Èṣù: Neither a Trickster Embodying Ambivalent Protean Duality, Nor

Transcription

UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DA BAHIA - UNEB
SEMINÁRIO INTERNACIONAL ACOLHENDO AS LÍNGUAS AFRICANAS SIALA
LÍNGUAS E CULTURAS AFROBRASILEIRAS E AS NOVAS TECNOLOGICAS
22 a 26 de Setembro de 2014
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ÈṣÙ: REHABILITATION THE BASIS OF ETHICAL LIVING IN
THE YORÙBÁ WORLD VIEW
Ọlásopé O. Oyèláràn (Kalamazoo College - EUA)1
ABSTRACT
Èṣù of the Yorùbá tradition, the custodian of the primordial àṣẹ, embodies the
principle of perspicacity and pragmatism that is crucial to the exercise of responsibility in
sentient and thinking beings. As such, Èṣù demands the ultimate in consciousness as
basis for just living and for reward or sanction. As Awo F́ atóògùn puts it (interview, May
2009), Èṣù is quintessentially identified with àbòṣí, literally, “that which is covert, to be
uncovered.” Èṣù demands painstaking commitment to information and consciousness as
preconditions for motion of any sort, for the exercise of judgment, a compelling gesture
of the human will.
Scholarly and/or zealous traditions have, however, persistently alienated Èṣù from
his native Yorùbá́ cosmology. This is particularly so everywhere culture bearers have
embraced and succumbed to the lure of metaphysical orientations that lift accountability
off the shoulders of the individual, as a reward for self-abnegation.
This essay may be seen as a prolegomenon to an inquiry that suggests that all traditions
that alienates Èṣù from his native Yorùbá́ cosmology or presents Èṣù as Satan, the Devil,
1
A-gbéni-kọluni, aláǹgbá orí èṣù Kòṣémání, Alàgbà ‘Sùpọ̀. 1987. Òwe àti Àṣàyàn Ọ̀ rọ̀ Yorùbá. Ibadan:
Vantage Publishers: 45-48 [Translation: “Thing/agent/incident/ that pushes person hit-onto-(another)
person, lizard that sits/seats on Èṣù1”, Oyèláràn] We have met the enemy and he is
us.http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Kelly [Accessed by Ọlásopé Oyèlaŕràn, Tuesday, August 12, 2014,
10:00 Am] E-mail:Olasope@kzoo.edu
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Èṣù and Ethics in the Yorùbá World View
Oyelaran: Page 2 of 39
Messenger of any or all metaphysical powers, or as the archetypal “trickster,” whether
the last one is malevolent or benevolent, and places him2 at the “cross-roads” alienates
him from his native milieu and vitiates any cosmology that conjures him up within the
Atlantic cultures.
The present essay does leaves for later the issue of the abode, primordial or
favorite, of Èṣù.
I.
Introduction
We proceed as follows.
In Section II we motivate this inquiry with a brief statement of what may have
moved this student of the Yoruba language and tradition, at home and abroad, to consider
it compelling to focus on Èṣù all among thinkable inquiries likely to contribute to
information and generalizable knowledge. Section III follows with a succinct
recapitulation of acceptable statement of features of the Yorùbá cosmology and World
View. In Section IV, we present representative contestable positions, assertions, and
tenets that should serve as basis of observable comportments by individuals and/or
institutions in the Yorùbá “homeland” and away from it.
In Section V, we attempt to show why some of the positions and/or tenets
presented in the previous section, may lack validity, whether epistemologically or
experientially. This leads us to conclude in Section VI with sketches of elements of the
Yorùbá tradition which to base pragmatic, responsive, ethical co-existence in a society
that is solicitous of equitable access and human dignity.
II.
Personal Testimony
The advent of the Odùduwà revolution may have turned the Yorùbá geopolitical
territory of tropical West Africa into a homologue of the ancient Greece with a
The use of any form of the deictic “he” to refer to Èṣù should not be presumed to have gender or sexual
content in any sense. Not even the phallic icon on some representations of Èṣù can stand scrutiny for
assigning Èṣù to the category “male>”
2
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proliferation of city states, each with its own ruler and concomitant institutions. I was
born into one that has now become anachronistic, devastated largely by the malaise
engendered by the decadence born of colonial and postcolonial secularization, political
and social materialism. In my youth, during every function of state and major rites of
passage such as marriages and deaths of elders, during notable communal rituals of
renewal, performing artists descended on my family, striving to outdo one another in
rendering the oríkì, poetic citations3, of individuals and families. This was so in the life of
Ọlábọ̀dé
Ọmọ́sùnọ́lá, Abínúwáyé
Resplendent in Ọlá, Arrive-on -earth-in-wrath
Ọ̀wọ́ọ̀làrí, baba àpésìn
Circle-of-dependents, surrounded by service hands
Ọ̀wọ́ tọ́kọ̀sín, Ọkọ Oyèfàbi Circle-of-vehicular facilitators, husband of Oyèfàbi
He died about 1943, and never reigned in the city state of Àjáàwà; but his son,
Oyètúnjí reigned, 1958 to 1919. And the performing artists joined accomplished women
in the community to render our family oríkì. Typically, dùndún drums, early mornings
and from distances from the family household, beat out an appreciable portion of the
oríkì; women pick up; and, soon, other attendant professional vocal artists, began to vie
to outdo one another for recognition and reward. Among the professional performing
groups, the family of Daraléṣù, from Ọ̀yọ́, ancient capital of the Ọ̀yọ́ Empire relocated
with twenty mile of Àjáàwà, after its sack in 1832. Members of Daraléṣù’s family, as the
name suggests, were devotees of Èṣù4. Among other skills they distinguished themselves
in the performance of rárà, a celebratory Yorùbá musical verbal genre.
I must add that as you exited through the front door to my family household
compound, in front of you sat a laterite mound to Èṣù, no longer attended to, except by
3
Oyèláràn (2003); for Cuba, Fure (1985: 12)) remarks :Oriki for (oyiki) are names of praise dedicated to
the orisha and tw men and take the form of a greeting, exalting their qualities or feats. They are played on
‘bata’ drums.” http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0006/000632/063266eb.pdf. Accessed 8/7/2014 by
Olasope Oyelaran
4
The family says, literally “worthy of Èṣù; exemplary as devotees of Èṣù. Artists from the family joined at
the celebration of the life of my late father, James Oyèláràn in December 2002
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paternal grandmother Olánínhún and and her coeval sister-in-law, Ominí-n-hún, sister to
my grandfather, who, for all practical purposes, ran the household. My uncle and my
father had enlisted the rest of my family in the Baptist church, a local congregation of the
American Southern Baptist Convention, having be converted shortly before I was born,
dragging along their wives.
This early exposure to Èṣù later raised for me nagging questions about the
identity, personality, and status of Èṣù during the catechism classes to prepare me to be
baptized into the local church of American Southern Baptist Convention; and later still,
when I began an analytic study of the Bible, particularly of the Four Gospels for the
Cambridge School Leaving Certificate. I passed the examination with distinction, but still
questions persisted, only more virulently. Yet I was never troubled by the fact that I lived
my life in full awareness of the pervasive presence of entities of the Yorùbá spiritual
worlds and their adherents. Add the Islamic and the nascent Christian Pentecostal of the
Yorùbá vintage called the Cherubim and Seraphim. The exclusivity I began to sense in
the faiths into which I was seeking initiation, and in Islam, its kindred faith, stacked
against the openness to a diversity of faiths in my milieu as I grew up, surrounded with
pervasive Yorùba ́ autochthonous embrace of faith orientations.
III.
The Yorùbá Xenophilia,
The Yorùba ́ autochthonous embrace of faith orientations echoes across the ocean.
The observable survival and apparent dominance of the Yorùbà tradition in the Americas,
among other African traditions, may only be inadequately accounted for by the strength
of the numerical presence of the Yorùbá among the enslaved Africans at any time and in
any of the landing sites throughout the period of the infernal traffic. Among other things,
the enslavers and the plantation owners in the Americas lived in dire fear of ethnic
homogeneity of the enslaved, even when the enslavers priced certain skills and/or
presumed attributes of particular ethnic groups for purposes of their material enrichment.
