Enkai

Also Known As: also Engai, Eng-ai, Ngai; Maa for sky and for rain, a noun that takes the feminine article; Enkai Narok, the Black God, and Enkai Na-nyokie, the Red God
Region/Culture: East Africa
Mythos: Nilotic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Enkai is the sky itself, black when it gives rain and red when it holds rain back and throws thunder.
Role in Mythos: Enkai is the supreme god of the Maasai, the owner of all cattle and the one who lowered them from the sky to the Maasai.
Relation to Humans: The Maasai pray to Enkai for rain, children and cattle, the women twice a day, and hold up grass when they ask. In return they are trusted with every cow on earth, and they live under a sky that argues with itself about whether to feed them.

Thunder over the Rift Valley comes in two voices. One breaks right overhead, sharp enough to flatten the cattle against each other. The other stays far off, a long low grumble along the edge of the plain. The Maasai who explained this to a British official in the first years of the twentieth century heard a quarrel in it. The crack overhead was the Red God trying to get down to earth to kill people. The rumble in the distance was the Black God telling him to leave them alone.

Both of them are Enkai. The word is Maa, and it means sky, and it also means rain. It takes the feminine article. The Maasai used it for anything vast and out of reach, a downpour, a steaming volcano, the whole roof of the world, and they used it just as easily for the one who listens when a person prays. Enkai Narok is the black one, the colour of a cloud about to break. Enkai Na-nyokie is the red one, and the red one has a temper.

The story A. C. Hollis took down and printed in 1905 goes like this. The people were starving, and the Black God said they should be given water. The Red God agreed, and it rained hard. After a while the Red God said that was enough. The Black God thought otherwise and let it fall all night, shutting it off only at dawn. A few days later the grass was dry again and the Black God asked for more. This time the Red God refused. He said the people were being spoiled, and that he would kill them. The Black God answered that these were his people and he would stand in the way. He has been standing there ever since, which is why the worst thunder never quite arrives.

Whether that makes two gods or one is not settled. Hollis’s tellers spoke of gods, plural, one kind and one cruel. Later accounts, including those gathered from Maasai elders across the last century, describe a single being with two moods, and add that Enkai is neither husband nor wife but both at once. The stories were never tidied into agreement, and nobody seems troubled by it.

Nobody has seen Enkai. There is no face in any of this, no hands, no figure walking about. There is the darkening of the sky, the smell of rain on dust, the noise. There is also an address. Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Mountain of God, stands in northern Tanzania, a volcano that still smokes, and it is called the first home Enkai had.

Enkai has no birth. When the stories open, the sky is already there. One short account says the sky once married the earth and lies over her as a husband does, warming her with sun and wetting her with rain. Another says the two were a single thing before they came apart, and that while they were joined every cow in existence belonged to Enkai and lived above.

How the cattle came down is the tale the Maasai built a way of life on. At the beginning there was a hunter of the Dorobo people living with an elephant and a serpent, and he owned one cow. He killed the serpent, then the elephant, and the elephant’s calf ran off and told a Maasai what had happened. Enkai spoke to the Maasai. He was to build a thorn enclosure, slaughter a thin calf, go into his hut and stay hidden whatever he heard. What he heard was a roar like thunder. Cattle were coming down out of the sky along a strip of hide, one after another, until the enclosure could not hold them. Then the man’s nerve or his patience gave out, the strip was cut, and no more came. The Dorobo lost even the cow he had and has hunted wild game ever since. A second telling gives the lowering to Naiteru-kop, a lesser god who stands below the Black God, and a third swaps the hide for a rope of wild fig roots and has a jealous Dorobo cut it. Every version ends in the same place: all the cattle on earth were given to the Maasai. The neighbours whose herds were later raided on the strength of this were not asked for their view.

Down on the plain the god is addressed constantly. The women pray morning and evening, the men only when things are serious. When the rains fail the women gather with grass in their hands and sing for water, and the children stand in a ring after sunset, each holding a tuft, and sing too. Grass is the thing Enkai gave along with the cattle, so it is held up to ask for peace and to stop a beating. Milk poured on the ground is said to please.

Rain is the whole of Enkai’s power, and everything else follows from it: grass, milk, children, cattle that fatten, lightning for those who have earned the red mood. What the god gives, the god can keep back, and a dry year is read as a judgment.

The limits are just as plain. Enkai is divided, and rain comes only when the black side wins the argument. The strip of hide was cut once and has never been let down again, so no more cattle will come and no one climbs up to ask in person. Even death slipped past. It was Naiteru-kop who gave a man named Le-eyo the words that would have let the dead come back like the moon. Le-eyo said them the wrong way round, and when he tried again over his own child he was told it was too late.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Enkai?

Enkai is the supreme god of the Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania. The name, also written Engai or Ngai, is the Maa word for sky and for rain. Enkai owns all cattle and gave them to the Maasai.

What are the Black God and the Red God?

Enkai Narok, the Black God, is the kind side of Enkai who sends rain. Enkai Na-nyokie, the Red God, is the angry side who holds rain back and tries to harm people. Stories printed by A. C. Hollis in 1905 treat them as two gods, while later accounts describe one god with two moods.

How did the Maasai get their cattle from Enkai?

In the Maasai story, Enkai told a Maasai man to build an enclosure, kill a thin calf and hide in his hut. Cattle then came down from the sky on a strip of hide until the enclosure was full, and when the strip was cut no more came. A Dorobo hunter lost his cow in the same story, and the Maasai took it to mean that all cattle on earth belong to them.

What does thunder mean in Maasai belief?

Loud thunder close overhead is the Red God trying to reach the earth to kill people. The distant rumbling is the Black God telling him to leave the people alone. The Black God promised to protect them after the two quarrelled over how much rain to send.

Where does Enkai live?

Enkai is the sky, and no story gives the god a body. The first home of Enkai is said to be Ol Doinyo Lengai, a volcano in northern Tanzania whose name means the Mountain of God.