Oya Buch.txt

5/24/2018 Oya Buch.txt

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OYA IN PRAISE OF AN AFRICAN GODDESS, Judith Gleason, Harper Collins, SanFrancisco, 1992 (1987)

I was attracted to this book because it praises the goddess of the NigerRiver, and one of the traditional ways of my people is to honour thegoddess of the local river. Indeed only a few hours after I bought thebook, and without me mentioning it, another raised the suggestion that wegreet and honour the river goddess here at our equinox festival.

Judith Gleason begins her book with an introduction, Bareback on theHorse of the Wind" (pp 1-15), mentioning several aspects of this

significant deity who is also felt in the wind, who presides at edges,including the threshold between this world and the next, whose number isnine (from the mythical nine mouths of the river), who is seen in fire,warmth and lightning, who speaks through cowry divination and assists whenspeech is required with authority, in market, in arbitration. She helps inchildbirth. The concept of a single image does not apply. In short, whilethe author mentions such Classical European correspondences as Artemis andHecate, this deity strikes me as no more easy to fit into her ownpigeonhole than the traditional deities of the Celts. This feeling isheightened by the closing image of the intoduction which recalls its title.

At the conclusion of the original introduction I told how one of the cowrie shell oracle's prescriptions to me was to bring a bit to put on

Oya's shrine. I figured that attempting to contain her within thecovers of a book was in effect to make such a long-neglected purchase. Now I say there's no reason any more to rein Oya in. On the contrary, now's the time to loosen up, grip the mane, and learn to ride her

bareback. p. 15

Part One, "Recalling the Elements" (pp. 17-67), begins by mentioning thatdeities are natural forces, that only the controllable aspects of thesesits in a shrine and that Oya is wind, fire and river.

For millennia wind, fire, and water have been chanted as primary constituents of an inhabited cosmos. Everwhere on earth they have been symbolically oriented about the magic circle drawn to encompass that

space within which we seek to find ourselves. p. 21

There's a reference to bards and smiths being "technicians of the sacred"(p. 23):

...words accompany the metalworker, too, words intoned by a professional praise-singer, hired by the client to inspire the goldsmith to ancestral heights of competence, and words soundlessly uttered at the sacred moment of fusion in a silent forge by the master himself. p. 23

Bards, who craft verbal praises rather than golden ornaments, are elementally affiliated with water... the kora - a harp with a calabash

resonator whose twenty-one strings, rapidly plucked, sound like water rushing over stones. It is an instrument considered consubstantial with the river. In Mali they say the great river Niger, locaslly

called Djoliba, itself is a bard, harboring memories of heroic achievements and ritual secrets. The kora player tunes his instrument to these liquid whisperings. p. 24

The author proceeds to something very unusual in the climate, leastways asit relates to me -- the tornado. She also uses this as a metaphor foremotion and violence.


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Of special interest to me, what first attracted me to this book, is thataspect of Oya as a river goddess. The author provides fascinating materialon meteorology and climate, and also on the complex geological andclimatic features influencing the history and shifting route of this greatriver. There is also mythology, the tale of the king's daughter tearingblack cloth (Oya - "she tore") from which came this river.

All along this river, rain magic and the prerogatives of transport traditionally belong to a special caste of canoemen who, in the region we are concerned with, are called Kede. (Upriver they are called Sorko,

and even further upriver, Marka). Upon these technicians of river travel both the Nupe and downstream commercial kingdoms allied with the Yoruba were economically dependent. Besides carrying trade goods and transporting officials, the Kede also used to serve as tax

collectors for the Nupe and as carriers of tribute in which they shared. p. 48

Throughout West Africa the dead are believed to be ferried in canoes across three rivers separating this world from the other world. In certain instances and locales the Yoruba, a people of the land, actually bury their dead in canoes. As goddess of transition between

lefi and death, Oya owns this fleet plying her waters. pp. 48-49

The tearing of the cloth corresponds at all levels, and an analogy is madeto masquerade and to an octopus squirting melanin to ink threatenedwaters. Her number is nine.

