Itutu: Transformation, Rupture and Repair

Babalú-Ayé does not play a formal ritual role in the itutu, the funeral ceremony for those oricha priests that have passed away. However many elders contend that he delivers the body of the dead person to the cemetery on a cart, and so he is always strongly linked to death. Given the recent passing of friends, I have seen several itutus lately, and like most ceremonies in the religion, they invite reflection.

The itutu brings transformation, as the deceased moves from the world of the living to the world of the dead. Essentials from the priest’s initiation are placed in an open gourd on the floor within the egun altar. We sing oro egun, the nine songs to praise and move the ancestors. For first time, we name the spirit of our departed colleague as part of the invocation, and we sing to them as an egun. We also feed the new spirit with a bird. For those of us who regularly honor the ancestors, their presence is constant, but we never lose track of the fact that we are living on Earth and they are living in Heaven. The gourd contains many of the things placed on the head at the time of initiation, and by placing those things with the ancestors, we are helping to direct the spirit from Earth toward Heaven. It is chilling and unforgettable to stand before the ancestor altar and call the name of a loved one who has recently died. The songs we sing are full with the gravity of grief.  The process cuts through denial, and the reality of loss begins to set in. 

The itutu brings rupture. As we tend the spirit of the departed, we pull apart each of her oricha necklaces over the gourd. Because the strings stretch then snap suddenly, the beads usually scatter across the floor. What was whole, organized, and beautiful is now broken, chaotic, and formless. After the orichas speak their will, some depart with the deceased, and we must break their vessels once and for all. The presiding priest passes from one oricha to the next, striking their vessels with a hammer. The sound of shattering porcelain sends shivers through those in attendance. After all of this, it is impossible to deny that life for our fallen friend and for us has been shattered in some way.

The itutu brings continuity. Some of the orichas stay with blood family and ritual relatives. The elders teach that these inherited orichas stay because they want to guide and protect those left behind when the priest or priestess passes. We do not work these orichas but simply tend to them with simple offerings and candles. In tending them, we quite literally tend the memory of the egun from whom they came. For those of us already in the religion, these inherited orichas become reminders of the people who have passed. We cherish them as containers of the love that exists between us and the egun from whom they came.

The itutu brings new knowledge and new relationships. For blood relatives who are not in the tradition, inheriting an oricha is often the moment when they actually begin to learn about the religion in more detail.  The inherited orichas require additional ceremonies like “removing the tears” (quitar las lágrimas), and the process often creates new relationships with people in the religious community. Similarly those who inherit an oricha need to learn how to greet and tend the oricha, and this often opens the door to a deeper engagement with the orichas. Again many family members adore their inherited oricha and experience a deep sense of connection and continuity with the ancestor who left the oricha to them. (Sadly some family members resist the gift of this inheritance, because they perceive it as too great a responsibility or a burden.)

The itutu brings closure. The elders teach that the stones that become the core of oricha altars must come from a river, from the flowing waters of life. Similarly the new initiate visits the river and makes an offering to mark the beginning of her priesthood. In itutu, the gourd from the egun altar and the orichas who want to depart return to the river.  The cool water refreshes them, as they leave this world, but there is a deeper lesson here: We are born from the river of life, and the river of life carries us away in the end.

Maferefún Egun. Maferefún Ará Onú. Maferefún Oyá-Yansá.

Babalú's Authority

As a dear friend struggles with debilitating illness, I remember a truth I have recognized before: as long as we are incarnated, as long as our spirits reside in these human bodies, we are subject to the authority of Babalú-Ayé.

The Many Roads of Babalú-Ayé: Suvinengué

In both Cuba and Benin, the road of Babalú-Ayé known as Suvinengué is strongly associated with the vulture.  His name can be translated as “vulture-child of Dasoyi.”  The elders in Cuba say that Suvinengué is a vulture with the head of human being, and in Benin they also say he is bald and gray, like the vulture.  Some Dahomean elders say Suvinengué flies from Earth up to Heaven carrying messages from human mouths to God´s ears. They say he indicates whether an offering has been accepted or not. When an offering is left outside and then disappears overnight, it is thought that Suvinengué has taken it to the deity it was intended for.  Still others say simply, “He eats the dead.”

This link between Babalú and the ancestors is quite profound, and other roads of the deity revolve around this link. Afimaye is said to seek out Arará priests at the hour of their deaths, but in Benin, he is seen as the overseer of a collective workforce made up of the spirits of the dead. Similarly, the kiti is a place where the spirits who are children of the deity gather to eat.

Obviously there is a strong link between the dead and vultures. As carrion-eaters, vultures circling in the sky are a sign of the impending death of some poor creature below. When vultures eat, they often end up covered with the blood and tissue of the dead animal. The vulture is the largest raptor in Cuba and as such is often seen as the dominant animal in the sky. So powerful is this association that generals and high-ranking state officials in Cuba are still called mayimbes, meaning  “vultures” in the Congo language spoken on the island.

In Cuba, the elders put boniato to Suvinengué, and often decorate it with five vulture feathers. Suvinengué takes white beads with blue stripes and jet beads as accents.

