Bia

Also Known As: Anyi Bia; the abosom of the Bia River, called in some Ivorian tellings one of the three brother waters alongside Tanoe and Eholie
Region/Culture: West Africa
Mythos: Ghanaian Mythology, West African Mythologies
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: He is the living person of the Bia River and the lord of the bush, the wild animals and the unfarmed forest that his brother’s trickery left him.
Role in Mythos: He is the son of Nyame who was promised the fertile country and cheated out of it by his brother Tano, and who took the harder land instead.
Relation to Humans: The Sefwi, Aowin and Anyi communities along his banks pour libation to him and hold his water and his forest under prohibition, because a river in Akan thought is a person with a temper and a memory rather than a resource. Hunters who take from his bush without asking, and anyone who carries his water into Tano’s, are held to be answerable to him directly.

The water comes down out of the forested highlands above Wamfie already the colour of strong tea, carrying leaf and laterite, and it does not hurry. It runs southwest through Sefwi and Aowin and Suaman country, under a canopy so closed that the surface holds no sky, only a moving green. Then it crosses into Cote d’Ivoire and slows into the Aby Lagoon, where the water goes brackish and the current gives up. That whole length is a god lying down. The Akan do not say the river is sacred to Bia. They say the river is Bia.

He was born to Nyame, who holds the sky, and in most tellings to Asase Yaa, who is the ground itself. His brothers came out of the same house and went into the same element. Tano took the river that still bears his name and became the greatest of the abosom, a war god with an army of baboons and a priesthood that stretches across the Bono country. Bosomtwe became a lake and stayed there. Epo became the sea. Among the Anyi of the Ivorian side the count runs differently, three brother waters instead of four, Bia and Tanoe and Eholie, but the shape holds: the sky god’s sons were sent down to be rivers, and where they lay is where they stayed.

When they came of age, Nyame divided the country. The gift was enormous and specific. One son would get the wet forest belt, the well-watered soil that grows kola and cocoa and yam, the land that would become Asante and the eastern edge of Cote d’Ivoire. The other would get the drier, rougher west. Nyame meant the good ground for Bia, and the reason he gave was not strength or seniority but character. Bia was the obedient one. The Ivorian tellings draw the pair sharply: Bia timid, dutiful, tender with his mother, and Tano proud and quick and vain.

The message went out by goat. Akua Abirekyi was Nyame’s servant and messenger, and Akua Abirekyi liked Tano better. The goat came to Bia first with the news and told him there was no need to rush, that the old man was busy, that morning would do. Then the goat went to Tano and told him something else entirely: go now, go before dawn, and go dressed as your brother.

It worked because it could. In the Asante version the two are twins. Tano came up to his father’s house in the grey light with his brother’s cloth on him, and Nyame, seeing what he expected to see, gave away the forest belt to the wrong son. When Bia arrived at a decent hour to collect what had been promised, the thing had already been said aloud, and a blessing spoken by the sky god does not come back. Some tellings stop there, with the two of them standing in front of their father and nothing to be done. Others give it an ending with more movement in it: Tano, hearing that he had been outmanoeuvred in the other direction, came after his brother to take the land by force, and Bia, who knew exactly how that would go, went west rather than be beaten in front of everyone.

He did what he was told and lost everything.

What he received instead was the bush. Not farmland but forest, not the cleared and planted country but the part that stays wild, and with it the animals in it. That is the office he has held ever since, and it is a real one. The hunter who goes in under his trees goes in on his terms. The reserve that carries his name today protects one of the last blocks of closed canopy in West Africa, elephant and bongo and hornbill inside it, which is a fair description of an estate belonging to a god of wild things.

The two brothers never made it up, and neither did their rivers. It is held along both banks that the waters are enemies and must not meet in a vessel. Carry Bia’s water into the Tano and you will not survive it. One Asante hunter is said to have tried, and he is still standing where he did it, turned into a palm tree with his gun hanging in the branches. The goat came out of it worse than anyone. Because Akua Abirekyi’s tongue caused the whole business, the goat is forbidden to the worshippers of Tano and Bia alike, which means the animal that won Tano his kingdom cannot be brought near either shrine.

His power is the ordinary, total power of an Akan river god. He is present in his own water and cannot be separated from it, so what is done to the river is done to him. He is asked for children and for good hunting and for the settling of quarrels, and answered through his priests, who serve him because he took them rather than because they applied. He gives fish and game and the drinking water of two countries. The limits are just as plain. He is bounded by his own channel and by the forest that drains into it, and he holds no authority in his brother’s basin at all. He can be angered by a broken prohibition more easily than he can be pleased by an offering. And the one contest that mattered, the only time he was ever asked to compete for anything, he lost by being exactly what his father valued him for. There is no version of the story in which Bia gets the good land back.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Bia in Akan mythology?

Bia is the abosom, or divine spirit, of the Bia River, which runs from the forested highlands of Ghana into the Aby Lagoon in Cote d’Ivoire. He is a son of the sky god Nyame and a brother of the river god Tano. After being cheated out of his inheritance he became the god of the bush, the wilderness and wild animals.

How did Tano cheat Bia out of his inheritance?

Nyame intended to give Bia the fertile forest lands and Tano the rougher western country. Nyame’s messenger, a goat called Akua Abirekyi, preferred Tano and deliberately mistimed the summons, telling Bia there was no hurry while telling Tano to arrive before dawn disguised as his brother. Nyame could not tell the brothers apart and gave the good land to Tano, and the blessing could not be taken back.

Why must Bia’s water never be mixed with the Tano River?

The theft of the inheritance left the two brothers permanently at odds, and the feud is held to extend to their rivers. Carrying water from one into the other is believed to be fatal. An Asante hunter who tried it is said to have been turned into a palm tree, with his gun left hanging in the branches.

Why is the goat taboo to worshippers of Bia?

Nyame’s messenger goat, Akua Abirekyi, caused the deception by giving the two brothers deliberately different instructions. Because of that, the goat is under prohibition for the followers of both Bia and Tano, and may not be brought near either god’s shrine.

Was Bia the older or the younger brother?

The tellings disagree. Most Asante accounts make Bia the elder son and his father’s favourite, cheated by his younger brother. Some Anyi accounts from Cote d’Ivoire reverse it and make Tano the firstborn. In the Asante version the two are twins, which is the detail that makes the disguise work.