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Yorubagods

YORUBA CHIEF GODS.

The term used by the Yoruba tribes to express a superhuman being, or god, is orisha, and as it is used equally to express the images and sacred objects, and also as an adjective with the meaning of sacred or holy, it answers exactly to the Tshi term bohszon, the Gã wong, and the Ewe vodu. The word orisha seems to be compounded of ori (summit, top, head) and sha (to select, choose); though some natives prefer to derive it from ri (to see) and isha (selection, choice), and thus to make it mean "One who sees the cult."

OLORUN

Olorun is the sky-god of the Yorubas, that is, he is the deified firmament, or personal sky, just as Nyankupon is to the Tshis, Nyonmo to the Gas, and Mawu to the Ewes. As was mentioned in the last volume, the general bias of the negro mind has been in favour of selecting the firmament for the chief Nature god, instead of the Sun, Moon, or Earth; and in this respect the natives resemble the Aryan Hindus, Greeks, and Romans, with whom Dyaus pitar, Zeus, and Jupiter equally represented the firmament. The Tshis and Gas use the words Nyankupon and Nyonmo to express sky, rain, or thunder and lightning, and the Ewes andYorubas, the words Mawn and Olorun to express the two former. Nyankupon and Nyonmo thunder and lighten as well as pour out rain, but Olorun, like the Ewe Mawu, does not wield the thunderbolt, which has become the function of a special thunder-god, and he consequently has suffered some reduction in importance. The name Olorun means "Owner of the Sky" (oni, one who possesses, orun, sky, firmament, cloud, and the sky is believed to be a solid body, curving over the earth to cover it with a vaulted roof.

Like Nyankupon, Nyonmo, and Mawu, Olorun is considered too distant, or too indifferent, to interfere in the affairs of the world. The natives say that he enjoys a life of complete idleness and repose, a blissful condition according to their ideas, and passes his time dozing or sleeping. Since he is too lazy or too indifferent to exercise any control over earthly affairs, man on his side does not waste time in endeavoring to propitiate him, but reserves his worship and sacrifice for more active agents. Hence Olorun has no priests, symbols, images, or temples, and though, in times of calamity, or affliction, whjen the other gods have turned a deaf ear to his supplications, a native will, perhaps, as a last resource, invoke Olorun, such occasions are rare, and as a general rule the god is not worshipped or appealed to.

It may be mentioned that, just as the missionaries have caused Nyankupon, Nyonmo, and Mawu to be confused with the Jehovah of the Christians, by translating these names as "God," so have they done with Olorun, whom they consider to be a survival from a primitive revelation, made to all mankind, in the childhood of the world. But Olorun is merely a nature-god, the personally divine sky, and he only controls phenomena connected in the native mind with the roof of the world. He is not in any sense an omnipotent being. This is well exemplified by the proverb which says, "A man cannot cause rain to fall, and Olorun cannot give you a child," which means that, just as a man cannot perform the functions of Olorun and cause rain to fall, so Olorun cannot form a child in the womb, that being the function of the god Obatala, whom we shall next describe. In fact, each god, Olorun included, has, as it were, his own duties; and while he is perfectly independent in his own domain, he cannot trespass upon the rights of others.

OBATALA

Obatala is the chief god of the Yorubas. The name means "Lord of the White Cloth" (Oba-ti-ala.), and is explained by the fact that white is the color sacred to Obatala, whose temples, images, and paraphernalia are always painted white, and whose followers wear white cloths. Another derivation is Oba-ti-ala, "Lord of Visions," and this gains some probability from the fact that Obatala has the epithets of Orisha oj'enia, "The Orisha who enters man," and Alabalese (Al-ba-ni-ase),"He who predicts the future," because he inspires the oracles and priests, and unveils futurity by means of visions. "Lord of the White Cloth," however, is the translation most commonly adopted, and appears to be the correct one. The god is always represented as wearing a white cloth.

Obatala, say the priests, was made by Olorun, who then handed over to him the management of the firmament and the world, and himself retired to rest. Obatala is thus also a sky-god, but is a more anthropomorphic conception than Olorun, and performs functions which are not in the least connected with the firmament. According to a myth, which is, however, contradicted by another, Obatala made the first man and woman out of clay, on which account he has the title of Alamorere, "Owner of the best clay;" and because he kneaded the clay himself he is called Orisha kpokpo, "The Orisha who kneads clay" (kpo, to knead or temper clay). Though this point is disputed by some natives, all are agreed that Obatala forms the child in the mother's womb, and women who desire to become mothers address their prayers to him; while albinism and congenital deformities are regarded as his handiwork, done either to punish some neglect towards him on the part of the parents, or to remind his worshippers of his power.

Obatala is also styled "Protector of the Town Gates," and in this capacity is represented as mounted on a horse, and armed with a spear. On the panels of the temple doors rude carvings are frequently seen of a horseman with a spear, surrounded by a leopard, tortoise, fish, and serpent. Another epithet of Obatala is Obatala gbingbiniki, "The enormous Obatala." His special offerings are edible snails.

