A NOTE ON THE YORUBA ORI SACULTS

Peter McKenzie

In terms of the history of religions, I see GeoffreyParrinder's achievement as going a long way towards correctingthe tendency to see the subject largely in terms of Asia andEurope, East and West, by adding the African continent andso the remaining North-South quadrants . The point has beenlargely taken (1), I believe, despite the publication in theUSA last year of another Religions East and West (2) with asection labelled 'Primitive Religions' for what does not seemto fit this schema .

Not only was it immensely valuable to correct and fillout the scope of the history of religions, but, I believe, thestudy of African religion, lacking as it does the texts ofAsian and Near Eastern Religions, forces the student ofreligions, in a special way, to leave his own literate worldbehind in trying to enter a religious cosmology of a muchmore flexible and fluid kind, governed only by oral traditionswhich are at best elusive and protean, in their sensitivityto contemporary events and needs .

It is not my intention to try to see the study ofAfrican religions in any kind of opposition to that ofEastern religions . To attempt this would be no service toour subject and no recognition of the way in which ProfessorParrinder has held both directions together in his own lifework .

Honouring the BAHR's former President gives us a timelyopportunity to see all our present work in the study of religionagainst a sombre and disturbing background of threatened and

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actual decline in our field, both in this country and elsewhere .Each of us has been touched by the 'death of a thousand cuts'in one way or another . Suffice it to say that in my own localarea, the number of full-time staff at the University,Polytechnic and Colleges, engaged in religious studies, hasfallen in recent years from thirteen to four - student interestremaining much as before . Equally disturbing has been thefall in standards, resulting therefrom, which no-one caresto admit . If the aim is to compel reorganization, there maysoon be no one left to reorganize .

If we believe the experience of going out of ourselvesby entering into other religious world views to be an essentialelement in developing maturity in today's world (3), then wemust seize every opportunity to resist together the steadyerosion of that which has been built up over past years .Recalling what Professor Parrinder has achieved for the wholefield of the history of religions, and in particular for thefield of African religions, can serve as some kind ofrevitalization, a renewal, a mutual strengthening duringdesperate times .

I should like to try to illustrate these points by abrief excursion into the world of West African religion . Tocollect the material for what follows I had to go no furtherthan London - where the Church Missionary Society archivesfor West Africa were kept - or Birmingham where they now aresituated . It is hoped to offer a few historical footnoteson the Yoruba drisa cults from the period 1846-79, to remindus of the fascinating world which Professor Parrinderdescribed and interpreted so well . If there is anything whichstrikes the Western student of Yoruba religion it is the cultof the drisa, the deities, divinities, numina, hierophanies -the terms could be multiplied, without ever comprehending theextraordinary diversity of these divine beings or entities .

The presence of Yoruba catechists and 'native pastors'among the olorisa or followers of the orisa, led the latterto form judgements about their own feelings and attitudestowards the drisa, particularly in the face of the challengewhich the catechists' own position represented . One womandescribed brisa-worship as 'a sweet thing' . Others shed tearswhen images of their drisa were lost in the periodic fires .An Ibadan chief sent Muslims away declaring that the drisawere 'Allah' for him and none else (CA2/019 Jnl . 20/9/71) .William Allen, an Ibadan catechist, came across a womanhappily addressing a group of men and women 'in honour ofher brisa' . Known as 'a true priestess' when presentingherself at the gate of a town, she was never asked to pay asingle cowrie by way of toll (CA2/019 Jnl . 5/2/73) .

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Naturally, the relationship of the orisa to the sky deityOlddumare or 016run was often discussed since the latter wasparticularly claimed by Christian and by Muslim alike . Thereseems to have been a wide diversity in the views expressed .One young man told Daniel Coker, 'Idols /I .e . bris] are notseen, they are representatives of invisible beings - Youworship LOldrun], do you see him?' (CA2/028 Jnl . 23/3/77) .Many thought of the brisk in terms of procreation . They wereappointed by 016run as 'his agents in creating and formingchildren in the womb' (CA2/067 Jnl . 7/10/49) . To Thomas Kinga woman declared roundly : 'By Sango I was begotten and byLakijena I was brought forth and them will I serve' (CA2/061Jnl . 6/10/55) . Another woman (also in Thomas King's presence„in Abeokuta in 1852) sang praises to Ogun, 'founder of allthings' (ibid ., 9/5/52) . The same year a chief declared toJames White in Lagos, 'Ifa made us and therefore we pray tohim' (CA2/087 Jnl . 26/5/52) . But what of Olddumare/Oldrun?Sometimes the relationship was seen in terms of the creationmyth . Man was created in a shapeless form . Orisa-filamade the features and Oldrun breathed life into the form . Or,again : Oldrun gave us our body but the Orisa gave us the face,eyes and ears . In the ritual process there was muchflexibility as between the powers of 016run and the Orisa .The rites of the orisa were approved by Olddumare as a rightway of serving him, one man told James Barber in Ibadan in1855 (CA2/021 Jnl . 4/4/55) . A little earlier James White wasreporting in Lagos that Sango women were requesting children'from the Deity' . They pray to 016run to grant children,he added, and also to Sango 'not to /old back God fromgiving' (CA2/087 Jnl . 2/7/52) . When the question was put,they were usually prepared to acknowledge the superiority ofOldrun, but the ora were quite indispensable (ibid .,25/12/55) . One woman, on being told about 'the Lord's Day',replied that she was in favour of a day for 016run providedthat the brisa could be worshipped on the other days of theweek (CA2/023 Jnl . 25/9/57) . Even in the world to comejudgement is to be meted out by an brisa, in this case Ifa,according to his followers in Abeokuta in 1859 (CA2/018 Jnl .19/9/59) . However, in Ibadan four years earlier, a Babalawo,Ifa priest, was interpreting the state of hostilities in whichthe city was becoming embroiled, in terms of a complicatedarrangement of divine powers : Oldrun, he said, opened thedoor of heaven to Esu and Ogun (two powerful, unpredictableand aggressive brisi) and sent them down to earth to executehis vengeance on men upon the earth for their disobedience .Unless OlOrun/OlOdOmare should call back 9su and Ogun, warwould not cease . However, it was not the 'pleasure' of theother ar'ssa that the war should continue (CA2/021 Jnl .14/1/55) .

