Tendai Moyo
One of the storytelling voices behind African Belief — every piece below carries their name because it was researched, framed, and checked in their voice.
Pieces by Tendai
African Mythology in Netflix Releases: What the Numbers Miss
The subtitle reads the spirit world. The word the actor said was Ọ̀run. Those are not the same thing, and the distance between them is the whole subject of this piece.
Children of Blood and Bone: Inside a Film Adaptation Announcement
A teaser plays before whatever you actually queued up. Ninety seconds, a drum figure under the studio logo, and a single word held on screen long enough to read: Orïsha.
Jungian Archetypes Applied to African Traditions: Àbíkú, Ọgbanje, and the Child
The first time I saw the name written down I read it as a line of verse. Málọmọ́ — má lọ mọ́, do not go again.
Children of Blood and Bone Movie News: Who the Òrìṣà Really Are
A trailer went out this week for Children of Blood and Bone, and somewhere in the first minute a word crosses the screen that already has a street named after it in Ọ̀ṣogbo, a drum pattern in Havana…
Children of Blood and Bone: The Film Adaptation and Yoruba Belief
Somewhere in the first fifty pages, a reader stops and types a name into a search bar. Òya. Ṣàngó. Yemọja.
The Mbombo Creation Myth: How the Kuba World Was Made
The strangest thing about the Mbombo creation myth is not the vomiting. That is the part everyone repeats.
Amadioha: The Igbo God of Thunder and the Sworn Oath
In a Nollywood scene you have probably watched some version of, an argument stops dead. A man accused of taking money from his uncle stands up in the compound and offers to swear — by Amadioha.
Anansi the Spider: The Akan Trickster Who Owns Every Story
In Akan, a folktale has a name before it has a plot. They are called anansesem — spider stories — and the word does not mean stories about a spider. It means stories that belong to one.
Àbíkú and Ọgbanje: Reading African Folklore in Contemporary Storytelling
The advice always arrives at the same moment. You have just finished The Famished Road, or Freshwater, or the chapter of Things Fall Apart where a stone comes out of the ground, and someone tells you…