It is interesting to note that there is a road of Ochún called Ibú Ikolé that also takes the form of a vulture, and is famed for carrying messages from Earth to Olodumare in Heaven.

(References on Benin can be found in Herskovits’ Dahomey, Volume 2, page 140.)

Dasoyí, the Father of Babalú-Ayé

Perhaps the most common road of Babalú-Ayé in Cuba is Dasoyí, who is also known as Asoyí, and Dasojí Kajua. People commonly refer to him as the father of Babalú-Ayé, and really this just suggests his authority and generative power. Together with Nanú, the mother of Babalú, he brought forth all the other roads of the Earth deity. He is commonly imagined reclining against the trunk of a ceiba tree surrounded by his children.  

In some very traditional houses, Dasoyí can be seen resting on a divination tray supported by four skulls. The tray symbolizes the Earth, and seated on top of it, Dasoyí rules the world. The skulls tie him to the ancestors, who are buried in the Earth he rules, and they could stand for the generic dead of the four cardinal directions. However, they also allude to a time when he placed his throne on the skulls of the four vanquished kings of a legendary place called Igoroto. The skulls could represent these kings or royals from the Dahomean dynasty, who banished the Earth deities from the capital city because they could brook no competition for their authority.

Dasoyí sometimes takes a cane because of his age, though I have never seen this. Some lineages mark his ritual broom with a single red parrot to show his authority. He usually takes the caramel-colored beads that Cubans call matipó. After seventeen of these, he takes one jet bead.

The Sickened Speech of Babalú-Ayé

In 1992, when I first visited Cuba, an elder told me a simple story about the ritual broom of Babalú-Ayé that is usually called the já. He explained that when Babalú was wandering the Earth, at some point he was so sick that he could no longer speak. In the laconic Cuban style, he said, “So that’s why Babalú-Ayé has 16 cowries sewn to his já and why he does not speak through the shells.”  Throughout the stories of Babalú, speech is contested and fraught with difficulty. Common to all aspects of Lucumí religion, different accounts provide explanations and justifications for who has the authority to speak for Babalú-Ayé and in what contexts. These accounts are of intense relevance because speech is usually homologous with knowledge in the religion, and knowledge is perhaps the most potent currency that moves between people.

The classic tale from the sign Ojuani-Odí explains how Babalú-Ayé united with Orula. No one could stop Death except Orula, and so Babalú-Ayé made a long-term alliance with him. From that point forward, Babalú-Ayé is said to have only spoken through Orula and the Ifá divination he governs. 

There is a story in the sign Irete-Oyeku that also links the shells on the já to the troubled nature of Babalú’s speech. The story offers the classic tale of his exile: Babalú did not play by the rules, and so the Lucumí expelled him.  But this story explicitly states that when the Lucumí exiled Babalú, they also forbade him to speak through the shells, which were thereafter sewn to his já as a reminder of this taboo. It seems they sought to silence him and thereby limit the impact of the ruptures he causes and suffering they imply.

For contrast, it is interesting to note that there is another story that explains the origin of the já as a healing tool. Babalú-Ayé-Agrónika-Omobitasa entered a cave to consecrate a já that he then used to heal the Arará. 

The sign Ogunda Meyi contains the most complex and seemingly opposite accounts of Babalú’s access to speech. First, it is worth noting that Ogunda Meyi is where leprosy was born and spread around the world, so from the outset it is inseparably linked to Babalú, who was historically associated with the scourge of leprosy. This divination sign also includes a powerfully simple story where Asojano, exhausted from his travels, sits down on a stone in the land of the Arará, and is immediately given the gift of being able to divine: He is connected to the Earth and he speaks the truth. No shells, no third-party, no nasal voice. He speaks, and what he says is true. 

At the same time, Ogunda Meyi contains a story that explains the birth of the okpele, the divining chain made with eight seeds that babalawos use, and in that story Babalú-Ayé is a major player. While wandering the Earth, Babalú comes to a place where he recognizes the language being spoken by the local diviner. It turns out the local diviner is a long-lost godchild of Babalú’s. The diviner tries to heal Babalú’s leprosy but in the process contracts the disease himself. As he lies dying, he hands Babalú an okpele, explaining that it is a secret Messenger for Ifá.  The godson also explains that a tree will grow from his grave, and from the nuts of that tree, Babalú can make more okpeles.

Pedro Abreu-Asonyanye, the leading Arará priest of Asojano in Havana, categorically maintains that Babalú does not speak when he possesses people because in his opinion, he only speaks through Ifá divination. As Abreu points out, when Asojano comes down into people’s bodies and tries to speak, he speaks in a strange and nasal voice that is hard to understand, a voice the Cubans call fañosa. Abreu does take this as an explanation for why Asojano must speak through Ifá, but it actually opens the conversation to the intelligibility of the sickened speech of Babalú-Ayé, the theme of my next post.

(Thanks as always to Eguín Koladé for clarifying conversation. The já pictured above belonged to Rafael Linares--Emerego.)

