A Cluster of Sacred Symbols: Ori#a Worship among the Igbomina Yoruba of
Ila-#rangun
J. Pemberton III
History of Religions, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Aug., 1977), pp. 1-28.
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J. Pemberton 111 A C L U S T E R O F
S A C R E D S Y M B O L S :
O R I S A W O R S H I P
A M O N G T H E
I G B O M I N A Y O R U B A
O F I L A - O R A N G U N
The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria, Dahomey, and Togoland
number 10-12 million people. Divided as they are by the artificial
boundaries created by European colonial powers and by their own
history of innertribal conflict, their cultural bond is expressed in a
remarkably rich and complex religious heritage. Only now is the
oral tradition-a tradition incorporating myths and delightful
folktales, the complex poetry of Ijala chanting, the oriki, the
praise names of gods and humans, and above all in importance the
Odu of Ifa-being recorded on tape and in text. In the thousands
of Ifa verses the diviner-priests have preserved the wisdom of the
Yoruba and provided a principal means of transmitting Yoruba
values from onegeneration to another. Music, dance, and masquerade
are all richly informative of the choreography of Yoruba
experience in both its sacred and profane aspects.
This paper was presented a t a plenary session of the American Academy of
Religion in October 1975. I am grateful to my Amherst College colleagues Professors
Lawrance A. Babb of the Department of Anthropology and David Wills of
the Department of Religion, and to Professors Robert F. Thompson of the Department
of the History of Art at Yale University and Benjamin Ray of the Religion
Department of Princeton University for helpful critical reading of earlier drafts
of the essay. The research for this paper has been pursued over the past five years
and supported by a cross-disciplinarygrant from the Society for Values in Higher
Education, a summer faculty research grant from the Ford Foundation, and a
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
The Yoruba live in towns and cities even though 80 percent of
the people are engaged in some aspect of agricultural production.
They are remarkable among African peoples for their urban lifestyle
and their tradition of government by kings or obas, who
in turn are supported by administrative hierarchies of palace
officials, chiefs, and elders. Viewed from one of its many hilltops,
the city of Ibadan is a sea of rusty rooftops covering one- and twostory
mud brick buildings and housing close to a million people. It
is the largest black city in Africa and is situated on the edge of the
rain forest and the savanna 100 miles from the port city of Lagos.
Ibadan has long been famous for its seven markets. Its continuing
importance for Nigeria's commerce is manifest in the changing
skyline with the appearance of Barclay's Bank and the
twenty-two-story glass and steel Cocoa House on the edge of the
ancient Dugbe market. There can be no doubt about the social
change that is taking place among the Yoruba in modern Nigeria,
change fashioned by a decade and a half of political independence,
the tragedy of the Biafran war, the exporting of rich cocoa crops
and oil resources, the increase of university education, and a host
of other factors.
And yet, amid the change, traditional Yoruba ways of life and
modes of thought have been maintained by the majority of people.
The cultural tradition-the fabric of meaning-which has never
been static, always undergoing some response to changing social
and political circumstances and to the entrance of "foreign"
religions, continues to be richly informative for their lives. One
simply stepsfrom the shadowof the Cocoa House into the passageways
of the ancient compounds of Ibadan and there is traditional
Yorubaland. Or one can drive 100 miles northeast to the town
of Ila-Orangun and again one enters, not the past, for that is
not what tradition means, but a world of experience deeply and
richly informed by the ways of the ancestors and of the gods.
Electricity has not yet reached this small Igbomina Yoruba town
grant from the Social Science Research Council. The study of Yoruba religion
began with extended visits to the Institute of African Studies, University of
Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1971 and 1972, which included investigations in Oyo and Iwo,
and residence in Ila-Orangun throughout June and July of 1972 and 1974. I wish
to acknowledge the support of Dr. Robert G. Armstrong, director of the Institute
of African StudiesatIbadan,formaking available the services of Robert Awujoola,
who translated the Ifa recitations of babalawo Ifatoogun and who checked my
translations of the praise songs and prayers for the orisa. I am most grateful to
His Highness, the Qrangun of Ila, for his support of my research in Ila-Orangun.
The patient and sensitive assistance of Mr. D. G. Taiwo as interpreter of my
inquiries in Ila-Qrangun was indispensable, as were the discussions with Bisi
Komolafe of Ile-Igbo.
2
History of Religions 

(pop. 45,000). Transistor radios, a Shell petrol station, mosques
and churches have arrived. Even so it is the ways of the fathers
which continue to shape the quality and style of its life.
In traditional Yorubaland one lives within the ile, the "house"
or compound. Kinship is defined in terms of one's father. Sons
remain within the house of their father and share in the common
property of the lineage, participate in the craft or farming by
which the ile is supported, and bring wives from the lineages of
other towns and villages. Life in the compound is regulated by a
strict hierarchy of seniority, the authority shifting among the
clans within the compound with the eldest male member known as
the bale, the "father of the house." All others are known as the
"sons" or "daughters of the house." The larger social unit of the
compound, therefore, transcends in importance all smaller clan
and family units. The compound is thus the essential space in
terms of which one understands himself and his relation to other
persons, groups, and the world.
In the courtyard or in the roads outside the compound walls
young boys play soccer with a plastic bottle, sendingup shouts and
clouds of dust from the parched red laterite earth. Their sisters sit
with their mothers or grandmothers in the shade of the veranda,
repeating each move at the upright loom or copying the designs
their older sisters draw with feathers and cassava starch on sheets
of white poplin laid flat on the earthen floor creating the designs
on the adire eleko cloths. Others work beneath thatched shelters,
preparing indigo dye and learning the technique of dipping cloths
to achieve the rich blue shades of the wrappers worn by women in
the markets. On days when they are not tending their farms or
forge, the men gather on the veranda of the chief or in the room
of an elder to sip palm wine and engage in hours of conversation.
They talk about their crops, or share a story that has been passed
on from the palace or traveled from a neighboring town on market
day and debate at length, with aphorism and proverbial statement,
whatever issues it raises. Within the dark, cool inner chambers of
the compound children are born, the elderly find refuge, and
parents will be buried. There too one finds the shrines of the gods.
The Yoruba world abounds with gods, known in Yoruba as orisa.
A month does not pass that the annual festival of one or more
orisa is not celebrated; and since these festivals usually last for
1
3
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
two or more weeks, scarcely a day passes that drumming for an
oriya is not heard in one or more compounds. Even if one is not
participating in the ritual one cannot deny the sound of the drums,
their persistent, penetrating rhythms, or avoid the fact that daily
life is shaped by and understood in terms of the power and
presence of the origa. Add to this the Egungun and Elefon festivals
for the ancestors and heroes, the Oro and Igbefa festivals marking
theenew year, and one becomes aware of the fullness of Yoruba
ritual life. The Yoruba put the matter quite succinctly: "There are
401 oriya." A longer version, cited by Idowu, asserts:
Worship to the 400 divinities of the right hand; 

Worship to the 200 divinities of the left hand; 

Worship to the 460 divinities 

Who actually line up the road to heaven.l 

At the entrance of almost every compound of Ila-Orangun there
will be a small laterite rock protruding from the base of the wall
on the right of the passageway. It may have a bit of yam flour on
it or kola or have recently been moistened with palm oil. It is the
entrance shrine for Esu, who is often called the Yoruba "trickster"
god, but more appropriately referred to as the "messenger."
Within the compound, and depending upon the degree of puritanism
of its Islamic or Christian members, there will be numerous
orisa shrines. Some, as at Olorionisango's compound, are shrines of
importance for the entire community, places where the annual
festival is celebrated. Other shrines are tucked away in the recesses
of an inner room, reflecting the sacred world of an individual
worshiper. In Obajoko's compound there is a shrine for Osanyin,
orisa of medicinal herbs, another for orisa Oko, god of the farm,
and another in the open courtyard for Ogun, which, once the
annual rites for the god of iron have been performed, is left to
weather. As you leave Obajoko's compound and pass through the
market, a single piece of laterite rock will receive occasional
offerings to Esu and another pile of rocks will have added to it
each year a rock dripping with the blood of a dog sacrificed to
Ogun. Beyond the market is Oloriowo's compound where the
annual festival for orisa Obatala is held. Obatala is the creator and
fashioner of men's bodies. The doorway of a house in a neighboring
compound will have palm leaves hanging above it. It is the dwelling
of babalawoAgola, head of the Ifa diviner-priests, who worship
orisa Orunmila. The blacksmith's shed will have a shrine to Ogun.
E. Bglaji Idowu, Olodumare: God i n Yoruba Belief (London, 1962), p. 67.
4
History of Religions 