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Hence they mixed up their humans hords in order to minimize the predominance of any
one ethnic group.
I would like to suggest that the survival and pre-eminence of the Yorùbá tradition
in the Americas should be more meaningfully sought in its “integrity,” read, its cohesive
articulation of the conceptual system of the tradition. One testimony to this integrity was
indicated by the fact that the Yorùbá people took minimal interest in despoiling other
people they got the better of in any encounter, not even those they defeated in conflicts.
The Yorùbá did not proselytize, and never prosecuted conflicts on the basis of doctrines
or tenets. Instead, in situations of encounter, the Yorùbá sought to attract the intellectual
fountainheads of other traditions into their own, particularly the intellectuals and
custodians of the other people’s spiritual and ethical values. They slotted new elements
into “grooves” allowed by the Yorùbá tradition. This explains the following dictum
which gives us a diachronic insight into the tradition:
Ayé la bá Ifá
We encountered Ifá ready in existence on earth
Aye la ba Ìmọ̀le
We encountered Islam already on the earth
Ọ̀sán gangan ni Ìgbàgbọ́ wọlé dé
High noon it is that Christianity sauntered in
Ifá, the indigenous thought and information processing system with the divinity
Ọ̀rú̀nmìlà at its core, provided an accommodating groove for Islam with Muhammed
perceived as its òrìṣà. Then, belatedly and, as it were, in historical time, entered
Christianity, which arrogated to itself with hubris the term and concept “ìgbàgbọ ́,”
literally, “belief,” the stricture that all it's adherents must acknowledge one and only one
central figure, the person of Jesus Christ.
This suggests also that, at first encounter, the Yorùbá viewed both Islam and
Christianity, each, as just another epistemological system like the one of which Ifá was
core component. This mind set which enslaved Africans shared with those left behind
appears to have facilitated the following tendencies observed by Pierre Verger (1977) and
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Robert Voeks (1997) about the development of the African influenced tradition in Cuba
and Brazil. They write:
All slaves had been converted to the Catholic faith right on their arrival in Brazil. The
domestic servants would accompany their masters to church for Sunday mass with pomp
and pageantry, the footmen dressed in beautiful garb, the chamber-maids and nurses
covered in showy jewelry for the greater glory and ostentation of opulence of the masters,
but one cannot be too sure whether these conversions were always very genuine (Verger,
1977: 222-223)
The polytheistic nature of Brazil’s Catholicism was complemented by a series of other
structural similarities to the religion of the Yoruba. Whereas the simple rituals of North
America’s Protestant churches, dominated by the Methodist and Calvinist ideals, stood in
sharp contrast with the complex structure of African religious practice, “the pomp and
display of the Catholic liturgy gave the Africans a basis for identification and
correspondence” [citing Camara, 1988]. Elaborate rituals and offerings, belief in magic
and divinations, ancestor worship, votive offerings and sacrifices, and the adjuration of
gods to deal with real world problems—all fundamental to African religious structure—
found their ready parallels within Catholicism. (Voeks, 1997)
This makes sense, because, as both authors propose, the enslavers and plantation
owners in both Cuba and Brazil came largely from the Iberian Peninsula, with the
Catholicism of the Middle Ages, characterized by rituals and saints, homologous to those
identifiable with Òrìṣà in the Yoruba tradition. Furthermore, it appears that the enslavers
and plantation owners from the Iberia peninsula at the material historical period escaped
the intellectual theodicy that motivated both John Milton (Paradise Lost · (1767), and
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust (Part I, 1808)). The former introduced Lucifer, the
other Mephistopheles, each as the embodiment of evil. Later enslavers, immigrant
property owners in the Americas, and missionaries from protestant Western Europe
carried these embodiments of evil in their heads as templates for and measures of
elements of the African tradition to promote their goal of liquidating the indigenous
traditions. Thus the immigrant property owners and enslavers in the Americas and
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proselytizing missionaries to follow on “Slave CoasAndover West Africa succeeded in
voiding the indigenous concepts of their native meaning and alienated unwary tradition
bearers from their tradition.
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IV.
The Yorùbá Cosmos and Worldview
The figure above, taken from Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought
(New York: The Center for African Art, 1989; 14) provides the more familiar profile of
the cosmos in Yorùbá thought. However, the, now, well known Yorùbá worldview
succinctly put by Wọle Ṣoyinka (1976) allows us to propose a cosmos with three nonlinear realms as more consonant with the Yorùbá conception of the Cosmos. The three
conceptual non-linear realms are: ọ̀run, the metaphysical realm populated by òrìṣà,
spirits and the unborn, all of whom are not thought of in terms of corporeal manifestation;
ayé, the realm of phenomena: of living things, corporeal consciousness and perception;
and ilẹ̀, the earth, the realm for the departed who are once corporeal, not yet subject to
apotheosis. As Ṣoyinka (1976) puts it:
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Past, present and future being so pertinently conceived and woven into the Yoruba
worldview, the element of eternity which is the gods' prerogative does not have the same
quality of remoteness or exclusiveness which it has in Christian or Buddhist culture. The
belief of the Yoruba in the contemporaneous existence within his daily experience of
these aspects of time has long been recognized but again misinterpreted. It is no
abstraction [Emphasis added].
In spite of their conceptual differences, however, both propositions suggest that
no realm is hermetically sealed one from the others. It appears to be case that while the
“element of eternity is the prerogative “ of the òrìṣà, who are not subject to restraints of
time and space, only un-embodied beings, including the dead, have the possibility of
acceding to the realm of the òrìṣà. Nevertheless, earth dwellers may hold commerce with
both the realms of the òrìṣà and of the departed, ará-ilȩ̀, or òkú ò run. This commerce is
mediated by Ò rúnmìlà, the custodian of the exhaustive account and information about
the essence of all objects of consciousness, and of thought. These account and
information are accessible through Ifá, the enormous corpus, in language, of the Odù
(pàtàkì, in Cuba, Caminhos de Odù, in Brazil) that serve as the front storehouse for
Ò rúnmìlà.
The details of the process of the human access to the storehouse of
Ò rúnmìlà are well documented and need not hold us here. (Abimbola, 1972, 1975;
Bascom 1969, 2000; Cabrera; Amherd 2010, among others)
Of course, Ò rúnmìlà does not perform his responsibility of mediation alone; he
relies on the executive authority of his constant companion, Èṣù (Ẹlé ̣́gbára; Ẹlé ̣́gbá;
Legba). Èṣù alone is privy to the compendium of information in the storehouse of
Ò rúnmìlà. Nothing is, therefore, loss on him with respect to the situation specific
information, pronouncements, injunctions, directives, advice, and prescription proffered
by Ifá, through the Odù. Èṣù ensures that the spirit and letter of the directive to the
individutheir living his/her lot on the earth through the Odù is met. In performing this
duty, Èṣù is above board as Arbiter par excellence. He is no respecter of persons, human
or òrìṣà, including even Ò rúnmìlà. It is important to emphasize it again that, as
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companion of Ò rúnmìlà, Èṣù is privy to the totality of information in the latter’s
custody.
Ò rúnmìlà has no representational image (Abiodun, 1975). The only sculptural
objects identified with this Òrìṣà include Ọpọ́ n, divinatory tray; ìrọ́ kẹ́ , “divinatory tapper,
with clapper,” for invoking Ò rúnmìlà; Àgèrẹ́̀ Ifá̆ “a carved container with a lid that holds
the ikin, the sacred palm nuts;” Ò pá Ò rè rẹ́̀, “an iron staff usually prescribed by the
babaláwo,” master in the mystery to which only Ifá provides access, or diviner. (Rowland
Abiọdun, 1975).
Èṣù, on other hand, has inspired a vast array of sculptural and visual
representations, varying from simple laterite or clay mound to full complex sculptural
statues, simple ones usually placed at symbolically liminal points of access. Èṣù’s face
critically, surmounts the divinatory tray, as if to keep watchful eyes on the mediation
facilitated by the diviner; but more appropriately representing the knowing and watchful
eyes of Èṣù on the realm of phenomena represented by the face and center of the Ọpó n,
̣́
of which the four compass points represent the four corner of the universe.
