Gba’Aôndo U Tiv (the Tiv Traditional Belief System) is the Tiv Traditional Arts & Culture Initiative (T.T.A.C.I.). We run the Tiv Traditional School Academy: a home for learning, remembering, practising and becoming.
Established in January 2018 and registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria, Gba’Aôndo U Tiv is a non-profit, non-partisan, apolitical and ecumenical body devoted to the practice, preservation and promotion of the Tiv Traditional Religion.
Gba’Aôndo U Tiv practises the highly sophisticated spiritual systems rooted in the cycles of nature, cosmic order and a living relationship with our ancestors. To this day, these are complete life systems that integrate Tiv spirituality, health systems, governance, the family unit, justice systems and ecology.
Who we are
We are an organisation dedicated to the research and preservation of the culture, arts, traditions, ceremonies and rituals of the Tiv traditional institution, through practice. We represent the new generation of traditional interpreters of the Tiv traditional belief system and its followers.
Gba’Aôndo U Tiv is a gathering of the spiritual nobility of the Tiv traditional religion: its priests, practitioners and initiates, and those who carry a spiritual heritage that has remained quiet and hidden. Our executive members are recognised authorities in Tiv traditional spirituality and leaders in their communities, known through their work and the evidence of their lives rather than self-appointed titles.
Why we exist
The essence of our traditional belief system has been misinterpreted and wrongly placed alongside malevolent practices, tearing at the benevolent social fabric it was built to protect. Our pride is in our identity, the identity of Tivness, and tradition and culture are the foundations on which that identity is built. Our religion is a dimension of our culture, its transcendent element.
So Tiv spiritual priests and stakeholders have come together to uphold the knowledge of the Tiv indigenous religion, to record our oral and written history for the generations to come, and to present it in the public domain, so that it is recognised at home and internationally as our identity. In our cultural awareness lies the answer to the quest for spiritual emancipation.
Our mission
To revive Tiv spirituality and its practices as a stabilising force of the Tiv social order, and to empower our people through the preservation and re-enactment of our cultural and religious institutions.
Our vision
Cultural preservation, enhancement and spiritual empowerment.
Our purpose
The practice, preservation and promotion of Gba’Aôndo U Tiv: Tiv Traditional Arts and Culture.
Our objectives
- Record and share content and visuals of the Tiv traditional arts and cultural belief system.
- Promote Tiv traditional arts in the public domain, locally and internationally.
- Revive and restore our lost traditional identity.
- Rebuild the kinship relationships that have been broken.
Our creed
- We believe in the highly diverse traditional culture and practices of the Tiv people.
- We believe in the Supreme Creator, Aôndo.
- We believe in the spirits, and in traditional African medicine used for good.
- We believe humanity’s role is to bring nature into harmony with the supernatural.
What we do
- Unify the coherent structures of the Tiv traditional religion and its sacraments, for economic growth and community development.
- Teach Tiv traditional and spiritual cosmology, and the harmony it describes.
- Keep the knowledge of Tiv herbalism.
- Protect the diversity of our cultural expressions.
- Coordinate authentic Tiv traditional ceremonies: weddings, burial rites, rituals and rites of passage.
We also give the Tiv traditional religious culture its place in public policy and sustainable development, through peaceful dialogue on culture, heritage, human development and innovation. See our projects and programmes →
Our leadership
Our Royal Life Patron and Chairman of the Board is HRH Ayua D. Abomtse (JP), Ter Tyoshin (Nagi) II, Chairman of the Tyoshin Traditional Council, Gwer West Local Government (Naka). The initiative was founded by its President, Wantor Torkula Terngu Ashidoon. Meet the board, executive and council →
Membership
Membership is open to all descendants of Tiv, whatever their religious affiliation, who support the work of Gba’Aôndo U Tiv. Find out how to get involved →
Open, witnessed, communal
Gba’Aôndo U Tiv spirituality has no concept of “secret worship”: spiritual power must be witnessed, and ancestral shrines are open to the community.
Learn with us
Our first programme, the 12-week Elementary School, runs online every Saturday at 6pm. Explore the composition of the Tiv being, the Custodians of the Tiv Order and our Tiv glossary, and follow our live sessions on TikTok at @tivspirituality.