Other compounds will house shrines to Osun, the orisa of waters,
to Aro, the deity who aids the mothers of abiku, children born to
die, to Sopanna, the dreaded deity of smallpox; the number 401
begins to seem reasonable rather than facetious.
No two shrines are ever alike. Some are a remarkable assemblage
of ritual artifacts and offering receptacles for several orisa. On the
shrine of the chief priestess of Egu in Elemukan's compound there
is the "calabash of Esu" seated upon a pedestal. It is framed by
red and white cloths in front of which hang a number of Esu
carvings, one of which is a dance vestment with long strands of
cowrie shells hanging from the base of four small carvings. Below
the calabash of Esu are "orisa pots." Some receive offerings to
Oya and Osun. Others contain the medicines of the forest and the
stream. At the back of the shrine is a fragment of an Osanyin staff,
and on the wall hang the dance bracelets of Aro. On the Olorioni?ango
shrine, in addition to the ritual artifacts for the thunder
god, there are the artifacts and offeringpots of Oya, Osun, Ogun,
and Esu. And there are ibeji, propitiating the spirits of deceased
twins, who enjoy Sango's special protection.
One could continue to compound an already complex situation
with references to the multiple names for each of the orisa and the
abundance of myths that recite their friendships, intrigues,
marriages, and conflicts. But the problem for the inquirer into
orisa worship in traditional Yoruba religion is by now obvious.
Is it possible to discern an underlying structure of meaning which
may help make intelligible to us the cluster of sacred symbols that
constitute a particular shrine, and hopefully, the whole Yoruba
pantheon as expressed in the cult life of orisa worship in a particular
town, such as Ila-Orangun ? By "structure of meaning" I have
in mind Clifford Geertz's suggestion that sacred symbols provide a
vision of reality in its positive and negative aspects and assert that
the good for man is to live reali~tically.~
Others have attempted to discern the structure of meaning in
Yoruba orisa symbolism. I am especially indebted to three studies.
The social anthropologist, William Bascom, has written perceptively
on "The Sociological Role of the Yoruba Cult-Gr~up."~
His argument is that orisa worship is closely associated with
lineage. One worships the orisa of one's parents and, in the case of
married women, adopts the worship of the orisa of the husband
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), p. 130.
William Bascom, "The SociologicalRole of the Yoruba Cult-Group," Memoirs 

of the American Anthropological Society, no. 63 (January 1944). 

5
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
into whose compound she has moved. This was certainly the case
in Ila and helps account for the number, as well as the particular
configuration, of orisa symbols on individual shrines. However, as
Bascom recognizes, orisa worship is not always related to kinship
lines. A deity not associated with either of one's parents may
"struggle with" a person in dreams or speak through divination,
requiring the person to be a devotee. Or a god with whom there is
no lineage association may in response to a request for a child or
wealth or protection against witches ask for an annual offering.
E. B. Idowu, former Yoruba Professor of Religion at the
University of Ibadan, has argued that there are a relatively small
number of principal orisa (of which the host of others are local
variations) and that, according to Yoruba myth, the orisa, having
been brought forth by Olodumare, the High God, "are the
ministers of Olodumare." The orisa look after "the affairs of His
universe and (act)as intermediaries between Him and the world of
men. To each of them is assigned a department over which he is
ruler and governor." In addition, Idowu asserts that the orisa
manifest the High Goďs various "attributes" to men. Thus,
Sango and Ogun are "the wrath" of Olodumare. Orunmila is "the
wisdom" of the High God. And other orisa, such as Obatala and
Oduduwa, body forth his creative ~apacities.~
Idowu's study of the High God tradition in Yoruba thought is an
important corrective to the observations of many Western (and
missionary educated) students of Yoruba traditional religion. In
earlier accounts either the importance of the High God tradition
was diminished or denied in favor of the orisa and other spirits,
who seemed far more important in the ongoing experience of the
people and somehow incompatible with the idea of a High God. Or
the idea of the High God was interpreted as indicating a shift in
the cosmological mode of expression which reflected a development
in the historical sojourn of the Yoruba; a development, it was
thought, marking the inevitable end of orisa worship.
E. E. Evans-Pritchard, in his study of the religion of the
Nuer, pointed out that it was quite possible to hold within a single
world view, and without contradiction, the copresence of a supreme
being and a multitude of lesser spirits. As he put it: "It is a
question of the level, or situation, of thought rather than of
exclusive types of t h ~ u g h t . " ~Idowu would have better served his
subject if he had heeded more closely Evans-Pritcharďs observaIdowu,
pp. 57 ff.
E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford, 1940),p. 316.
6
History of Religions 

tion. One has the impression, when reading Olodumare: God in
Yoruba Belief, that the analysis of the High God tradition has
been developed along the lines of an ethical monotheism. Such an
approach requires that either the lesser spirits, the orisa, be denied
or subsumed within the definition of the High God, which, one
might argue, is another form of denial.
Another approach to the structuring of orisa cult organization
and ritual symbolism is that of the British anthropologist Peter
Morton-Williams. His thesis is that in their myths and rituals the
cults express the Yoruba view of the universe and the place of man
in it:
We must ...imagine the cosmos as made up of Sky and Earth unfolding
an island-like world. Beyond the limits of World, Sky and Earth may be
thought of as touching, since it is believed that certain spirits pass freely
between them. We are at once reminded of the dual relationship of the God
of Heaven and the Goddess of Earth symbolized by the two halves of the
whitened closed calabash among the south-westernYoruba, where they are
called Obatala and Oduduwa. ...
This model of the cosmos has, typically of Yoruba religious conceptions,
some relativity of scale in its application. It allows us to think of the whole
world of mankind as aiye (the habitable world) lying between Earth and
Sky; or to think of each Yoruba kingdom separately as aiye, its limits the
edges of its cultivated land, which in turn are surrounded by unfarmed land
merging into the domain ile (Earth)....We are dealing with the idea of the
state and of the cosmic order. ...6
This model of the cosmos, which parallels "the idea of the state
and of the cosmic order," Morton-Williams observes, may in fact
be "typical . ..of Yoruba religious conceptions." In some myths
the orisa "appear as royal children of the Supreme God, and in
others as his creations who stand to him rather as vassal kings
stand to their suzerain, the Alafin of Oyo in this world. They,
rather than. .. (Olodumare), control, or interfere with, relations
between Sky and World, and what goes on in the World, although
. . . (Olodumare) is the ultimate source of their p o ~ e r s . " ~
Thus, according to Morton-Williams, it would appear that
religious system follows social structure.
While indebted to the studies of Bascom, Idowu, and MortonWilliams,
the approach to Yoruba orisa symbolism that I shall
pursue is closerto the structuralistanalyses of Claude LBvi-Strauss,
Edmund Leach, and Victor T ~ r n e r . ~For it appears to me that
Peter Morton-Williams, "An Outline of the Cosmology and Cult Organization
of the Oyo Yoruba," Africa 34, no. 3 (1964):244.
Ibid., p. 245.
In his seminal essay, "The Structural Study of Myth," Claude LBvi-Strauss
argued that when one considers the universalist aspect of primitive mythology
7
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
mythical thought and ritual activity are essentially shaped by a
people's quest for meaning in the face of oppositions-of unwelcomed
contradictions-and that ritual proceeds to a resolution of
the emotional, intellectual, and moral tensions born of the
oppositions in much the same way as myth. Hence, my concern in
this paper is with the mediating significance of religious language,
and in particular its capacity to make tolerable the tensions in
human experience. My thesis is that, while the orisa in the
diversity and individuality of their persons and attributes may be
understood as providing an explanatory system and a means for
coping with human suffering in one of its specific modes, it is when
one considers the pantheon as a whole, as a total system, that one
discerns that the total assemblage of the gods, known through their
festivals and shrines, expresses in its totality a world view. And it is
in the reality of this world view that Yoruba experience is given
coherence and meaning and the tensions and dilemmas of life are
surmounted.
I1
There is a Yoruba creation myth that provides a useful point of
departure for our analysis.
When Olodumare decided that earth should be created, he
commissioned orisa Obatala to take a chain, a calabash of sand,
and a five-toed cock and descend with the aid of the chain to the
primordial waters and pour out the sand upon the waters. Then he
was to place the cock upon the sand and as the cock scratched the
sand, sending it flying, the continents of earth would take shape.
While on his way to fulfill his commission, Obatala accepted the
invitation of some other gods to join them in drinking palm wine.
Having overindulged, he fell asleep. Oduduwa knew about
there is the discovery of a hidden message within all the variations and contradictions
of a people's myths. And, when one examines closely the hidden message,
there is the additional discovery that the hidden message is concerned with the
resolution of unwelcomed contradictions. Hence, according to LBvi-Strauss,
"mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward
their resolution," and the movement is accomplished by a mediating structure of
images (Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke G. Schoepf
[New York, 19581, p. 221). Victor Turner has repeatedly shown in his studies of
Ndembu ritual symbolism that myth and ritual are "dialectically interdependent
institutions" and that one's basic unit for investigation must be "the total
'myth-rite complex'" (Forms of Symbolic Action [Seattle, 19691, p. 20). Edmund
Leach, following LBvi-Strauss and Turner, has shown how "symbols occur in sets
and that the meaning of particular symbols is to be found in the contrast with
other symbols rather than in the symbols as such" (Culture and Communication
[London, 19761, p. 59).
8
---------------------------------------------------------------
History of Religions 