Èṣù, too, like Ò rúnmìlà, has a dedicated medium for access by humans, a corpus
in language, through which the custodian of the mystery particular to him also accesses
him. Èṣù’s medium of communication with humans is Ẹérìndílógún, “Sixteen Cowries”
from which William Bascom (2000) named his book. The corpus of Ẹérìndílógún is
organized into Odù, homologous to, although more finite than those of Ifa. As if to
underscore the robust continued presence of Èṣù in the Americas, Ẹérìndílógún is the
sole means of accessing the òrìṣà, at least in both Cuba and Brazil. This suggests strongly
that although Èṣù is the close and indispensable companion of Ọ́̀rúnmìlà, Èṣù maintains
his independence in this companionship.
We will revisit presently the critical players, along with Èṣù, and the concepts that have
upheld the Yorùbá intellectual system for millennia, and have sustained the Yorùbá
tradition as is reflected in the survival struggle of the African tradition in the Americas.
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We will isolate concepts and values, from which the Yorùbá culture bearers themselves,
remarkably enough, in the homeland, have allowed themselves to be alienated, but which,
if re-embraced, we wish to argue, can serve us all creditably in re-envisioning the future.
Contestable Views and Re-conceptualizations of the Yorùbá Tradition
V.
The incidences and scope of contestable views about and re-conceptualizations,
particularly, of Èṣù in both secular literature and faith related published materials are
vast; indeed, so vast that it challenges sanity, as in the case of this essay, to entertain the
possibility of redirecting the habit of the minds already inured to them. The challenge is
daunting because purveyors of these views include disciplined intellectual Yorùbá
culture-bearers, even those who have powerfully and validly taken issues with literal and
glaringly pernicious misrepresentation of the òrìṣà and the Yorùbá tradition that provide
its fundamental essence. The views taken up in this essay fall into two categories: First,
those which persist in identifying Èṣù with Satan, the Devil, and/or Iblis, all of the
Abrahamic faith traditions, namely, Christianity and Islam. We hasten to add that views
of this category are largely absent or are severely attenuated in the òrìṣà traditions of
Santeria (Cuba/Puerto Rico), Vodoun (Haiti), and Candomblé (Brazil). This category of
contestable views have become arguably, increasingly weakened by systematic
arguments advanced to address them by scholars such as Ayodele Ogundipe (1978) and
Wole Soyinka, in many well-known publications and public addresses, much of which
find clear summaries in Of Africa (2012).5
The second category of contestable views and re-conceptualizations often go
something like the following found in Pereira (2008 and forthcoming), who, in valorizing
August Wilson’s remarkable use of the myth in his defense of the African American
originality, says of him:
Wilson was in this tradition. Devoid of their mythological dimensions, his characters,
5
See also studies in Jacob K. Olupona and Terry Rey, Eds, (2008) and other publications by many of
contributors to that volume.
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Levee, Troy, and Boy Willie, in their separate plays, are merely destructive forces at
odds with their world instead of agents of change challenging the status quo and
reordering their universe. Within the hill context of their cultural ancestry, they are the
warrior spirit reincarnations of self-empowered trickster deities, figures which recur in
myths from the Yoruban Eshu to the Hindu Krishna, from Bamapana the Australian
Aborigine, Prometheus in ancient Greece and Sun Wukong in Chinese lore, to Reynard
the French fox, Coyote the Native American, Maui in Hawaii, Susanowo in Japan, Loki
the Norse god and even Jacob of the Old Testament.
[Emphasis added by Oyèláràn]
In a similar tone, borrowing from Pereira and other scholars, Harry Elam (2006,
176 et passim) seeks to imbue August Wilson’s remarkable character Loomis in Joe
Turner’s Come and Gone (1988) with attributes of Èṣu, “because of Loomis’s wandering
nature, his time on the road in search of his wife as well as the symbolic status he
achieves in the play…” He writes:
Eshu is the messenger and guide of the Orisha, a companion on the road and the guardian
of the cross-roads. Loomis’s act of self-sacrifice—…—that ends the play and
symbolically creates a path for others to follow can be associated with the spirit of Eshu.
For Loomis finds life through this act, and Eshu, as Thompson notes, is “principle of
individuality.”6 Eshu, however, is also a trickster figure, a mischievous spirit that
plays jokes on both gods and humans.
[Emphasis added, Oyèláràn]
Ayodele Ogundipe (1978) goes further than any scholar we have encountered to
put beyond cavil the impeccable standing of Èṣú in the comity of the other orìṣà and as
plausible anchor for individual accountability and societal rectitude fit particularly for the
twenty-first century. Unfortunately there continues to be a spate of contestable views and
re-conceptualizations that are abusive of Èṣù and Yorùbá tradition since Ogundipe
(1978). Perhaps Ogundipe herself retains some of the responsibility for this, for not going
6
Elam’s reference: Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit (New York: Vintage Press, 1984)5-9.
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far enough and for capitulating to Bọlaji Idowu (1962) when she concludes by demurring
to her informants as the thoroughgoing anthropologist that she was, agreeing that “Esu is
a tempter, not Trickster, therefore, they [her informants] always explain why Esu causes
dissension…” She allows herself to conclude (1978: 198) on the apocryphal story of two
friends whose dissension is most often invoked to exemplify Èṣù’s duplicitous ways:
[Èṣù’s] primary reasons for trying his victims include punishment for boastfulness
or self-conceit and for defying the cardinal principle that life, with all its certainties go
hand in hand with the unpredictability of chance and change. So for the two friends to
boast about their friendship is to commit the sin of self-conceit. For two friends to say
their friendship will endure forever was to be presumptuous about tomorrow, and to deny
the unpredictability of life; therefore they committed an affront against Esu, the
personification of flux and mutability. The two friends who in their friendship
overlooked the blessing of God through Esu and sacrifice asked for their troubles.
Ogundipe believes that she also found evidence in her extensive field work to
“demonstrate that the essence of the deity Esu as Enforcer, the embodiment of chance,
and father of sacrifice, is borne out by the folklore.” (235; Emphasis added) She adds
(235 and 236-7 respectively):
Nevertheless, Esu myths go beyond simple storytelling to depict a natural and social
order in which fate and destiny are counterbalanced by chance and uncertainty, where
moral evil is punished, and where observance of religious order is demanded.
Esu provides enormous imaginative conceptual implications as deity because he is the
messenger of the gods, the mediator between God (sic) and man, between order and
chaos, sin and punishment, life and death, fate and accident, certainty and uncertainty.
It is no wonder then, that Esu in myth knows no master, that he is male and female, that
he is tall and short, kind and cruel, an elderly deity of youth who lives at the crossroads.
[Emphasis added]
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As emphatically as Ogundipe, Wole Soyinka (2012) makes an unassailable case
against the demonization of Èṣù by the proselytizers, particularly in Yorùbá homeland, of
the Abrahamic faiths; but then adds (146):
This was quite convenient, since Esu is the most ubiquitous of all the deities, being their
messenger, and a complex yet “mischievous” one to boot. He sits at the crossroads and
confuses the wisest of mortals and gods. Such is his unpredictable nature that the Yoruba
never build a shrine to him within the home. Often represented in sculpture and in
narratives of his exploits as a Janus-face, his is on the doorstep and at the crossroads,
where sacrifices are made to him to guarantee his noninterference in human affairs or to
secure his benevolent patronage. Even during festivals of the principal deities, the first
morsel is set aside for Esu and, in commencing any ceremony; mortals consider it wise to
implore Esu to restrain his prankish temperament. Esu, however, is anything but evil—
the notion is as absurd as to deem a high-spirited child a product of the devil. This deity
represents the random, unpredictable factor in both divine and oral affairs. Esu is
the dialectician of reality, a cautionary spirit who teaches that reality has more facets than
one. Trust not appearances—that is the lesson of Esu, a lesson often imparted the hard
way.
