Thil / Thila (Lobi nature spirit)
Invisible nature spirit of the Lobi creator god, mediating between divine and human worlds; it inhabits a *bateba* figure and the diviner reads its requirements.
A thil (plural thila) is an invisible nature spirit sent by the Lobi creator god to mediate between the divine and human worlds. Each thil attaches to a household, compound or individual and communicates its requirements — taboos, offerings, the specific bateba types to carve — through the diviner (buor), who reads its instructions via divination.
The thil inhabits the bateba placed on the shrine and is the operative agent in healing, protection and social order. The system is fundamentally contractual: the thil grants protection in exchange for correct behaviour and material offerings, and failure brings illness or misfortune. The thil/thila concept is the load-bearing explanatory framework for the entire Lobi material culture — no bateba can be meaningfully described without reference to the thil logic that produced it.