Olodumare's commission to Obatala and, seeing Obatala asleep,
took the calabash of sand, the cock, and the chain and proceeded
to fulfill the High Goďs wishes. The place of creation was Ile If?.
When Obatala awoke, he discovered what Oduduwa had done and
was enraged at Oduduwa's claim of having authority over the
earth. A great struggle ensued, and finally Olodumare intervened
and granted to Oduduwa the authority of being the first king of
the Yoruba, the founder of political power. To Obatala he gave
the power of fashioning men's bodies.
In this distinction of creat,ivepowers a fundamental division in
human experience finds expression. Obatala expresses somatic
man, man as creature, as participant in the world of field, forest,
and stream. Oduduwa refers to moral man; man in his need and
capacity for polity, man as social being. So deeply felt is the
disparity between nature and polity that it may fairly be claimed
(and I shall try to support the claim) that it is one of the two
fundamental oppositions determining the structure of the orisa
ritual system. The other, as we shall see, is the equally basic life/
death contradiction. Together the naturelculture and lifeldeath
polarities provide the principal axes in terms of which orisa ritual
symbolism and cult organization can be understood as a mediating
structure of meaning; as a way of surmounting, at conscious and
unconscious levels, the contradictions and conflicts born of these
oppositions; as providing a means for the integration of experience,
corporate and personal, into a meaningful whole. To this end I
want to examine some of the myths, rites and artifacts of the orisa
cults in Ila-Orangun (see fig. 1).
Life 

Nature I Polity 

Qbatala (fashioner of bodies) Oduduwa (founder of kingship) 

Osun (deity of waters) 

Osanyin (deity of medicine) 

Oko (deity of the farm) Bango (deity of political power)
............................................................... 

Ogun (deity of the hunt) Ogun (deity of craftsmen)
Ogun (deity of warriors)
Qopanna (deity of smallpox)
~ d t h
FIG.1.-A "mapping" of the pantheon of the orisa
At the annual festival for Obatala in mid- or late July, Oyew~le
Akande, priest of Obatala in Ila, will be dressed in a white cloth
9
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
and a crown of white beads. The area of the eyes will be painted
white with a red circle drawn around each eye. His hair will be
freshly plaited in the fashion of a woman. He will put white beads
around his neck and a silver bracelet on his left wrist. To the sound
of the Obatala drums on the evening of the first day of the
festival he will sing the oriki of Obatala:
Obatala, the white Oba. 

He is the father of deep laughter. 

He is as white as the harmattan. 

Obatala changes blood into a child. 

The gentle God who causes deformity in children when he is angry. 

Obatala, like Olodumare, can kill a person. 

Obatala, Obatase, one with authority. 

Obatala, do not give me a hunchbacked child. 

Give me healthy children. 

During the night young male and female goats will be sacrificed to
Obatala, along with snails and kola. The devotees will feast, but
without the aid of palm wine, and they will dance to the igbin
drums throughout the night. On the second day, after sunset, the
priest will meet the Oba of Ila outside the palace gates and
together they will roast fresh yam, which will be placed in a bowl
and mixed with salt and palm oil. The priest will then carry the
food offering to the town gates, the market, and other important
places in the town, leaving at each spot a portion of the food and
offering prayers for the town. This yam will be the first that the
priest has seen, even though his compound is acrossfrom the king's
market where the new yams have been soldfor at least two months.
On the fourth day of the festival he will again go to the palace to
dance before the Orangun and receive a gift of money from his
highness. Throughout all the rites he will carry in his left hand a
bow and arrow sacred to Obatala for the warding off of evil.
The shrine of Obatala is never entered except at the time of the
annual festival. The walls are decorated with pictures of spotted
animals, one identified by the priest as a leopard (ekun), a few
dwarfish human figures, and a design identified as an @a's crown.
There is something playful, perhaps idyllic, about the scene, as
man and beast exist in the presence of the white ori~a.In front of
the drawings hang large gourds covered with a netting of cowrie
shells. These are the sere, the dance rattles, of Obatala. A large
white cloth frames this portion of the wall. On the floor bits of
food, snail shells, leaves, and bowls of cool water, drawn very early
in the morning from a spring, are placed at the foot of Obatala's
iron staff which leans against the wall, the top cradled in a white
10
History of Religions 