[Emphasis added]
Unlike Ogundipe and Soyinka other scholars have not redeemed themselves of
feasible charges of giving comfort to contestable views about Èṣù or in, as in the case of
Henry Louis Gates and Femi Euba below, of building doubtful theoretical scaffolding for
poetics on such views. We take these up next, considering important representative
propositions.
Wande Abimbola (1976), and in other excellent studies, offers a source on which
many scholars, at home and abroad, have based their representation of Èṣù. Most of these
scholars, nevertheless, overlook the crucial positive presentation of this òrìṣà found in
much of his work. They seize only on, for example, the following, in which he apparently
allows himself to be misled by published studies from the hands of non-culture-bearers,
since nothing in the compendium of data collected by Abimbola substantiates their
aberrant propositions. He writes (152):
Standing between the evil powers and the good powers is the mischievous figure of Èṣù
(the Yoruba trickster god) who is more or less a neutral force in the conflict between
the good supernatural powers and the evil ones. Although Èṣù is believed to belong to the
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zone of the gods, he does not always favor his fellow gods. Indeed, Èṣù is prepared at
any time to favor any human being or supernatural power according to his own whims
and caprices influenced by whether or not the person or power concerned has performed
the prescribed sacrifices
The attributive phrases “the mischievous figure of Èṣù (the Yoruba trickster
god)” and “according to his own whims and caprices” do not find any justification, not
even in the compendium of Abimbola’s analytical studies.
While Bascom (1969) quite correctly chastises Christians and Muslims for
misappropriating Èṣù, his presenting the òrìṣà as a mischievous trickster is ominously
misplaced as well. He writes:
Eshu (Eṣu, Eṣu Bara, Ẹlẹgbara, Ẹlẹgba) is the youngest and cleverest of the deities. He is
the divine messenger (iranṣe), and one of his roles is to deliver the sacrifices he receives
to Ọlọrun. Understandably, the diviners consider his roles important. He is also a
trickster, the divine counterpart of Tortoise in Yoruba folktales, who not only
delights in trouble making but also serves Ọlọrun and the other deities by causing
trouble for human beings who offend or neglect them. He is notorious for starting
fights (…), killing people by toppling walls and trees on them, and causing
calamities to deities and humans alike; but his role in delivering sacrifices to God (…)
is hardly consistent with his identification with Satan by Christians and Muslims, which
can only be understood as the result of the failure to find the equivalent of the Devil in
Yoruba belief. …
Eshu’s reputation for maliciousness is undoubtedly due to his important role as the divine
enforcer punishing those who fail to make sacrifice prescribed for them and rewarding
those who do.
[p. 105; emphasis and italics added]
Nor does Bascom relent in his characterization of Èṣù in his work Sixteen
Cowries (1980), which pertinently focuses on the divinatory system identified with Èṣù,
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and happens to be the one system of prognostication mostly practiced in both Cuba and
Brazil. Bascom writes:
Eshu (Èṣù) is the divine messenger who delivers the sacrifices offered at his shrine, as
prescribed by diviners, to Ọlọrun. He is also the divine trickster who not only delights
in trouble-making, but also serves the other deities by causing trouble for human
beings who offend or neglect them. He is called “Eshu is not good” (Èṣù, Òdàrà; …),
and he is also known as Ẹlé ǵ̣ ba (…) and Júoríwà (…)
A detailed appraisal of Bascom’s treatment of Èṣù belongs in a larger study. It
must be pointed out, however, that the figure of Èṣù as trickster and a sinister messenger
does not ring familiar in the world of Ẹẹ́rìndílógún/Dilogún (̂”Sixteen Cowries”), object
of Bascom’s authoritative study. Suffice it to note here the following: First, any
systematic recognition of Ọló ṛ́ un as a demanding “Prime Mover” appears to be a doubtful
component of the Yorùbá thought system. Secondly, Èṣù as “the divine trickster who not
only delights in trouble-making, but also serves the other deities by causing trouble for
human beings who offend or neglect them” is inconsistent with his role in the system as
arbiter and custodian of the primordial Àṣẹ. Finally, Bascom’s reading ‘“Eshu is not
good” (Èṣù, Ọ̀dàrà;)’ is also inconsistent with even his own stricture against the
identification of Èṣù “ with Satan by Christians and Muslims, which can only be
understood as the result of their failure to find the equivalent of the Devil in Yoruba
belief.” A more plausible reading, which this writer will take up in a larger study,
suggests that the phrase "Èṣù Ẹlé ̣́gbára” more plausibly derives from "Èṣù Onígba-̀arà”
("Èṣù capable of countless [literally ‘two-hundred] wonders.’”). Compare this to "Èṣù
Ẹlé ̣́gbè ṛ́ ún Ọ́̀gọ” (Èṣù owner/holder of a thousand cudgels,) referring figuratively to
uncountable ways Èṣù is capable of dealing with individuals who fail his test of probity
and accountability.
Following similar language internal insight, the term ò dàrà is more plausibly
relatable to the lexical de-predicative nominal ò -darà “one who works wonders.”
Compare this with ò -daràn, “one who commits [criminal] deeds; ò-jòwú “one who covets
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and his prone to jealousy”; ọ̀-falè, a promiscuous male; from the predicates, respectively,
jowú “express or engage in jealousy,” and fálè [fẹ́ àlè], “make love to a woman to whom
one is not married”.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in his powerful and seminal work The Signifying Monkey
(1988) proposes a profound hermeneutics for African and African American poetics.
However, he unnecessarily falls victim to the usual infelicitous characterization of Èṣù
early in this important work. He writes (6), rather deceptively, as if to attribute the view
he presents to other authorities:
Scholars have studied these figures of Esu, and each has found one or two characteristics
of this mutable figure upon which to dwell, true to the nature of the trickster. A partial
list of these qualities might include individuality, satire, parody, irony, magic,
indeterminacy, open-endedness, ambiguity, sexuality, chance, uncertainty, disruption and
reconciliation, betrayal and loyalty, closure and disclosure, encasement and rupture. But
it is a mistake to focus on one of these qualities as predominant. Esu possesses all of
these characteristics, plus a plethora of others which, taken together, only begin to present
an idea of the complexity of this classic mediation and of the unity of opposed forces.
[Emphasis added]
Femi Euba (1989) valiantly seeks to re-originate Satire as a literary genre in his
important work, Archetypes, Imprecators, and Victims of Fate, based on a dissertation
supervised by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. It does appear, however, that Euba’s proposal of
“Origins and Developments of Satire in Black Drama” unaccountably mischaracterizes of
Èṣù. He sets as Satire’s prime mover an Èṣù, a mischievous trickster and near sadist,
ever ready to do the biddings of any and all modern Archilochus of wounded honor.
Euba proposes a “trinity” made up of Èṣù, Orí and Ìpín (for which, see below), and
suggests an implausible, monstrous conceptual union of this trinity with “Fate” and
”Destiny” of the Graeco-Roman tradition. In doing so Euba pays no more than a nod at
the following felicitous observation by Melville J. Herskovits, a careful and attentive
student of Dahomey, a Yorùbá cognate culture in which Èṣù also looms large. Herskovits
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writes (222; 223) about his observed veneration of Fá (Ifá) and Lé ǵ̣ ba (Èṣu), held to work
in communion in the pantheon of Dahomey’s primordial divinities:
In this way, then, do men discover their destiny and conduct its worship. What is in store
for a man is foreordained. Yet, … as can be seen from a perusal of myths recounted, a
“way out” is not denied to man. This power that permits man to escape his destiny, –
philosophically the personification of Accident in a world where Destiny is inexorable –
is found in the character of Lé ǵ̣ ba. …
Yet while the popular character of the worship of Lé ̣́gba has been generally recognized,
the reason for this worship, and, more importantly the attitude of the Dahomean toward
this god, has been a subject of misinterpretation not alone in Dahomey. In all probability,
this deity was derived together with Fá cult from the Yoruba, among whom he takes the
name Elegba, Elegbara, or Eshu. The usual translation of the name of this god, found
above all in missionary literature, is “the Devil, and, in consequence, the native when
asked by a European for an explanation of the nature of this deity contents himself with
this characterization. Yet enough has been described of Dahomean religion to make it
obvious that a concept such as that of the Devil of Christian theology, who represents the
forces of evil in contradistinction to those of good, represented by God, is entirely foreign
to Dahomean thought.
