of Benin and Togo. Traditional religion The traditional religion of the Batammariba centers around one Supreme Deity, Kuiye, the sun god and creator of both gods and humans. Kuiye is believed to resemble a human in appearance, but is also considered both male and female, so that the deity is often referred to as "The Sun, Our Father and Our Mother". Like all living beings, according to Batammariba thought, Kuiye possesses a corporeal form known as Kuiye, and a soul, known as Liye. Kuiye, the corporeal form of the deity, is thought to live in the "sun village" in the west, above the sky, while Liye travels the sky each day in the form of a disc of light. Butan, the goddess of the Earth and the Underworld, is Kuiye's complement as either Kuiye's wife or twin. Butan is the ruler of everything within the Earth or on its surface, including vegetal growth and agriculture, game proliferation, cemeteries, etc. Her corporeal form, invisible to humans, is said to resemble a mudfish, an animal that is thought to vomit up an infinite amount of water. Because of this, her main shrine is a village spring. Her complementary soul is called Bupe, and is visible as the surface of the Earth. The third major Batammariba deity is Oyinkakwata, "the Rich Man Above", who is the god of the sky, of thunder, lightning and storms. His soul is visible to humans in the form of lightning, but his invisible body is said to be filled with air. But the Batammariba world is filled with many more deities who are quite different than the three cosmological gods described above: initiation deities who select their worshippers according to various factors such as gender, martial prowess, ability for clairvoyance, etc. They include the Fawafa, the python deity of men's initiations, Fakuntifa, the lizard deity of women's initiations, Fayenfe, the god of war and death, Litakon, the god of twins and fertility, and Kupon, the deity of divination, etc. These deities are better considered families of deities, or deity types, rather than unique deities: male and female Fawafa deities, for example, are believed to produce offspring of their deity type. The Batammariba may acquire these deities by inheriting them, hunting and capturing them in the wild, or by buying and selling them to and from their neighbors. The matriarch, and presumably most powerful, of each deity type