cloth. The day before the festival a young girl, who has not yet
experienced menstruation, will enter the shrine and scrub the
floor with yunyun grass and fresh water. The remnants of the
offerings of the year will be heaped upon those of previous years
in a loft above the shrine.
Note that in this description of rite and artifact there is an
emphasis on things white. Obatala is one of a group of oriea called
orisafunfun, "the orisa of the white cloth." The priesťs robes are
entirely white. On the occasion of the annual festival the sacred
drums of Obatala are rubbed with a heavy coating of white chalk
@fun).The offerings largely entail white substances: the water of
snails, yam, kola, shea butter, white pigeons and guinea fowls. The
goat, a herbivorous animal, must also be white.
In addition to the taboo on palm wine, an intoxicant that heats
the body, the devotee of Obatala is forbidden to eat the flesh of the
black rat (emon) and the leaves of a vegetable that has small
black berries (efo-odu). Blood has not yet issued from the young
girl who prepares the shrine. The only heat or color that intrudes
into the scene is in the roasted fresh yam cooked by the priest and
the Oba, which is seasoned and "cooled" (tutu)with salt and palm
oil, and the red circle drawn around the priesťs eyes at the time of
the annual festival and the red parrot feather worn when he makes
the weekly offering. These touches of heat and color may be
accounted for by remembering that Obatala is the power giving
birth and shape to men's bodies; and children, according to the
Yoruba, are born of the commingling of white semen with the red
blood of the vagina. Yet more than this is being expressed. As we
shall see, in Yoruba ritual symbolism there is an equivalence
between white and cool,red and heat; and these physical attributes
have moral connotations. For the present let me suggest that in
Obatala the dilemma of compromised creativity is portrayed.
There is an irrational element in our nature to which we yield
which compromisesour responsible acts or simply overwhelms our
intentions. All of the orisa were once humans and in their divinity
continue to experience the destruction or distortion that can
happen in the creative act. Even the faithful and gentle Obatala
cannot always resist temptation or suppress anger.
The drums for Obatala, through whose unchanging rhythms the
white orisa's presence will be felt at the annual festival, are of the
ibgin or upright type and are richly carved. The largest drum,
iya nla, is divided into two carved basreliefs,separated by a snake
biting its tail, a Yoruba image for eternity. In the top band there
11
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
is an oba with his crown and ceremonial staff. Behind the oba's
crown is a snaiľs shell, the offering most valued by Obatala. It is
clear that the royal figure is to be associated with Obatala, even
though it is not a depiction of the orisa. In front of the king is a
wife carrying a cock for sacrifice. From behind another wife cools
him with a fan. Also in the procession is a warrior on horseback
and another figurewho appears to be a hunter who has caught and
bound together his wife and her adulterous lover in the act of
intercourse. On the lower relief a priestess carrying a calabash on
her head and a priest holding a bow and arrow are followed in
procession by a warrior with a prisoner. Among the other figuresis
a hunchbacked man. A tortoise completes the iconography of iya
nla.
The second drum depicts a tall, slender figure dancing with a
ceremonial sword and two other dancing figures. On the opposite
side there is a carving of a highly stylized lizard. The third drum
repeats the oba figure of iya nla, although this time it is the royal
figurewho holds the bow and arrow in his left hand and an offering
of a kola nut in his right hand. Behind the king a woman holds the
sere, the sacred rattles of Obatala. On the opposite side there is a
hunting scene with a hunter shooting a wild pig and a dog leaping
upon a hare.
As in the myths, the carvings on the drums portray orisa
Obatala in his authority and power but also in his weakness in the
figure of the hunchback. On occasion the shaper of bodies will fail
in his task. His gentleness will be overcome by anger, his craftsmanship
overcome by wine; and he will fashion hunchbacks,
albinos, and the blind. Forbidding wine to his worshipers, the
penitent Obatala takes the crippled as his special concern and
resp~nsibility.~Thus, the world depicted on the drums, while
fruitful, is not a paradise. Women carry infants on their backs.
But as the beast leaps upon the weaker animal, so man kills the
beast, conquers his enemy, and returns home to discover his wife
in an adulterous relationship. Life has its opposition in death,
beauty of form in distortion and ugliness, human concord in
conflict.
Thereare three other orisa, which,along with Obatala, are called
"orisa of the white cloth." They are Osun, Osanyin, and Oko. The
In a private communication (August 24, 1976) Professor Barry Hallen notes
that in Ekiti district priests of Qbatala on occasion interpret the destructive acts
of the orha as signsof power, as remindersthat such things will happen if the orha
is not properlypropitiated.Theinfirmityof someworshipersof Qbatala is taken as
a sign of divine distinction.
History of Religions 

priests and priestesses of Osun and Osanyin also wear the white
cloth and present food offerings of light-colored grains, roots,
vegetables, bowls of cool water from streams, and the sacrifice of
only herbivorous animals. Taboo are animals killed by accident in
the forest or on the road, for these deities do not like the taste of
wanton destruction. (The Yoruba word is sako, which means flesh
that has been slashed, ripped, slaughtered.) As in the rites for
Obatala, the rites of the annual festivals for Osun and Osanyin
includean exchangeof gifts between the devotees and the Oba and
chiefs and the placing of portions of the offerings for Osun on the
shrines for Ogun and Esu in the marketplace.
Orisa Oko, along with Obatala, Osun, and Osanyin, shares the
title "Orisa of the white cloth." His emblem is the shining metal
staff standing in a whitened calabash. The top of the staff always
rests against a foldedwhite cloth. There are seven compoundsin Ila
with shrines housing an ppa orisa Oko. And when one adds to the
list the numerous shrines of the Alarere cult, a version of Oko
worship, which includes men among the devotees, the importance
of orisa Oko in the cult life of Ila is impressive.
At the weekly rite, as well as at the annual festivals of the god
of the farm, his priestess will sing:
Orka Oko, the hunter who became a farmer. 

Orisa Oko, giver of wealth, bestower of children. 

Origa Oko, whose home is Irawo; 

The place where the stars fell, 

The place of judgment.1° 

Orisa Oko is not only the deity of the priestesses. He is also their
lord and husband, for they wear his red and white marks upon
their foreheads. As with the other orisa funfun, things white, or of
the field, or herbivorous animals-including the antelope and the
ram as well as the goat-are preferred as offerings and sacrifices.
The snake, always a threat to the farmer, the dog, which is a beast
of prey, and flesh slaughtered for reasons other than sacrifice to the
orisa, are forbidden.
As I have noted, the oriki and myths speak of orisa Oko as the
hunter who became a farmer. One would therefore expect to find
associations between orisa Oko and the orisa of the hunters, orisa
Ogun. In Ila there is an interesting division of opinion on this
matter. The priestesses of the shining staff claimed that Oko's
closest friend was orisa Sango. But the male members of the
Alarere cult claimed that orisa Oko was still essentially a hunter
1 0 Efunwurni, priestess of orisa Oko, Qbajoko's compound, Ila-Qrangun.
13
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
whom orisa Ogun appointed to care for his farms. A story from the
Odu of Ifa told to me by the Ifa priest Ifatoogun of Ilobu tells of
Ogun's seduction of one of orisa Oko's wives while Oko was out of
town. Upon his return Oko discoveredthe treachery. Rather than
the titanic struggle expected by all the other orisa, Oko gave his
wife to Ogun, saying that there was no law against Ogun's actions.
However, henceforth there would be a law against the seduction
of a wife of orisa Oko. If anyone is caught in such an act, he shall
be killed like a dog for sacrifice.
These myths of allianceand antagonism between Oko and Ogun
are important. They refer to a marginal area in human experience,
the area in which one moves from the creative to the destructive,
from the sustaining of life to the taking of life, from the domestic
ordered existence of town and field to the pathless dangers of the
forest. At times the sustaining of life depends upon the taking of
life. Not only does the herbalist seek his healing medicines in the
forest, the hunter risks the terrors of the forest and willfully takes
the life of an animal to feed himself and his family. As he moves
away from town and farm he becomes a beast of prey, living on the
blood of others.
The disagreement between the priestesses of orisa Oko and the
male members of the Alarere cult over the relative importance of
Oko and Ogun reflects their different involvement in the marginal
world of agriculture and hunting, town and forest, as well as the
role of the women in the farming and marketing of crops and that
of the men in their association with the hunt as well as the farm.
There are other reasons why the men would identify more with
Ogun; but we shall touch on those matters later. It need only be
noted now that in contrast to the orisa of the white cloth the
favorite sacrifice of Ogun is the dog, a carnivorous beast, and his
offerings include hot foods, such as alligator pepper, roasted snails,
and roasted plantain.
It is in Sopanna, the orisa of smallpox and all other diseases
that fall upon a person with violence and destructive power, that
we have the antithesis of Obatala. Sopanna's power is wanton
destruction. His is the only cult whose devotees do not carry gifts
to the Oba and chiefs or send offerings to the market shrines of
Ogun and Esu. For he is a deity whose power is antithetical to
civilized life.
On the shrine to Sopanna at Obasinkin's compound there is a
remarkable assemblage of orisa emblems. In the far right corner
the iron staff of Obatala leans against the wall and a whitish
14
History of Religions 

calabash containing snaiľs shells rests at its foot. Immediately to
the left is a large terra-cotta pot on top of which is a calabash for
Osun. At the foot of the four central pots of Sopanna are fragments
of an Osanyin staff. The presence of the deities of the white cloth
should not now surprise us. Their cooling power is needed with this
god.
As in the festivals for other orisa, the first act is the preparing of
the sacred emblem. Water is brought from a nearby stream and
the leaves of six medicinal plants are crushed in it. It is used to
wash the surface of the pots of Sopanna, then rubbed upon the
bodies of the members of the household, and the remainder cast
upon the floors while the devotees pray:
Sopanna, protect us from the hot disease. 

