Women's Afrikkan Pantheon (African Gods) Nzambi & Nzambici t-shirt

This just might be the softest and most comfortable women's t-shirt you'll ever own. Combine the relaxed fit and smooth fabric of this tee with jeans to create an effortless every-day outfit, or dress it up with a jacket and dress pants for a business casual look.

This is Nzambi Ampungu and his consort Nzambici, deities of the Bakongo people who live in west-central Africa from southern Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and northern Angola. Nzambi Ampungu is the supreme god, eternal sky father and god of the sun (and fire). Nzambici is the sky mother and goddess of the moon.
I designed both figures as elemental beings. I designed their masks to resemble traditional Congolese “Tsaaye” masks. The narrow eye slits enabled the wearer to see while dancing as the mask was held by gripping a woven cord between the teeth.
The designs on Nzambici’s mask symbolize her function as the earth goddess, depicting mountains, trees and the sea in luminous gems. Her gown is an actual mountain and her body is the sky. Her hair symbolizes the moon which is one of her aspects.
The Bakongo had a notion of creation resulting from a celestial Big Bang (where have you heard that before?) sparked by Nzambi. In addition to creation and the sky, Nzambi was also the god of fire and change, so, in combining all these aspects, I designed him as a star-like figure going into supernova. His mask is also symbolic of his role as the sun god.
The cosmological symbol in the bottom left of the design is a “dikenga.” The Bakongo had a philosophy governing the planes of existence symbolized by the dikenga. It depicts the relationship between the physical world, the spiritual world, the celestial energy line that runs between the two worlds, the sacred river that forms a circle around the two worlds, the four moments of the sun, and the four elements. This is not unlike cosmological beliefs held by the Norse people, various Asian cultures and South American people.

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