VI.
Towards Impugning Contestable Representations of Èṣù.
In the present essay we wish to advance no more than two arguments as bases for
doubting that Èṣù is a sinister òrìṣa, in disposition or as active agent, no matter the
acceptation of the word “sinister. Secondly the same arguments will form the basis, in a
larger study, for not putting Èṣụ̀ in the comity of tricksters and trolls, whether human or
nonhuman.
A. Argument from Names and Naming
The first argument is internal to the Yorùbá tradition, language, and World View. It has
to do with names and naming.
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Orúkọ, acceptable for the purpose of exposition, but not entirely captured by the
term “name” in the English language, goes to the constitutive essence of the Yorùbá
person,7 people and culture. Orúkọ is not given in vacuo or by happenstance. That is
captured by the following expressions:
1) Ẹ̀ yìnkùlé là á wò, ká tó ò sọ ọmọ lórúkọ We
must
look
into
all
the
surrounding circumstances before assigning a child a name
This Is because, once named, the orùkọ becomes the rein for controlling the child,
2) Orúkọ ọmọ ni ìjánu ọmọ A child’s name is the reign for “controlling” the
child
A person’s orúkọ determines the lot and comportment of the person in life and for all
practical purposes.
3) Orúkọ máa ń roni.
This makes one understand why in the tradition the Yorùbá a child is named for a
particular òrìṣà or for a propitiatory metaphysical agent recognized by the family and for
the child at birth. Usually Orúkọ encapsulates the hopes, aspirations for and potential of
the child; and events antecedent to the birth of the child, for which the family
recognizepast least one propitiatory agent. Sometimes Orúkọ is charm to ward off present
and untoward events, or to block access by sinister forces such as death; this happens
where dire circumstances call for anticipatory defenses. The Yorùbá, in short, assign
Orúkọ to enlist recognized benevolent forces and to memorialize and encapsulate for a
child’s benefit significant existential conditions for the child and for the family at the
child’s birth. As Rogelio Martinez Fure (1985) records, even the Santería tradition in
Cuba embraces this as much as the homeland Yorùbá. Date in (4) shows this:
7
The term has, not surprisingly, been subject of for virtually all scholars who have studied the Yorùbá
person, people and tradition. It continues attract approach from virtually all disciplines, even without
subsuming under it the term oŕikì, for which see Oyèláràn (2007) in Ọlásopé O Oyèláran and Lawrence O.
Adéwọlẹ́, eds,. Iṣè nbáyé àti Ìlò Èdè Yorùbá. Book Series No. 30. Cape Town, South Africa: The Centre for
Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS)
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4) Fure (1985) in English8
Oruko are the ritual names given to the novice or iyawo during the initiation
ceremonies, known as ‘dia de Ita’ when, by the divinatory system of the dilogun, the
priests and priestesses (olosha) unite to foretell his destiny and tell him the rules of
conduct that will govern his religious and lay life, as well as the prohibitions (ewo
that he should heed for the rest of his life. This category of Yoruba names is always
connected with the divinity into whose cult the individual was initiated, and has
symbolic significance. Henceforth, the western name of the santero will be replaced
by his oruko name, which is the sole name that he will use during the ritual offerings
and sacrifices that he makes to his orisha. Even after the death of the olosha it will be
the designation used by the other priests to invoke his egun or spirit, during the
ceremonies in memory of the dead. These oruko are jealously guarded secrets and are
generally only known to those closest to the person, since it is believed that if an
enemy knew it, he could do harm to the olosha or even cause his death because the
life of the believer is considered to be somehow linked with his personal oruko.
Examples Of Yoruba Proper Nouns (“Oruko”) In Cuba (p.37):
Relating to Elegba:
Eshu alai bodé, Eshu bi, Eshu dina, Eshu lair, Eshu laniwé, Eshu migbá, Oba gbe sí, Omó
ako jú, [Eshu] Osiká, [Eshu] Towá
Cf: Other Òrìṣà as agency in naming, also from Fure (1985)
Ogún: Osha niwe
Shango: Oba dina
Obatala: Adé bi, Alá bu mi, Ewín tolá
Oshún: Bi tomi, Olóshun de, Oshun funké
Oya: Oyá lesí, Oyá fu mi te, Tokí
Babalola, Adeboye & Olugboyega Alaba .(2003)9, the most authoritative annotated
inventory of names known this author to date, provides the following as stem for
personal names relating to Èṣù:
8
9
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0006/000632/063266eb.pdf. Accessed by Olá̀sopé Oyèláràn, 8/7/2014.
(reprinted 2008).A Dictionary of Yoruba Personal Names. Lagos: West African Publishers Limited
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Esu: Èṣù: Àgékúrú orúkọ b.a. Eṣubankẹ: Abridgement of name e.g. Eṣubankẹ see
below [sic]
Fifty-three (53) entries from the same source for such names follow(pp. 286-288)
including the following
Selected Predicates (italicized) in Personal Names with Èṣù Agency in Cuba
(Fure, 1985)
1.
Eṣubi: Èṣùbí 10.:
Èṣù-bí
Eṣubi: Èṣùbí” (Ọmọ tí) Èṣùbí: Child born of Èṣù.
Èṣùbíyìí:
Èṣù-bí-(è)yìí
Èṣùbíyìí: Èṣù facilitated the birth of this
one
Èṣùdé:
Èṣù-dé (cf. ElÉṣùdé)
Èṣùdé: Èṣù has come (Another devotee
of Èṣù has come)
Èṣùdínà
Èṣù-dí-(ọ̀)nà
Èṣù
blocked
the
path
[of
evil/hardship/misfortune]
Èṣùfún̄kẹ̣́
Èṣù-fún-mi-kẹ́
Èṣù gave me this one for tender care and
nurture
Èṣùgbèmí
Èṣù-gbè-mí
Èṣù bears me up; prospers me; fights for
me
Èṣùgbàyí
Èṣù-gbà-(è)yìí
Èṣù accepts, claims, or saves this one
Èṣùtọ̣́lá/tówa Èṣù-tó-(ọ)lá/(à)wa
Èṣù meets all our needs; is enough for us
Èṣùwẹ̀mí
Èṣù-wẹ̀-mí
Èṣù clears me of all blemish; with Èṣù, I
am in the clear
Èṣùwùmí
Èṣù-wù-mí
Èṣù pleases/charms/satisfies/gratifies me
Others not from Fure, 1985:
Èṣùtókun:
Èṣù-tó-òkun
Èṣù is is equal to the oceans; enough as
source of wealth
Èṣùtóyìnbó: Èṣù-tó-Òyìnbó
Èṣù equals the white-man in all ways.
10
Glossed in Babalola and Alaba (2003 (reprinted 2008) as (Ọmọ tí) Èṣù=bí: Child whom the triskter god begat
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2. Non-Human Agency in Yorùbá Personal Names in Babalola and Alaba suggesting
that Èṣù is good company.
Òrìṣà
Òrìṣà Name
Non-Òrìṣà
Àṣẹ Expression
Agency
Name
Eégún
Male ancestors
Ibí
Ẹgbẹ́
Ancestors/Companion
spirits
Ikú
Eji
Rain
Kú
Elú
Male Ancestors
(Ọ)lá
Èṣù (Fure, 1985)
Custodian of Àṣẹ
Ọnà
Ewé/Ọ̀san-̀in
Òrìṣà
Herbs
Orò
Fá
(I)fá
of
Healing
Ifá
Òrìṣà of Information
Iwin/Ọbàtálá/Ṣa/Ẹfun Òrìṣà of Creation
Compendia of Ifá
Odù
Information.