Nine brilliant streamers adorn her ritual standards propped on the floor beside offerings to the local dead. p. 50

Her favourite colours are: "crimson, brown, and purple -- the hues offlowing blood, vital animal spirits, and royal prerogative." (p. pp. 50to 51) There's reference to the two floods, to the year-long, threethousand mile flow from source to ocean, to the spiritual understandingthat the waters carried past the delta are purificatory. There is bathingat New Year's Eve, and canoes bear sins out to sea. There's mention of a

dam and an unarrived flood, of the river as bard, of secrets remainingunprofaned even when seen and of sacrificing female animals to goddesses.Then comes a look at Oya's role as consort of Shango, god of thunder.

Part Two, "Of Masquerades and Woman-Power" (pp. 69-146), begins bydescribing all Yoruba goddesses ("female Orisha" p. 70) as rivers andwisewomen. It proceeds to duality:

All things were created double, they say in Africa. Visible/invisible,male/female, the calm/the violent, the life-enhancing/ the

life-depleting, right hand/left hand; all phenomena partake of such dichotomies. When it comes to the balance of social institutions, there's masquerading for men/witchcraft for women. p. 73

There's discussion of massquerade ritual, traditionally by women and takenover by men, though there remains feminine participation in the forms ofmasquerade, in the women singing and dancing in the area of the publicperformances, in the few older women who proceed to the male sacred space.

The Yoruba word for "theatrical performance" iron, also means "vision," that which can be seen with imagination's inner eye and which the verbal and presentational arts, notably masquerading, can bring before us. p. 76


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The tapestry of this part continues with the divination tale of Oya andthe red cloth, with a glimpse of a masquerade coming to a house shrineroom, with reference to the cloth of a masquerade empowering the presenceof ancestral spirits, with relatives contributing cloth for burials, withburial cloth absorbing anger at death, with the god Obatala("King-of-the-white-cloth") who calms us and enhances our character, withthe divination tale of Obatala taking the cloth and urging women bereverenced, with the concept of a veiled face symbolizing officetranscending individuality or conveying ancestral presence in the currentoccupant.

In Yoruba culture, the face of a "crowned" person is veiled. Though a chief may be splendidly garbed, we see his face. But a fringed veil of costly beads hides the visage of the sacred wearer of a Yoruba king's crown. This is a metaphor for presence of more than person and signals, beyond status, a transformed state of being. The image is a powerful one, which proliferates itself. For example, a simple version of the

royal veil shades the faces of those possessed by the great femaleOrisha (Oya, Oshun, Yemoja) in Brazilian Candomble. pp. 90-91

There is reference to Shango as king of Oyo and the role of hisdescendant-successor still ratifying other Yoruba kings on theiraccessions. Then comes Bayanni, Shango's sister in one version, and the

calabash containing his brother. There follows hunting fraternities andOya dressed in hunter's garb.

The great mask of Egungun Oya is kept in a shrine supervised by the Onira, whom one might call the pope of Oya-worship, and tended by

women initiates. The mask is dressed in bright silk and satin cloths and wears a headpiece of horns (not buffalo horns, although these are kept in the sanctuary). This is the mask that is performed outside. But it is not the guise in which Egungun-Oya is worshipped inside the shrine house. In preparation for her weekly day of praise-singing,

the voluptuous fabrics are removed. Beneath, still horn-coiffed, the goddess of death and regeneration is dressed like a hunter. p. 98

There is reference to the natural alterations occurring as a result ofmovement to the Americas. One of the new situations was that the forestsof the New World already had hunters and the spirits of those people. Shementions Babaluaiye, god of contagious wind-borne diseases and of madness,derived actually it seems from Benin.

She continues with an account of a performance on Jebba Island of NdakoGboya, driving out evil and bestowing health, progeny, fat animals andprosperity. The name attaches senior and great to Oya, although:

Unlike the neighboring Yoruba and the Fon, the Nupe have no pantheon of gods. Instead, they have magical medicine and rituals with which to

control evils attribuatable to human malevolence. So this is how Oya

entered culture in Nupe: as a swirling windcloth empowered to accomplish good-riddence. No more, no less. And it is crucial to our understanding of her mode of being as a goddess. p. 105

She mentions legends and her interpretation that these indicatealternating dynasties in Oyo of Nupe and Bariba rulers, as well as menconfining feminine activity. She looks at women's role in the market andthe impact of monotheism and Western imperialist concepts of malesuperiority. She recounts meeting the fear of witchcraft in one place andconversing with the excluded female counsellor in another. She mentions


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the seagod Olokon. She provides a look at her reception of the title ofAto and the performance at which this occurred, as well as her attendanceat another ceremony where she sat flicking a whisk of office. Amongevidences of the author's stated "Unified field theory" approach, besidesher presentation to the reader of fascinating pieces of meteorology,geology and psychology, is her offering of items from the storehouse ofClassical Greek mythology and some Latin terminology.