Do not spoil our life. 

Protect our children. 

Bless us with money. 

Keep us safe that we may serve you next year. 

Bless us with health. 

Increase our children.ll 

Cold sand is brought from a stream bed and placed outside the
doors of the house. Yams will be brought from the farm, as will
plantain, beans, and corn for roasting, portions of which are given
as offerings since Sopanna likes hot food offerings. Roasted goaťs
flesh delights this deity. Palm wine will be poured into cups at the
foot of the emblems. Only the juice of snails will be poured over
the glowing,fiery imageto cool the heat of the orisa. Such offerings
and libations can be effective, since Sopanna is not "evil" in an
ontological sense. As antithetical as he may be to the person and
work of Obatala, Sopanna can also give children to the barren,
protect against witches, and stay the powers of illness and death.
Our study has been moving along the lifeldeath axis of orisa
symbolism as it pertains to man's experience of nature. And in this
sector of the pantheon the antithesis is clearly displayed in the
sharply contrasting figures of Obatala and Sopanna. Of considerable
importance is the fact that the link between the orisa who
gives shape to life and the one who destroys is provided, not by a
single figure, but rather by two interacting figures: orisa Oko, god
of ťhe farm, and orisa Ogun, god of the hunt. The interaction of
Oko and Ogun is expressed not only in the myths of alliance and
antagonism but also in what might be described as a mirroring
relationship of the imagery associated with each deity; and this
l1 Bello Binyo, Qbasinkin's compound, Ila-Qrangun.
15
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
conjunction seems to say something about the nature of culture
itself. Hunting and farming are acts of cultural achievement. As a
hunter, Ogun destroys flesh, but not with Ghe violence of wanton
destruction (sako). Like the farmer, the hunter masters the
destructive act to his own advantage. He kills selectively and
purposefully in order to live. The nature of the dog, the sacrifice
for Ogun, symbolizes this; for the dog is the carnivorous animal
which is domesticated. Orisa Oko is the hunter who became the
farmer. Here the food quest is bloodless. Oko is one of the orisa of
the white cloth. But his link with hunting is a reminder that
agriculture, like hunting, requires a relentless, but not wanton,
intervention into nature. Oko's sacrifice,the ram, is a herbivorous
animal, yet belligerent. In his horns the ram wears his teeth upon
his head. This juxtaposition or mirroring of images associatedwith
Oko and Ogun is illustrative of the means by which the orisa
worshiper's experienceis made coherent. That is, the "logic" of the
pantheon is conveyed by a number of continua-light and dark,
cool and hot, herbivorous and carnivorous-in terms of which the
oriy are located with respect to one another.
Furthermore, in the interaction of the imagery for orisa Oko
and orisa Ogun the dichotomy of life and death is mediated, that
is, the opposition is surmounted or, better, made morally acceptable.
The figures of Oko and Ogun suggest that death is essential
for life; and more, that this relationship is established when
culture is imposed on nature. Thus what appears as an intolerable
opposition in the contrasting figures of Obatala and Sopanna is
"softened," made understandable, by the roles of Oko and Ogun.
Both orisa are associated with food gathering; and food gathering
is one of the two main arenas wherein man experiencesthe meeting
of life and death and masters it to his own advanatage. The hunter
kills and the farmer harvests in order to live. Thus, the reality of
the lifeldeath contradiction is not hidden. Rather, in the imagery
of Oko and Ogun the contradiction is articulated and "resolved"
in terms of an equation: To live is to be engaged daily with death.
The other arena where life and death meet is that of polity.
There is peace and there is war, citizenship and slavery. Again, in
order to make such dichotomous experience intelligible and
tolerable a mediating structure is provided in the myth-ritual
complex. In the political arena three origa are important: Oduduwa,
Sango, and, again, Ogun.
Oduduwa has no shrine in Ila. Nevertheless, he is present and
prominent, for his face appears on the beaded crown of the Oba.
16
History of Religions 

Recall that it was Oduduwa who created the earth while Obatala
was sleeping from overindulgence. And it was Oduduwa whom
Olodumare empowered to rule over the earth. Thus, each year, at
Ile If?, the plaEe of creation and the home of all Yoruba, an ox is
sacrificedto Oduduwa, the first king of the Yoruba and the father
of all Yoruba ?bas. In Ila-Orangun it is the Oro festival that marks
the entrance of the new year.-~orsix nights before the festival
and on its first and last days, the drummers drum the names and
oriki of Oduduwa and of all other ?bas in the successionof kings of
Ila to the present Orangun. A widely accepted tradition refers to
the Qrangun of Ila as the fourth of the direct sons of Oduduwa.
Rather than an ox another herbivorous animal, the male goat is
sacrificed by the Oba and by every senior chief, with prayers for
peace and prosperity being offered by the Orangun as each of the
animals is killed.
War and its destruction of the political order essential to
civilized life is the antithesis of all that Oduduwa represents. It is
here that we meet Ogun, orisa of iron. The oriki mirevealing:
Silence! Silence!
Let no one talk; let no household utensil touch another.
We are here, let no one pound anything a t home.
Let no one grind anything.
Do not allow me to hear children crying.
Let everyone breastfeed her child.
On the day Ogun arrived from the mountain top, he wore glittering
dress and a cloth of blood.12
Ogun is a fierce warrior.
Ogun makes a great noise when he fights, his cudgels and knives are
so abundant.
On the day he fights the heat is intense, the heavens shake, people
are terrified and cry out.13
He was taken to Ponga; he destroyed Ponga.
He was taken to Ako-Ire; he ruined Ako-Ire. ...
Ogun of Ogboro eats dogs and we give him dogs.14
Like Sopanna, Ogun brings destruction, havoc, and terror into
the lives of men. And yet there is an important differencebetween
them. The destructive work of Ogun is~culturallylegitimated. To
be sure, warfare can involve acts of wanton destruction. There are
stories of Ogun's intoxication with the taste of blood in battle.
Such is his thirst that on occasion he kills his own followersas well
as the enemy. Nevertheless, war can also be the means for establaGeorge
E. Simpson, "Selected Yoruba, Rituds: 1964," Nigerian Journal of
Economic and Social Studies 7 , no. 3 (1965):319.
l3 Chief Elekahan, Elekahan's compound, Ila-Qrangun.
l4 Simpson, p. 319.
17
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
lishing political power and securing the stability and peace of
town or empire:
Rich-laden is his home, yet decked in palm fronds
He ventures forth, refuge of the down-trodden,
To rescue slaves he unleashed the judgment of war.
Because of the blind, plunged into forests
Of creative herbs, Bountiful One
Who stands bulwark to offsprings of the dead of heaven
Salutations, 0 lone being, who swims in rivers of blood.15
It is in this context that we must understand the importance of the
Ogun festival in Ila, for it is rivaled only by the Egungun festival
of the ancestors in importance and extent of public involvement.
The Ogun festival begins with the warrior chiefs (Ologun), carrying
swords and cudgelstied with palm fronds, processing to the
neighboring town of Yara. There a dog is sacrificedby being ripped
apart. A rock on which the blood of the sacrifice has been poured
is given to the warrior chiefs by the Ogun priests of Yara for the
Ogun market shrine in Ila. On their return, the Oba of Ila sacrifices
a dog in the samefashion at the shrine to Ogun oppositethe palace
gates. Again note the contrast with Sopanna. The devotees of
Sopanna do not go to the market or to the palace. But these
centers of civic life are precisely where the principal shrines of
Ogun are located in Ila.
There is another dimension to Ogun's significancefor the people
of Ila-Orangun:
The owner of all iron metals. 

He caused many a man to burn his penis. 

He caused many a woman to slash open her vagina. 

Ogun, who controls those who circumcize, feeds on snails. 

Ogun, who controls razors, feeds on hair. 