Metonymically Ifá
Owó
Social/Ritual
Expression
Commonalty
of the Birth
Essence/Sacred
Birthing
Gesture-incommon
Essence
of
Finality;
“Death”
derivately
(I)kú)
Recognized
ascribed
authority with
civic
obligations
Essence of and
Òrìṣà of the
arts
Binding
Customs and
Rituals
Currency
of
Exchange;
Precious
means
of
exchange; its
essence
&
value
Salvador – BA
Ògún (Fure, 1985)
Omi (Fure, 1985)
Òrìṣà of the Arts
Waters
Personal Guardian of
Orǐ
the Individual’s Lot
Òrìṣà/Ṣà/Ọṣì (Fure, Avatar of Òrìṣà of
1985)
Creation
Avatar of Òrìṣà of
Oṣó/Ṣó
Creation
Ọdẹ
Hunter Òrìṣà
Òrìṣà of Fertility &
Ọṣun (Fure, 1985)
Creativity/River Ọ̀ṣun
Òrìṣà of Fury and
Ọya (Fure, 1985)
Storm/River Ọya
Ṣàngó (Fure, 1985)
Òrìṣà of Energy
3. Predicate Compliments of Personal Names relating to Metaphysical Agencies in
Babalola and Alaba
Predicate Compliments of Personal Names
(in Furé, Rogelio Martinez (1985, except those with *)
#Pages
in
Babalola
& Alaba
migbà
gbesi
tówa
bí bíyìí dé dínà fún̄kẹ́
wẹ̀mí wùmí tókun* tóyìnbó*
[gbàmí] [gbésì] [tọ́lá]
Òrìṣà
Name
Stem/Agency
Eégún
271-273
Ẹgbẹ̣́
306-310
Eji
274-275
Elú
279-282
Salvador – BA
Èṣù11
286-288
Ewé/Ọsan-ìn
288-292
Ìbí
*
*
*
Ifá/Fá
374-379
383-387/
322-352
Iwin/Ọbàtálá/Ṣa
415-416
Odù
505-512
Ògún
513-544
Omi
598-604
Orí
Òrìṣà/Ṣà
613-615
615-619/
811-820
Ọdẹ
(Hunter god)
669-676
Ọ̀ sàn-ìn
766-767
Ọṣì (Oracle god)
771-777
Ọ̀ ṣun
777-786
Ọya
790-799
Ṣàngó
812-819
Ẹfun
297-305
4. Fure (1985) Predicate Compliments Productive with Non-Òrìṣà Agencies in
Yoruba Personal Names
Predicate Compliments of Personal Names
(Metaphysical Agencies not Òrìṣà)
bí
11
bíyìí dé dínà fún̄kẹ́ migbà
Gbesi Tówa wẹ̀mí wùmí tókun* tóyìnbó*
[gbàmí] [gbésì] [tọ́lá]
Ogundipe (1978) acknowledges her informants (1) cousins Siyanbola Esubunmi and Baderinwa Esubunmi; (2) twin
brothers Abosede and Tesebiu Esugbayi, all of her Lagos Group (84; 94)
#Pages
in
Babalola
&
Alaba
Salvador – BA
Òrìṣà Name
Stem/Agency
Ibí
@12 @
Ikú/Kú
&13 &
*
*
Ọlá/ Lá
Ọnà
Orò
Oyè
12
The symbol @ suggests that these predicates “bí” and “bíyìí” would tautological with agency “Ìbí;”
hence, they do not occur.
13
The symbol @ suggests that these predicates present contradictory concepts with “(I)kú,” which connotes
“finality” and/or “closure” of essence or of motion of any sort. A substantive that does not admit
“motion” as predicate may not be subject to “finality.” As expected, predicates that collocate with
“(I)kú” to derive personal names invariably either (a) neutralize its negative connotation of “finality,”
or (b) projects a sense of undesirable deprivation inflicted by inevitable “finality.” Examples:
(a)
i) (I)kú-kọ̀-yìí: Ikú has rejected this
ii) Ikú-fèyí-jì-mi: Ikú has spared this as a favor for me
(b)
i) Ikú-bọlá-jẹ́: Ikú “has vitiated/ruined our noble family” (Babalola and Alaba, 2008:
398)
ii) Ikú-kò-mọ-ẹni-kan: Ikú “is no respecter of persons” (Babalola and Alaba, 2008: 398)
374-379
398-301/
440-443
688-720/
444-462
749-756
619-623
642-659
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5.
Ajogun14: Metaphyical Entities Evil in Essence and Sources of Evil as
Agencies Restricted or Absent in Naming
Manifestation
Ajogun
of
Ajogun Type
Àrùn
Disease; affliction by
infection
leading
incapacitation or to
functional
impairment
Èṣe
Pain/suffering
inflicted by other
sentient
beings,
including self
Ẹ̀ gbà
Palsy; dysfunction of
the
neurological
system
Ikú
Finality and the
primordial
power
bring finality about
Òfò
Loss;
deprivation
ruinous
The evil connotation of the Ajogun as inimical to wholesome existence proscribes
their serving as Agency or purveyor of desirable Àṣẹ for personal names. It is remarkable
that Ikú is not entirely proscribed; rather, as an inevitable concomitant of motion and,
therefore, of existence, the Yorùbá seek to restrict, control and mark it in naming, as is
noted for (4) above. Hardly any other agency for naming is similarly restricted as Ikú.
14
Wande Abimbola (1976), 151f.
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The entire data above on names and naming in Yorùbá, Orúkọ, go to emphasize that the
people enlist Èṣù among the exclusive category of benevolent forces and agencies with
which to identify positively for assigning names which control and are deployed to
control individual’s person and lot in life. The Yorùbá include Ikú, “Death,” to mark
events of its deleterious power and therefore ward it off, just as children who die at the
call of their circles in the spirit world are given forbidding names to ward negate the
power of the spirit world on them.
B.
Argument Separating Apples from Oranges
The second argument against contestable representations takes from the set of
beings and entities which traditions count as “trickster,” and questions the validity of
asserting one the defining feature or set of features of that set for all traditions all over the
world. First, we assume that for an agent to pass as “trickster” it must be capable of
initiating motion in itself and in other entities. It must, therefore, be endowed with
attributes of a sentient being. Furthermore it must be capable of intentionality. We
recognize, in folklore, traditions often endow agetn and or entities intended to serve as
trickster with these attributes. But in order to pass for trickster additional psycho-social
conditions must be fulfilled.
We wish to borrow first from Susan Niditch’s Underdogs and Tricksters
15
and see a
trickster as “a subtype of underdogs” who bring about a change in a status via trickery;
typically progresses from low to higher status making “their way with magical or human
helpers or through their own wisdom or savvy.” A trickster is a “deceiver, creator,
acculturator, unmasked liar, ethically ambiguous survivor” (45) He acts out his role.
Niditch sketches a trickster hero’s morphology as made up of “low status, deception
planned to improve conditions, improved status; deception uncovered; reduction of status
or survival.” (46) “The trickster morphology has an antiestablishment quality at the very
15
Susan Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore (San Francisco: Harper & Row,
Publishers. 1987)
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sources of its being.…Success is achieved in an irregular, roundabout way, by deception,
a trick.” 49.
in this train, Malcom Gladwell (2013)16 uses the story of David and Goliath to
characterize the trickster ingeniously. He writes (170):
At the center of many of the world’s oppressed cultures stands the figure of the
“trickster hero.” In legend and song, he appears in the form of a seemingly
innocuous animal that triumphs over others much larger than himself through
cunning and guile.
The trickster enjoys “the unexpected freedom that comes from having nothing to lose.
The trickster gets to break the rules.” (173)
If we cast our mind back to Pereira’s
self-empowered trickster deities, figures which recur in myths from the Yoruban
Eshu to the Hindu Krishna, from Bamapana the Australian Aborigine, Prometheus in
ancient Greece and Sun Wukong in Chinese lore, to Reynard the French fox, Coyote the
Native American, Maui in Hawaii, Susanowo in Japan, Loki the Norse god and even
Jacob of the Old Testament.
and, if we comb through all recorded Yorùbá, since I cannot base this argument on
hundreds that listened to and have myself told growing in Àjààwà, no trickster in the
Yorùbá tradition is an orìṣà, rather the tortoise whose morphology tallies with those
Niditch proposes, a seemingly innocuous underdog who enjoys the freedom to break
rules and conventions and triumphs under impossible circumstances through trickery,
cunning and guile.