The tapestry proceeds with the blend of traditional and modern in Lagos,with tabloids interested in witchcraft and newspapers reporting how asnake caused a nation wide power blackout, with a confused dialogue in a

cafeteria, with even the Ato backed by Ifa divination failing to pass thedoor of male supremecy, with the tale of hunchbacks, delayed funeralrights and the monkey child, and with consideration of this story and itsvariants.

A mating of mad termite queens and monkeys in the sacred forest puts the very concept of Egungun beyong the ideational bounds of a society whose center of gravity stays in town and never goes beyond the pale -- except in the company of hunters or witches. p. 143

She mentions reincarnation in traditional Yoruba belief and gives aglimpse of survivals in America.

Part Three, "Buffalo-Woman and the Hunters" (pp. 151-221), introduces Oyaas huntress. The author mentions the sacred nature of the hunt. Also:

Exploits that qualify hunters for heroic status are celebrated by specialized bards who know what both hunting and exaggeration are all about. In certain African societies hunting has given rise to its own literary genre, which, expanded, becomes epic. Unlike European literature about hunting, African oral recitations include praise-songs of animals actually uttered by their trackers. p. 156

In addition, continuing, it seems, very ancient traditions, the hunt isacted out afterwards. There is a fraternity of hunters. There are bornhunters and those who learn the craft. There is a link between hunters,

herbalists and diviners. The god of herbalism is Osanyin.

The active virtues of medicinal leaves are envisaged as birdlike. Plants answer to the needs of the body as "witchcraft" responds to situational exigency. On the wrought-iron ritual staffs of diviner-healers the motifs of leaf, of witch-bird with prominent beak,

and of bell are almost interchangeable. (There is a type of Yoruba bell-gong actually shaped like a curled leaf.) Bells suggest the realization of vibrations as sound and are metaphors, I think, for the

animating chants said over herbal preparations. pp. 160-161

She mentions the similarity of hunting methods and aids across culturesand millennia, specifically naming Xenephon. She criticizes stereotypical

American red-neck hunters. Perhaps. Yet, hunting is an ancestral autumnalactivity of my family, even if I chose not to pursue it. And, while myfather and my brother may have walked through the bush howling as woulddogs, or waited patiently in the bush for other relatives pretending to bedogs to flush game, no kin of mine, I hope, would deem himself a huntershining powerful flashlights at deer.

These give off a light that can transfix a deer at two hundred meters, Moussa Traore says. But fully initiated hunters can't carry lights.

p. 172


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The good hunters, she adds, are supposed to go for bigger game than deer.She provides a fascinating account of her seeking to join a huntingfraternity in Mali, upriver along Oya's river. There is reference to aninvisibility amulet (dibi koro), to the importance of belief in the use ofsuch, to reverencing the spirits, including the spirit of an animalkilled, to her surprise on encountering the nocturnal nature of hunting,to divination, to a sage asserting that those who called on the sun, asthe sun sees all, would be better calling on the earth which sees all,night as well as day.

The heart of this part of the book is Oya as buffalo-woman, the tale ofthe hunter in his platform in the bush seeing the transformation tobeautiful woman, of his marrying her on promise never to reveal herorigin, of his other wives getting him drunk to learn who is this fertileco-wife with no known lineage, of her departure leaving a bit of horn withher children so they can all on her, on Oya, in time of need.

There follow some words on Ifa divination: initially unaware of theproblem, the diviner casts lots indicating one of, "256 windows lookingout into Being" (p. 189), the configuration is praised by chanting andtelling tales, and the client perceiving a similarity speaksspecifically, drawing precise advice on offering to the divine.

There is commentary on the Oya as Buffalo-Woman tale, and on spiritualreality in general.

To create cultural forms expressive of various natural forces that have succeeded in calling attention to themselves is neither to invent nor, be it repeated, ultimately to control them. It is to lend them perceptual religious shape. p. 194

The author proceeds to the cross-roads, sacred also to Celts, to whom thetriad is also special.