 ODUDUA

Odudua, or Odua, who has the title of Iya agbe, The mother who receives," is the chief goddess of the Yorubas. The name means "Black One" (dit, to be black; dudit, black), and the negroes consider a smooth, glossy, black skin a great beauty, and far superior to one of the ordinary cigar-color. She is always represented as a woman sitting down, and nursing a child.

Odudua is the wife of Obatala, but she was coeval with Olorun, and not made by him, as was her husband. Other natives, however, say that she came from Ife, the holy city, in common with most of the other gods, as described in a myth that we shall come to shortly. Odudua represents the earth, married to the anthropomorphic sky-god. Obatala and Odudua, or Heaven and Earth, resemble, say the priests, two large cut-calabashes, which, when once shut, can never be opened. This is symbolized in the temples by two whitened saucer-shaped calabashes, placed one covering the other; the upper one of which represents the concave firmament stretching over and meeting the earth, the lower one, at the horizon.

Odudua is patroness of love, and many stories are told of her adventures and amours. Her chief temple is in Ado, the principal town of the state of the same name, situated about fifteen miles to the north of Badagry. The word Ado means a lewd person of either sex, and its selection for the name of this town is accounted for by the following legend. Odudua was once walking alone in the forest when she met a hunter, who was so handsome that the ardent temperament of the goddess at once took fire. The advances which she made to him were favorably received, and they forthwith mutually gratified their passion on the spot. After this, the goddess became still enamored, and, unable to tear herself away from her lover, she lived with him for some weeks in a hut, which they constructed of branches at the foot of a large silk-cotton tree. At the end of this time her passion had burnt out, and having become weary of the hunter, she left him; but before doing so she promised to protect him and all others who might come and dwell in the favored spot where she had passed so many pleasant hours. In consequence many people came and settled there, and a town gradually grew up, which was named Ado, to commemorate the circumstances of its origin. A temple was built for the protecting goddess; and there, on her feast days, sacrifices of cattle and sheep are made, and women abandon themselves indiscriminately to the male worshippers in her honor.

AGANJU AND YEMAJA

Before her love with the hunter, Odudua bore to her husband, Obatala, a boy and a girl, named respectively Aganju. and Yemaja. The name Aganju means uninhabited tract of country, wilderness, plain, or forest, and Yemaja, "Mother of fish" (yeye, mother; eja, fish). The offspring of the union of Heaven and Earth, that is, of Obatala and Odudua, may thus be said to represent Land and Water. Yemaja is the goddess of brooks and streams, and presides over ordeals by water. She is represented by a female figure, yellow in colour, wearing blue beads and a white cloth. The worship of Aganju seems to have fallen into disuse, or to have become merged in that of his mother; but there is said to be an open space in front of the king's residence in Oyo where the god was formerly worshipped, which is still called Oju-Aganju-"Front of Aga-nju."

Yemaja married her brother Aganju, and bore a son named Orungan. This name is compounded of orun, sky, and gan, from ga, to be high; and appears to mean "In the height of the sky." It seems to answer to the khekheme, or "Free-air Region" of the Ewe peoples; and, like it, to mean the apparent space between the sky and the earth. The offspring of Land and Water would thus be what we call Air.

Orungan fell in love with his mother, and as she refused to listen to his guilty passion, he one day took advantage of his father's absence, and ravished her. Immediately after the act, Yemaja sprang to her feet and fled from the place wringing her hands and lamenting; and was pursued by Orungan, who strove to console her by saying that no one should know of what had occurred, and declared that he could not live without her. He held out to her the alluring prospect of living with two husbands, one acknowledged, and the other in secret; but she rejected all his proposals with loathing, and continued to run away. Orungan, however, rapidly gained upon her, and was just stretching out his hand to seize her, when she fell backward to the ground. Then her body immediately began to swell in a fearful manner, two streams of water gushed from her breasts, and her abdomen burst open. The streams from Yemaja's breasts joined and formed a lagoon, and from her gaping body came the following:--(l) Dada (god of vegetables), (2) Shango (god of lightning), (3) Ogun (god of iron and war), (4) Olokun (god of the sea), (5) Olosa (goddess of the lagoon), (6) Oya (goddess of the river Niger), (7) Oshun (goddess of the river Oshun), (8) Oba (goddess of the river Oba), (9) Orisha Oko (god of agriculture), (10) Oshosi (god of hunters), (11) Oke (god of mountains), (12) Aje Shaluga (god of wealth), (13) Shankpanna (god of small-pox), (14) Orun (the sun), and (15) Oshu (the moon).[1] To commemorate this event, a town which was given the name of Ife (distention, enlargement, or swelling up), was built on the spot where Yemaja's body burst open, and became the holy city of the Yoruba-speaking tribes. The place where her body fell used to be shown, and probably still is; but the town was destroyed in 1882, in the war between the Ifes on the one hand and the Ibadans and Modakekes on the other.

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