Nothing in the foregoing “trickster tale” of this essay fits the òrìṣà Èṣù of the Yorùbá
pantheon. We must therefore look into the “Elements of Yorùbá Thought System” in
order to identify the Èṣu, not an Òrìsà that is a wayward, mischievous, messenger and
16
Malcom Gladell, David and Goliath: underdogs, misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. (New York:
Little, Brown and Company)
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trickster, but one fit to serve as the basis for a rehabilitation of ethical living for the
twenty-first century.
VII.
Elements of Yorùbá Thought System for Ethical Rehabilitation
The following, then, outlines a re-consideration, but by no means a re-definition, of the
critical elements of the Yoruba thought system, which, plausibly, impelled the push for
self-liberation by enslaved Yorùbá culture-bearers in the Americas, resulting in what
historians refer to as “slave risings.” The self-determination which inspired these risings
for self-liberation produced autonomous enclaves such as the Palmares (Brazil) and
Maroon communities (the Caribbean). It may be a stretch, yet not farfetched, to attribute
even slave risings in North America, such as the Stono Rising and the Nate Turner
Rising, to the kind of consciousness these elements exemplified in the Yorùbá thought
system collectively allow us to identify with Èṣù.
We take them up seriatim; beginning with the foundational concept of Àṣe.
Àṣẹ
In Àṣẹ the Yorùbá apprehend the “essential” and “motive” force that inheres in all objects
of consciousness: material; non-material; physical and metaphysical; all objects of
perception and of thought, including those we may apprehend by means of any and all of
the senses.
This conception of Àṣẹ resonates cross-culturally and surprisingly with William
Wordsworth’s (1192: 602) [“Tintern Abbey…”]
…A presence that disturbs (me) with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of] something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
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A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. …
As we return to below, for the Yorùbá, Èsù is the custdian of the primordial Àṣẹ,
the impartial arbiter for its deployment bybaby and all entities endowed with capacity to
do, subject to conditions for which transgression demands atonement, often referred to as
sacrifice.
Ènìyàn, Human Being
The Yorùbá conceive of the human being, ènìyàn as distinguished by endoment
with a unique àṣẹ, with the Mind that “houses” the faculty of reason and serves as the seat
of consciousness. The handmaiden of the Mind in humans is articulate language, èdè, not
clearly isolable in any other sentient being. The òrìṣà are anthropomorphic sentient
beings. They, too, have, however, metaphysically and figuratively, attributes of Mind,
reason and èdè .
Some aspects of the Yorùbá conception of the attributes of ènìyàn resonates with
Wolfgang von Goethe’s characterization of Man, unique because he is endowed with the
Mind. We encounter in the “Proloque” to Faust, the following cynical retort about Man
to The Lord by Mephistopheles.
The small god of the world will never change his ways 39
And is as whimsical-- as on the first of days.
His life might be a bit more fun,
Had you not given him that spark of heaven’s sun;
He calls it reason and employs, it resolute
To be more brutish that is any brute.
[Emphasis added: OOO]
44
Salvador – BA
Òrìṣà
Each Òrìṣà of the Yorùbá thought system is a metaphysical sentient being who
embodies a discrete and definable set of primordial principles of Àṣe. Within the limits of
his/her Àṣẹ each òrìṣà
may exert effective impact on any and all objects of
consciousness, including other òrìṣà.
Since the Àṣe attributable to a particular Òrìṣà is discrete and definable, the scope
of “influence,” not to say of the “power” or “authority” of each Òrìṣà is delimitable,
although it may intercept with that of other Òrìṣà, as Venn circles do. This makes it
thinkable for different devotees to approach different Òrìṣà as supplicants for the same
outcome.
Òrìṣà is not normally bound by time or space; indeed they may traverse time
and/or space at will, unlike other entities and sentient beings with physical body. Each
òrìṣà is also capable of multiple manifestations, in consonance with and reflecting local
prevailing existential conditions, but subject to the arbitrative Àṣẹ of Èṣù, and the
guidance and counsel of Ọ́̀rúnmìlà.
Òrúnmìla
Òrúnmìla is the Òrìṣa, who, alone, is privy to and is the custodian of the
exhaustive store of the information constitutive of the essence of all things, all objects of
consciousness. It is, perhaps, not unimportant that Òṛ́ únmìlà has no bone in “his” body,
and is, in complexion, black, the union of all colors. Òṛ́ únmìlà is
Òdodo ilé ayé, òpìtàn ilè ̣́ Ifè ̣́
Fundamentals of existence, custodian of the
founding account of Ifè ̣́ of origin
Ẹni mọjó ̣́ alaṣiré máa tán
One who knows the day the player on the
stage will cease
Ọkùnrin dúdú òkèè Gè ṭ́ í
Black Man of mount Gè ṭ́ í …
Òdúdú kó o dúrí emèrè
Black, you blacken the head of the spirit
child [“make the child human,” OOO]
Salvador – BA
Ó tún orí ẹní ìn sunwò ṇ́ ṣe
He set right the Orì of one whose is
misshapen
[Olóyè Fábùnmi (2007), 25; tr. Mine: OOO]
Òrúnmìla’s being “black” allows one to conceptualize him, from the point of
view of entropy, as non-blank, indeed, as the optimal source of or repository of
information. Òrúnmìla is accessible and communicates through the Odù of Ifá, as is
described above.
Èṣù in the Yorùbá Pantheon
Èṣù is the arbiter in the exercise of àṣẹ for and among all beings, including all the
òrìṣà and spirits, and all incorporeal, sentient beings.
As arbiter, Èṣù takes as given the position that all sentient beings are endowed
with consciousness and the “mind.” The mind has, as unique attributes, reason and the
will, as mentioned above. To all intent and purposes, therefore, Èṣù holds that any
exercise of the will by a sentient being must of necessity be based on an exhaustive act of
consciousness and reason, man’s psychokinetic faculty. By the same token any
disposition of one’s will engages one’s àṣẹ. Accordingly, each sentient being should
exercise the will based only on impeccable, exhaustive consciousness, and stands
accountable for all outcomes of that exercise.
In the Yorùbá myths of origins, Èṣù, also an òrìṣà, is the constant companion of
Òṛ́ únmìlà. In that role, Ẹ́̀ṣù has unmediated access to all information of which Òṛ́ únmìla
is custodian. That enables him to have the inside knowledge to all tropes, to all òwe,
Òṛ́ únmìla’s paradigmatic mode of communication.
As arbiter par excellence, Ẹ́̀ṣù is no respecter of persons, human or òrìṣà. He does
not have to run errand for any other òrìṣà in the exercise of his office, since as arbiter, all
òrìṣà rely on his àṣẹ for efficacious deployment of their own.
Orí
Salvador – BA
Every individual is endowed with an Orí, which embodies the primordial
specificities of one’s essence. Rowland Abiodun (1989) refers to Orí as “inner head,” but
also may be conceived, consistent with the perspective of this study, as the liminal,
symbolic encasement for one’s àṣẹ.
Orí receives the existential lot, ìpín, for the
individual sentient being, and guards it jealously throughout the terrestrial sojourn of the
individual. An individual’s Orí remains accessible to him or her throughout life and to his
or her survivors even after “death.” Òrúnmìlà is witness at the allotment and reception of
ìpín, the lot of the individual. That is why Òṛ́ únmìlà is referred to as “ẹlé ̣́rìí-ìpin,”
́ ̣́ witness
at allotment of ìpín, and why Fabunmi’s citation of him is appropriate as
Ẹni mọjó ̣́ alaṣiré máa tán
One who knows the day the player
on the stage will cease
The following celebrates the personal and particularistic nature of Orí
Orí, ́pèlè o
Hail, Orí
Àtèténíran,
Strategically prominent and constant from
generation to generation
Atètè-gbe-ni-kòrìṣà
One who prospers a person before any òrìṣà
Kò sóòṣà tí í dá ni í gbè
No òrìṣà singles one out to prosper
Lé yìn in orí ẹni
Except one’s Orí
[See Wande Abimbola, 1975; translation mine, Olásopé Oyèláràn]
Ìpín
Ìpín refers to a conceptual “script,” the “musical score,” for the individual’s existential
possibilities. How the individual acts/plays it out depends on the “paths” he/she takes as
functions of how he or she deploys his or her will in the exercise of his/her inherent àṣẹ.
