African Religious Practices

Oshun (Osun)

The Yoruba deity

Oshun, is an orisha (deity) of the Yoruba people of South Western Nigeria. Oshun is commonly called the river goddess, in the Yoruba religion and is typically associated with water, purity, fertility, love, and sensuality. She is considered one of the most powerful of all goddesses, and, like other orishas or goddesses possesses human attributes such as vanity, jealousy, and as such can also get angry.

In most Yoruba stories, Oshun is generally presented as the protector, saviour, or care provider. Oshun has also been portrayed as the maintainer of spiritual balance and as a motherly figure.

According to publications in Britannica amongst others , Yoruba Mythology highlights Oshun as an important figure in the creation of human beings. The Story of Creation among the Yorubas  which they believe to be true states that the gods were sent by Olodumare, who is considered to be the Supreme God, to populate the Earth. Oshun was one of the original 17 gods sent to Earth, and the only female deity. The other gods who were all male, failed at their attempts to revive and populate the Earth. Realizing that they were not able to complete the task given to them by Olodumare the Supreme Being, they persuaded Oshun to help them. Oshun agreed and succeeded in bringing life back to Earth. Humanity and other species are believed to have been brought into existence through her sweet and powerful waters. According to the Yoruba myth, humanity would not exist if Oshun, the goddess of life and fertility, had not acted.

Meantime, some myths hold that Oshun is one of the wives of Shango, the Yoruba god of thunder. Amongst all the gods that were sent by the Supreme Being Olodumare, Oshun is considered to be the favourite of them all due to her beauty and sensuality.

 In yet another Yoruba myth, she is depicted as the goddess who gives and takes life. As earlier mentioned, she sometimes gets angry and when this happens she may flood the Earth, or may destroy crops by withholding her waters, thus causing droughts.

The image of God as one that punishes when angry as seen in the Old Testament is also seen in yet another Yoruba myth in which Oshun is angered by her devotees and sends down rain, nearly flooding the world. But immediately she has been appeased, Oshun saves the Earth from destruction by calling back the waters. One cannot restrain himself from linking this with the flood in Noah’s days in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible.

The town of Oshogbo in Nigeria is believed to be sacred and fiercely protected by the river goddess. This is because Yoruba Tradition holds that the first interaction between Oshun and human beings took place in this town.

During this encounter, the people who visited her river received  permission from Oshun to build the city. The river goddess promised to provide for them, protect them, and grant their prayers if they worshipped her dutifully, making the obligatory offerings, prayers, and other rituals.

 The Oshun Festival

As a result of this first encounter between the people of Oshogbo and Oshun, the Oshun festival was birthed and is still practiced today by the Yoruba people. Every year Oshun devotees and other people of the Yoruba religious tradition go to the Oshun River to pay homage, make sacrifice, and ask for a variety of things amongst which usually include wealth, children, and better health.

Other gods or orishas are also honoured during the festival but the climax of the festival is centred on Oshun. Oshogbo is also home to the Oshun-Oshogbo Sacred Grove, a forest that contains several shrines and artwork in honour of Oshun; it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005.

The river goddess or Oshun as she is referred to among the Yorubas in Nigeria holds a very important place in the lives of women in a number of West African countries.

Oshun is especially important to women in West African cultures. Those who want children and who may suffer from infertility usually call on Oshun for assistance, and she is associated with the concepts of femininity and the power of women. More widely, she is sought after in times of drought or severe poverty.

In other parts of Nigeria like in Eastern Nigeria among the Igbos, there are a number of river goddesses. River gods and goddesses are found wherever a big river is found in Igboland. An example is the Imo Mmiri meaning the goddess of the Imo River. This river runs between Imo State which is named after the river and Abbia State and finally empties itself into the Atlantic Ocean. All over Sub-Saharan Africa, river goddesses are linked to sexuality, beauty and fertility.

Oshun is also venerated among the Edo people of South Eastern Nigeria; the Ewe of Ghana, Benin, and Togo; and the Fon of Benin who refer to them as voduns.

Despite the existence of variation in the rituals and mythology of these deities among people in West Africa, the underlying religious concept remains the same.

What is an Orisha in African Religious Practices?

An orisha is more than just a deity.  This is because the term deity often suggests a supernatural entity  ( like an animal, god or object) that has feelings like a human being. An orisha is more than just a deity. It is said to arise when a divine power to command and make things happen converges with a natural force, a deified ancestor, and an object that witnesses and supports that convergence and alignment. An orisha, therefore, is a complex multidimensional unity linking people, objects, and powers.

The word orisha is related to several other Yoruba words referring to the head or the main one. Ori refers to the first of all or to the physical head atop a person’s body. This visible ori, however, serves as the vessel for an invisible ori, the ori-inu or internal head which is the indwelling spirit of a person and the kernel of that individual’s personality. The ori-inu exists before birth; it comes from God and determines an individual’s character and fate. Just as the physical head perches atop the body, the ori-inu stands over and rules, guides, and controls a person’s actions. The witnessing object for the ori-inu is a shrine for the head called ile ori meaning the house of the head which is a pointed crownlike container covered with cowrie shells, whose white colour indicates purity and good character. In themselves the cowrie shells symbolize wealth, because they were once a medium of economic exchange. The white cowrie-shell covering of the ile ori also alludes to the white-feathered bird called eiye ororo, the symbol of the mind that God puts into the head at birth.

