The Owner of the Sky

Olodumare, also called Olorun, "owner of the sky", is the supreme being of the Yoruba tradition of West Africa and of the African-diaspora religions descended from it: the one source of all that exists and of ashe, the vital power or life-force that runs through the whole of creation. Olodumare is the origin and sustainer of everything, the ultimate authority above the orisha (the many divine powers) and the ancestors, and the one to whom, in Yoruba thought, all destinies finally answer.

The theologian E. Bolaji Idowu, whose study of Yoruba belief takes Olodumare for its very title, argued that the Yoruba tradition is at bottom a form of diffused monotheism: a single supreme God at the head of a hierarchy of subordinate divine powers who carry out the divine will in the world. Olodumare is understood as transcendent, remote, wise and utterly just, the judge of character to whom each person is finally accountable.