At such intersections Malian hunters' communal mound-shaped altars are established. And it is at similar three-pronged forkings of trails in

the bush that their portable individual altars are taken out of theirleather bags and set upon improvised sacred surfaces of green leaves

when they wish to communicate with their tutelary divinities,Sanene-and-Kontron. The leaves serve as a temporary plate upon which

to serve Sanene-and-Kontron with water, fine millet meal, and red kola.p. 196

She then relates a tale disturbing in surface content, and, to this paganreviewer, in the interpretation that has it reflecting monotheisticconquest. Among the details raised is that the seven day week is anIslamic replacement of the traditional four day market cycle and that tofarmers those venturing into the untilled bush to hunt, though reallyhaving wives and children, are symbolically sterile.

There follow more folktales about the huntress Sanene (Sanin) and herhusband, son, or whatever, Kontron. Then there comes the tale of theBuffalo of Do and two hunter brothers. She speaks of balancing spiritualagencies within local Islam, of doubles and of cycles.

The Bambara, like the Dogon, gauge accomplished epochs according to the revolutions of an all-but-invisible star, the relatively miniscule

companion of brilliant Sirius. The word for "buffalo" in Bambara is sigi. Sirius is called "Buffalo-star," but it is the cycle of its dark


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companion that is called sigi. This cycle takes sixty years to complete. (The fifty-year cycle of Sirius is not considered metaphysically important.) p. 215

There is then more account of masquerade, including Buffalo and Python,as well as consideration of prehistoric (European cave and Saharan) artand of polytheistic awareness of the significance of the feminine.

If the truth be known, in traditional African societies generally, asGlaze points out for the Senufo, the closer that spiritual leaders of

both sexes move to critical situations vis-a-vis the unseen world, the

"more secretive objects and events become, and the greater the role of women (real or mythological)." p. 219

The fourth and final part, "Observing the Passage" (pp. 229-296),considers beads, Santeria and the Oya personality type. An account isgiven of a Brazilian axexe (severing of a recently departed) withflasbacks a year previously to an axexe in New York. There are detailssuch as agreement with the Chinese that white is the colour mostappropriate for such an occasion, and the telling of prosaic andspiritual circumstances connected with these events. And, there are beads-- the beads separated in New York, Oya's ruunjebe necklace in Brazil andthe royal necklace in ancient Dahomey.

Oya is the only Orisha to arise out of the animal. And only she is willing to assume a mediating position between the living and the dead at funerals, because her animal nature protects her. Of the contamination of the dead the animal is "forever healed" because Death stands somewhere behind it, or inside it, not out there in a projected future. p. 250

There are interviews showing Americans feeling they have retained somecultural and spiritual elements perhaps forgotten in Africa. The authorstates that their Yoruba language is influenced by Spanish. Among theinteresting details is this on ritual gatekeeping:

Here one must hasten to say that the first Orisha to be saluted, no

matter what the occasion, must always be Elegba: intermediary between everyday and spiritual worlds, the one who opens the way, but who without proper recognition may block it and cause all manner of confusion. p. 255

On page 305, the Glossary has this to say of Elegba:

the Orisha of thresholds and crossroads, the intermediary, the messenger, the trickster, associated with the obligatory sacrifice and also with regressive behavior. Indespensible and primary presence to be

invoked and placated before ritual occurrence or crucial personaldecision making. p. 305

Pace Elegba, it reads as if the function of gatekeeping is permanentlyentrusted to one containing Loki's disposition, and this reviewer, a moremercurial northerner, is content our rituals are not so inflexible in thisregard and there are those such as Heimdall and Manannan Mac Lyr whosometimes may be called upon to do this.

These interviews provide insights from accomplished musicians and ritualperformers, and there are songs in both Yoruba and in English.

The final chapter is an interesting consideration of the issue of the


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personality type of one carrying Oya and the encouragement by Oya of theindividual's balanced identity. It also mentions the place of community inan individua;'s life, and living in the greater society outside.

This book is thoroughly fascinating, and its author of very high caliber.She has woven a very rich tapestry, strung an intricate round of beads,brightly informative at many levels. She has performed a very valuableservice to all interested in this topic. She and the goddess she carriesmerit high honour.

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