This tremendous responsibility is acknowledged in the following:
A kúnlè; a yan è dá
choose/receive essence
We genuflect as supplicant to
Salvador – BA
A dáyé tán
Once we arrive on earth
Ojú ń yán ni
We become dazzled by diverse options
(Cf. Wande Abimbola (1976, 113):
A kúnlè, a yan èda
We genuflect to receive essence
A dáyé tán
We arrive on earth
Ojú ńkán ni
We become impatient (“eyes propel us) in haste.)
Since Òṛ́ únmìlà̀ is witness to the allotment of and acceptance of ìpín, the
individual will do himself/herself a favor in life by seeking guidance from Òṛ́ únmìla in
making every life option. This why Orí is celebrated as in the following:
Orí ẹni làwúre e ẹni
One’s Orí is one’s sole source of goodness)
Bí ẹ jí lówurò
As you wake up in the morning (at waking moment)
Ẹ fọwó rarí
Stroke your Ori
Orí ẹni làwúre e ẹni
for One’s Orí is one’s sole source of goodness
Òṛ́ únmìla, of course, speaks in tropes, that is to say, in òwe, (often) dramatic
figures of speech. The individual, therefore, has the responsibility for an attentive
exercise of consciousness in “reading” the message in the guidance of Òṛ́ únmìlà.
Furthermore, since no one steps into the same river twice, there can be no end to turning
to Òṛ́ únmìlà to ascertain what musical score one’s orí holds for one’s next step. Again,
this explains the injunction:
Bí òni ṣe rí, ò la lè máà rí béè
As today is, tomorrow may differ
Ni babaláwo fi í dÍfá a ọrọọrún
Why Babalawo interrogates Ifá every
four days (Traditional calendar week)
Salvador – BA
Ẹ́̀ṣù, the arbiter, the assiduous companion of Òṛ́ únmìla, holds the individual
accountable for the scrupulous observance of the required act of consciousness called for
by each step in the dance of existence, ìwà.
The Yorùbá conception of ìpín and the injunction that each individual must never
tire in being constantly aware of the paths it lays before him/her to tread in all matters, at
all time, underscores the position that the Yorùbá do not accept ìpín as immutable. This
explains why the concept of fate and/oe destiny is incompatible with Yorùbá conception
of essence, ìwà. Indeed, three options present themselves to each individual: conserve
your ìpín, by diligently observing relevant directives from your Ori through consultation
with Orúnmìlà; ameliorate your ìpín by means of duty of care, industry, attention to all
sources of information, keen consciousness and exercise of judiciousness in all
circumstances that impinge on your life options at all time; as a final option, depreciate
your ìpín by doing neither of the foregoing.
The Yorùbá principle of Orì and concept of ìpín put every sentient being in the saddle,
and hands over the reins to him/her. Every sentient being is, therefore, accountable for
how he/she plays out the life script accepted on his/her behalf by Orí.
VIII Implications
The Graeco-Roman concept of fate, accepted in the Euro-American tradition as
“destiny,” is conceptually immutable. It undergirds a worldview that externalizes
accountability for all life’s vicissitudes. It, to that extent, suggests a culture that assigns
authority and responsibility to a higher being whom the individual must not only
supplicate, but must also constantly seek to please. Neither the external authority nor the
individual has any influence on fate or destiny, both pre-ordained and inaccessible.
The concepts of fate and destiny are alien to the Yorùbà thought. That explains
why the Yorùbá embrace the advice:
Salvador – BA
Ọwó ẹni la fi í tuń ìwà ẹni ṣe One ameliorates one’s existential options with
one’s one hands
Also
Òrìṣà bí o ò le gbè mí
Òrìṣa, if you cannot prosper me;
Ṣe mí bí o ti bá mi
Leave me as you encountered me
Òrìṣa tí a sìn, sìn, sìn
Òrìṣa whom one serves, serves, serve,
Tí kò gbe ni
Who does not prosper one
À á padà lé yìn in rè ni
Only option is to turn away from behind him
And
In the Yorùbá pantheon, Èṣù, the custodian of the primordial àṣẹ, is the òrìṣà that
never tires in dealing the just dessert to the individual in accordance with how he/she
exercises his/her option of consciousness, vigilance, industry and assiduity in the
unfolding and manifestation of his/her ìpín.
Chastened by the system that guarantees Èṣù’s role and the àṣẹ vested in human
dignity, one is hard put to it to imagine a compelling reason that people of African
descent should not enjoy the capacity and the self-confidence to re-envision the future
without fear of injustice to anyone; indeed, with a clear conscience of consistently
safeguarding social justice and common good in the most humane sense.
Èṣù Bibliography
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University Press, 1976.
Abimbọla, ‘Wande. Àwọn Ojú Mẹ́ rè è rìdínlógún. Ibadan: Oxford University Press, 1977;
Ibadan University Press, 2004.
Salvador – BA
Abimbọla, Wande. Ed. Yoruba Oral Tradition. Ifẹ African Languages and Literatures
Seris No. 1. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press. 1975.
Abiọdun. ,Rowland. Hidden Power: Ọ́̀ṣun, the Seventeenth Odù. Eds. Joseph M. Murphy
& Mei-Mei Sanford. Indiana: Indiana University Press. 2001
Abiọdun. ,Rowland. Ifá Art Objects: An Interpretation Based on Oral Tradition. Ed.
Wande Abimbola, 1975. 421-469.
Abiọdun, Rowland. “Verbal and Visual Metaphors: Mythical Allusions in Yoruba
Ritualistic Art of Orí.” IFÈ : Annals of the Institute of Cultural Studies.” Ilé-Ifè :̣́
University of Ifè ̣́ Press. 8-39. 1986.
Abiọdun, Rowland. 1994. “Introduction: An African(?) Art History: Promising
Theoretical Approaches in Yoruba Art Studies.” The Yoruba Artist: New
Theoretical Perspecti8ves on African Arts Ed. Rowland Abiọdun, Washington,
DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 37-48.
Abiọdun, Rowland, Henry J. Drewal and John Pemberton. 1994.The Yoruba Artist: New
Theoretical Perspectives on African Arts. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
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Aiyejina, Funso. Esu Elegbara: A Source of an Alter/Native Theory of African Literature
and Criticism. To appear in Funso Aiyejina. Decolonizing Myth: From Esu to
Bachnala Aesthetics.
Amherd, Noel K. Reciting Ifa: Difference, Heterogenity, and Identity. Trenton: Africa
World Press, 2010.
Ballen, Barry. “Yoruba Moral Epistemology.” A Companion to African Philsophy. Ed.
Kwasi Wiredu. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 296-303.
Bascom, William. Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1969.
Bascom, William. Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New World
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. First Midland Book Edition, 1993.
Salvador – BA
Bassani, Ezio. “The Ulm Ọpọ́n Ifá (ca. 1650): A Model for Later Iconography.” The
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Camara, E, M. Afro-American religious syncretism in Brazil and the United States: A
Weberian perspetive. Sociological Analysis 48 (1988): 299-318
Euba, Femi. Archetypes, Imprecators, and Victims of Fate: Origins and Developments of
Satire in Black Drama. New York: Greenwoods Press, 1989.
Fabunmi (Olóyè). Òṛ́ ò ̣́ Ìkínnilé ḥ́ ìn, in Oyèláràn , et. al, 23-26̀..
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Northwestern University Press, 1967.
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Salvador – BA
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Èṣù: Neither a Trickster Embodying Ambivalent Protean Duality, Nor

Transcription

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