 

The head also has other values associated with it that derive from the hierarchical nature of Yoruba social life. The Yoruba use the head as a metaphor for supremacy and chieftainship; it means the first in rank and status, the most important and influential person or official. Age, which is priority in time, is highly valued and respected, and it is also an important aspect of status and ranking.

 

Types of orishas

The Nigerian scholar J. Omosade Awolalu divided the orishas into three categories: primordial divinities, deified ancestors, and personified natural forces and phenomena. These categories are not rigid, and in some cases they overlap.

 

Primordial divinities

In West African religions and in traditions that have been influenced by them, primordial divinities are those that existed long before the creation of the world as it is now known. Some of these orishas are primordial in the sense that they existed before the creation of human beings. They emanated directly from God without any human aid. They are ara orun, people of heaven. They came from heaven, and they still reside there. Other orishas are irunmole, the earth’s first inhabitants that are now sacred beings dwelling on and in the earth.

 

Deified ancestors

Deified ancestors are people who lived in this world after it was created and had such a profound impact upon it that their descendants have continued to promote their memory. They were kings, culture heroes and heroines, warriors, and founders of cities who had a major influence on the lives of the people and on Yoruba society through their contributions to culture and social life. In the Yoruba tradition these were individuals who were able to establish control over a natural force and make a bond of interdependence with it, attracting its beneficent action toward themselves and their people while sending its destructive aspects onto enemies. To achieve this degree of control and interdependence, the ancestors made offerings and sacrifices. Later these ancestors disappeared—often, according to tradition, in a remarkable manner, such as by sinking into the ground, rising into the heavens on chains, committing suicide and not dying, or turning to stone. Such a disappearance was not true death; rather, it was the occasion of the ancestor’s metamorphosis into an orisha. Several primordial divinities have oral traditions stating that they were once the chiefs or kings of still existing Yoruba towns.

 

When these ancestors disappeared and became orishas, their children began to sacrifice to them and to continue whatever ceremonies the orishas had performed when they were on earth. This worship was passed on from one generation to the next. In their native areas, people formed groups that worshipped and venerated these orishas and secured a place for their cult group in the religious and social organizations of the towns where they lived. Eventually a local orisha’s cult might spread to other towns and become more widely known. The worship of other deified ancestors, however, remained confined to the towns where it originated, even sometimes restricted to particular families or lineages.

 

Personified natural forces and phenomena

From the Yoruba point of view, any element of the natural world that has manifold and useful functions for human beings has a spirit dwelling in it. There are many spirits of this kind, but some of them are so preeminent that they supersede all others; they too are orishas. Among them are the earth; rivers, lakes, and lagoons; and mountains, certain trees, and the wind. Worship is directed at the orisha that dwells within the natural phenomenon, often at the site where the natural phenomenon manifests itself.

 

These specific forces of nature are part of the orisha because the cult of the orishas directs itself toward them. The orishas, however, are only one aspect of these natural forces. An orisha is that part of a natural force that is disciplined and controllable and that can be cultivated by people using ritual means. There is always the other part—the part of the natural force that can be explored but never completely known, the aspect of nature that will always remain wild and escape definition. To the benefit of human beings, the orishas mediate between humanity and these forces of the natural world by putting the tamable aspects of nature under human control while standing between humanity and that part of nature that cannot be tamed, hemmed in, or controlled by human beings.

 

Orisha worshippers see the tamed natural force and the deified ancestor as indissolubly linked. This unity is represented by a witnessing object that acts as the material support of an orisha’s power to command and cause things to happen. A collection of these objects, even if it is not permanent, constitutes an altar where the orisha is present and can be addressed through prayers and offerings. In this context the altar may be referred to as the orisha or as the orisha’s face. Everything that went into forming these witnessing objects—from leaves, earth, metal, pottery, or animal bones to the incantations and sacrifices that praised and coerced the orisha’s many powers to lodge in one place—becomes part of the object’s (and the orisha’s) secret.

 

Transmission of orisha beliefs outside Africa

During the 18th and 19th centuries thousands of Yoruba, Bini, Ewe, and Fon people were enslaved, uprooted, and transported to the Americas. In some locations in the Caribbean and South America, they were able to reestablish the worship of the orishas and maintain it during slavery and after its abolition. In the social and cultural environments of the Americas, the orisha concept underwent some subtle but significant changes. Orisha devotion became a profound influence upon the emergence of such new religions as Vodou in Haiti and Santería in Cuba.

 

Contemporary practices of orisha devotees

The general idea of the orisha as a deified ancestor whose descendants perpetuate the ancestor’s practices is reflected in the self-identification of the members of an orisha cult group’s priesthood as that orisha’s “children.” This idea also undergirds a practice of secrecy that excludes from some part of an orisha’s ceremonies people who have not been initiated into its priesthood. However, it becomes the responsibility of the orisha’s human descendants to transmit to subsequent generations the objects and secrets through which human beings can interact with the orisha. Because each orisha has particular occupations, places, skills, preferences, diseases, problems, capabilities, and misfortunes with which it is closely associated, devotees—through the orisha’s priesthood—can make appeals to the orisha that is best able to resolve the problem they are experiencing. It is the orishas who are the guardians and explicators of human destiny. Despite the ascendance of Christianity and Islam, many Yoruba and other West Africans still turn to the orishas for help, aid, and advice in the great and small problems of life.

Sources

1. Britannica

2. The Holy Bible 

3. Field Reports