Ogun, who controls carvers, feeds on wood.16 

Cultural existence has its price, and Ogun is present where the
marks of communal identity are incised. Circumcision, facial
marks, haircutting are acts of violence against the person. And
yet these acts, bordering on death, are the acts of life,the marks of
culture, of social differentiation. The hoes and axes made by
blacksmiths for the farmers to clear the land and till the soil and
the adzes and chisels made for carvers to shape trays for the
Wple Soyinka, "The Fourth Stage," in The Morality of Art, ed. D. W.
Jefferson (New York, 1969), p. 120.
la Simpson, p. 319. I suspect that the word "burn" should read "cut" in the
second line, referring to the act of circumcision of the male, paralleling the reference
in the third line to the circumcision of the female. Professor Henry Drewal
called my attention to the fact that the Yoruba word "da" can mean either "cut"
or "burn," depending upon whether it is pronounced with a high or middle tone.
18
History of Religions 

marketplace and to sculpture veranda posts and doors for the
house and ritual artifacts for the shrine are the work of Ogun. It is
orisa Ogun who forges the instruments of culture, of civilized,
ordered existence. Thus, each year at the Ogun festival, Bello of
Ore's compound, even though he is a Muslim, sends his carving
tools to a shrine to Ogun and has them rubbed with the blood of
the dog that has been sacrificed.
There can be little doubt about the importance of Ogun worship
in expressingwhat is meaningful in the experienceof the people of
Ila. Ogun links past and present. It was his power that brought the
first settlers to Ila and it is he who has repeatedly aided the obas of
Ila in the defense of the town. More importantly, in Ogun worship
the interrelationship of nature and culture is expressed and the
interdependence of hunter, farmer, and craftsman is affirmed. The
worlds of the forest, the farm, and the town are brought together
in the myth-rite symbolismof the Ogun festival, and the people of
Ila are enabled to see a continuity, a meaningfulwlloleness in their
corporate life. It is this that is expressed in the oriki: "Ogun is the
orisa to whom all other orisa bow."
And yet Ogun cannot alone mediate the lifeldeath dichotomy
experienced in the body politic. There is another orisa who with
Ogun provides the mediating imagery.
The worship of orisa Sango was and is largely limited to that
portion of the Yoruba people whose towns were once part of the
old Oyo empire. Nevertheless, such is the fascination and power of
Sangothat he is by farthe best known of all Yoruba deities outside
of Yorubaland. Within the context of the cult life and ritual
symbolism of Ila-Orangun there is no mistaking the importance of
Sango worship. His shrines are numerous, and his emblems are
found on many of the shrines dedicated to other orisa. However,in
Ila he does not have the central position of importance that he has
in Oyo:
Shango, I prostrate to you every morning, 

Before I set out to do anything. 

The dog stays in the house of its master 

But it does not know his intentions. 

The sheep does not know the intentions 

Of the man who feeds it. 

We ourselves follow Shango 

Although we do not know his intentions. 

It is not easy to live in Shango's company. 

Rain beats the Egungun mask, because he cannot find shelter. 

He cries: 'Help me, dead people in heaven, help me!' 

But the rain cannot beat Shango. 

Cluster of Sacred Symbols
They say that fire kills water. 

He rides fire like a horse. 

Lightning-with what kind of cloth do you cover your body 2 

With the cloth of death. 

Shango is the death that drips to, to, to, 

Like indigo dye dripping from a cloth.17 

In the oriki Sango is portrayed as unpredictable, capricious,
self-serving, as one who "rides fire like a horse," who "takes by
force," who "does as he pleases," "who is the death that drips to,
to, to." He is also the giver of children, the one who imparts his
beauty to the woman with whom he sleeps. He is a source of
medicine. He wrinkles his nose at liars, reverses the fortunes of the
rich, strikes the one who is stupid. Lightning, the leopard, the
gorilla image his power, his energy, his potency.
Sango is the legendary fourth king of Oyo. He reigned for seven
turbulent years. His powers as a military and political leader were
widely acclaimed. But he was fascinated with magical powers as
well. On one occasion he inadvertently caused a thunderstorm to
be raised and lightning to strike his own palace. Many of Sango's
wives and children perished in the catastrophe. In sorrow and
repentance the king abdicated his throne, left his kingdom, and in
his despair hanged himself at Koso. His enemies cast scorn and
shame upon his name. But when a rash of storms destroyed parts
of the city of Oyo, Sango's former followers claimed that the
storms were the wrath of the king for the indignities to his name.
Sacrificeswere made to Sango and his followers cried "Oba ko so!"
"The king did not hang!"
Like the praise names, all of the stories concerning the deified
king turn on the theme of power: power as legitimate authority,
the capricious use of power, procreative power, destructive power,
magical power, medicinal power, and moral power.
The shrines for Sango are always impressive. The "place of
power" (we)is the bowl containing the thunderbolts of Sango
collected by the priests at houses struck by lightning and brought
to the shrine in the laba bags which hang on the wall at the back of
the shrine. In Ila the arugba Sango, the "bowl carrier of Sango," is
the carving most often found in the houses of Sango worshipers.
In the bowl are thunderbolts, bits of kola nut from weekly offerings,
and the dried blood of the ram from the sacrifice at the annual
festival.
The arugba is an extraordinary image. The thunderbolts, like
lightning, clearly convey the sudden, overwhelming, and seemingly
l7 H. Ullie Beier and B. Bgadamosi, Yoruba Poetry (Ibedan, 1959), p. 16.
20
History of Religions 

capricious power of Sango. Oriki sung at Olorionigango's compound
in Ila attest to this sense of dread and uncertainty about Sango's
power:
Sango kills without warning. 

After eating with the elder of the compound 

Sango kills his child at the gate. 

Sango is a troubled god, like a cloud full of rain.18 

The sexual imagery of the thunderbolts, the suggestion of
unrestrained libidinal power, has been noted by a number of
commentators. And certainly the female figure balancing Sango's
power upon her head invites an analysis in terms of both the
caprice and the creative experienced in human sexuality. Robert
Thompson and Pierre Verger call attention to an initiation rite in
the Sango cult in which the initiate must dance with a flaming pot
balanced on his head.lg Balancing an object on one's head, even a
flaming pot, is not an extraordinary feat among the Yoruba.
Nonetheless, the act of balancing as "a dramatic metaphor of the
assuagement of a dangerous force," as Thompson suggests, is
present in the arugba Sango. The power of Sango is a dangerous
force, just as the libidinal drive may prove dangerous to the
possibilities of creative sexual relationships or the arrogant use of
power to political leadership.
There is a well-known story about Sango's imprisonment of
Obatala. The white origa, weary from his travels and not knowing
that a magnificent horse he had come upon belonged to Sango,
mounted the animal and rode into town. Furious that anyone
would ride his steed, Sango imprisoned Obatala without listening
to the white orisa's account and apologies. Drought parched the
fields. Barrenness came upon the women. Children cried for food.
Hearing at last the pleas of his people, Sango released Obatala.
The white origa resumed his journey and fertility returned to the
land. If in Obatala's patient sufferingwe discern the "aesthetics of
the saint," as Wole Soyinka has aptly phrased it,20then in the
figure of Sango we have an image of the hubris which is present in
political power. The power of Sango must be carried with great
care. Indeed, the carrying of such a power upon one's head is
where the metaphor is to be located. Ori is the Yoruba word for
head and for one's personal destiny. It is one's ori, one's destiny,
l8 Bamibi Ojo, Olorionisango's compound, Ila-Qrangun.
l9 Pierre Verger, Notes sur le culte des Orisa et Vodun (Dakar, 1957),p. 305;
Robert F. Thompson, Black Gods and Kings (Los Angeles, 1971), p. 1213; and
African Art i n Motion (Los Angeles, 1974), pp. 84, 96.
ao Soyinka, p. 121.
21
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
as a worshiper of Sango, to carry, to bear the burden of Sango's
great power, a power that can create empires but which constantly
suffers the temptation to exceed its proper limits. And when it
does so, it destroys that which it has created.
The color symbolism of the ritual artifacts for Sango must be
noted. I cannot engage in a detailed analysis of color classification
in the ritual symbolism of the Yoruba, although by now my
comments should have begun to suggest the possibilities in such a
study. The polychrome patterning of white on red of most Sango
artifacts is not a matter of artistic whim, I am sure. It is too
uniform and too universal.
There is a story that on one occasion Ogun had taken a beautiful
woman as his prize in battle. Oduduwa demanded that Ogun
surrender the woman to him. Before doing so Ogun had intercourse
with her. Later, after sharing Oduduwa's mat, the woman gave
birth to Oranyan, whose body was half white and half dark or
reddish in color. According to Bascom, at the annual festival for
orisa Oranyan in Ile If? his followers paint one side of their faces
and bodies with chalk and the other with red camwood powder,21
Oranyan was the father of Sango. Like his father, Sango prefers
the ram as the sacrifice to be offered to him.
Once again we begin to see the mediatorial function of orisa
imagery within the ritual symbolism of the total cult life of Ila.
As the fourth Oba of Oyo, Sango is in the line of obas descending
from Oduduwa. He is one with those who bring political order.
With Ogun, Sango is remembered for his military valor and his
delight in the battle and the extension of the empire. The ram,
Sango's food, is a herbivorous animal like the ox or goat given to
Oduduwa. The ram is also a beast that delights in the fight, like
the dog of Ogun; yet it is not a carnivorous beast of prey. Furthermore,
white, the cool color, is associated with Oduduwa, and red,
the hot color,with Ogun. Sango's colors are the patterning of white
on a red background. As in the imagery of Oko and Ogun, so too
in the ritual symbolism of Sango and Ogun there is a mirroring
effect, a sharing of the qualities of the other, an interdependence
through which the lifeldeath opposition is softened, made acceptable,
domesticated. Ogun, as a warrior, a killer of men, aids in the
establishment of political order. And yet he cannot stand alone.
Another deity completes Ogun's identity here, just as orisa Oko
complemented Ogun in the context of the human quest for food.
21 William Bascom, The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria (New York, 1969),
p. 83.
History of Religions