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One of the fascinating questions with regard to thebris'a, as indeed with the phenomenological category of deities,is how an 'orisa, or deity, forms itself (4) . On this subject,James White, who spent the whole of our period in Badagry,Lagos and especially Otta, was inclined to interpret the bris`ain terms of pure euhemerism. They were human beings whoacquired fame during their lives and were deified after death(CA2/087 Jnl . 23/10/73) . There is also some support for thisview, although in modified form, from present scholars (5),but our particular evidence suggests otherwise . An 'orisa canform itself from some small hierophany, after which it tendsto grow . William Allen of Oke Arcmg, Ibadan, saw some women,while going to their farms, place 'knots of grass on a stonebehind the city wall' . He asked them about the meaning oftheir action and received the reply : It is to preventsickness and death from entering the town . Then they added :'It is an 'orisa which has also given us children' . As far asthe catechist could ascertain, this hierophany had appearedfirst to children who, whenever they were late in returninghome, made a knot of grass and placed it on the stone . Itwould intercede for them with their parents, just like a majororisa such as Ifa or ~$u, and they would escape punishment(CA2/019 Jnl . 30/8/73) .

We come even closer than this to the birth of an 'orisain Abeokuta some years earlier . William Allen learns thatpeople in his district of Ajemo are going in groups to offersacrifice to a newly revealed orisa . This time the bris'a

manifested itself in and through a large rock about 50 feetaround . It had become exposed by people digging clay tobuild houses until it began to overhang the clay pit where,after the rains, people could go to wash . One night, afterchildren had been playing in the pool by day, the rockcollapsed onto the pit completely covering it . A woman criedout: drisg ni, bri

n1 - 'It is an bra . ! ' Then she addedby way of schematizing or rationalizing the numinous, 'It isa motherly one .' So the brisa had been disclosed in itsessential form of tremendum and fascinosum . And the 'motherlyrock' representative of 'invisible being' became the focalpoint for sacrificial offerings (CA2/018 Jnl . 15/5/59) .

These orisa may seem homely beside the great andpowerful deities : hsu for Otta or Gbuku for Igbessa, Ori!~aIroko, the tree deity of Ogudu, South of Otta, and others .(CA2/087 Jnl . 23/5/55, 18/2/62 and 17/12/62) . There was alsothe dreaded Orisa Owo, the river deity able to divine andpunish witches (ibid., 5/3/65) ; further discussion of thesemay be left until some later time . We have, I believe andhope, said enough to convey something of the rewards

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experienced by those of us who, coming into the Ibadan heritageof Geoffrey Parrinder, were attracted into studying religionin West Africa .

NOTES

1 See Chapter 1 of History of Religions, Proceedings of the13th Congress IAHR, Lancaster, 1975, ed . Michael Pye andPeter McKenzie, Leicester 1980 .

2 Ward J . Fellows ; Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1979 .3 See Jacob Neusner, 'Stranger at Home : The task of religious

studies', inaugural lecture of the Dept of Religious Studies,Arizona State University, October 1979 .

4 See A. Brelich, 'Comment se forme un dieu?', in Proceedingsof the 12th Congress IAHR, Stockholm 1970, ed . C . J .Bleeker et al ., Brill 1975, p . 136f .

5 See J . 0. Awolalu, e .g., in Orita 2, 2 (1968), pp . 79-89 .

PETER McKENZIE is Senior Lecturer and Head in the Dept ofReligion at the University of Leicester . He is editor of theLeicester Studies in Religion and co-editor of History ofReligions, Proceedings of the 13th Congress IAHR, Lancaster1975 .

Dr Peter McKenzie, Dept of Religion, University of Leicester,University Road, Leicester LEI 7RH .