In Efik mythology, Abassi was god and the father (together with his wife Atai) of all mankind. They had two children, and when the children were grown up they wanted to leave heaven and settle on earth. Abassi was hesitant, worried that they may breed a warrior people which might then attack him, but Atai persuaded him to let the children leave and live on earth providing that they never mated or worked and that they came back to heaven to eat when he rang the dinner-bell. This arrangement worked for a while, but then the children began experimenting with ploughing, sowing, harvesting and sex - and soon the earth was swarming with their descendants. Atai solved this potential problem by giving them two presents: argument and death. The primordial parents immediately died, and their offspring have been brawling and haunted by death ever since. As for Abassi and Atai, they were so disgusted with mankind that they lived aloof and alone in heaven taking no notice of mankind at all. Research Abassi
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Research Abassi