Although the gods would have elected him to be king over them,
for his machete had cleared the way to earth for them, Ogun could
not provide political leadership. The mountaintop and the forest,
not the palace, were his dwelling places. His hammers, knives, and
fireforgethe instruments of culture; but another must use them. In
the realm of polity that isthe task of Sango.To live is to exist in an
ordered relationship with others. Man is a social being. Yet without
Ogun, Sango is helpless. For to live under a political order means
that blood must be shed and men must die. Once again, the equation
emerges: Death is essential to life. And, once again, the deities
establish a cultural matrix in which this is true.22
I11
The difficulty with any analysis of religious language, including
the present analysis of the structure of religious symbols, is that it
reifies and renders static that which is essentially active and dra22
A slightly different mapping of the pantheon of the orisa in Qyp, once the
center of a great Yoruba empire, of which Ila-Qrangun was an important border
town, suggests the extent to which the pantheon establishes a cultural matrix
related to particular political and social circumstances. This is made clear in a
comparison of the role of the Sango cult in Oyo and in Ile-Orangun as shown in
figure 2. Sango was the fourth king of Qyo and subsequently became the principal
Life Life
Nature Polity Nature Polity
Qbatala Oduduwa Qbatala
Oqun Osun
+"Qsanyin Qsanyin 

Oko -- Sango --------
------.. ----------
Ogun Ogun Q Y ~------------.-----------. OkO
Oen-------------------
o w
Sopanna Sopanna
Death Death
(Ila-Qrangun) @YO)
FIG.2
orisa of the kings of Qyo. His is the only orisa shrine in the king's palace. For Oyo,
Sango, the deified king, takes into himself all the elements of the culture, not only
the mediating of the opposition of Oduduwa, political order, and Ogun, socially
legitimated destruction. On the nature side of the schema the myths include Osun
among Sango's wives, and, like Osun, he too can bless women with children,
especially ibeji, who enjoy his protection. Another, and favorite, wife of Sango is
Qya, the goddess of the hunt and once wife to Ogun. I t is she who is felt in the
fierce winds that precede the thunder and lightning storms in which Sango displays
his power. Furthermore, Sango's fascination with magic powers can bring to the
earth havoc and ruin similar to the wanton destruction of Sopanna. Other
associations could be developed. The point is that in the ritual symbolism for
Sango the play of forces that shape the Qy? Yoruba social system is expressed,
just as Ogun symbolism provides the appropriate focus for the life-style of the
Yoruba of Ila-Qrangun.
23
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
matic. The phrase "mediating structures of images," which I used
at the outset of this discussion, places the emphasis upon the
logical system rather than on the psychological reality of ritual
symbolism. Meaningful experience depends upon ordering principles,
upon some logical construction. But reflection on such
matters is not where most people live. And even the few who do
engage in such reflection do not do so all of the time. As the word
"mediating" suggests, ritual symbolism is an activity, an engagement
of the worshiper with "reality." In the ritual action his
experience of the world, and of himself and his relationships to the
world, is refashioned and reoriented, and his life is given meaning.
Yet even this statement of the matter is too passive. In the ritual
process one receives only by doing; meaning is known only as one
performs the effective action. In oriya worship sacrifice is the
essential, the effecting act. Sacrifice is the mediating activity, and
as such it is the enactment of the mediating structure of images
that constitutes oriya ritual symbolism.That is, it is the enactment
of the death which is essential to life.
There is a Yoruba saying: "Though the offering is difficult,it is
not worse than death."23And, as Bascom notes, in the Ifa corpus
"the greatest number of verses are concerned with death, either
directly or by implicati~n."~~Sacrifice,ebp, has to do with death,
the avoidanceof death, and with experiencesassociatedwith death,
such as loss, disease, famine, sterility, isolation, poverty:
Ifa says that Death is now ready to kill
the person; but if he can make plenty of
sacrSce, he will wriggle out of danger.
..."Exchange, exchange" the Ifa priest
Of the household of Elepe
Cast Ifa for Elepe.
He was told to exchange an animal
For his life on account of Death.25
As Lienhardt noted in his study of Dinka sacrificial rites,
sacrifice is essentially the conversion of a situation of death, or
potential death in any of its manifestations, into a situation of
life.26Hence the underlying desire in every sacrificial rite is the
desire for life, whether expressed as health, children, wealth,
wives, or social status. Every sacrifice is an anticipation of the
23 R. C. Abraham, Dictionary of Modern Yoruba (London, 1958),p. 172.
24 William Bascom, Ifa Divination (Bloomington,Ind., 1969),p. 73.
25 W ~ l eAbimbola, "An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus" (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Lagos, 1970).
26 Godfrey Lienhardt, Divinity and Ezperience: The Religion of the Dinka
(Oxford, 1961), pp. 29697.
24
History of Religions 

death to come and an affirmation of the value of life. As such it is
an expression of man's temporal condition, his existence in the
midst of the interrelated contraries of life and death. But every
sacrificeis also the conversion or reversal of the situation of death
into life.
Among the orisa it is Esu, the messenger of the gods and the
bearer of sacrifice, whose special power it is to effect the transformation
of the death of the sacrificial victim into life for the
sacrifi~er.~~For the Yoruba the sexual metaphor is expressive of
this power. A story in the Odu of Ifa tells of the chaos and death
that threatened the affairs of men when the jealousy of Osun, the
leader of the ancestral mothers, rendered the sixteen male orisa
impotent because they had excluded her from their assembly.
Orunmila cast Ifa and discerned in the figure Odu Osetua the
necessity of taking sacrifices to Olodumare, the High God. To all
but one the door of heaven was closed. Only to the child Esu, once
born of Osun and the male orisa, was the door of heaven open.
When he carried the sacrifices,
Ase spread and expanded on earth; 

Semen became child, 

Men on sick beds got up, 

All the world became pleasant. 