Termite Hill in the South Rift Valley

Large and noticeable on the low, flat floor of the Rift Valley in Kenya, it is easy to appreciate why people see termite hills as both an eruption of the underworld into this world and as an access point to that unseen land. The termites move comfortably between the worlds, and we can only hope to emulate their chthonic wisdom.

Judith Gleason--Oyá Lola Has Joined the Ancestors

A couple weeks back I had to go to New York City for work, and I called Judith Gleason to see if she wanted to have dinner. No answer, so I left a message. The next day, her son left me a message explaining that she had joined the ancestors on August 5th after having a stroke.

I have "known" Judith since 1987, though I doubt anyone really knew her. In all honesty it is terribly difficult for me to separate her from Oyá, the oricha of her devotion, the oricha of lightning and winds, whose unpredictable movements shake up the status quo and reveal new opportunities. So here I am cleaning up after this storm.

When I was twenty-one, I found Judith´s book, Oyá: In Praise of the Goddess. I read it again and again, as I tried to follow the shifting currents of its prose and as I worked to digest the world it depicted. I still have the original copy whose binding has been broken by wear and double taped for reinforcement. The book is a masterpiece of original, synthetic scholarship that breaks between lived experience, anthropology, depth psychology, textual analysis, and diasporic description. These shifting perspectives imitate the motile quality of Oyá's subjectivity and reveal Judith’s unwillingness to privilege any one perspective. Such was her deep commitment to her vision of wholeness.

Having been pulled (or blown?) into the world of oricha, I needed to find a way to connect to the community, so I sought Judith out. I found her name and address in Contemporary Authors and wrote her a short letter explaining my situation. A week later I received a short letter in her own hand, explaining that she only knew two diviners but recommending one--Santiago Pedroso. A month later I visited Santiago for my first cowry shell reading, and five years later Santiago's sister Norma initiated me to the orichas.

As the years went by, Judith and I would talk from time to time, always circling our common interests--oricha, the feminine, depth psychology, writing, family, and finding a path through the world. Over the years, I heard about "the children" at Stanford, in Mexico, dealing with mental illness. There were conversations where I called with a specific question, and Judith and I would talk till we wandered through to some kind of answer. But there were other "conversations" where Judith would launch into whatever she was working on or thinking about, propelled by the inner force that defined her in some way. In either case, I usually would get a letter a week or two later with more thoughts, hints, intuitions, and images.

In one such conversation, we discussed Nana Burukú and Nanú, dark goddesses associated with the powerful mysteries of the Earth. I had told Judith that my guiding ancestor spirit had served Nana Burukú as a priestess in life. A week later, a letter arrived addressed in her distinctive handwriting, and it contained a small necklace for Nana Burukú that Judith had gotten in Dassa, Benin, where the goddess has her principal temple. That necklace still sits on my ancestor shrine, gracing the neck of the doll that represents my guide spirit.

At some point, Judith wanted to go to Cuba to meet a senior Oyá priestess I had mentioned to her several times. I set her up with a driver, a place to stay, and more contacts than she could possibly meet in a week. To my delight, she fell in love with Cuba. The simplicity and directness of most people delighted her, and she appreciated the priestess Ester de Oyá, who in her late seventies was still dancing for the orichas at drumming ceremonies. Judith also took a shining to my friend Paco, with whom she stayed. I think she ended up going twice, but the years make it hard to remember. What I do remember is the lilt in her voice when she spoke of Cuba. I was thrilled to be able to return the favor of opening the roads for her to find some new vitality.

The last time we spoke was in April. She called because a mutual friend had reached out to ask her about her involvement in the oricha community in New York in the late 1960s, and Judith somehow decided she wanted to cover some of this territory this with me. I had spoken to her relatively recently, and so I had some sense of her struggles to survive on a fixed income and the devastating loss she had suffered from the death of daughter. She told me of her efforts to find some footing in this new place. She recounted how a friend had insisted that she needed help and had directed her to a psychologist--her "shrink" as she kept saying. The talk-therapy helped, she said, but she confessed that she never told her shrink about her involvement with the orichas. "I am not sure what he would make of it, but I have never said anything about it." We talked too about the power of the psyche to defend itself from terrible trauma and loss. She mentioned a poem by Wallace Stevens that had helped her a bit as she struggled to make sense of the trajectory of her own life.

My wife tells me that when I got off the phone, I said I thought Judith was dying.

A week later the last handwritten letter arrived, continuing the conversation with more bits of detail about her family and her Yoruba experiences," this time telling how she had just recounted her first meeting with Pierre Verger to her eldest daughter. "So shreds of my Yoruba experience fly by. The years collapse and sometimes I cannot imagine how it all happened." Taped into the middle of the letter was the Stevens poem.

The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain

There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pine,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among the clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion

The exact rock where his inexactnesses
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

--Wallace Stevens

It seems the blustering energy of a stormy intellect finally came home, directed to the specific, solitary solidity of the mountain. The opposites touched for a moment or a month, and now Judith Gleason--Oyá Lola is gone.

Ibaye, ibaye tonu.
Homage of the world, homage of the world to the one in heaven.