Baba Who? Babalú!

After Lázaro received Babalú-Ayé Lucumí and was warned about the end of his marriage, he took Babá home and installed him in the oricha room. And there he sat. Like many people, Lázaro was frightened by his powerful new roommate. Lázaro honored Babá every morning in his mojuba and wore his cachá from time to time, but for months he did not have the courage to approach Babá directly. As domestic life became tenser and new challenges presented themselves, Lázaro finally turned to Babalú. One night he turned out the lights, lit candles and pressed his head to the floor before the shrine. He poured out his frustration and confusion. He explained that he loved more than one person. He cried that he was not ready to be a father, especially not with his wife. He cleaned himself with the já , prayed for clarity, and went to bed. Just after midnight, Lázaro woke up vomiting. He vomited twelve times in the next ten hours, and before it was all over he was hunched over the toilet heavin...

When Lázaro de la Caridad Zulueta Soa traveled to a distant city to receive Babalú-Ayé Lucumí, his new wife did not want to be excluded. Nor did she want to be implicated in the ceremony. So she timed her flight to arrive just after the awán, when there would be little danger of the oricha still mounting her husband or his ritual family. On the day of the itá, Lázaro had a terrible stomach—he was anxious to learn what Babalú had in store for him. Again his wife did not want to be left out or too involved. Thinking (naïvely) that a little distance would keep her out of harm’s way, she sat in the next room and read a bestselling novel, as the diviner read the shells: Afrá said that everything sweet turns sour, and Babalú-Ayé said that marriage is a palace with two doors, the true one and the false one. But Lázaro’s wife did not get to hear those messages. In a little more than a year, the bitterness of a false marriage had become intolerable: Lázaro, Afrá, and Babalú-Ayé moved out.

In Oché-Osá, the elders tell this story that introduces yet another little-known companion of Babalú-Ayé. Once, in the land called Osun Irawo, there lived a powerful royal couple named Oduaremu and Ekubijegan. These two indicated to the citizens of that land how to adore the ancestors. They had a child who was born deformed and with rickets, and so they named him Ason, meaning “sickness.” Ason was always wandering through his parents’ kingdom, but no one wanted to recognize him. But one day he happened upon Death who said, “Since no one understands you, why don’t you ally yourself with me and then you will be great in my kingdom? So Ason dressed in Death’s clothes, and with his black suit he visited Death’s kingdom, where he received honors, including the title “Keleyewe Kuto,” a secretive man recognized in the land of the dead. When Ason returned to his parents’ kingdom, it was racked with calamities, and Death began to dominate its residents. Oduaremu and Ekubijegan visited the k...

My last post has me ruminating on the ubiquitous presence of rare orichas. I have no idea if anyone has actually ever consecrated Ajuangan , but it is an interesting idea. The odu Osá-Ogbe offers a similarly intriguing possibility: one tratado says that here Asojano prepared his “pot of witchcraft,” which he called Ibako. After wrapping it in black and white cloth, he fed it some nasty stuff. Another tratado calls Ibako the “witch” of Oluó Popó; Ibako is supposed to live in the forest, buried at the foot of an Araba tree. Like Asojano, Ibako is an ambiguous mixture of elements: he takes an ancestral relic but he also takes stones. Like Ajuangan, he is explicitly referred to as an oricha. To consecrate him, you must sing many songs for Osain and Asojano. I know Pedro Abreu—Asonyanye has given Ibako to his godchildren at times, though I don’t really know how he decides who should have Ibako and who should not. Abreu calls Ibako “the prenda of Asojano.”