I t became powerful. 

Fresh crops were brought from farm. 

Yam developed. 

Maize matured. 

Rain was falling. 

All the rivers were flooded. 

Everybody was happy.28 

Sexual vitality, while making male and female aware of their
radical difference, is the mediating power which overcomes the
opposition. It is a gracious power which cannot be presumed
upon. The man must give of his semen, the woman of herself in
childbirth; each must die in a very "real" sense, if life is to be
sustained. Those who do not honor such a power will know it in all
its mischievous, libidinal energy. Desires will be frustrated and
fortunes reversed. But to those who acknowledge its affecting
presence the gifts of life will be given. Such is the power of Esu, of
sacrifice,of the ritual process. I t is the effective action which gives
see, creative power, to mankind.
27 John Pemberton 111, "Eshu Elegba: The Yoruba Trickster God," African
Arts 9, no. 1 (October 1975): 2CL27, 66-70, 90-91.
28 Babalawo Ifatoogun, quoted in Juana E. and Descoredes M. dos Santos,
"Esu Bara Laroye" (unpublished monograph, Institute of African Studies,
University of Ibadan, 1971), p. 80.
25
Cluster of Sacred Symbols
One never experiences such power in a general way. It is
always through the orisa. And, as we have noted, the tastes, the
demands, and the powers of the gods are as individualized as their
personalities. Obatala desires the snail, Sango the ram, Ogun the
dog. When the devotee offers the sacrificial animal, he will touch
his head with the object, make the sacrifice, and sprinkle the juice
or the blood, the life substance, of the victim on the emblem of the
orisa. Thus, in the sacrificial act the personal destiny (ori) of the
worshiper is linked to the power of the orisa in all its creative and
problematic potentiality. To know Ogun's power is to know the
strength of the warrior, or the skill of the hunter and the craftsman,
but at the risk of being intoxicated by the taste of blood, of
knowing destruction in the act of creation. In the "humanity of the
gods"29 the cosmic struggle is brought to earth, shaping man's
understanding of himself.
Rarely is it only one orisa who makes claims upon a person. Ogun
or Sango or Osun may dominate one's life, shape one's perception
of self and world, but other orisa will have their artifacts on the
shrine, their claims and influence upon one's life. As the Yoruba
dancer must respond to the multiple rhythms of the drums, so
the soul attentive to the powers of the orisa must somehow
respond to their diverse claims. The complexity of response may
overwhelm one. But as in the ability of the dancer to be conscious
of and respond to every instrument of the orchestra, so in sacrificing
to all the orisa who call, the worshiper (olusin,"he who
serves") can know the richness of life amid its complexity and can
achieve balance, "superior poise," "coolness" amid the contrarities
of life.30
IV
I began this essay with references to "modern" Nigeria but moved
quickly to the ancient tradition of orisa worship as it continues to
shape the lives of many Yoruba, certainly the world view of the
people of Ila-Orangun. As a concluding postscript, I want to
return to modern Nigeria and address briefly the following
question. Can orisa ritual symbolism continue to provide the social
and psychological solidarity in a situation of advances in technology,
increasing division of labor, and the extension of an
organic solidarity provided by nation, corporation, university,
trade union, and other Western forms of social organization ?
28 Soyinka, p. 122. 

30 Thompson, African Art in Motion, p. 84. 

History of Religions 

In a perceptive essay entitled "The Fourth Stage," Wole
Soyinka, the Yoruba playwright and social critic, refers to Ogun
as-"the fist actor, . ..first suffering deity, first creative energy,
the first darer and conqueror of tran~ition."~~For Soyinka the
cosmic image is the "abyss," the "gulf," which describes reality
for the Yoruba:
On the arena of the living when man is stripped of excrescences, when
disasters and conflicts (the material of drama) have crushed and robbed
him of self-consciousnessand pretensions, he stands in present reality at the
spiritual edge of this gulf, he has nothing left in physical existence which
successfully impresses upon his spiritual and psychic perception-it is at
such moments that transitional memory takes over and intimations rack
him of that intense parallel of his progress through the gulf of transition, of
the dissolutions of his self and his struggle and triumph over subsumation
through the agency of will. It is this experience that the modern tragic
dramatist recreates through the medium of physical contemporary action,
reflecting emotions of the fist active battle of the will through the abyss of
dissolution. Ogun is the first actor in that battle, and Yoruba tragic drama
is the re-enactment of the cosmic conflict.32
To be sure, Soyinka has found in Ogun, "the first actor," "the
revolutionary spirit,"33a warrant for his work and life. But he has
acutely discerned the motifs of Ogun worship: conflict, struggle,
the exercise of will, creativeness paying the price of destructiveness.
And as a dramatist, he comes close to discerning the significance
of ritual as enactment. "Acting," he writes, "is . . .a
contradiction of the tragic spirit, yet it is also its natural complement.
To act, the Promethean instinct of rebellion, channels
anguish into creative purpose which releases man from a totally
destructive despair. . . . "34 The votary, the possessed priest of
Ogun, reaching "out beyond the realm of nothingness," in spite of
"ritualistic earthing," is the "tragic victim," according to
S ~ y i n k a . ~ ~
People have alwaysrecast the religious symbolsof their heritage
in accordance with the experience of their own day and age.
Soyinka's world is larger than Ila-Orangun. The cosmic calabash
is broken. An abyss confronts him. The medicinal herbs of
Osanyin, the harvest of Oko, even the political order of Oduduwa,
speak less to Soyinka than to the people of Ila. Forest, farm, and
traditional political structures no longer shape Soyinka's experience.
Obatala's suffering is of more interest to him than the white
31 Soyinka, p. 123. 

32 Ibid., p. 126. 

33 Ibid., p. 128. 

34 Ibid., p. 123. 

35 Ibid. 

Cluster of Sacred Symbols
orisa's power to fashion bodies. And Olodumare, the giver of
personal destiny, seems totally absent. Only Ogun remains with
the power to shape the religious imagination. Without Olodumare
and the other orisa Ogun takes on a new visage and so do man's
enactments of the life of the god and, hence, man's understanding
of himself. A tragic vision takes the place of an ordered universe.
The alienated self replaces the self as a participant, and the votary
is disengaged from the ritually defined space and time of the
festival. Theater replaces ritual, acting replaces enactment.
We have not moved as far from our subject as might appear to
be the case. Ogun, Obatala, and Sango are a cluster of sacred
symbols that in some measure still inform Soyinka's world of
experience as the artifacts of the orisa on the shrines of Ila shape
the perception of reality of their devotees. The "sacredness" of the
orisa symbolsfor both the university playwright and the traditional
devotee is in their power to give a meaningful form to Yoruba
experience; for they both belong to a social and moral world.
And so the myths and rituals of Ogun grow; for, the contradiction
of life and death being real, the myth-rite complex can never
finally overcome the contradiction. And it will continue to grow,
as LBvi-Straussobserves, "until the intellectual impulse which has
produced it is exhausted."36 To be sure, LBvi-Strauss is giving a
cerebral answer to the problem of the nature of myth and ritual.
It is an important answer. But I have tried to suggest that in the
myth and ritual response of the traditional Yoruba to the fundameiital
contradiction of life and death there is both an acknowledgment
of the contradiction and an affirmation of courage, not
resignation, in the face of the contradiction. Sacrifice, ebo, is at
once the enactment and the surmounting of the contradiction.
Life and death are discerned in their equivalence, that is, in their
relationship as opposites and in their essential interaction.
Amherst College
36 L6vi-Strauss,Stmtural Anthropology, p. 229.
You have printed the following article:
A Cluster of Sacred Symbols: Ori#a Worship among the Igbomina Yoruba of Ila-#rangun
J. Pemberton III
History of Religions, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Aug., 1977), pp. 1-28.
Stable URL:
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[Footnotes]
27
Eshu-Elegba: The Yoruba Trickster God
John Pemberton
African Arts, Vol. 9, No. 1. (Oct., 1975), pp. 20-27+66-70+90-92.
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