Health
It was believed that Abassi and Atai lived in the Sun. Abassi was thought to be the god of health. The tribesmen would often chant aloud to the sun in hopes that Abassi would hear their cries and heal them. It is believed that Abassi gave certain tribemen the ability to heal the sick through necromancy. Whenever someone in the tribe was ill, the chief would summon the witchdoctor. If the witchdoctor was unable to heal the ill person, the ill person was to be immediately killed because Abassi did not want them to be healed. Within a healing ceremony, the tribesmen would start a fire. All the people of the tribe were required to gather around as they sang songs of worship to Abassi. If the witchdoctor was unable to heal the sick person, the ill person would immediately be thrown into the fire.
Read more about this topic: Efik Mythology
Famous quotes containing the word health:
“The debt was the most sacred obligation incurred during the war. It was by no means the largest in amount. We do not haggle with those who lent us money. We should not with those who gave health and blood and life. If doors are opened to fraud, contrive to close them. But don’t deny the obligation, or scold at its performance.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
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How can you be alive you growths of spring?
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Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you?
Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead?”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Woman ... cannot be content with health and agility: she must make exorbitant efforts to appear something that never could exist without a diligent perversion of nature. Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the caresses of a subhumanly ugly mate?”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)