Unkulunkulu (/uɲɠulun'ɠulu/), often formatted as uNkulunkulu or uMkhulu Omkhulu,[1] is a mythical ancestor, mythical predecessor group,[2] or Supreme Creator in the language of the Zulu, Ndebele and Swati people.
[4] In this situation, these Onkulunkulu (the plural form) could be male or female,[5] and most tribes and families had one, regarding them with great respect.
[5] With the spread of Christianity in the mid-1800s, various Zulu populations began referring to Unkulunkulu in a different light.
[6] M. R. Masubelele argues that American and European missionaries in the 1830s originally rejected the use of "Unkulunkulu" to the Christian God because of its association to ancestor worship,[7] but eventually many European missionaries began using the name in order to better evangelize the Zulu people.
[11] Historian William H. Worger argues that nineteenth-century indigenous Africans believed these creation myths and others pertaining to Unkulunkulu to be metaphorical rather than literal, as demonstrated through their debates with European missionaries about their similarities to the Bible and their "literal" truth.