the east by a road nobody sees. On the dark nights at the end of each month people said that the sun had killed his wife, and Hollis’s calendar names the twenty-ninth day for exactly that: *ka-par Asista arawet*, the sun has murdered the moon. The old men knew better. He had only beaten her. She had gone to hide by the river for a couple of days, and he would fetch her home.

Most of what is recorded about Asis is not myth at all. It is the prayer of a cattle people. When a new house was begun, the elders poured milk and beer and dropped salt into the hole dug for the central pole and asked Asis for health, milk, power, eleusine grain, every good thing, and protection for the children. Potters lifting newly baked pots asked him for strength, so that people would like what they had made. When disease broke out in a herd, a bonfire of wild olive was lit, the sick cattle were driven up to the blaze, and an elder anointed a pregnant sheep with milk before asking for a good belly. When raiders had taken cattle, the herd was driven to the river and sprinkled, and the men repeated after an elder: we have prayed to thee, guard these here. At one ceremony the old men took beer and milk into their mouths and sprayed it toward the rising sun, saying, look at this beer and milk.

On the fourth day after a birth, the women held a feast called *ki-inget Asis*, “that God may be awakened”. The midwife shaved the mother’s head and threw the hair toward the sunrise. The same worry runs through the daily prayer that every adult was supposed to say twice a day, sitting with arms folded and elbows resting in the palms. It speaks to Asis almost as to a neighbour who might not be listening: I have prayed to thee, thou sleepest and thou goest. I have prayed to thee; do not say, I have become tired. Then the prayer turns to the ancestors underground and asks them not to bear a grudge.

What Asis gives is ordinary and enormous at once: health, milk, offspring, cattle and good grain, the safe return of young men. He also allows what he does not prevent. When forked lightning struck, Nandi women looked at the ground, because it was wrong for them to watch the destruction the sun was permitting. Among the Kipsigis, droughts, famines and epidemics were laid at the door of his anger, while ordinary sickness came from the restless dead.

His limits are written into the prayers. A god who must be woken, and asked not to grow tired, can presumably sleep through a request. When the sun was eclipsed the Nandi said simply that the sun had died, and took it as a bad omen. And he did not reach everyone. Eliot noted that the Orkoiyot, the great Nandi ritual experts, were said never to pray to Asis at all, only to the spirits of their own ancestors.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Asis in Kalenjin religion?

Asis is the supreme god of the Nandi and Kipsigis peoples of western Kenya, both Kalenjin-speaking groups. His name is the ordinary word for the sun, and with the article it becomes Asista. A. C. Hollis recorded in 1909 that the Nandi believed Asis lived in the sky, created people and animals, and owned the world.

Is Asis the same as the sun?

The Nandi used the same word for the sun and for God, but their prayers to Asis say almost nothing about the sun’s light or movement. The Kipsigis told Ian Orchardson that the sun was only a symbol of God, and they also called God Cheptalil, a name they did not connect with the sun at all.

What is the Nandi creation story involving Asis?

The Nandi said everything came from the union of sky and earth. When the sun, who had married the moon, came down to arrange the earth, he found the thunder, an elephant and a Dorobo living together. The thunder was afraid of the Dorobo and fled to the sky, and the Dorobo killed the elephant and became lord of the earth.

How did the Nandi pray to Asis?

Adults were expected to pray to Asis every morning and evening, sitting with folded arms, asking him to protect their children and cattle and not to grow tired of their requests. Nandi people also spat toward the rising sun as a blessing and prayed to Asis when building houses, baking pots, treating sick cattle and waiting for warriors to return.

What do the Nandi say happens to the moon each month?

According to Hollis’s 1909 record, when the moon disappears at the end of the month people said that Asis, the sun, had killed his wife. The old men said he had only beaten her, and that she was hiding by the river for a couple of days until he fetched her home.